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Iron Women: The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad
The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad operated as it usually did on April 10, 1901. It ran as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The wood burning engine proceeded along its customary route without delay or interruption, giving no indication that the line’s president and owner had passed away.
John Flint Kidder had taken charge of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad in 1884. He was a construction engineer with both the vision to maintain the line and the business sense to manage it. The twenty-five-mile route connected the gold mines in northern California to the outside world. The tracks threaded the canyons and rolling countryside between Nevada City and Grass Valley and the Central Pacific main line in Colfax. The route included steep grades, two tunnels, and several trestles, the highest being ninety-five feet above the Bear River. Kidder’s Narrow Gauge carried more gold (some $300 million) than any other short line in the state. He was well respected and admired by a community that owed its progress to him.
Concern over the economic impact Kidder’s passing would have on the area was so great it’s surprising the railroad ran at all the day he died. Business owners whom benefitted from the railroad worried there would be an interruption in service that would threaten their livelihood. Rumors about who would take John Kidder’s place as head of the rail line did not immediately set the minds of those businessmen at ease.
John Kidder’s widow, Sarah, was aware there were those who doubted she was the right one to assume control of the Narrow Gauge Railroad, but she was determined to prove she was up to the task. Less than a month after her husband’s death, stockholders chose Sarah as John’s successor. According to an article in the September 20, 1901, edition of the Oakdale Leader, when Sarah Kidder accepted the job “she had the distinction of being one of the very few women, if not the only one, who ever held such a bona fide position and title.”
