Photo Essay: Touring Halter Ranch Vineyard Estate on a Railroad of Replica Swiss Rolling Stock

Since I was already heading up to California's Central Coast on Memorial Day weekend to ride the original Disneyland passenger cars at Santa Margarita Ranch..

     

...I decided to make it a full-blown traincation by booking a train tour of the vineyard at Halter Ranch in Paso Robles. 

Photo Essay: Glendale's Stone Barn, Once Burned and Flooded, Reopens As a Nature Center

Georges Le Mesnager was an immigrant French winemaker who arrived in Southern California in 1885-6 and purchased land in the Dunsmore Canyon area of La Crescenta—formerly known as Las Flores Canyon, now known as Deukmejian Wilderness Park.

At the time, the canyon was wild and steep—but nevertheless, Mesnager tried to develop the land, planting vines and growing wine grapes there. 

 

In 1905, his son Louis began building a stone barn primarily to be used as a stable and a storage facility—not only for vineyard equipment but also to store the grapes that would be shipped off to the family's winery at Main and Mesnager Streets in Downtown Los Angeles, a couple of hundred feet away from the west bank of the LA River. 

   

And now, over 100 years later, the stone barn is the site of grape-growing once again—and is home to the newly opened Stone Barn Nature Center. 

A Surprise Sneak Preview of the Not-Yet-Completed Norgrove Gardens Railway, A Private Narrow Gauge Through A Central Coast Vineyard

Early on in 2020, I'd booked a trip to attend the Central Coast Railroad Festival in October of that year. I was hoping for a chance to ride the Bitter Creek Western Railroad in Arroyo Grande and the Pacific Coast Railroad on Santa Margarita Ranch. 

But the festival, like nearly everything else last year, was cancelled for COVID-19. 

Fortunately, the festival resumed on the first weekend of October 2021, and I was able to bump my overnight stay by a year. 

 

But as the festival approached, it seemed as though I wouldn't be able to ride any of those trains—or any trains for that matter. 

    

I considered canceling my trip many times—but I'm glad I didn't. 

Anaheim: Where Orange County's Oldest City Got Started (Nearly 100 Years Before Mickey Mouse Moved In)

In 1857, Anaheim became the second-oldest colony experiment in California—nearly a century before the arrival of Disneyland. 

Named "Ana" for the Santa Ana River and "heim" after the German word for home, this "Home by the Santa Ana River" was originally founded  by a collective of 50 German families who had formed the Los Angeles Vineyard Society.

Although you might associate such a German community with biergartens, these German immigrants established Anaheim with 50 vineyard lots, 20 acres each, on 1,165 acres of the former Rancho San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana. They hoped to find wealth through wine, planting primarily Mission grapes in an attempt to create the largest vineyard in the world—despite being miles from markets, seaports, and railroad depots (at least until 1875).

And they succeeded, reigning for a time as the greatest wine-producing district in California, until 1885 when a blight wiped out their wine grapes. 

That's when they quickly shifted their attention to other agricultural crops, like Valencia oranges and walnuts.

Anaheim is now the oldest town in Orange County (though it was LA County back when it was founded). And much of its history has been forgotten, or at least eclipsed, by haunted mansions, intergalactic adventures, and the smell of freshly baked churros. 

But there are still traces of it to be found—if you know where to look.

 

Photo Essay: Zipping Over Cattle and Wine Grapes at Historic Santa Margarita Ranch

By 1886, the Southern Pacific Railroad had reached as far as Paso Robles, California. 

But it wasn't until 1894 that railroaders figured out how to conquer a seemingly impassible stretch of terrain—called the Cuesta Grade—so it could join up with the Pacific Coast Railway in San Luis Obispo.

DelVaglio Realty office (former mule stop, former Cuesta Motel)

To get a train to make the twists and turns necessary to ascend and descend the steep incline, engineers had to blast over million cubic yards of rock (some of which included California's state rock, serpentinite).

 

 

The resulting tracks—now owned by Union Pacific, which operates its freight trains on them—currently cut through the private La Cuesta Ranch and pass Cal Poly and the California Men's Colony on their way to Seattle.

