Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 16, 2008

The Mussel Slough Tragedy was a dispute over land titles between settlers and the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) that took place on May 11, 1880 on a farm located 5.6 mi northwest of Hanford, California in the central San Joaquin Valley, leaving seven people dead. Frank Norris' 1901 novel, The Octopus: A California Story, was inspired by this incident, as was W. C. Morrow's 1882 novel Blood-Money. The exact history of the tragedy has been the source of some disagreement, due to a popular anti-railroad sentiment in the 1880s which saw the tragedy as a clear example of corrupt and cold-blooded corporate greed. Muckraking journalists and anti-railroad activists glorified the settlers and used the tragedy as evidence and justification for their anti-corporate crusades. The site of the episode is now registered as California Historical Landmark #245. The historical marker is at 36.38917°N, -119.70861°W on the east side of 14th Avenue, 350 yards (320 m) north of Elder Avenue.