The history of the Southern Pacific ("SP") stretched from 1865 to 1998.

The Southern Pacific was represented by three railroads. The original company was called Southern Pacific Railroad, the second was called Southern Pacific Company and the third was called Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The third Southern Pacific railroad, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, is now operating as the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Origins

One of the original ancestor-railroads of SP, the Galveston and Red River Railway (GRR), was chartered on March 11, 1848, by Ebenezer Allen, although the company did not become active until 1852, after a series of meetings at Chappell Hill, Texas, and Houston, Texas. The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffee's Station. Ground was broken in 1853. The GRR built of track in Houston in 1855. Track laying began in earnest in 1856 and on September 1, 1856, GRR was renamed the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC). SP acquired H&TC in 1883 but it continued to operate as a subsidiary under its own management until 1927, when it was leased to another SP-owned railroad, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad.

The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway (BBB&C), was chartered in Texas on February 11, 1850, by a group that included General Sidney Sherman. BBB&C was the first railroad to commence operation in Texas and the first component of SP to commence operation. Surveying of the route alignment commenced at Harrisburg, Texas, in 1851 and construction between Houston and Alleyton, Texas, commenced later that year. The first of track opened in August 1853.

Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company The original SP was founded in San Francisco in 1865, by a group of businessmen led by Timothy Phelps with the aim of building a rail connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California. The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of businessmen known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Jr. and C. P. Huntington. The Big Four had, in 1861, created the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR).

Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company timeline March 1868: The Southern Pacific acquires the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. March 12, 1873: Railhead is completed south to Tres Pinos, California. This would be the end of the line as the originally-envisioned main line to Coalinga was never built. June 1873: The Southern Pacific builds its first locomotive at the railroad's Sacramento shops as CP's second number 55, a 4-4-0.. Rails reach Soledad, California November 8, 1874: Southern Pacific tracks reach Bakersfield, California and work begins on the Tehachapi Loop.. September 5, 1876: The first through train from San Francisco arrives in Los Angeles, California after traveling over the newly completed Tehachapi Loop. February 16, 1877: Before it was the Southern Pacific, the line between Houston and San Antonio was known as the Galveston Harrisburg, & San Antonio line, the GH&SA inaugural run was met along the lines from farms and towns between modern day Houston and San Antonio. The line was originally intended to run to Austin. It was redirected after financial failure and later became part of the SP. 1877: Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles cross the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona. Southern Pacific purchases the Houston and Texas Central Railway.. 1879: Southern Pacific engineers experiment with the first oil-fired locomotives. March 20, 1880: The first Southern Pacific train reaches Tucson, Arizona. May 11, 1880: The Mussel Slough Tragedy (a dispute over property rights with SP) takes place in Hanford, California. 1881: Southern Pacific gains control of the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and the Louisiana Western Railroad. May 19, 1881: Southern Pacific tracks reach El Paso, Texas, beating the rival Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to El Paso. December 15, 1881: Southern Pacific (under the GH&SA RR) meets the Texas and Pacific at Sierra Blanca, Texas in Hudspeth County, Texas getting close to completing the nation's second transcontinental railroad. January 12, 1883: The Southern section of the second transcontinental railroad line is completed as the Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles meet the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at a location three miles West of the Pecos River near to Langtry, Texas. The sterling silver spikes were alternatively driven by James Campbell and James Converse with the other driven by Col. Tom Pierce, the GH&SA president.. These spikes were thereafter quickly removed. This became the first year round all weather transcontinental railroad. Almost ten years later, March 31, 1892, the Pecos River High Bridge was opened. This moved the line up and out of the Rio Grande Canyon and simplified the alignment. The line now extends to San Antonio and Houston along the Sunset Route. March 17, 1884: The Southern Pacific is incorporated in Kentucky. February 17, 1885: The Southern Pacific and Central Pacific are combined under a holding company named the Southern Pacific Company. April 1, 1885: The Southern Pacific takes over all operation of the Central Pacific. Effectively, the CP no longer exists as a separate company. 1886: The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific enter operation; the loading of refrigerator cars with oranges, first performed at Los Angeles, California on February 14, contributed to an economic boom in the famous citrus industry of Southern California, by making deliveries of perishable fruits and vegetables to the eastern United States possible. 1886: Southern Pacific wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations. 1887: Southern Pacific gains full control of the Oregon and California Railroad giving it a route through northern California all the way across Oregon to Oregon main port city of Portland.. However, outright ownership of the railroad wouldn't occur until 1927. 1893: Southern Pacific train bandits John Sontag and Chris Evans are apprehended in the Battle of Stone Corral near Visalia, California. 1898: Sunset magazine is founded as a promotional tool of the Southern Pacific.. October 1899: Southern Pacific gains control of the Houston East and West Texas Railway. March 31, 1901: Regular service begins along the Coast Line in California. 1901: Frank Norris' novel, The Octopus: A California Story, a fictional retelling of the Mussel Slough Tragedy and the events leading up to it, is published. July 6, 1901: The Southern Pacific Terminal Company is chartered as an independent operating entity to provide rail service to the Southern Pacific's steamer docks in Galveston, Texas. 1901: Union Pacific Railroad acquires control of Southern Pacific. In the following years, many SP operating procedures and equipment purchases follow patterns established by Union Pacific.. 1903: Southern Pacific gains 50% control of the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles. March 8, 1904: SP opens the Lucin Cutoff across the Great Salt Lake, bypassing Promontory, UT for the railroad's mainline.. March 20, 1904: The Montalvo cutoff and the Santa Susana Tunnel shorten the Coast Line between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, CA. April 18, 1906: The great 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes, damaging the railroad's headquarters building and destroying the mansions of the now-deceased Big Four. 1906: SP and UP jointly form the Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) refrigerator car line. January 8, 1907: With Santa Fe, Southern Pacific forms Northwestern Pacific, unifying several SP- and Santa Fe-owned subsidiaries into one jointly owned railroad serving northwestern California. May 22, 1907: The Coast Line Limited of the Southern Pacific Railroad is derailed west of Glendale, California. The accident causes several deaths and injuries, and its cause linked to anarchists. 1909: The Southern Pacific of Mexico, the railroad's subsidiary south of the U.S. border, is incorporated.

