Skip to main content

Minarets & Western Railroad

This previous month I spent some time around the North Fork area in Madera County, California tracking the remaining evidence of the Minarets & Western Railroad.


The Minarets & Western Railroad was a 53 mile standard gauge line between Pinedale (modern River Park in Fresno) of Fresno County north to Wishon at Crane Valley Dam in Madera County. The Minarets & Western Railroad was owned by the Sugar Pine Lumber Company and operated from 1921 to 1933 when it was shuttered for not being profitable. From Pinedale the Minarets & Western Railroad had sidings northward in; Friant, Bellview, Shuteye and a terminus in Wishon. The switching yard in Wishon was located next to Crane Valley Dam which was first built in 1901.  From the Wishon switching yard the Minarets & Western Railroad connected to another 11 mile line that crossed Crane Valley Dam and terminated near a lumber community that was known as Minarets.  Crane Valley Dam was expanded in 1910 which facilitated trains crossing the structure to the lumber camps on it's eastern flank.  

The entire line of the Minarets & Western Railroad can be seen on the 1935 Division of Highways Maps of Fresno County and Madera County.  Below the Minarets & Western Railroad can be seen starting in Pinedale and terminating at Crane Valley Dam.  The 1935 Division of Highways Maps does not show the connecting line over Crane Valley Dam east to Minarets.











The Minarets & Western Railroad from Pinedale approached the Madera County Line via Old Friant Road towards the community of Friant. In Friant the Minarets & Western Railroad crossed the San Joaquin River in front of Millerton Dam.  Millerton Dam was completed in 1942 and partially covers the line of the Minarets & Western Railroad.



The Minarets & Western Railroad within Madera County crossed over North Fork Road/Road 200 west of the 1947 Fine Gold Creek Bridge.  In the first photo below the grade of the Minarets & Western Railroad can be partially seen on the right. 





The Minarets & Western Railroad split from North Fork Road/Road 200 and followed Road 221 towards Wishon on Bass Lake.  The Minarets & Western Railroad crossed Road 222 and the grade was recycled into Railroad Grade Road. 




The Minarets & Western Railroad would have followed Road 222 northward towards Wishon and would have crossed the Bass Lake Flume.  The Bass Lake Flume is also known as the is also known as the Brown's Creek Ditch Flume and was constructed shortly after Crane Valley Dam was expanded in 1910.  Brown's Creek Ditch Flume was rebuilt circa 1920/1921 and includes several metal portions that funnel water from Crane Valley Dam.   The Brown's Creek Ditch Flume has a nearby popular hiking trail which is why there are so many Pacific Gas & Electricity warning signs. 









As Road 222 approaches Crane Valley Dam it enters a clearing in the forest which was the location of Wishon.  




Road 222 ascends to the top of Crane Valley Dam where the Minarets & Western Railroad would have connected to the logging spur on the opposite side of Bass Lake.  Crane Valley Dam was constructed by the San Joaquin Electric Company as earthen reservoir impounding Willow Creeks in 1901.  Crane Valley Dam was first expanded in 1905 and again in 1910.  The 1910 level of Crane Valley Dam is what the Minarets & Western Railroad crossed to the opposite side of Bass Lake.






 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two