'Hobo Hilton'

It's been some time since the patrons at the Roseville Moose Lodge on Lincoln Street have had any problems with the men who hung out at the "Hobo Hilton.""Used to be, every night they'd be out there camping out," said Allen Markow of Roseville, who's been a Moose Lodge member since 1988."Out there" is the area under the Sierra Vista Bridge, which connects Old Roseville's northside business district with the Sierra Vista housing tract. Old-timers affectionately know the bridge as the "Old Crooked Bridge" and the "Hobo Hilton." The span has become somewhat of a local landmark.The latter moniker, according to Roseville historian Duke Davis, came from the vagabond men who would spend time under the bridge, seeking shelter from the elements until another train came along."It was ideal for them," he said. "The trains would come and go right under that bridge slow enough for them to give them easy access to jump on or off. And it was cool under there in the summer and it kept them safe from the winter rains."The "Crooked Bridge" name is easier to understand, since the cement span curves dramatically to the right from Lincoln Street, between the Moose Lodge and the Roseville Historical Society's Carnegie Museum."It's not because the architects were drunk or anything," Davis notes.Rather, the unique design was a matter of necessity, when state officials told local leaders that any bridge couldn't impede the flow of traffic on Lincoln Street, which was in the 1920s also part of Highway 99."My understanding is that it was supposed to be a temporary thing," Phoebe Astill, curator of the Carnegie Museum, said of the structure. A wooden span was originally erected in 1907 in that spot by developers of the Sierra Vista housing area. In the early days, Davis noted, hobos would steal wooden planks and use them for firewood.Astill said she's heard the wooden bridge either fell down or was burned, and a cement replacement was installed - complete with signature curve - in 1929.The stability of the cement structure led to the stability of the vagrant population, Astill and Davis said."That bridge was probably on every hobo map in the country," Davis said.Astill said the men who hopped on and off the trains in that spot would leave messages scrawled on the cement for one another, often listing the names, addresses and phone numbers of "easy targets.""They used to look for people who would give them food and work," Astill said.She said by the 1970s, most of the people were known for "demanding" food or money. But, as the Moose Lodge members can attest, the population of the "Hobo Hilton" died off after railroad officials changed the path of the track, making it more difficult for people to access the trains."There haven't been nearly as many problems since then," said Ben Godager, a Moose Lodge member. "The railroad police helped run them off, too."Though Highway 99 was relocated west of Roseville years ago, the curved span remains. Astill said she knows of no plans to replace the bridge in the near future, and noted any replacement would still need to maintain the crooked path."There's really no place else you could put up a new entry point now because of all the development and houses now," she said. "It would still have to be crooked."- Sherri L. Shaulis can be reached at sherris@goldcountrymedia.com.