The Cemetery at Milton

Funerary services are being held for one of the citizens of Milton. All of the items used in the scene are commercial products readily available.

Wandering through the cemetery at Milton (the prototype, not the model) is an interesting look at the past. Some people died young while others lived into their 80s. It seemed appropriate to provide a cemetery for my model Milton. I was able to put together a small cemetery which was not kept up real well but was still serviceable. The mourners, casket and minister came from a Langley (British) figure set while the tombstones were from Woodland Scenics. The fancy fencing is made by Tichy. The sign over the entrance was cut out using my laser cutter. The hearse is a Jordan product.

 

Oil Tankers on the Road

Tanks full of oil destined for the gold mills in the mountains. The railroad's tank car unloading trestle can be seen in the background.

In the hills above Milton during the 1890s, there was an oil-powered gold processing mill. Obviously, the oil had to get to the mill, so oil-powered Holt steam tractors were used to haul tanks of oil from the rail-served oil storage tank. In my last post, I showed the Rio Grande Models kit of the steam tractor. RGM also made Holt 3-wheel trailers to be used for hauling whatever the owner needed. In this case, the Mountain Traction Company needed to move oil.
   

The prototype tanks being filled at Milton at the turn of the century.

The chassis for the tanks was the RGM kit. The tanks were made using PVC pipe with Precision Scale Models tank car domes. The ends were cut out of acrylic and glued to the ends of the pipe. Thanks to Rio Grande Models, I was able to easily model this aspect of what was happening on the railroad in my time period.

A Video Tour of Milton

Before we finally leave Milton and turn to other subjects, I wanted to try my hand at another video and also show some details of the town. Here are the results of my efforts.

Livery and Blacksmith Open Shop at Milton

Stages are lined up at the passenger platform to take travelers to Sonora, Angels Camp, Chinese Camp and Jackson. The stages were part of the 12-15 vehicles built for Milton.

Since my last post in April, I have been doing quite a few things on the railroad but none that really show up. In my campaign to get Milton finished, I've built around 12-15 wagons and buggies with which to populate the town, painted around 30 figures and numerous bits of boxes, baggage and other junk to pile on the platforms. Two new structures have been added, however, which should be the last ones needed on this area of the railroad.
   

Martin's Livery sits next to the road leading to the town of Jenny Lind and close to the railroad tracks. A corral will be erected at the rear of the building to contain the horses.

The first new structure is Martin's Livery based on an actual livery stable in Milton in the 1890s. I knew the footprint of the building but that's about all. I could see the top of the roof in one of my overall photos but that's it so freelancing was the only way to really model it. A few months ago, I helped a friend of mine, Doug Taylor, make some decals. He wanted to repay me and asked me if I needed a structure. I gave him some drawings and Martin's Livery emerged. While Doug built the building, I painted it and added the signage but it's mostly Doug's work. I think it fits pretty well with the rest of the town.
   

Wagon and tool repair are a product of the Milton blacksmith, Diedrich Helm. Since he has a forge, he also gets to act as the local farrier and show horses.

The other structure was the Blacksmith shop which was adjacent to the livery stable. Since blacksmiths did a lot more than just shoeing horses, I added some welding and metal forming equipment and even included a drop hammer.
     I intended to start work on the Milton turntable this week but did not have the right size beams. These are now on order and then work will begin.
     Thanks, Doug, for your contribution to the Stockton & Copperopolis.

Mining Equipment on the Move

Here are cars carrying a feeder, stamps for a stamp mills, the camshaft for the mill, a retort, crusher and Wilfley table base.

The well car with 20-foot gear. The bottom of the gear extends below the car deck, almost to the rails to provide enough clearance for the tunnels. The second car carries a steam engine frame while the third car carried the rest of the engine parts plus its flywheels.

I like loads on flat cars. With the railroad bringing goods to the gold rush country, it seems logical that some of this heavy equipment would show up on flat cars on the S&C. I had an old kit made by Western Scale Models which represented such a load of various types of mining equipment. I finally decided to put the thing together and place them on a couple of flat cars. The original plan of the kit maker was that everything would fit on two 40-foot flats. When you're using 30-foot flats, the load takes up three cars. Adding in the steam engine load from American Model Builders increases the train to 5 cars. When I had gotten this far, I realized that I had to build one of my favorite loads, a 20-foot diameter gear on a well car. This particular load was copied from 1875 newspaper articles and an photo of the car. So now we have a six-car train which, due to the gear (which barely clears the tunnel portals), will have to operate very slowly, not exceeding, say, 10 mph. We'll see how that weaves in with the other traffic on the line.

