UMBRIA and UMBRIA JUNCTION

UMBRIA and UMBRIA JUNCTION

Established Umbria: January 1, 1903

Established Umbria Junction: June 1904

Abandoned: Milepost: August 29, 1916 682 miles from San Francisco

Umbria Junction is inextricably linked to Lucin Station. During construction in March of 1869, an end of track camp was established near where the tracks crossed Grouse Creek.1 Raymond and Fike refer to this location as Umbria, though the name would not have been assigned when the railroad was constructed. They say, "Field investigations identified remains of a siding and foundations of dugouts and other structures. Artifacts observed on the surface of the site suggest a short-lived occupation established in 1869 by Euro-Americans and Chinese".2 Shortly after this it appears that Lucin becomes the locally established station, located about 1 ½ miles east of "Umbria". While it is not certain why Umbria Junction received that name, Umbria is a region in central Italy. With many ethnic Italians working on the CP here around the turn of the 20th Century, such a designation is not surprising.

Umbria does not appear in the SP Station lists until 1903, though it has no "Junction" attached to it. 3 It is shown with no services. The name changes to Umbria Junction in 1904 and between that year and 1912 it is listed as a Class A Freight Station. In 1913, Umbria Junction is designated a Class E Freight Station until 191 7 when it is dropped from the list. 4

Umbria Junction is listed in the 1904 SP Employee timetable as a stop for passenger trains. At this point, all passenger trains are continuing through Promontory to Ogden. It is also shown as a Day and Night Telegraph Office.5 By 1909 Umbria Junction is a stop for four passenger trains and four fast mail trains, two local freights, and two fast freights. By 1915, Umbria Junction is also a stop for the Second-Class Mixed Train from Corinne. 6 After this, Umbria Junction disappears from the timetables, the reason being that on August 29, 1916 the mainline link to the Promontory Branch was moved to the location of new Lucin and Umbria Junction was abandoned as a station.7

Newspaper account about Umbria Junction:

From the Ogden Daily Standard 1904: Damage Suits Filed. A. I. Stone, who is administrator of the estate of Peter Carl Hansen, the foreman who was killed near the cut-off,

August 11th, is preparing a complaint to be filed in the second Judicial District court, beginning action against the Southern Pacific company for damages to the amount of $10,150. It will be remembered that Hansen, who was from

Evanston, was picked up dead a quarter of a mile east of Umbria Junction on the date named, following the passing of two trains. The manner of Hansen's death is described in the complaint as follows: Foreman Hansen was employed with his gang on the cut-off branch of the road about a quarter of a mile from where the roads branch.

At that time only construction and freight trains went over the cut-off and were required while stopping for the switch to whistle. The train that struck Hansen entered the branch line without stopping and at a rate of fifty miles per hour. 8

1 Anan S. Raymond and Richard E. Fike, Rails East to Promontory: The Utah Stations, Bureau of Land Management, Cultural Resource Series, No. 8 (Salt Lake City: Bureau of Land Management, 1981), 32, https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/documents/files/Li brary_Utah_CulturalResourceSeries08.pdf (accessed 12-7-20); George Kraus, High Road to Promontory: Building the Central Pacific Across the High Sierra {Palo Alto: American West Publishing Company, 1969), 310.

2 Raymond and Fike, Rails East to Promontory, 32.

3 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, on file at California State Railroad Museum Library, Sacramento, 1903; Lynn Farrar, Listing of Overland Route Stations and Mileage: Central Pacific Railroad Southern Pacific Railroad, 1866-1996. http://www.cprr.org/Museum/CP _MP0_OVERLAND_ROUTE. html,

4 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, 1903-1917.

5 Southern Pacific Company, Salt Lake Division, Employees' Time Table 1, June 19th, 1904, (Ogden: Southern Pacific Company).

6 Southern Pacific Company, Time Table for the Salt Lake Division 11, June 15th, 1915, (Ogden: Southern Pacific Company).

7 Lynn Farrar, Listing of Overland Route Stations ... 2005.

8 Ogden Daily Standard, "Damage Suit Filed," September 30, 1904, 6. 79