Today Goshen is an important crossroads in Tulare County, where Highways 99 and 198 meet. On this edition of KVPR’s Central Valley Routes, we explore its origins, and how it marked a key dividing line in railroad history.
In 1865 a group of San Francisco business leaders formed new company to build a second transcontinental railroad. It would be a rival the Central Pacific, which was already under construction in the Sierra.
They called their new company the Southern Pacific. Their vision was to link San Francisco with Los Angeles and San Diego, and eventually connect across the Colorado River to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, making a true transcontinental route through the southwest.
Here in California, the SP’s original plan was to go down the San Francisco Peninsula to San Jose, and eventually to Tres Pinos near Hollister, and then over the Coast Range to to Huron. For at time, they also considered a route over the Pacheco Pass. The planned SP line would then cross the San Joaquin Valley reaching Goshen, before heading south to Los Angeles. Congress authorized the route in 1867 and approved land grants to the company along the route.
But the following year, the owners of the Central Pacific bought out their upstart rival. They scrapped the plan to build over the Coast Range and instead began building south from Stockton, reaching Goshen in 1872. The track north of Goshen was the domain of the Central Pacific and that south of Goshen would be built by the Southern Pacific, which would claim those government land grants. Eventually branch lines to Visalia and Coalinga would be built, making Goshen Junction a key railroad hub.
And for the name, it’s drawn from the biblical land of plenty, but this Goshen was inspired by the fertile soil of Tulare County, rather than ancient Egypt.
