Greetings family, friends and neighbors! Growing up in Castro Valley in the 1940's and 50's, and with an interest in trains, I had no idea of the connection these two familiar names had with the building of the transcontinental railroad...Strobridge and Stanton.
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STROBRIDGE AND STANTON
Strobridge Avenue and Stanton Avenue are familiar busy Castro Valley thoroughfares. Not widely known is that the naming of the two roadways and several neighborhood streets have a direct link to the first Transcontinental Railroad and the driving of the Golden Spike in Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.
James Harvey Strobridge, a New England railroader joined California’s gold rush where tried his hand at mining, freighting supplies, and working as a foreman of a hydraulic mining operation. He got the attention of Charles Crocker of the fledgling Central Pacific Railroad’s “Big Four”, Stanford, Hopkins, Huntington, and Crocker who named Strobridge superintendent of construction for the building of the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the management of 12,000 Chinese immigrants. Following the arduous five year project and the completion of the line, James Strobridge and his wife Hannah built a home near Redwood Road in Castro Valley, and settled on the five hundred acre ranch where they raised cattle and planted fruit orchards.
Michael Stanton, a was a Central Pacific Railroad construction crew manager under James Strobridge. He and his first wife Mary joined the Strobridge’s in Castro Valley after the completion of the line by purchasing four hundred acres at the west end of the valley where they built a classic two story home on the site of former William Mattox ranch. Neighbor’s and restless railroaders, Stanton and Strobridge formed a partnership seeking other Central Pacific projects including the construction of a railroad connecting the village of Niles with the booming city of Oakland. Amazingly the vintage homes of James Strobridge and Michael Stanton have survived Castro Valley’s onslaught of subdivisions, the building of the 580 freeway, BART, earthquakes, and being moved. Both railroad pioneers have been memorialized in the naming of streets as have the Stanton’s children, Michael (SanMiguel), Mary (Santa Maria), and Anita.
-Bill 2/25
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