Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

W. F. BIGELOW

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



            An experienced, efficient and popular railway man, always genial and 
accommodating, is W. F. Bigelow, the wide-awake tower-man of both the Southern 
Pacific Railroad and the Sacramento Northern Railroad, at Live Oak, where he has 
been stationed for the past thirteen years, or since the opening of the tower, 
at the junction of the two roads, half a mile north of Live Oak, on May 7, 1910. 
 He was born in Carson City, Nev., on October 13, 1877, the son of Augustus S. 
Bigelow, a native of Maine, who came West in the late sixties and worked, as an 
engineer, on the Central Pacific Railroad. In 1869, he settled at Carson City 
and married Miss Dora E. Pine, a native of Illinois, who reached California by 
way of Panama, and located at Reno.  Her father was a veteran of the Mexican 
War; and after the war, he brought his family to the Toll or Lake House, and 
conducted a hotel business at the bridge, in Reno, which later became the 
Riverside Hotel.  Mr. Bigelow served as deputy sheriff of Carson City for many 
years, and Mr. Pine later conducted the old Riverside Hotel.  Our subject is the 
eldest of four children, three of whom are still living; and during the World 
War, two of his brothers were foremen in the ship-building yards at Seattle.  
Augustus S. Bigelow has reached his eightieth year, and now resides at Loyalton, 
in Sierra County, Cal.
            W. F. Bigelow followed clerical work for a while in Carson City, and 
later was in the telegraph office of the Western Union at Carson City and also 
at Lake Tahoe; and for two years he was with the Wells Fargo Express at Carson 
City, in which town his father, after giving up railroad work, had become a 
guard at the State Prison.  In 1902, W. F. Bigelow came into California and went 
to Loyalton Mill; and for five years he worked in a box factory.  Then he took 
up railroading at the lumber camp on the Boca and Loyalton Railroad.  After two 
years, he started in as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad, running out 
of Truckee, in 1907, on the Sacramento Division.  And there he remained, doing 
faithful work for sixteen years.  Having had the great misfortune to be mixed up 
in a terrible railroad accident in the mountains, on account of which he was for 
thirteen months in the Southern Pacific Hospital, he abandoned braking, and on 
his recovery was placed in charge of the tower he now so ably manages that no 
fatality has occurred at his crossing since he was put there, fourteen years 
ago.  Where once there was a lone flagman, the automatic block signal system has 
so revolutionized the service that little chance is left for trains to collide.
            In 1900, Mr. Bigelow was married in Nevada to Miss Frances May 
Harris, who was born in San Francisco of English parents, now deceased.  Mrs. 
Bigelow, who was a particularly agreeable lady, passed away in the Bay City; and 
one daughter, Dora, survived.  She was born in Gardenville, Nev., and became the 
wife of Henry Scrogins, a market man of Gridley, in Butte County; and she is the 
mother of one child, Eleanor E.  In 1912, Mr. Bigelow remarried, at Sacramento, 
taking for his second wife Miss Anna Haken, who was born at Live Oak, and was 
the daughter of Joseph Haken, a pioneer.  After attending the Marysville High 
School for three years, she became a stenographer at Hale�s Store, in 
Sacramento, and there enjoyed an enviable esteem and popularity for her work and 
personality.  At an early date, Mr. Bigelow bought a home in Live Oak, in the 
Channon Addition; and there he and his family reside.  Since 1918 Mr. Bigelow 
has belonged to the Modern Woodmen of America.  Mrs. Bigelow is the secretary of 
the Live Oak Women�s Improvement Club.
            Notwithstanding his misfortune in the railroad accident, Mr. Bigelow 
is still a �regular fellow,� devoting some time, in the proper season, to 
hunting; and his knowledge of baseball covers many years.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p.  595