Fred T. Perris

Fred Thomas Perris (January 2, 1837 – May 12, 1916) was Chief Engineer of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, who oversaw the construction of the last leg of the 2nd Transcontinental Railroad from Barstow, California through Cajon Pass and down to San Bernardino and Los Angeles, a task that employed six thousand laborers, and is still in use by BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad He also laid, track from Riverside, California to San Diego, California laying out a series to town sites along the track, one of which, Perris, California was named in his honor. The city of Perris, California, a station on the California Southern Railroad, was named in his honor.(Its Cajon Pass. Not El Cajon Pass according to Chard Walkers "Cajon. Rail Passage To The Pacific")

Frederick Thomas Perris (January 2, 1837 – May 12, 1916) was born in Gloucester, England. At age 12 his parents emigrated to Australia where he was apprenticed to an architect/mechanic. At age 16 he moved again with his mother and sisters, settling in the Mormon colony at San Bernardino, California, where he was employed as the chain boy on the crew that surveyed and subdivided that city.

Four years later, when the colony collapsed the family moved to Utah, where they learned his father, rather than join the Mormons, had sold his assets in Australia, returned to England and died. He proceeded to England to settle his father's estate. During the two years that required, he was employed as an apprentice in the new technology of photography. Returning to America with his 'childhood sweetheart' as his bride, he proceeded to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he attempted, apparently without much success, to sell his wares as a photographer.

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