Southern Pacific Train Depot
The first train depot in Ventura County was built in Santa Paula in 1887 on the Coast Line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the main line between San Francisco and Los Angeles before the shorter Montalvo Cutoff was built through the Santa Susana Mountains. Dwarfed (or perhaps most easily found) by the Moreton Bay fig tree, planted in 1879, across the street, the station is the home today of the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce and Gift Shop. The Depot welcomed train enthusiasts aboard the antique Fillmore & Western Railway, used in more than 400 movies, TV series and commercial shots, until 2021 and is now the office for the Sunburst Railbikes and Sierra Northern’s Film Office. The station, most notably, was used as a rural Australian train station in the miniseries ‘The Thorn Birds.’ It is a designated Ventura County Historic Landmark.
Santa Paula, Ventura County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt