Roseville: The Railroad Town That Grew in Three Years

Roseville, California, owes its existence entirely to the railroad, and more specifically to a single decision made in nineteen oh six. The Central Pacific had reached the site in eighteen sixty-four, and a junction town called Roseville had existed here in modest form ever since. But the community really came alive when the Southern Pacific Railroad chose to move its entire maintenance and roundhouse operation from nearby Rocklin to Roseville.

Between nineteen oh six and nineteen oh eight, thousands of railroad workers flooded in, businesses opened overnight, and the population exploded. The growth was so rapid that the town incorporated as a city on April ten, nineteen oh nine. For much of the twentieth century Roseville's enormous rail yard was one of the busiest classification yards in the western United States, sorting freight cars headed up and over Donner Pass into Nevada and the rest of the country.

The yards still operate today, a reminder that behind every suburb there is often an industrial origin story.