(The following story by Jim Lenhoff appeared on the Mercury-Register website on March 26.)
CHICO, Calif. — Going under the railroad overpass on Highway 70 as one enters Marysville from Oroville, few drivers have ever looked at the small inscription on the concrete abutment which reads Binney Junction. If it had not been for the fire that destroyed the railroad trestle at Sacramento a few days ago, probably Binney Junction would still be unknown except to an historian or two.
Suddenly, Binney Junction is in the news because the Union Pacific has had to reroute many of it trains across this historic overpass. No doubt Andrew J. Binney, for whom the overpass is named, would be pleased with this recent notoriety. He was an engineer of importance in California, having built the levees that protected Sacramento from flooding, plus numerous other projects in Marysville and southern California. He and his brother Charles came across the Plains to California in 1849.
Andrew’s fame spread to Oroville in the 1860s when he built the fourth railroad in California from Marsville to Oroville called the California Northern RR. An obscure monument on Myers Street near the site of old depot memorializes the achievement.
When dedicated in 1864, a special passenger car brought many notables to Oroville, including Emperior Norton of San Francisco.
It was only appropriate that a wild celebration followed in the streets and saloons of Oroville.
Later, the line would be acquired by Marysville banker Norman Rideout, who also bought Oroville’s first bank, which continues today under the auspices of Bank of America. Later, Binney’s railroad was acquired by the Southern Pacific RR which continued to operate the line as a spur to Oroville. Finally the line was abandoned except where the trestle connected it to the Southern Pacific and now Western Pacific lines.
Members of the Binney clan are buried in the Old Oroville Cemetery, a daughter of prominent Oroville jeweler Amos Howard having married the son of Andrew’s brother Charles. The Howard home still stands on the corner of Pine and Robinson streets and recently a beautiful sidewalk clock was erected in front of the site where his store once stood.
Note: The Union Pacific RR is detouring its trains from Reno at Roseville north through Sheridan, and Wheatland to Marysville, where they cross over the Binney Junction overpass and then proceed south to Sacramento. Trains coming to Sacramento from the south cover the route in reverse.