Sparkle's found, but was it lost?

              VOL, 55 -NO.  175
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WALNUT CREEK, CALIF.,
SPARKLE AS  IT   LOOKS TODAY
Rapid transit tracks on  left, SP  tracks cross  Las Juntas Way.
TV/-
(Tj.mes Photo)
le's Found,
Was it Lost?
Sparkle, unlike the Lost
Chord,   has   been   found.
But was it ever truly lost?
Some may deny its exis-;
tence, but exist it does in the
hearts of those who remem-j
ber its days as a major shipping point for pears. Unques-j
tionably it exists in the minds;
of map - makers who continue'
to mark it in carefully.
The Times began the search
the other day after spotting
Sparkle in an atlas. A plea for
information was quickly answered by numerous area residents, including J. B. Young,
1333 Las Juntas Way, Walnut
Creek, present owner of the
property on which Sparkle
once (and, we like to think,
still) existed.
Sparkle was a spur track of
the Sacramento & Northern
Railway, located near Hook-
ston   Road   between   Walnut
Creek, Pleasant Hill and Concord. It was originally called
Las Juntas Station and all
trains stopped there. It was
a crossroads for both the
Southern Pacific and Sacramento Northern.
THE NAME was changed to
Sparkle in the early thirties.
About that time,*'Phil Bancroft, local fruit rancher, arranged for the spur track to
be built from the main line,
which touched his property, to
a nearby location. <
The big operation at' Si>ai&
kle was the stopping of pears
from- the Bancroft Ra"^
TJie ranch needed the
track, or team track as
was called in railroad vernacular, to hold carloads of pearr
|or cooking.prior" to,shipping.
"Refrigerated cars were
loaded at the ranch sheds and
brought $nto the spur tyack.
Pears'wto-left in.the cars to
cool to $■ degrees before being shipped to eastern produce markets.
i Clarence Grappe,V- /reight
agent for* the,railroa(t at its
PittsburgiMM c e , >as in
charge ofJfhe Walnut Creek
station ™il the offige closed
in November 1962. He handled
the papeJi^ork for the loading i
operation ai%>arkle. -        jg
A FORMER state pear, in-:
specter, Alfred Martin, now a
teacher in' Pleasant Hill, also
recalls checking the produce
cars ^a the. Sparkle siding
wnen the Bancrofts were shipping fruit from there.
Sparkle was never a passenger stop, although it was
listed on railroad timetables.
Trains passed the point at
6:05 a.m.
Although the line, which
served the Walnut Creek-Concord area and was known by
the railroad as the San Ramon route, was officially
closed in 1962, a timetable put
out in 1963 still showed the
Sparkle stopv at 6:05.
SOME OF the area where
fruit was .grown has become
a neighborhood of homes on
Las Juntas Way, Del Hom-
bre and Wayne Court. The
Bancroft family still has
many'acres of pears nearby.
(Continued on Page 2, Col. 2)