I find this thread very interesting as I have been working on a similar issue for a while now as part of my dissertation research. Railroads certainly seem to have exhibited both a mechanistic and didactic landscape ethos as well as a psuedo-agrarian approach to landscape stewardship, maintenance, and husbandry. The presence of railroad gardens seems to reaffirm what I am finding in regard to railroad section camps. The landscape paradigm of creating productive and aesthically pleasing landscapes applied to all aspects of railroading, including the track itself. For anyone interested in seeing these issues addressed more fully I invite them to the Landscapes of Labor symposium at the SHAs on Thursday afternoon. 
 
 Regards,
 
 Stathi Pappas
    ___________________________________________________________________
 
 Efstathios I. Pappas
 Doctoral Candidate
 Department of Anthropology/096
 University of Nevada, Reno
 Reno, NV 89557
 209 603 7363   
 -----Original Message-----
 From: [log in to unmask]
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Sent: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 9:12 AM
 Subject: Mission Cliffs Gardens on the San Diego Electric Railway
 
  During the development of the interurban electric rail system in San Diego,  

California, John D. Spreckels and his colleagues developed the famous Mission  

Cliffs Gardens on the edge of an upland overlooking Mission Valley and the 

San  Diego River to the north. This right angle turn on the San Diego Electric  

Railway was less than one mile from the trolley barns. During the 1915-1916  

Panama-California Exposition, this was a primary sight-seeing stop and a great  

many tourists actually bought land in the surrounding University Heights  

neighborhood. People from all over the region would take the trolley to the  

Mission Cliffs Gardens to walk on the paths, relax, read, and just stare out the  



views. During the Great Depression, the gardens fell into ruin and the 

property  sold for a housing project. The perimeter stone walls and an internal 

garden  circular wall have been landmarked and are protected. The trolley line 

ceased in  1949, when President Isenhower ordered the Interstate freeway system 

to 

replace  aging interurban rail lines across the nation (some think the 

emerging auto  industry, tire industry, and oil industry lobbied him to make 

that  

policy).

 

Ron May

 

   
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