Placerville part 1

There is one reason a railroad lays track; profit. And the reason tracks were laid Brighton to Placerville was to ship lumber products from the rich sugar pine forests northeast of Placerville as well as fruit from fall harvests. The history of the Michigan California Lumber Co. or MichCal and the Pino Grande Mill can be found in the well known book by Steve Polkinghorn, Pino Grande.
The history of fruit processing in and around Placerville although not as well known as its timber products, nonetheless provided a major source of freight for SP. A neighbor who grew up on a farm around Pville in the 40's and recalls "30 or 40 loaded PFE reefers" during high harvest season flowing out of town toward Sacramento.
The attached map found in Google Docs will give readers an accurate portrayal of the SP system in June of 1916.

Placerville branch 1906 Sacramento System map
This system map shows the various ownership names under which each line was built, gives the date for completion of the build and the network of rails between the foothill rails east of Sacramento and the CP lines headed to Nevada. It was certainly the start of something big and these connections provided much needed low cost transportation of freight and passengers between early population and business centers.

Now lets talk about Placerville.
Sanborne and Southern Pacific Station Plans often give the modeler enough information to make some decisions about what is possible in terms of prototype modeling in an historic era. In my case 1937.

Track side industries circa 1910
Sperry Flour Co. - if you look up this company on the net you'll find no information relating to it being anywhere but in Santa Clara, Ca. Southern Pacific track maps show it at the corner of Canal and High Street and it looks like it may have its own spur in 1910.
Directly across the right of way was  Globe Milling Company with a large storage building marked "Storage and feed." The Globe Milling Company which later became the Pillsbury Co in Sacramento is another landmark company which had business interests in Placerville.
Proceeding  northeast across Canal Street was the Earl Fruit Co. The Earl Fruit Company of California dominated the packing house landscape. On the Placerville Branch there were at least two Earl Fruit packing locations; Placerville and Folsom
Next to Earl Fruit in what appears on the Sanborne to be in the same building is Lambert Marketing. Another fruit packing company. Under Lambert Marketing it describe occupancy as "Lessee."
Two tracks combine to one and cross Coloma Street.
Opposite, but slight NE is a spur leading to what is described as a roundhouse. Its drawn shape however makes me thinks it was probably a shed.
March 1910 Sanborne map Placerville Ca.
More next time