Kearsarge

The first written account of Kearsarge we have found is June 23, 1866; the San Francisco paper “Alta California” mentioned Kearsarge as a stage station and it seems to have evolved into the railroad station by 1883. It was located just east of the old site of Bend City, so named for the large bend in the Owens River. First named Independence for the nearby town and county seat: later it was named Citrus before being renamed Kearsarge. Aside from the station building there was a residence for the section boss and a bunkhouse for the workers. The typical C&C station building stood until 1955 when it was demolished.On the SP narrow gauge, trains heading toward San Francisco were carded as Westbound (north on compass), while those headed away from San Francisco were Eastbound (south on map). It made little difference that there were no rails between Laws and Mina (after 1938), the Laws depot name board still showed the distance to San Francisco as 506.8 miles. At Kearsarge the distance was shown as 550.1 miles.Today the 13 acre station site is owned by the CCRW and is being improved as a monument while the ROW to the north and south is littered with artifacts and reminders of what was.