Sonoma & Marin Railroad

Charles Minturn was known around the San Francisco Bay in the early 1860's as "The Ferryboat King". His company, the Contra Costa Steam Navigation Company, had a monopoly on trans-bay traffic between San Francisco and what is today Oakland, and as he lost that monopoly he turned to the north bay to keep his business volumes up. His first venture on the north shore was via a steamboat that ran up Petaluma Creek to Lakeville, seven miles south of Petaluma. Minturn then started ferry service to San Rafael via Point San Quentin.

Minturn focused back on Petaluma Creek and dredged a channel to Haystack Landing. On April 18, 1862 he chartered the Petaluma & Haystack to build a railroad between Black Point and Petaluma. According to the charter, no competing railroad could be built within 400 feet of the new line.

The first portion of the railroad from Haystack Landing to Petaluma was built during the spring and summer of 1864, and the line opened on 1 August of that year. Minturn's application to use the City Plaza as a depot was rejected, and instead he established a depot on a small plot of land at the corner of First and B streets. The Petaluma & Haystack was three miles long when completed. A steam locomotive that developed about twenty six horsepower was built for the new line at the Atlas Foundry in San Franscisco; the locomotive cost $5000 new. Hinkle's Night Coach connected with the trains in Petaluma to take travelers north to Santa Rosa and other points.

In 1866 the railroad extened southward to Rudesill's Landing, bypassing Haystack Landing and reducing the steamship mileage.

On 27 August 1866 the single locomotive owned by the line blew up when the engineer (Joe Levitt, on loan from the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad while the P&H searched for a permanent replacement to fill the engineer position) let the boiler pressure rise to unsafe levels and also possibly let the water level in the boiler fall. The explosion destroyed the locomotive and killed four people, including Levitt. Most passengers were inside the cars at the time of the explosion and were unhurt; horse drawn coaches were substituted for the train to take the sixty or so uninjured down to a connection with the ferry.

Minturn announced that he intended to procure a second steam locomotive, but instead the railroad used horses for the rest of it's history.

The P&H passed to Contra Costa Steam Navigation Co. after Minturn's death.

The Petaluma & Haystack lasted until 23 March 1875, when it was purchased by the Sonoma & Marin Railway Company. The intent of the company was to extend the old P&H down to San Rafael. Grading of the line started [but the S&M reportedly ended in bankruptcy]. In 1876 Peter Donahue and the San Francisco & North Pacific Railway took over the project, and the first train to run from San Rafael to Petaluma ran on 31 August 1878. The SF&NP at the time had a mainline that ran from Donahue Landing north through Petaluma to Cloverdale; adding the Sonoma & Marin gave the SF&NP a more direct route south towards San Francisco, but the line was limited in that it had to connect with the narrow guage North Pacific Coast in San Rafael for those passengers wishing to access the ferry terminals at San Quentin or Sausalito, and since the SF&NP wanted to send as much business as possible via it's own steamship lines through Donahue there was not a great deal of cooperation between the two companies. The narrow guage would eventually come under the same ownership as the standard gauge SF&NP, and the SF&NP also established its own ferry terminal at Tiburon.¹

Records show that a Francis Kurtz Zook was assistant engineer from March 29 to Oct. 1, 1875, and chief engineer from Oct. 1, 1875 to Aug. 15, 1876; Subsequently, he was chief engineer of San Francisco & North Pacific Railway from Aug. 15, 1876 to Feb. 1, 1897.²

• The railway had one line which ran from Petaluma to Haystack Landing and eventually to Rudesill's Landing.
  

• A second line, intended for San Rafael was graded but not completed by this company.

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• Railroads
  

• Sonoma Valley Railroad
  

• San Francisco & North Pacific Railway
  

• The Weekly Argus, July 19 to September 27, 1878, Petaluma.
  

• Santa Rosa Times, July 1, 1875.

• The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America, Edition of 1906, Edited and compiled by T. Addison Busbey, Associate Editor The Railway Age, Chicago 1906
  

• Kneiss, Redwood Railways, pp. 64-68;