page_title: Colton Crossing
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Colton Crossing / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The train station and part of the yards built by the California Southern Railroad in San Bernardino.
context_page_description: Colton Crossing is a railway crossing situated in Colton, California, directly south of Interstate 10. First built in 1883, it was the site of one of the most intense frog wars in railroad construction history, leading to a personal confrontation between famed lawman Virgil Earp and California Governor Robert Waterman. The crossing was the intersection of the tracks for the former ATSF and former Southern Pacific railroads. Southern Pacific is now Union Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway is now BNSF, and both the UP and BNSF still utilize their respective's predecessor's tracks. The Union Pacific tracks runs east-west at the crossing while the BNSF tracks operate north-south. Metrolink trains and Amtrak's Southwest Chief also use the BNSF tracks through the crossing while Amtrak's Sunset Limited utilize the UP tracks for that service. The Union Pacific tracks come from the east through the Coachella Valley and into the yard in West Colton.
context_section_description: Construction of the California Southern Railroad, a subsidiary of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (now BNSF Railway),  was repeatedly interrupted by Santa Fe's rival, Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). In one instance, California Southern was set to build a level junction across SP tracks in Colton.  California Southern engineer Fred T. Perris ordered the crossing built and acquired the track section for the railroad.  When the track was delivered to National City in July 1883, SP officials hired the sheriff there to seize the track section and prevent its installation.  The sheriff kept the track under 24-hour guard, but Perris's men were able to retake the track while the sheriff napped, loaded the track on a flatcar and started northward with it toward Colton, where it was to be installed.
  Perris obtained a court order on August 11, 1883, that would legally allow California Southern to install the new track section.
  Jacob Nash Victor, a California Southern construction engineer, was the foreman at Colton.  In a letter that Victor wrote to Thomas Nickerson, then president of the California Southern, he stated:
  I thought it advisable to have final order of court printed and each SP employee served.  It was also asserted that headquarters at San Francisco had not received the final order. The danger of a riot was so imminent, by legal advice I had the order telegraphed to the Sheriff at SF to serve on the President or Secy. ... In the meantime the Sheriff [in Colton] had organized a posse, with arms and was waiting for order of court to clear the track, on our application. 
  Perris' crew was ready to install it as soon as SP's Overland Mail passed the point of intersection between the two railroads. However, at that moment an SP locomotive arrived at the scene pulling a single gondola and stopped.  The engineer of the SP locomotive then drove the train back and forth slowly at the crossing point in an effort to prevent the California Southern crew from installing the crossing. Southern Pacific had hired the lawman Virgil Earp to guard its tracks in Colton and he rode in the cab.
  The citizens of Colton supported Southern Pacific, but Southern Pacific had bypassed nearby San Bernardino and its residents were upset. They hoped the California Southern line would put their city back on the map. On the morning of September 13, events reached a head in a confrontation that was quickly dubbed the "Battle of the Crossing". Citizens from Colton and San Bernardino gathered on either side of the tracks—San Bernardino residents on the north and the citizens from Colton on the south—with the Southern Pacific locomotive between them. Men on both sides carried picks, shovels, shotguns and revolvers. Virgil Earp stood in the gangway between cab and tender facing the San Bernardino mob, his revolver in hand.  It was believed that the gondola held a number of SP men with rifles and other weapons who crouched below the walls of the car so as not to be seen.
  Governor of California Robert Waterman ordered San Bernardino County Sheriff J.B. Burkhart to enforce the court order. Burkhart deputized 10 dependable men and personally escorted the governor to the crossing site. Waterman stood between the SP locomotive and the San Bernardino mob and read the court order. The governor said the  locomotive must be cleared away at once. He told Virgil Earp that if he made any move with his six-shooter, Burkhart and his deputies were authorized to shoot. The tension between the crowds, lawmen, and governor made a gun fight likely—perhaps bloodier than his Tombstone shootout. Earp realized that further resistance was hopeless and would lead to bloodshed. He holstered his weapon and ordered the engineer to move the locomotive.
  The track was cleared and the crossing was installed. The first train from San Diego arrived in Colton on August 21, 1882 (before the crossing was installed), and the first train to San Bernardino arrived just over a year later on September 13, 1883.
caption: The station and yards at San Bernardino in 1915. A year later, the station was destroyed by fire.
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