 

Last year, I took a summertime wine train across the Cuesta Grade and through its tunnels. But this year, I drove across the Cuesta Pass (on the 101 Freeway) to visit the town that built the Cuesta Grade—Santa Margarita—and to go ziplining through Santa Margarita Ranch with Margarita Adventures. 

 

In 1841, Joaquin Estrada received the Mexican land grant of Rancho Santa Margarita (not to be confused with Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores), former mission land that included Santa Margarita de Cortona Asistencia, an agricultural outpost of Mission San Luis Obispo. He converted it into a successful cattle ranch—but, after frittering his money away, had to sell off his land in order to pay off his debts.  

In the 1880s, the new owners of Santa Margarita Ranch (the Murphys, a family of "Irish Californios") established a waystation for passing stagecoaches along El Camino Real—which was the only way to complete the trip from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. That is, until Southern Pacific Railroad constructed the railroad through the Cuesta Grade.

Southern Pacific set up its headquarters on its new landholdings in Santa Margarita, with its subsidiary Pacific Improvement Company transforming part of the area into a railroad company town. It's pretty much the same size today as it was upon its founding—and Santa Margarita Ranch, still privately owned, still features the historic ranch house and asistencia building. 

I didn't get to visit those historic sites (or other outbuildings) during my first visit to Santa Margarita Ranch, though. Once the Margarita Adventures van dropped us off at its staging area, we were too busy getting geared up with helmets and harnesses for our upcoming gravity-defying excursion. 

 

Switching over to a more touring-style (yet seemingly military-grade) jeep, we rode a bit more through the still-working cattle ranch (one of the oldest continuously operated of its kind in the state)....

  

...until reaching the first of the 6-line course, called The Double Barrel. 

It's a "racing" line—like a racing-style (or "dueling") rollercoaster, with two 2,800-foot lines running parallel to one another. It makes for a heart-stopping start to the two-hour zipline tour, that's for sure. 

 

But what really got me was walking across the narrow, 300-foot suspension bridge that connects the first and second ziplines. 

When the zipline course first opened, it only featured five lines. The first stop on the current course is actually the sixth and final line to be added—and the only pesky thing separating the bottom of it from the top of the next one was a deep canyon. 

I'd crossed a bridge like this once before—at the now-defunct Navitat in Wrightwood, California, tucked away in Angeles National Forest. I did not enjoy it back then, in 2012; and I didn't enjoy it eight years later, either. 

As I walked alone across the bridge and hiked my way to the second line—The Renegade—I found myself hyperventilating and nearly ready to quit.  For some reason, I could zip thousands of feet while dangling from a wire—but setting one foot in front of the other for a few hundred feet on that bridge nearly defeated me. 

As one of our zipline guides explained to me, there's a key difference: You've only got to take the first step to zip, while you've got to take every step to cross the bridge.

 

Afterwards, I managed to tackle the 1,200 feet of The Renegade, as well as 600 feet of The Woodlander (which runs over the canopies of native blue and white oak trees). Then there was the 430-foot length of The Hilltopper and another 800 feet through a natural archway of companion oaks (aptly named The Archway).

Finally, as the sun began to disappear behind the mountains, there was the 1,800-foot descent of The Pinot Express, a zipline over the ranch's pinot noir grapevines. Conveniently, there's the family-run Ancient Peaks winery tasting room across the street from the final drop-off point. And I sure had worked up a thirst. 

  

It had been over three years since I last went ziplining—and that was just a single run. I thought it would be easier to get back into it. 

But I'd never before ziplined at this age or this weight. And I'm not sure I want to do it again. My pulled muscle still hasn't healed. I'm still bruised from the strap that dug into my thigh.

I do, however, want to return to Santa Margarita Ranch—not only to see the historic structures, but to ride the rails of the narrow-gauge, steam-powered Pacific Coast Railroad. 

I'm not sure how soon that can happen, but stay tuned. 

  

Related Posts:

Photo Essay: A Wine-Rail Excursion Through the Tunnels of Cuesta Grade

The Second Transcontinental Railroad, and Its Final Missing Piece

Dangling from a Wire

Photo Essay: Flying High at Skull Canyon

Reaching My Limit

Photo Essay: The Marines' Camp Pendleton Ranch Chapel, Saved From Flooding... and Development

In 1942, the U.S. government used the newly-passed Second War Powers Act to take over SoCal's largest Mexican land grant and create (at the time) the world's largest Marine base, Camp Pendleton USMC.

