The “Ellwood Special,” with the early Baldwin engine, served the Goleta Valley from 1887 until 1901. This was the route of the first Southern Pacific Railroad across the Goleta Valley from Santa Barbara to the end of the track at a turntable and station on Ellwood Station Road to the west. The “curvy” route of the story survey followed the hills
along the southern side of the valley.
The first freight train out to Goleta from Santa Barbara was on December 5, 1887. Regular service to Goleta and Ellwood began on December 21 of that year, with two trains a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. A minimum of two trains a week was sent to Goleta to maintain the Southern Pacific franchise in the Valley.
The Southern Pacific made its money by hauling produce from Goleta and bringing in farm machinery and construction materials. However its biggest “cash cow” was the shipping of asphaltum.
In 1890 the Alcatraz Asphaltum Company was founded in Ellwood. It mined asphalt from a huge bubble of the syrupy black goo located nearly 600 feet under what is now the UCSB Faculty Club and Guesthouse. Digging into the goo was like spooning into a jar of molasses. When the mine was operating full blast, it turned out sixty tons of 90 percent pure asphaltum every 24 hours. The 80-pound hunks of solidified tar were loaded onto a fleet of five wagons drawn by four-horse teams, each wagon carrying four tons and making three round trips daily, seven days a week to the station at La Patera Lane. The asphalt was shipped to San Francisco and as far east as New Orleans to be used for road pavement and roofing. This business lasted until 1898.
In 1900, the Southern Pacific opened the line through to San Francisco and moved its route to the north of this location, to the present line, following the more modern Hood Survey that allowed for faster and heavier modern trains than those pulled by the leisurely old Baldwins.
