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WATERCRESS
Established 1914
Formally Abandoned: July 30, 1942
Watercress was a more recent station on the line, originally established in about 1914.1 The station was created, in part, to replace Terrace which lost nearly all of its infrastructure in 1904 when the division point for the railroad was moved to neighboring Banvard, Nevada, and a few years later to adjacent Montello.2 Watercress served primarily as a maintenance station, though it also served as a shipping point for livestock and commodities, as needed by the surrounding community. Watercress first appears on SP station lists in 1918, though ICC documents from their survey of the station in 1916 indicate that structures were built and had been inhabited since at least 1914.3 The origin of the name is likely the watercress plant which grew profusely in the area~ Despite its appearance in ICC documents in 1916, a considerably earlier date is suggested for establishment of some form of the Watercress station. The dismantlement and eventual demise of nearby Terrace beginning in 1904 made it important that SP consider the establishment of another station to service this portion of the line. The site for this station appears to have been Watercress. As part of long-range planning, it is likely that the SP contracted for a water pipeline to be built to Watercress at about the same time as a pipeline was extended from Terrace to Lemay Station on the Lucin Cutoff, ca. 1905-1906.5 BLM archaeologists Raymond and Fike indicated as much when they said that water was diverted to Watercress after the abandonment of Terrace.6 (Figure 32)
Milepost: 707 miles from San Francisco
Figure 32: Rosebud Creek to Watercress Aqueduct . (42B01179). Looking southeast at the exposed section of the Rosebud Creek to Watercress Aqueduct. This is a portion of an 8-inch diameter wire-wound, wooden pipe built with eight, 4-in-wide redwood staves. Photo courtesy Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc.
This new line brought water to Watercress from the same source as the pipeline that served Terrace, beginning about one mile south of the dam on Rosebud Creek.7 The line is known as the Rosebud Creek to Watercress Aqueduct (42BO1179). It was a seven-mile-long pipeline recorded during Alpine Archaeological Consultants' survey of the Ruby Pipeline in 2009. The Alpine crew found and excavated a portion of this pipeline, four feet deep, during data recovery. According to Alpine, "The pipe was found to consist of an 8-in-exteriordiameter (7-in-interior-diameter) wire-wound, wooden pipe constructed of eight, 4-in-wide redwood staves." 8 This is what is known as a stave pipe. Though other options, such as