I'd driven past Camp Pendleton so many times on my way to and from San Diego—and since it's so expansive, I'd found myself in its vicinity even while in Orange County.

Besides my innate curiosity to find out "what goes on in there," there was also the promise of historic properties still on the base—structures that had little to do with military activities and more to do with Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores.

After all, Camp Pendleton is located squarely between Mission San Juan Capistrano and Mission San Luis Rey, right along El Camino Real. There's even a former asistencia—or "sub-mission"—on the base, created in 1823, now part of the national historic site known as Las Flores Adobe.

But more on that sometime in the future.

When I finally got into Camp Pendleton (thanks to the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society), it was to visit the "Ranch House"—what eventually became the former home of the base's commanding general—and its adjacent "Ranch Chapel."



Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores got its name from St. Margaret of Antioch, as the Portola Expedition passed through in 1769. By 1841, it lost its ties to the Franciscan friars—and Catholicism in general—thanks to the secularization of the missions and was granted to Pío and Andrés Pico (and was sometimes referred to as Rancho San Onofre y Santa Margarita).



In 1846, two of Andrés Pico's officers in the Mexican–American War—Captains Leonardo Cota and Jose Alipas/Alipaz—strategized their (ultimately successful) plan against American forces in the Battle of San Pasqual under a nearby sycamore tree.



Adjacent to the ranch house—stay tuned for a forthcoming photo essay—there's the structure that the Marines currently use as a chapel, topped by a bell relocated from the San Juan Capistrano train station.



Though it was intended to be non-denominational, "dedicated to the uplift of the human spirit" and "the enrichment of human character and personality" (according to a plaque inside)...



...it's now used for Lutheran worship on Sundays at 10 a.m.



But it didn't start out that way.



This adobe building, completed in 1827, originally functioned as a winery for Mission San Luis Rey's vineyards!

St. George

But before the Marines restored it into a chapel in the early 1940s (initially only for the USMC Women's Reserve, whose female reservists apparently helped keep Base admin "running smoothly"), it also served as temporary living quarters for the Pico family, living quarters for the onsite blacksmith, and a tool shed. 

The Good Shepherd

The Picos left and sold the ranch in 1864 to an English seaman named John Forster (sometimes Forester), who de-anglicized his name to become Don Juan Forster. He passed the ranch onto his son, John F. Forster—a.k.a. Juan Fernando Forster, who married Josefa Del Valle, the daughter of the owner of Rancho Camulos in Ventura County (more on that ranch in the future, too.)



In 1882, cattle rancher James Flood partnered with Irish immigrant Richard O'Neill to take over the ranch ownership and operations. In turn, the ranch was passed down to Jerome O'Neill and Flood family members, including James Flood, Jr.

Santa Margarita

Together, Jerome and James Jr. formed the Rancho Santa Margarita (RSM) Corporation in 1923 and controlled it until their deaths (two days apart!) in 1926. After that, the heirs of the two families split up the land, some selling their shares to the Marines and others losing theirs to condemnation by the federal government in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 

Joan of Arc, restored and rededicated 2018

For its new chapel, the Marines commissioned replicas of famous cathedral windows to be made of Canterbury glass by American Art Glass Company in Los Angeles in 1943. 

King David

The windows were donated (at a cost of only $250 each) by the families of the former ranch, in memory of the various ancestors who'd worked—and protected—the land.



In 1993, the Santa Margarita River flooded and swept away the walls, windows, and nearly everything else inside the chapel away and down a nearby hillside. Nearly everything was recovered—except the stained glass window of St. George, which was replaced at a cost of $6000.

And when you think about it, there's no way this open space—or maybe even these historic sites—would've dodged commercialization and survived, if it weren't for the military operations that have kept the real estate developers and public at large at bay.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Jewel of the Missions, Shelter for the Swallows

Photo Essay: A Mission for Kings, Friars, Soldiers, and Zorro

How Prohibition Shaped SoCal (Interview on KPCC's "Take Two")

I don't know how I've become an expert on Prohibition in Los Angeles—but somehow I have.

