Railroad Canyon

Last updated
Railroad Canyon
San Jacinto Canyon [1]
SAR Map.jpg
Railroad Canyon, cut through the Temescal Mountains by the lower San Jacinto River, from 6 miles south-southwest of Perris to Lake Elsinore. The middle of the canyon contains Railroad Canyon Reservoir.
Length7 mi (11 km)
Geography
Location United States, California, Riverside County
Coordinates 33°40′N117°18′W / 33.66°N 117.3°W / 33.66; -117.3

Railroad Canyon, originally named San Jacinto Canyon, also known as Cottonwood Canyon, and Annie Orton Canyon, is a valley located in Riverside County, California. It encloses the lower course of the San Jacinto River at the point where the river passes south through the Temescal Mountains from a point 6 miles south-southwest of Perris, California, through Canyon Lake, California, then west to Lake Elsinore, California. The canyon has its present name from the California Southern Railroad that was constructed down the canyon in 1882. [2]

Contents

History

On September 14, 1865, outlaw James Henry of the Mason Henry Gang and his gang of rustlers, robbers and murderers were camped out south of San Bernardino, California. San Bernardino County Sheriff Benjamin Franklin Mathews and his posse, led by John Rogers (a gang member sent to town to obtain provisions and captured after drunken boasting), found and surprised Henry camped in Railroad Canyon, then called San Jacinto Canyon, about 25 miles (40 km) south of town. At sunrise the posse approached cautiously but Henry awoke and fired three shots, striking one posse member in the foot. Henry died in a hail of gunfire, sustaining 57 wounds. His corpse was taken back to town, photographed and displayed in Old West fashion. [3] [4]

The California Southern Railroad constructed its main line to San Diego, down the San Jacinto Canyon from the Pincate Station south of what is now Perris to the Lake Elsinore Station in 1882. [5] [6] Flooding in 1927 destroyed the rail line in the canyon and it was abandoned. [7] In 1928, the Railroad Canyon Dam was built, which flooded the canyon to produce the Railroad Canyon Reservoir, also called Canyon Lake.

Originally, the San Jacinto River ran southwestward across the Elsinore Valley through a delta wetland in the southeast end of Lake Elsinore near Rome Hill, but a flood control project enclosed the southeast end of the lake behind a levee and diverted the river into a boat channel just at the mouth of the canyon in recent years. Railroad Canyon is located on the USGS Lake Elsinore topographic map.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canyon Lake, California</span> American city in California, United States

Canyon Lake is a city and gated community on Canyon Lake reservoir, located in the Inland Empire, Riverside County, California, United States. Canyon Lake began as a master-planned community developed by Corona Land Company in 1968. The City of Canyon Lake was incorporated on December 1, 1990. Railroad Canyon Dam was built in 1927, and impounds the San Jacinto River to fill the reservoir, which covers 383 acres (1.55 km2) and has 14.9 miles (24.0 km) of shoreline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Elsinore, California</span> City in California, United States

Lake Elsinore is a city in western Riverside County, California, United States. Established as a city in 1888, it is on the shore of Lake Elsinore, a natural freshwater lake about 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in size. The city has grown from a small resort town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a suburban city with over 70,000 residents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perris, California</span> City in Riverside County, California, United States

Perris is an old railway city in Riverside County, California, United States, located 71 miles (114 km) east-southeast of Los Angeles and 81 miles (130 km) north of San Diego. It is known for Lake Perris, an artificial lake, skydiving, and its sunny dry climate. Perris is within the Inland Empire metropolitan area of Southern California. Perris had a population of 78,700 as of the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Elsinore</span> Lake in Riverside County, California

Lake Elsinore is a natural freshwater lake in Riverside County, California, located east of the Santa Ana Mountains and fed by the San Jacinto River. Originally named Laguna Grande by Spanish explorers, it was renamed for the town of Elsinore, established on its northeastern shore on April 9, 1888.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Ana River</span> River in California, United States

The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside counties, before cutting through the northern Santa Ana Mountains via Santa Ana Canyon and flowing southwest through urban Orange County to drain into the Pacific Ocean. The Santa Ana River is 96 miles (154 km) long, and its drainage basin is 2,650 square miles (6,900 km2) in size.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California State Route 74</span> Highway in California

State Route 74, part of which forms the Palms to Pines Scenic Byway or Pines to Palms Highway, and the Ortega Highway, is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It runs from Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano in Orange County to the city limits of Palm Desert in Riverside County. Stretching about 111 miles (179 km), it passes through several parks and National Forests between the Pacific coast and the Coachella Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Jacinto River (California)</span> River in California, United States

The San Jacinto River is a 42-mile-long (68 km) river in Riverside County, California. The river's headwaters are in Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. The lower portion of the 765-square-mile (1,980 km2) watershed is urban and agricultural land. As a partially endorheic watershed that is contiguous with other Great Basin watersheds, the western side of the San Jacinto Basin is a portion of the Great Basin Divide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California's 41st congressional district</span> U.S. House district for California

California's 41st congressional district is a congressional district in Riverside County, in the U.S. state of California. The district is currently represented by Republican Ken Calvert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Southern Railroad</span> Former railroad in California

The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between what has become the city of Barstow and San Diego, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 15 in California</span> North–south Interstate and state highway in the U.S. state of California

