| Neponset | |
| Settlement Type: | Unincorporated community |
| Pushpin Map: | California#USA |
| Pushpin Label: | Neponset |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Monterey County and the state of California |
| Pushpin Image: | California Locator Map with US.PNG |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | United States |
| Subdivision Type1: | State |
| Subdivision Name1: | California |
| Subdivision Type2: | County |
| Subdivision Name2: | Monterey |
| Established Title: | Incorporated |
| Coordinates: | 36.7286°N -121.7847°W |
| Elevation M: | 57 |
| Elevation Ft: | 187 |
| Timezone Dst: | PDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | -7 |
| Postal Code Type: | ZIP code |
| Postal Code: | 93908 |
| Area Code Type: | Area code |
| Area Code: | 831 |
Neponset (Martin Station until 1900) is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California. It is located along the Southern Pacific Railroad and California State Route 1 between Marina, California and Castroville, California, and 8.5miles northwest of Salinas, California, at an elevation of 23 feet (7 m).
Neponset was once a Southern Pacific Railroad station south of the Salinas River along the Monterey Branch Line. The station was near Castroville, the self-proclaimed "Artichoke Capital of the World," It was on the boundary of Rancho Rincón de las Salinas at the corner of the marshland. Neponset is primarily undeveloped and used as agricultural land. A branch line can be seen at Neponset along the abandoned Monterey Branch line. Dole Fresh Vegetables of Dole Food Company occupies the site next to the station.[1]
In 1879, when the Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad, it built a new route between Castroville, California and Bardin. Two bridges crossover the Salinas River. The railroad put in place a station just south of the bridges called "Martin's Station". Passenger and freight service went through the station.[1]
Pioneer John Martin came to California with his family during the California Gold Rush. When they landed in Monterey by ship in 1856, they acquired a ranch at Neponset where the family became farmers.[2] [3] In 1890, Martin's Station had a school house and several ranches.[4] }}
Martin's Station was renamed in 1900 to "Neponset", after Neponset, Boston, Massachusetts, where the Neponset Indians were the original inhabitants.[5] Neponset was an Indigenous word meaning "little summer place".[1] In the early 1900s, several announcements of families living in Neponset were listed in The Californian newspaper. The Neponset Temperance Club was started by men of Neponset.[6]
The population of Neponset reached its peak in the 1920s when a water tower was built. In the 1930s, the town began to shrink, and passenger service stopped during World War II. The Neponset Station was removed from train schedules by 1960.[1]
Neponset was located 113.9spell=inNaNspell=in from San Francisco along Castroville, Gilroy, and San José, and 14.7spell=inNaNspell=in from Lake Majella. The station had a 14 car track, a water tank that was installed in the 1920s, a class-A rail yard with a platform on the south side of the tracks that supported freight and passenger service. By 1951, the station no longer supported passenger service and its track shrank to only a 9 car track. On March 18, 1962, the Southern Pacific SD7 no. 5331, went westbound at Neponset, California, crossed the Salinas River to Monterey. By 1963, the station was taken out of Southern Pacific timetables.[1]
Monte Road is a frontage road that runs beside State Route 1, south of the Salinas River crossing. The railroad tracks still exist outside the Dole Food Company plant. The tracks break off just at the staff parking lot. Neponset Road wraps around the plant on its southern edge.[7]