Caldor Mill engine house

A 1916 shot of the engine house at the Caldor Mill. If you carefully gaze at the original photograph you’ll see three Diamond and Calor Railway locomotives.

Unless noted, historic photographs in the El Dorado Western blog are from the collection of the El Dorado County Historical Museum. These photographs are available for $10 each from the museum. Call (530) 621-5865 for additional information. Please consult museum staff for limitations to the use of photographs.

History of the California Door Company and its logging railroads

This history was prepared by Robert Niles for the Eldorado National Forest in 1979. The El Dorado Western Railway blog will reprint serialized portions of Mr. Nile’s report in the coming months.

Forward
The following account of the California Door Company and its years of logging and sawmilling in El Dorado County has been put together from a wide variety of sources and information.

Hopefully, this report will give a better understanding of the way of life of those times, and the extent of past impacts imposed on the area by the railroad logging and the men who left their transitory mark.

By Robert Niles
Placerville, California
1979

History of the California Door Company and its logging railroads

The California Door Company was formed in 1884 with the merger of three sash, door and millwork companies doing business in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mr. Bartlett Doe was the first person on the scene in 1849 acting as agent for a Boston, Massachusetts sash and door company that was shipping manufactured millwork products to San Francisco merchants.

Mr. Doe was the possibility for establishing a manufacturing business of his own, an in 1850 entered into a wood working partnership with his brother John. This established the B.&J.S. Doe Company located at 36 Market Street in San Francisco.
The following year a competing business was formed by George and Nat Wilson to merchandize doors, window frames and millwork.

In 1861 Charles S. Doe, a brother of Bartlett and John, acquired an existing millwork company operating in San Francisco.

These companies grew and thrived with the prosperity of the times.

In 1884 the Doe brothers merged their business with George and Nat Wilson’s to establish the California Door Company. A new manufacturing plant was established in Oakland to produce doors, windows and blinds and was recognized as the largest plant of its kind in the west.

To assure an adequate and dependable supply of sugar pine and Ponderosa pine lumber for their new sash and door plant, the California Door Company in 1900, acquired some 30,000 acres of timberland in El Dorado County. A small sawmill was included and was located some 30 miles southeast of Diamond Springs at a gold mining settlement known as Dogtown in the Consumnes River Drainage.

I'll post the next installment in two weeks ...

Steady hand

I'm always amazed at the steady hand of Dale, the lead fabricator on the Talley Ho Railbus No. 10. He's cutting out a piece from this angle iron for the rear coupler pocket to the railbus. Dale and Keith have re-designed the coupler pocket to correct some problems with the original design. Dale is working on the flatcar to the railbus. Both pieces of equipment were built in the shops of the Diamond and Caldor Railway, circa 1929, by master mechanic Arle Smith.

Brake heads

Two weeks ago, Harold showed me how the pictured template worked. He will use it to guide his hand while he adds metal to the upper surfaces of the Shay's brake heads. Once he's added the metal, Harold will use a square to guide him as he grinds the new metal to the proper height.

According to the Car Builders Cyclopedia of American Practice, 1903 edition, a brake head is a "piece of iron or wood attached to a brake beam and which bears against the wheels, and combines both a brake block and a brake shoe in one piece." The Diamond and Caldor No. 4 Shay has eight such brake heads, one per wheel.