Skip to main content

Conejo, CA; ghost town on the rails

While looking at old maps of Fresno County I noticed several old rail siding towns along what was Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF) line south of Fresno.  Most of the rail siding towns no longer exist or were just a collection of small residences, but one caught my eye with Conejo.


The rail siding Conejo is located at the junction of Conejo Avenue and Peach Avenue alongside what is now the BNSF tracks south of Fresno.  Conejo was established as a rail siding town of the ATSF when the line expanded into rural Fresno County in 1897.  Conejo was one of many rail siding towns the ATSF established south of Fresno, others would include; Oleander, Bowles, and Monmouth.  All rail ATSF rail sidings south of Fresno are shown as present on the 1911 map of Fresno County.

1911 Fresno County Map 

Rail siding towns were common along early rail lines which ran steam locomotives.  Steam locomotives required far more maintenance than modern diesel locomotives than modern diesel locomotives do.  Rail siding towns were often established as company towns with the sole purpose of serving locomotives running on a particular line.  By the 1930s diesel locomotives were becoming far more established which led to the decline to the rail siding town.  This is reflective on the 1935 California Division of Highways Map of Fresno County which shows most of the ATSF much less prominently.

1935 Fresno County Highway Map

Oddly the ATSF rail siding towns in Fresno County largely still exist in some form or fashion.  Most have little to no evidence servicing steam locomotives but Conejo does.  As I approached Conejo eastbound on Conejo Avenue there was actually a train passing by.


As I was crossing the BNSF lines I was hoping the utility box displayed Conejo, CA but it only displayed Conejo Avenue.



Conejo isn't signed as a place anymore but the street grid is still present.  Topeka Avenue served as a Main Street for Conejo and runs along the tracks.


There is still a relic commercial building along Topeka Avenue which has a faded sign that reads "Gen Merchandise."  Conejo Apparently had a Post Office which was in operation until the early 1920s.


Topeka Avenue has a lot of old crates and various storage yards and is in really haggard shape.  Topeka Avenue ends at Peach Avenue.



Along Peach Avenue I spotted an old broken derelict truck and an abandoned home ready cave in.



There was even an old water tower at the junction of Conejo Avenue and Peach Avenue.  It's hard to believe that Conejo was probably once a bustling little town much like nearby Fowler and Selma.


Update 6/27/20:  I made a return to Conejo to what had become of the community since the High Speed Rail project was constructing an overpass through the former siding facility.  Suffice to say the difference seen along Topeka Avenue was quite substantial.





Comments

Dean Neighbors said…
I just found this story that you wrote in 2018. I lived in Conejo from 1949 to about 1953 (18 months old to 4 years old). Our little house was situated on 3 acres on topeka ave right on the junction of Peach Ave. There was a grocery store on the corner of Conejo and Peach owned and operated by a woman named Maggie Down. ....and there was a potato warehouse along the railroad siding. As far as I don't remember trains stopping in Conejo but they must have been stopping at the potato shed...I'll have to ask my older sister...she worked there as a teen. Loved your story, thanks. Regards, Dean Neighbors.

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1