In Search of the Santa Barbara Roundhouse on the Southern Pacific Coast Line

We are in California looking for great filming locations on the Southern Pacific coastal line through Santa Barbara County. Where we found what's left of the Roundhouse!

After chasing the Big Boy through Wyoming, we thought we would check out the area where it is heading next, Southern California. We had been told it would heading to Sacramento as well as Southern California, and our hope was it would take the coastal line through Ventura and Santa Barbara. As it happens, it seems at least, that NONE of that was correct. Except it is heading to Southern California soon. We are following on Union Pacific Steam Club in order to get the REAL schedule, not "fake facts". No matter, we had a great time, a great train ride and saw the beauty of the Gold Coast, including one of California's Big Trees (nope not a Redwood!) the Santa Barbara Depot and House Track, AND what's left of the roundhouse in Santa Barbara!!

From the web:
The earthquake of June 29th, 1925 destroyed many of Santa Barbara's ugliest buildings. Among them seemed to be the Southern Pacific's red brick roundhouse. It had nine stalls with a smoke vent over each one. It was located on the north side of Cabrillo Blvd., just across from the beach. santa Barbara had started a beautification process even before the quake. The Community Arts Association was pleased about ridding the town of many ugly buildings, as long as the owners could be persuaded to rebuild and conform to Spanish or Mediterranean architectural motifs. The chairman of the Plans and Planting committee was Pearl Chase, a distant relative of mine, who my wife and I met while living there.

The leaders persuaded the SP to cooperate with the City in its efforts to beautify itself by adapting a Spanish theme for its new roundhouse. SP at that time was seeking to improve its image, having lost its octopus like grip on State politics. Back came an anguished letter from an SP Vice-President; "How can a utilitarian structure like a locomotive roundhouse, be beautified?"

It was at this point that someone in Santa Barbara, most likely Pearl Chase, sent the railroad executive a picture postcard of the famous bull ring in Seville. The rest is history. The SP, eager to appease it's critics in Santa Barbara, reconstructed it's roundhouse as an authentic duplicate, exteriorly speaking, of the Seville bull ring. On festive occasions, such as during FIESTA week, colored pennants fluttered from the flagpoles along its facade facing Cabrillo Blvd. After many years it became a lumber yard and vacated near the end. As I remember, it was mysteriously destroyed and became Fess Parkers' Red Lyon Inn. The round rotunda of the Inn is where the roundhouse used to be.

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