Route 15, consisting of the contiguous segments of State Route 15 (SR 15) and Interstate 15 (I-15), is a major north–south state highway and Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of California, connecting San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. The route consists of the southernmost 289.24 miles (465.49 km) of I-15, which extends north through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Montana to the Canada–US border. It is a major thoroughfare for traffic between San Diego and the Inland Empire, as well as between Southern California, Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Intermountain West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riverside County Sheriff's Department</span> Law enforcement agency in California

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department (RSD), also known as the Riverside Sheriff's Office (RSO), is a law enforcement agency in Riverside County, in the U.S. state of California. Overseen by an elected sheriff-coroner, the department serves unincorporated areas of Riverside County as well as some of the incorporated cities in the county by contract. 17 of the county's 26 cities, with populations ranging from 4,958 to 193,365, contract with the department for police services. The county hospital and one tribal community also contract with the department for proactive policing. Riverside County is home to 12 federally recognized Indian reservations. Absent proactive policing and traffic enforcement, the department is responsible for enforcing criminal law on all Native American tribal land within the county. This function is mandated by Public Law 280, enacted in 1953, which transferred the responsibility of criminal law enforcement on tribal land from the federal government to specified state governments including California. The department also operates the county's jail system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department</span> Law enforcement agency in California, United States

The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department (SBSD) serves San Bernardino County, California, which is geographically the largest county in the United States and is headquartered in San Bernardino city. SBSD provides law enforcement services to the unincorporated areas of the county and contract law enforcement services to 14 of the county's cities, including Rancho Cucamonga and Chino Hills, serving a total of 1,029,466 of the county's 2 million residents. The department also operates the county jail system, provides marshal services for the county superior courts, and has numerous other specialized divisions to serve the citizens of San Bernardino County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canyon Lake (California)</span> Body of water

Canyon Lake, sometimes referenced as Railroad Canyon Reservoir, is a reservoir created in 1928 by the construction of the Railroad Canyon Dam in Railroad Canyon or in the Temescal Mountains of southwestern Riverside County, California. The reservoir covers approximately 525 acres (212 ha), has 14.9 miles (24.0 km) of shoreline, and has a storage capacity of 11,586 acre⋅ft (14,291,000 m3). It is owned and operated by the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.

El Cariso is an unincorporated community in Riverside County, California. It lies along the Ortega Highway, just west of where it crosses the crest of the Santa Ana Mountains a few miles southwest of Lake Elsinore. It lies within the Trabuco District of the Cleveland National Forest. El Cariso Campground is north of the town across the highway from the El Cariso Fire Station.

Tom McCauley, better known by his alias James Henry or Jim Henry, was one of the many California Gold Rush criminals later a leader of the Mason Henry Gang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riverside County, California</span> County in California, United States

Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the United States. The name was derived from the city of Riverside, which is the county seat.

San Sevaine Flats is a small area of flatland east of Cucamonga Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains in San Bernardino County, California. The area is in the Cucamonga Wilderness in the San Bernardino National Forest, 1.24 miles south of Bonita Falls on South Fork Lytle Creek and north of Rancho Cucamonga, California. It has an elevation of 1,690 meters, or 5,545 feet.

Temescal Mountains, also known as the Sierra Temescal, are one of the northernmost mountain ranges of the Peninsular Ranges in western Riverside County, in Southern California in the United States. They extend for approximately 25 mi (40 km) southeast of the Santa Ana River east of the Elsinore Fault Zone to the Temecula Basin and form the western edge of the Perris Block.

Benjamin Franklin Mathews (1819–1888) was elected Sheriff of San Bernardino County, California on September 14, 1863 and served from October, 1863 to October, 1865. Mathews was born April 16, 1819 in Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee. He arrived in Salt Lake in 1847 with Mormons, from Mississippi. He moved on to California in 1850, where he kept a hotel between Sacramento and Auburn. Mathews came south to arrive in the Mormon colony of San Bernardino, on March 30, 1852. Here he was at various times a teamster, miller, Justice of the Peace and finally sheriff. Unlike many Mormons in San Bernardino he did not return to Utah during the Utah War in 1857.

The Perris Block is the central block of three major fault-bounded blocks of the northern part of the Peninsular Ranges. The Perris Block lies between the Santa Ana Block to the west and the San Jacinto Block to the east. The Perris Block, was named by Walter A. English in 1925 for the city of Perris, located near the center of the block.

References

  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Railroad Canyon; U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Railroad Canyon
  2. Durham, Durham's place names, p. 140]
  3. M. David DeSoucy, Sheriff Gary Penrod, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Arcadia Publishing, 2006. pg. 16. account of Henry shootout.
  4. According to the Los Angeles Tri Weekly News: On Sept. 14 1865 the sheriff with a posse of three soldiers and two or three citizens ran across Henry sound asleep near San Jacinto Canyon, 25 miles from town and killed him after he made some resistance wounding one man. California Bad Men p. 144-146
  5. David L. Durham, Durham's place names of California's desert counties: includes Imperial, Riverside & San Bernardino counties, Word Dancer Press, Clovis, California, 2001, p. 140
  6. Richard V. Dodge, Perris and its Railroad, DISPATCHER November 15, 1959 Issue 29. Archived July 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  7. Durham, Durham's place names, p. 140