Los Angeles Pacific Railroad

The Los Angeles Pacific Railroad (1896−1911) (LAP) was an electric public transit and freight railway system in Los Angeles County, California. At its peak it had 230 miles (370 km) of track extending from Downtown Los Angeles to the Westside, Santa Monica, and the South Bay towns along Santa Monica Bay.

Originally a teacher from Vermont, Moses Sherman had engaged in a variety of activities in the Arizona Territory, one of which was creating a street railway in Phoenix, Arizona. He was interested in the possibilities such a system offered in Los Angeles. After his arrival in Los Angeles in 1890 Sherman and his brother-in-law, Eli P. Clark, consolidated old lines and created new lines for a narrow-gauge street railway called the Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Company (LACE). In addition, they acquired and electrified existing horsecar lines in Pasadena.

On April 11, 1894, Sherman and Clark incorporated the Pasadena & Los Angeles Electric Railway Company (P&LA), southern California’s first interurban line. This line connected the Pasadena lines with the LACE Railway system at Sycamore Grove.

In November, 1894, they incorporated the Pasadena & Pacific Electric Railroad Company (P&P) of Arizona, to build a second interurban line from Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

But all the construction on the LACE, P&LA and P&P properties stretched Sherman and Clark’s financial situation, and LACE defaulted on a bond payment. In March, 1895, the LACE Railway bondholder group acquired the LACE lines and organized a new company, the Los Angeles Railway Company (LARy). Sherman and Clark negotiated with the group and managed to keep the P&LA and P&P lines.

The Pasadena and Los Angeles line opened on May 4, 1895.

Construction to Santa Monica via Colegrove of the narrow-gauge electric line began shortly thereafter, on June 11, 1895, with Clark serving as contractor, using the roadbed of the old Elysian Park Street Railway and the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway. They negotiated an agreement with LARy to use that company’s track to enter the downtown area. Car shops and a rail yard were built midway between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, in an area they named Sherman. Santa Monica promoters Robert S. Baker and Senator John P. Jones provided 225 acres near the Soldier’s Home, and Sherman and Clark sold it to raise funds for construction. The property became part of Sawtelle.

On April 1, 1896, after passing through fields of wildflowers and freshly plowed farms, the first car entered into Santa Monica, where its arrival was celebrated.