Recent archeological evidence indicates earliest human habitation of the Rocklin area at about 7,000 years ago. About 3000 year ago, perhaps as late as 1500 years ago, the Nisenan, sometimes called Southern Maidu, occupied the area. Although Euro-Americans severely disrupted their culture in the 19th century, descendents of these people still reside in South Placer County.
Although Euro-Americans were probably fishing and harvesting game in the Rocklin area in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, major Euro-American settlement started in the early 1850's as fortune hunters sluiced for gold in Secret Ravine, that area of oaks and dredger tailings that we see today southeast of interstate 80 between Roseville and Loomis.
The area's industrial development started in the mid to late 1850's as the Argonauts abandoned their sluice boxes to quarry granite for public buildings in Sacramento and San Francisco. Boom times for Rocklin started in the mid-1860's as Rocklin quarries supplied stone for construction of the transcontinental railroad between 1864 and 1869 and the railroad located a roundhouse in Rocklin in 1866 to service the extra engines needed for the trans-sierra run.
Rocklin's granite industry survived lean times in the 1870s and early 1880s but began to flourish in the late 1880's and 1890's as the quarries employed pneumatic technology and Finnish Immigrants came to control quarry ownership and dominate Rocklin's social life. Labor strife and competition from cement-based concrete permanently decimated the industry in the early 20th century although one quarry continued to operate until 2004.
Rocklin's round house operations moved to Roseville in 1908 displacing 300 workers. This event coupled with a declining granite industry attenuated Rocklin's growth until high tech industries began to locate here and Highway 80 brought Rocklin within easy commute distance of Sacramento in the early 1960's.
Most of today's Rocklin occupies the southern 12,000 acres of the former Spring Valley Ranch. George Whitney founded this ranch in 1855 and transferred ownership to his son Joel Parker Whitney, called Parker then, in 1873. Buoyed by easy access to rail shipping, and employing cheap Chinese labor formerly employed in railroad construction, Parker built the ranch to 27,000 acres by the time of his death in 1913.
The articles in this series detail interesting aspects of Rocklin's development. The information is from a variety of sources, most of which are mentioned within the text.
Please contact me at garyday@starstream.net if you have questions. Gary Day
Rocklin and the magical seventeen
Was there something special about their years training in Rocklin that brought the San Francisco 49ers from obscurity to greatness, and then back to obscurity when they left? Is there something special about Rocklin? |
A Haven for Hoboes
Rocklin's location at the terminus of the westbound trans-Sierra run made it a magnet for freight train hoboes. Sensing that they were at the valley floor after a tortuous boxcar ride downhill from Norden, hoboes disembarked to rest, and possibly to wander in the area seeking better lives. |
Twelve Bridges
Much of western Rocklin is astride the southern 12,000 acres of the Spring Valley Ranch of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is property which Rocklin annexed while the city's population grew during the past 45 years |
Run Rocklin
On March 14, 2004, Run Rocklin, called Rocklin Run for the Gold then, raised $8,000 to save Rocklin’s oldest public building from the wrecking ball. |
Rocklin Golf Courses
Rocklin challenges golfers with two top-tier golf venues, Whitney Oaks Golf Course and the course at the Sunset Whitney Country Club. But in the late 19th century Rocklin was also home to one of California’s first golf courses, a nine-hole circuit in the middle of the Whitney Ranch. |
Delano's Quarry
According to state records Rocklin was the principal granite producing point in the Sacramento Valley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rocklin’s largest and most financially-successful quarry operation of those times was Ira Delano’s Rocklin Granite Company. |
Rocklin Hose Company Number One
In the early 1890s, demand for Rocklin’s light-gray granite building stone grew steadily and Rocklin’s quarries were at peak activity. Rocklin’s railroad roundhouse employed 300 people and businesses flourished along Granite Avenue (now Rocklin Road), |
Whence Came the Altar Stone
The Rocklin Historical Society is restoring a 124 year old church on Front Street in downtown Rocklin. When RHS completes the restoration in September 2007, the church will be primarily a non-denominational wedding chapel. |
Oskari’s Journey
Eighteen-year-old Oskari left Russian-ruled Finland and came to New York in 1891. He was one of 350,000 Finns who came to America escaping Finland’s harsh political and economic conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
A Twenty Minute Tour of Rocklin History
The Rocklin History Museum is open from 1 pm until 4 pm on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. If you are in the mood for Rocklin’s history at other times, try this 20 minute tour of two sites which were important to Rocklin’s role as the Sacramento Valley’s major producer of granite products in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
Rocklin Goes to the Races
In 1895 horse doctor Mansfield Delano and his wealthy brother Ira, owner of Rocklin’s most successful granite quarry, led a group of nine investors to form the Rocklin Driving Park Association and build Rocklin’s first and only race track. |
The Crowd in the Pyramid
The pyramid-shaped Whitney family tomb is an often photographed curiosity near the 11th green of the Whitney Oaks Golf Course.
