San Jose Public Library

Leland Stanford played a major role in first consolidating A. A. Cohen's San Francisco and Alameda Railroad, then hiring Cohen as one of the railroad's attorneys. Stanford would live to regret the latter decision.

Dennis Evanosky

It remains unclear exactly when A. A. Cohen left San Francisco for Alameda. We know he was living here in 1859; by September of that year he had wrangled himself an appointment as one of the township's two justices of the peace.

He and Emily settled onto their 106-acre estate at the peninsula's East End just north of the township among groves of mature oaks, native ferns and grasses. They built an impressive villa complete with a coach house. They named the estate "Fernside." Cohen must have fancied himself a gentleman farmer. One June 11, 1860, when federal census taker William G. Dial came calling, Cohen informed the bureaucrat that he was a "horticulturist."

Cohen had much more than horticulture on his mind, however. He had a substantial household to support. The 1860 census tells us that Alfred and Emily were living at Fernside with their children Willie, Edgar and Alfred. The household also supported 16-year-old Henry Cohen and a staff that included a nurse, a cook, a gardener, a chambermaid and an hostler.

Alameda Museum

This detail from the 1883 Alameda Argus map shows A.A. and Emily Cohen's villa and carriage house among the oaks once prevalent on Alameda. That's Versailles Avenue running along the estate.

Cohen began to think long and hard about William Worthington Chipman's idea of a consolidated transportation system for Alameda; one that ferried passengers to San Francisco and transported goods to and from California's interior by way of Hayward.

Cohen succeeded where Chipman had failed, convincing the state legislature to approve not only his railroad, but a wharf on the peninsula's West End to accommodate both a railroad and a ferry.

Once Cohen procured a franchise for the railroad he called the "San Francisco & Alameda," (SF&A) it was time to get to work. He set up a corporation on March 23, 1863. The new company's first task was to plan and survey a route. Once he completed that task, precious real estate along the route was condemned and property owners compensated — a touchy matter that the state legislature allowed when it granted Cohen his franchise. (The legislature required Cohen to construct fences along certain parts of the right-of-way.)

Cohen also had to obtain all the necessary hardware, which included the iron rails, wooden ties and construction equipment. Once all this was in his possession, he could hire construction crews and begin work. He then turned his attention to the engines and cars that would run on his rails, his "rolling stock."

Cohen hired Andrew Jackson Stevens to build his locomotive. He named it the "J.G. Kellogg" for the owner of Kellogg & Co., the nation's largest private assaying and minting company. Stevens built the locomotive right here in Alameda.

Railroad buffs best remember Stevens for his locomotive, "El Gobernador," which he built for one of Central Pacific Railroad's (CPRR) Big Four, Leland Stanford. Stanford served California as its eighth governor from Jan. 10, 1862, to Dec. 10, 1863. At the time Stevens' 64-ton creation was the largest railroad locomotive in the world. (Stanford kept the "El Gobernador's" expense-laden construction secret from his surviving Big Four associates Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins. Collis Huntingdon died seven years before Stanford's top-secret project.)

Cohen first locomotive has an interesting history with a sad ending. The "J.G. Kellogg," called the Number 2 as the second locomotive assembled on the West Coast — the first was another Stevens' creation, the "Liberty" for the San Francisco and Oakland Railroad — saw service on the SF&A until the CPRR absorbed Cohen's line in 1870.

The CPRR renumbered the locomotive as the Number 176. It saw service on the California Railroad pulling passenger cars from Sather Station (near the present-day Fruitvale BART station) to the Leona Hotel in the Oakland hills.

It later became Southern Pacific Number 1100 and was finally disused. Then in 1891 the SP fixed up and painted "Old Number 2," and sold it to the Shasta Lumber Company, which again put into service. Two years later the Anderson & Bella Vista Railroad bought the locomotive. On the way to its new home, the "J.G. Kellogg" fell off a bridge at Anderson and plunged into the Sacramento River, where it remains to this day. It was re-discovered on the river's bottom in 1970.

The railroad served Cohen as one piece of his transportation empire. For his second, Cohen again turned to Chipman's pioneering work. Chipman had already attempted to create a ferry service to connect the peninsula's West End with San Francisco. Unlike Chipman, however, Cohen had more than rutted, shell-paved roads to connect to the wharf he built on Alameda's West End. He had a railroad.

On Aug. 24, 1864, the SF&A began service. The following year, Cohen acquired the financially troubled San Francisco and Oakland Railroad and consolidated it with the SF&A. By 1865 his consolidated company had bridged the tidal flats and completed a broad-gauge railroad to Hayward (called "Hayward's" at the time.)

Cohen had turned William W. Chipman's dream into reality. He could boast five-times-a-day ferry service to San Francisco and train service from his wharf at the end of Pacific Avenue to Hayward.

In 1869, he learned that the Big Four were looking for a West Coast terminus for their transcontinental railroad. As he shared the news with Emily, he hoped these men would find his well-oiled system suitable to the task.

Stay tuned.

Contact Dennis Evanosky at real