I'm not complaining, mind you.

Because I'm fascinated by both the lawmakers and the lawbreakers. And you can't talk about Prohibition without mention of the amendment that enacted it, the 18th, and the one that repealed it, the 21st.

Plus, stories about Prohibition are almost always about drinking—and not about not drinking.

So my latest expert testimony aired on Southern California Public Radio's KPCC this week, as I was interviewed by "Take Two" host A. Martinez.



We chatted about the King Eddy Saloon, which operated as an underground speakeasy until 1933...



...Greenbar Distillery, LA's first legal hooch-maker in 80 years...



...San Antonio Winery, which survived Prohibition with a little help from God...



...and how today's craft cocktails were influenced by the "bathtub gin" and moonshine that tipplers had to try to choke down when they were supposed to be "dry."

You can listen to the segment in the player below, or check out the entire episode here. 



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Photo Essay: A Wine-Rail Excursion Through the Tunnels of Cuesta Grade

I hadn't heard about the train excursion to Pomar Junction hosted by the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum until last year. In fact, I hadn't even heard about the SLO RR Museum until last year.



And by then, I'd already booked myself on one traincation. I didn't have the time—or money—for two.



So I planned ahead this year and found myself once again in San Luis Obispo—twice in one year, after not having been at all for over seven years.



But this time, I was at the train station and ready to ride the rails.



The train we took isn't a special train, per se.



It's one of the modern-era, double-decker Amtrak Coast Starlight trains, outfitted with sleeper cars.

Screenshot: Google Maps

The real attraction for me was the route the train would take on the way to Paso Robles.

Stenner Creek trestle, built 1904

It's a steep incline (and decline) known as the Cuesta Grade, a seemingly impassible stretch of terrain that was conquered by railroaders at the turn of the last century and cuts through the private La Cuesta Ranch and passes Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and the California Men's Colony. 

Engineers had to blast a lot of rock to get a train to make the twists and turns necessary to ascend and descend the grade—over million cubic yards, some of which included California's state rock, serpentinite (composed of serpentine minerals).



Just like a hike, the most efficient way to take the 1140-foot elevation change is through a number of switchbacks...



...that take the train up into the Santa Lucia mountain range above Highway 101, which curves around the bend below.



And successfully making that difficult climb requires traveling into hand-drilled, redwood-lined tunnels...



...and out...



...and back in, over the course of 16 rail miles (though only 10 miles by car) at no more than 30 mph, several times over.



It's actually one fewer than originally planned, as one such tunnel caved in on itself in 1910. Unable to repair it, the railroad simply bypassed it—though you can see the sealed entrance today.



Although the train technically also passes right by the Pomar Junction vineyard, Amtrak doesn't like to make unscheduled stops at unofficial stations. So we took a bus from El Paso del Robles.



At the end of the line, we arrived at the tasting room of The Fableist, whose wines are each inspired by Aesop's Fables, like the Cabernet Sauvignon's take on "The Ant and the Cicada"...



...and the Gruner Veltliner take on "The Fox and the Stork."



Pomar Junction still owns the vineyard there and makes its wine from its grapes, but Fableist has taken over its tasting room.



And fortunately, it's preserved the "train stuff" that can be found on the tasting tables...



...and throughout the grounds.



It's also continuing Pomar Junction's "Train Wreck Fridays"—the party we stumbled into and then wholeheartedly joined.



After tasting a few Central Coast wines and knocking back a couple of full glasses...



...it's just my style to skulk around some rescued and relocated trains...



...though they may be considered "condemned."



In fact, that's even better.



In 1886, the Southern Pacific Railroad had reached Paso Robles, but it wasn't until 1894 that it met up with the Pacific Coast Railway in San Luis Obispo, thanks to the construction through "La Cuesta."

Although Union Pacific currently owns these rails and operates its freight trains, it's Amtrak that operates passenger trains through there, from LA to Seattle—which means any ticketed passenger can experience this engineering feat firsthand. It just helps to know what you're looking at.

For a detailed description of the route, click here. 

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