Little River Valley Railroad Trestle
It appears the Humboldt County was full of innovators. We had the first railroad in California and, according to the info at HSU, at the time of construction this was the
Highest single spile trestle in the world being over 100 ft.
Conrad S. Bullwinkle had rented the ranch to his nephew, Herman Balke (father of this collector). The trestle crossed Little River Valley and crossed Balke Creek at the start of the canyon 1/2 to 3/4 miles south of Bulwinkle. It gradually rose to Dows Prairie then joined the Carson line who took the cars on to town.
My husband works for Cal Trans and is involved with the construction of the new Mad River Bridge, which will replace the ones just south of McKinleyville. They had cranes to move stuff, huge pile drivers to put things in the ground and experts of every kind to help along the way. These guys just got it done.
Wow, look what they did to the forest. Everything is gone-
Oh ! I hadn’t even noticed, but that’s a very good point. I was too busy looking at the structure to notice the naked hillside behind it. Yikes.
[...] Humboldt Co blog Lynette’s NorCal History Blog has had a series of railroad related posts. Hard to believe there was competition to be the 1st [...]