1910: The Dumbarton Rail Bridge, the first bridge crossing San Francisco Bay, is completed and inaugurated on September 12. 1913: The Supreme Court of the United States orders the Union Pacific to sell all of its stock in the Southern Pacific. 1914: Southern Pacific sells Sunset magazine.

1917: Southern Pacific moves into its new headquarters in San Francisco at One Market Street December 28, 1917: The federal government takes control of American railroads in preparation for World War I 1923: The Interstate Commerce Commission allows the SP's control of the Central Pacific to continue, ruling that the control is in the public's interest. March 1, 1927: Various Texas and Louisiana SP subsidiaries are leased to the SP-controlled Texas and New Orleans Railroad, including the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, the Houston and Texas Central Railway, the Houston East and West Texas Railway, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, and the Southern Pacific Terminal Company. 1928: The SP purchases the Texas Midland Railroad and leases the line to the SP-controlled Texas and New Orleans Railroad. 1929: Santa Fe sells its interest in Northwestern Pacific to SP. NWP becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of SP. 1931: Automatic block signals were added on all Southern Pacific main lines.. April 14, 1932: The SP gains 87% control of the Cotton Belt Railroad. June 30, 1934: All Texas and Louisiana SP subsidiaries previously leased to the SP-controlled Texas and New Orleans Railroad—with the exception of the Southern Pacific Terminal Company—are formally merged with the T&NO, thus creating the largest railroad in Texas, with 3,713 mi (5,975 km) of track. May 1939: UP, SP and Santa Fe passenger trains in Los Angeles are united into a single terminal as Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal opens. 1947: The first road diesel locomotives owned solely by SP (i.e., aside from yard switchers) enter operation on the SP. Southern Pacific is reincorporated in Delaware (formerly Kentucky) and entered their first main-line diesel locomotives into service.. 1951: Southern Pacific subsidiary Southern Pacific of Mexico is sold to the Mexican government. 1952: A difficult year for the SP in California opens with the City of San Francisco train marooned for three days in heavy snow on Donner Pass; in July the Kern County earthquake hits Tehachapi pass, closing the line over Tehachapi Loop from 21 July to 15 August. 1953: The first Trailer-On-Flat-Car (TOFC, or "piggyback") equipment enters service on the SP.. January 1957: The last standard gauge steam locomotives in regular operation on the SP are retired; the railroad is now dieselized except for fan excursions. 1959: The last revenue steam powered freight is operated on the system by narrow gauge #9. 1959: Southern Pacific moved more ton-miles of freight than any other US railroad (the Pennsylvania Railroad had been number one for decades). November 1, 1961: The Texas and New Orleans Railroad—which by this time encompassed all of the SP's Texas and Louisiana holdings except for the lines of the Southern Pacific Terminal Company and Cotton Belt—is merged with the Southern Pacific. The SPTC, having been previously leased to the T&NO, is leased to the SP the same day. The SPTC would formally merge with the SP on August 31, 1962. 1965: ICC rejects Southern Pacific's bid for control of the Western Pacific. 1967: SP opens the longest stretch of new railroad in a quarter century as trains roll over the Palmdale Cutoff through Cajon Pass between Palmdale, California and Colton, California, so that trains could bypass Los Angeles altogether..

Southern Pacific Transportation Company