History doesn’t record the tomb’s construction date but one family member theorizes that |
Rocklin's Pyramid Tomb?
In January 1913, Joel Parker Whitney, called Parker then, died at Del Monte California after a long bout with kidney disease. He was 78. According to Richard Miller’s Fortune Built by Gun, Parker had prepared a pyramid-shaped mausoleum for himself... |
Porter's Saloon Token Brings $325
On December 19, 2005 an unidentified collector paid $325.00 for a Porter’s Saloon trade token at a Western Americana auction in Reno.
Dewitt Porter’s Saloon was a popular downtown Rocklin watering hole in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
Major Professional Golf in Rocklin
The year was 1964. Lyndon Johnson promised a quick victory in Vietnam and was elected President over Barry Goldwater. Arnold Palmer won the Masters for what turned out to be the last time. Rocklin’s population was about 1,600 |
Clover Valley
According to Sierra College Geology Professor Dick Hilton, the valley started to form five million years ago as the Sierra range lifted and tilted westward. Runoff streams wore down millions of years of rock and gravel deposits |
Saint Mary's through the Years
In 1882 John Bolton, the Irish land developer who plotted Rocklin’s original town site, donated an oak framed lot to Rocklin’s Catholics for our City’s first Catholic Church. |
Whitney Ranch (3 of 3)
During the 1860’s and 1870’s Joel Parker Whitney, called Parker then, expanded his Spring Valley Ranch from 320 acres to 18,000 acres. |
Whitney Ranch (2 of 3)
In 1857, Boston merchant George Whitney established a 320-acre sheep ranch near a small South Placer County granite quarrying community. That community would later supply stone for construction of |
Whitney Ranch (1 of 3)
In 1854, Boston businessman George Whitney visited San Francisco to see the four oldest of his six sons. The four had come to California individually at various times during the Gold Rush and |
Finn Hall
They dragged hay bales across the floor to make it slick, and then they danced to the music of Rocklin’s Echo Band until midnight. They adjourned upstairs for supper, rested awhile with the quarry-worker band members and then danced until 3 am. |
Where did “Rocklin” come from?
Our city’s name first appeared in print in June 1864 when “Rocklin” was listed in a Central Pacific Railroad timetable as a stop between Junction (now Roseville) and Pino (now Loomis). But how did the name, “Rocklin”, originate? |
Huff Spring
The spring was a widely known Rocklin curiosity and source of clean drinking water in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A nearby cluster of 88 bedrock mortars and about 4 acres of gently sloping terrain, partly covered by Springview School’s soccer field, tell that the area was formerly home to a large community of native Nisenan. |
Rocklin, A Town Built on Granite
Downtown Rocklin is astride a 100 square mile belt of high quality and easily accessible granite that extends from Folsom to Lincoln. Assisted by easy access to rail shipping, granite mining and creation of finished granite products formed the backbone of Rocklin’s economy |
Holmes / Renaldi Shootout in 1914
In 1914, Rocklin’s once-booming granite industry was waning due to labor strife and competition from cement-based concrete. The Southern Pacific Railroad had moved Rocklin’s roundhouse to Roseville 6 years earlier. And a peace officer died in the line of duty for the... |
Rocklin’s Roundhouse 1867 to 1908
In 1862, during the Civil War, the United States Congress authorized Federal incentives for construction of a rail line to connect eastern population centers with California. In January 1863 the Central Pacific Railroad started laying rails eastward from |
Rocklin: Prosperous and Growing in the 19th Century
In February 1893, Rocklin’s population was expanding, its industrial base was solid and business was booming, so its electorate approved a ballot proposal to incorporated as a city. |
Nisenan, Rocklin’s Earliest Culture
They built their villages on low rises along Rocklin’s streams, hunted game animals in Rocklin’s hills and meadows and gathered fruits, nuts, seeds and roots here for 2000 years before European explorers |
Introduction to Rocklin History Series
Recent archeological evidence indicates earliest human habitation of the Rocklin area at about 7,000 years ago. |
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