This historical marker is attached to a large boulder on the south side of the Lincoln Highway, at the east end of the downtown area. It is situated amidst other boulders between a glass repair company and a downtown parking lot. Other than this historical marker, there is no indication of the historical significance of this site. The marker reads:
C.P.R.R TRUCKEE ROUND HOUSE
NEEDED TO HOUSE AND MAINTAIN THE ENGINES OF THE CENTRAL
PACIFIC RAILROAD DURING CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRANS-SIERRA
CROSSING, AN ENCLOSED WOODEN ROUND HOUSE WAS CONSTRUCTED
HERE IN 1868. IT WAS RAZED BY FIRE IN MARCH 1869. A 16 STALL
WOODEN STRUCTURE WAS BUILT THAT YEAR AS THE MAINTENANCE
FACILITY OF THE C.P.R.R. TRUCKEE DIVISION. ANOTHER FIRE IN 1876 RESULTED IN CONSTRUCTION OF A 22 STALL GRANITE AND WOODEN
STRUCTURE. THIS SERVED THRU 1942, WHEN IT WAS OFFICIALLY
RETIRED. A VICTIM OF THE END OF THE STEAM ERA AND CONSOLIDATION
OF MAINTENANCE AT OTHER LOCATIONS. THE ROUND HOUSES WERE
HOME TO HELPER ENGINES, FIRE TRAINS AND THE FIRST ROTARY
SNOW PLOW IN THE SIERRA.
DEDICATED AUGUST 10, 1991 CHIEF TRUCKEE CHAPTER NO. 3691
E CLAMPUS VITUS
"Lawrence Kearney, a Truckee native, was engineer for Southern Pacific. This is the second of three articles he wrote for the Truckee-Donner Historical Society Quarterly Newsletter at age 91 in 1994-5.
This structure housed twenty four stalls or pits as they were called and a turntable to turn the locomotives to be parked in the different stalls. The man who designed and supervised the building of this roundhouse was George Washington Barnhart, who was hired by Mark Hopkins for this project. Mr. Hopkins was known as one of the Big Four who built the Central Pacific Railroad.
This roundhouse was unique in its design. It was built of granite stone, quarried in Rocklin, California and hauled on the railroad to Truckee. The roundhouse had pillars or posts in a ways from the walls with the turntable in the center so the roof was held up by steel rods and braces--or as an early day astrodome. It had to be very sturdy on account of the heavy snows or it would collapse. The railroad later had larger locomotives and the smoke stacks would not fit under the chimneys in the roof of the roundhouse so most of the time when the stacks would not fit under the chimneys the locomotives were backed into the stalls with the smoke stacks toward the center of the roundhouse. This cause the smoke from the locomotives to collect in the top of the roundhouse and as the years went by there was enough sulfur fumes in the smoke that when condensation formed on the cold rods and braces it formed an acid that finally ate them away until they were unsafe. The roundhouse was then condemned and torn down in the 1940s.
This roundhouse was built as fire proof as possible with very little wood. The decking on the turn table pit that turned with the turn table was wood and the roof or decking was wood. The outside on top was covered with sheet steel called galvanized iron so it could not catch on fire from sparks or coals landing on the roof. This metal roofing attracted enough heat from the inside of the roundhouse to cause the snow to slide off the roof. The floor of the roundhouse was blocks of granite set in mortar or what would be called cobble stones. In between each stall was a large stove that could burn cord wood or coal. When the temperature got cold the doors on the roundhouse were closed and fires started in these stoves to heat up the roundhouse to keep the water pipes on the locomotives from freezing and bursting.
The first roundhouse in Truckee was a wooden structure that an arsonist set on fire and burned on March 29, 1869. Two other buildings also burned, the Iron House and the Oil house. There were eleven locomotives in the roundhouse at the time and all but one (the Piute) were saved. At that time locomotives were known by names instead of numbers. A man by the name of D.J. Hickey was tried in Nevada City on arson for setting the fire. At the trial on March 2nd, 1870, the jury voted seven for conviction and five for acquittal. A second trial was held with the same results so the railroad gave up." (
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