Sacramento County
Biographies
THOMAS RUDECH
THOMAS RUDECH--A locomotive engineer of long and valuable experience, Thomas Rudech well merits the comfortable retirement he is now enjoying at 1706 K Street, Sacramento, rich in friends, not so badly off with respect to this worlds goods, and happy in the consciousness that his has been peculiarly a useful and successful life.
He was born on a farm in Slavonia, Austria, on July 15, 1842, and when a mere boy began to follow the sea, visiting many interesting parts of the world. On July 12, 1862, he sailed through the Golden Gate into San Francisco harbor, on a voyage from Boston by way of Cape Horn; and having decided to stay in California, he tried fishing in San Francisco Bay for eight months, and then, in 1863, came to Sacramento. He worked for a while on Charles Eisen's ranch, and for a while in a Sacramento restaurant; and in May, 1869, he entered the employ of the Central Pacific Railway, to work in the repair shops. Later he was a fireman on a locomotive, and then, in 1874, he was promoted to be engineer. He was fireman on the first train running out of Sacramento for Alameda, on September 18, 1869, and on that occasion, marking the completion of the road, prominent railroad officials and men who figured in the early history of the state; including Governor Leland Stanford, Messrs. Mark Hopkins, Huntington, and Crocker, and others, rode on the train. He has driven locomotives burning wood, coal and oil, his first engine being the "Andrew Jackson"; and he drove the first coal-burning locomotive, the "No. 19," over the mountains from Sacramento to Truckee. He has run from Sacramento to Alameda, from Sacramento to Truckee, and from Sacramento to Red Bluff. At the end of forty-one years of devoted and successful service, he was retired on October 1, 1910. He has many interesting recollections, among them the driving of the golden spike, linking California with the East, which occurred while he was in the Sacramento shops. He joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in 1877.
Mr. Rudech bought lots at the corner of K and Seventeenth Streets in early days, and today he owns four houses which he has had erected there. At that time, that section was "out in the country"; and he can remember when the business district ended at Sixth Street, and there were only a few scattered houses to the east in Sacramento.
Mr. Rudech was married in 1870, on the 3rd of February, when he took for his wife, Miss Mary Brannan, a native of Ireland. She was a good and gifted woman, who proved most helpful as a wife, friend and neighbor; and when she died on November 30, 1918, she was mourned by many. Mr. Rudech is exceedingly active for his years, and still drives his own automobile.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Page 568. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.