   

This overview of Milton shows the Tornado Hotel at the left along with a barn which is a stand-in for a livery stable and blacksmith shop to be built. The Masonic Lodge is in the center with the town stretching behind it. Alongside the tracks are the various warehouses and freight forwarders. A corral will be on this side of the tracks along with a turntable to be at the right just out of the picture.

Here is another photo of Milton which I wanted to include in the last post. I think it shows the town in a better view. As I mentioned, I still need a few structures and a turntable to round things out.

Progress at Milton

Looking a Milton from the south, the town is arranged along the east side of the town plaza with the warehouses on the west side. The Masonic Lodge looms over the entire scene.

After several months of structure and scenery construction, Milton is starting to look like a town rather than a bare piece of plywood. So far, there are 17 structures which have been built, only one of which was from a kit. That was only because I had no pictures of the building and the kit was the right size.
 

Looking north up the main street, the Milton Hotel is on the right with the Peterson & Dake store on the left. Stores, barber shop, saloons and a livery stable are all present. Church's Mineral Springs was a hot springs in the area.

 It was a challenge to build a whole town to scale but rewarding for me. The only thing out of scale was the depth of the scene looking from the aisle. I just did not have quite enough depth but it isn't real apparent unless you study old pictures or have visited the actual location. The structures were styrene with Grandt or Tichy windows and doors. Dimensions were taken from Sanborn insurance maps of the town. Building colors were a little trickier. I had to take educated guesses based on the varying shades of gray from the old photos and compare that with other pictures taken with the blue sensitive film of the day. The names of the establishments were taken either from photos or the town directory of the 1890s.

The Tornado Hotel was named for an 1873 tornado which ran through town and turned the under-
construction hotel on the foundation. The owner finished the building and named it accordingly.

   On the prototype, Milton was the end of the line and almost all of the goods traveling to the gold country passed over the rails to end up here. Freight wagons carried the goods to the places like Angel's Camp, San Andreas, Altaville, Sonora, Columbia and Jamestown. The large Masonic hall on the hill was the dominant building in the town and lasted until January 2016 when it burned. It was the last remaining structure in the town which was there when the railroad existed.
 

An overall view of the town looking from the north. All of the platforms need some "set decoration" and the streets need wagons. The Tornado Hotel is just out of the picture to the left.

 There is still a lot of work to be done to build a turntable, stock pen, livery stable and blacksmith shop as well as stock the loading platforms with goods and the streets with wagons and buggies.

Last Structure Before Scenery

My model of the Mason's hall will sit prominently on the highest part of town strategically placed so that arriving train passengers will see the inviting signs of the Plaza Saloon.

What was to become home to the Masons in Milton was built shortly after the railroad arrived in 1871. There is an 1871 photo which was obviously taken from the building's balcony showing the railroad depot. In 1881, the Free and Accepted Masons Keystone Lodge No. 161 of Copperopolis voted to move to Milton and did so. They were not the only tenants of the building, however. The Plaza Saloon occupied the southern portion of the first floor while a dance-cum-meeting hall had the rest. The Masons were on the second floor. Here they continued to meet until January 2016 when a fire broke out and burned the structure to the ground.
     Being the single largest and most prominent building in town, it had to be modeled. I had to the good fortune to visit Milton a few times and, during one of these visits, was invited to tour the interior of the building. I was also allowed to copy some of the old photos on the walls of the structure, some of which have been shown in this blog.
   

This photo, taken in November 2014, shows the southeast corner of the building. The entrance to the Masonic Lodge is through the door on the side of the building instead of the front as is portrayed on the model. 

My model of the hall was built of styrene, the only real tricky part being the fabrication of the decorations around the soffits of the building front. I only shingled one side of the roof and left the off side of the building blank since it cannot be seen from the viewing angles. Finding the right size ball to use on top of the flag pole was tricky but my wife's daughter produced a tray of beads which yielded one of the proper size.
      Milton was built on the side of a slightly rolling hill with the railroad being at the lowest part. Now I need to flesh out that hillside. I plan to use foam to build up and shape the hill which I have never done before. It should be interesting. After Christmas, I think.

Milton Business Block is Growing

With the Milton Hotel at the far right, the business area of Milton stretches north (to the left) with stores, saloons, livery and a barber shop.

