Steen's Spur

The 1899 Station Book mentions an otherwise unremarkable switch that went by the name Steens Spur, which was found 78.9 miles south of San Francisco via Alameda Point and Felton Junction. It was 1.9 miles north of Ben Lomond and immediately (0.1 miles) south of another little-known spur named Reeds Spur. It was located just south of what would become Brookdale and it had a class-B freight station, which makes sense since it was a freight spur. Donald Clark's Place Names book notes that the site went by two other names, Steen Switch and Steens.

In reality, the site should have been Steen's Spur and was named after Jacob Steen whose company, J. Steen & Co., removed stumps for lumber companies to allow settlement in the logged areas. Jacob Steen was a relatively wealthy local businessman who appears in multiple court records including a multiple appeal case involving the Santa Clara Valley Mill & Lumber Company owned by the Doughertys. He was a shareholder in the Santa Cruz Railroad and also owned a business in downtown Santa Cruz which burned in a fire. In Felton, he also owned a general store that doubled as the Felton Post Office for many years. His wealth came from a variety of sources, but he made a small profit off of the stumps he pulled for the local lumber companies, making additional money by selling the stumps for various uses. He likely set up a stumpage operation along the railroad right-of-way near Brookdale a short while before 1899. With the plethora of mills in the area, there would be a great need for stump removers and Steen's company likely fulfilled that role through the assistance of railroad flat cars that, once filled, could be hauled down to Santa Cruz for processing or shipment. Thus the life of Steen's Spur was likely short and this reference in the Station Book was probably through luck that it was mentioned at all. Clark mentions that it was still Steen's Spur in 1905 when the Fish Hatchery moved in, though Steen's operations seem to have ended prior to that date. It certainly no longer appeared in future timetables, specifically the detailed 1923 internal table.

Many years later, Jacob Steen went on to help found the Santa Cruz Lumber Company organized by George Ley in 1923, while his railroad spur, as well as Reeds Spur, developed into the resort of Brookdale in 1902.

Since Reeds Spur was replaced in 1900 with Clear Creek Station and in 1902 with Brookdale Station, the location of Steen's Spur can be speculated upon. Brookdale Station was located at the northern bend of Berkeley Way. Along this stretch sat the Fish Hatchery. Steen's Spur, therefore, was likely Larkspur Street with the switch at the northern bend of that road. Any sidings or station building would have been in this area, though the precise location of anything is not certain due to the limited documentation of this spur and station site.