GROUSE

GROUSE

Established Station: January 1, 1905

Formally Abandoned: January 1, 1908

Grouse was a short-lived station located on the inhospitable stretch of the Great Salt Lake Desert from Bovine to Lucin. It is not to be confused with a slightly later station named "Grouse" which was established on the CP mainline in Nevada in 1912 between Tecoma and the Nevada-Utah state line.1 Like several other small, turn-of-the-century stations on the CP in western Box Elder County, Grouse was established primarily to service the livestock industry, perhaps to fill a void of sidings in this long stretch of desolate track. The origin of the name comes from several nearby landforms and a water course, including Grouse Creek, the Grouse Mountains and Grouse Valley, all named for the ubiquitous bird which lives in the area.

Milepost: 687 miles from San Francisco

Grouse first appears in the SP Station lists in 1905 at milepost 687, as a non-agency, Class A Freight Station. It continues through 1907 and disappears from the list in 1908.2 Grouse is listed in the 1904 Employee Timetable where it is a regular stop but drops to a flag stop in 1905 and 1906.3 Due to decreased traffic on the line after the Lucin Cutoff was completed, the Southern Pacific abandoned Grouse as a station by the end of 1907.

1 John R. Signor, Southern Pacific's Salt Lake Division (Berkeley: Signature Press, 2007), 459.

2 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, (San Francisco: Southern Pacific Company, 1900-1908), on file California State Railroad Museum Library, Sacramento.

3 Southern Pacific Company, Salt Lake Division Employee's Timetable, (Ogden: Southern Pacific Company, 1904-1906)