The business area of Milton has been growing a bit. Several structures have been constructed which make up the string of semi-flats which line the backdrop behind the town. All of the structures were based on photos of Milton, some of which have been seen in this blog. Dimensions were obtained from Sanborn Insurance maps of the town. Construction has been all of styrene using Tichy and Grandt windows and doors. The only kit used is the blue dwelling at the end of the block. It represents a boarding house which was there. A Grandt Line kit was about the right size so I used it.
   

The ground level slopes from the depot (left) uphill along the businesses. Foam will fill in the slope and form the road in front of the structures.

The railroad is at the lowest level of the town and the town is located on rising ground behind the depot. To get this effect, I laid out the buildings on a strip of wood, adding risers based on the elevations noted on the Sanborn maps and onsite visits. Eventually, foam will be added to form the rest of the rising ground with Sculptamold filling in the gaps.
   

This more elevated view shows the relationship between the businesses and the depot and warehouses along the tracks. The Mason Lodge will fit about inthe middle of where the pink foam is now located.

 The colors of the businesses are all speculation based on the shades of gray shown in the photos. Even these changed over time but I think I have a reasonable set of colors which could have existed in 1895.
      There are a couple more major structures to be built: the Tornado Hotel at the end of the block away from the Milton Hotel and the Masonic Lodge which will be between the railroad and the business block.

Down by the Milton Tracks

Overall view of the Milton trackside. From left to right are the loading platform and crane, Hunter, Bunds & Walker, the depot, L. Beysser warehouse and the Peterson & Dake Warehouse. There is much finishing to be done e.g. staining platforms, adding baggage. Compare this view with the prototype one below.

Looking from the same end of the siding as above, the prototype view shows much of the activity surrounding Milton in the early days. In the background are the Milton Hotel and some of the commercial buildings. Note the privy on the platform.

The first phase of the Milton townsite construction is mostly completed. That was the building of the structures along the siding in town. These consisted of the Peterson & Dake Warehouse, the L. Beysser freight forwarding warehouse, depot and freight station, the Hunter, Bunds & Walker Warehouse and the loading platform. None of the buildings are as yet fastened to the layout since they will be removed so that the structures in the background can be installed.
   

The Peterson & Dake warehouse takes up most of the other end of the siding. I don't know if the business name was painted on the building side as I have no photographs of that part of the building but I think it looks good.

Milton in 1871 in a view that will not be seen on the model. The P&D warehouse is to the left with the depot building at the right. The P&D general store is at the center.

The layout of the town is according to both Sanborn insurance maps and railroad station plats. The buildings' appearances were derived from photographs of Milton taken around the turn of the century or before. The occupants of the various buildings changed over the years. I have tried to label them per the 1893 town directory I have. The names used give more of a feeling of reality than any fictional names I could have devised.
 

The Beginnings of Milton

The Milton depot contains a freight, ticket office and the P&D store as well as an advertisement for a local health center. The platform will be continued in both directions from the building.

Milton was the easternmost terminal of the Stockton & Copperopolis. Up until 1887, it was one of the busiest towns on the railroad both with goods shipped and received. Everything going to the Mother Lode mining towns north of the Stanislaus River went through Milton. Almost nobody went to Milton. It was simply a transfer point.
    There were several freight forwarders who would undertake to move your goods to their final destination and several stage lines as well. The best way to reach Yosemite Valley was through Milton. The Yosemite traffic ended in 1887 when the Southern Pacific built the Raymond branch. It was a closer trip and you could stay in your Pullman all the way to Raymond. When the Sierra Railroad was completed in 1897, it reached all the way up to Sonora, the heart of the mining district so almost all the freight now went via the Sierra and Milton became a very sleepy town.
    In 1895, there was still an active town with all of the stores occupied. The Sanborn map company visited there in 1890, 1895, 1908 and 1912 so there is a lot of documentation regarding what was in town. I also have enough photos and, more interestingly, enough layout space to model virtually the entire business area of the town to scale.
     My first structure, fittingly, is the S&C's depot, built in 1871 along with the several warehouses strung out along the siding. The depot building had a large freight house and shared the structure with a small store run by Peterson & Dake. They also owned a grain warehouse located on the siding (my next structure). P&D were also the Western Union Telegraph and Wells, Fargo & Co's. agent.
    My building is all of styrene except for the Minuteman Scale Models shingles and was modeled full size. Few photos of the building are available so some features had to be based on common practice and available plot plans. Next project will be to continue the platforms to define the siding area before continuing on with the actual structures.