Victor, Jacob Nash
Jacob Nash Victor (April 2, 1835 - October 3, 1907) was a railroad builder and public official whose work helped bring the Santa Fe system through Cajon Pass and into the Mojave Desert.Born in Sandusky County, Ohio, Victor began railroad work during the Civil War. Physical disability kept him from military service, but he worked on military railroads in the South. After the war he continued in railroad construction and management in the Midwest, Texas, and New York before coming to California in 1881.
Victor joined the California Southern Railroad, the Santa Fe's Southern California affiliate, first as general freight agent and then as superintendent and general manager. He became closely associated with the construction of the line north from San Bernardino through Cajon Pass to Barstow, then called Waterman. Working with engineer Fred T. Perris and other railroad men, he helped carry the route through one of Southern California's most difficult mountain corridors.
Floods in 1884 badly damaged the California Southern's earlier route through Temecula Canyon. The railroad pressed on with its northern extension, and the line over Cajon Pass was completed in November 1885. It gave the Santa Fe a direct connection between Southern California and its transcontinental route at Barstow, ending Southern Pacific's effective railroad monopoly in the region.
Victor was also associated with the railroad bridge across the Mojave River near the present Victorville area. The original bridge did not survive later floods, but its substantial granite abutments remained an important early railroad landmark.
A railroad station and telegraph office established in the 1880s was named Victor in his honor. A town grew around it. In 1901, the Post Office changed the name to Victorville to avoid confusion with Victor, Colorado. Victor later served on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
His name remains attached to the city of Victorville and to the old Santa Fe route through Cajon Pass, a corridor that continues to carry heavy freight traffic more than a century after its construction. San Bernardino County history California Historical Society Quarterly
California Southern Railroad
Railroads of the Mojave Desert
Victor Valley history
Cajon Pass
Mojave River
Victorville
Cajon Pass