Disappearing history

Borden was not always "nowhere," although that is what it was before migrating families from Alabama and Mississippi established the Alabama Colony in 1868-69. By the time the communities of Madera and Fresno were founded, the Alabama Colony already was a thriving farming settlement, according to historical information from the Madera County Library.

When the Central Pacific Railroad -- now the Union Pacific -- arrived from the north in 1872, the town was named for Dr. Joseph Borden, one of its civic leaders and original settlers. The railroad built its depot on the east side of the tracks, while the town was on the west side. The arrival of the railroad also brought about 2,500 Chinese laborers, for whom the cemetery was established southwest of the town in 1872.

By 1874, Borden had two hotels, two stores, two livery stables, two blacksmiths, and a post office, saloon, restaurant, butcher shop, barber and doctor's office. At its peak in the mid-1870s, the town reportedly had about 250 residents in addition to railroad workers.

But in the late 1870s, a lumber company decided to build a flume ending in Madera and built its sawmill there instead of Borden. That spelled the beginning of the end of the town. Businesses and residents eventually moved three miles north to Madera. The 1880 U.S. census listed 153 residents in Borden, and the town was virtually abandoned by 1890.

Borden's post office, which opened in 1873, closed briefly in 1896 and was shut for good in 1907.

The last original building, believed to have been the Borden Hotel, was torn down in 1975. The Casa Grande Motel, where one can rent a room for $39.99 a night, sits where the Borden Hotel was located. Most of the surrounding land is planted with grapevines.

The approximate site of Central Pacific's Borden depot is now occupied by National Hardware Supply's equipment sales yard full of graders, tractors and other heavy equipment.

The Chinese cemetery, which once encompassed a full acre at what is now the corner of Avenue 12 and Road 281/4, is a forlorn patch of bare earth with an overgrown oleander bush near the eight remaining grave markers. A marker offers a brief history of the site.

Rail connection

If you really want to go "nowhere," though, you need to head about two miles to the northeast, to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks.

That's where high-speed-rail planners would connect their dedicated line from Herndon -- if they had to -- to the rails Amtrak now uses. The engineers say it's "a point approximately 0.4 miles north of Avenue 13" along the BNSF tracks.

Maps show that Avenue 13 leads right up to the tracks from the east. Don't believe them. A half-mile of dirt road gives way to a half-mile of no road at all before reaching the rail line -- where a curious reporter last week was greeted by several equally curious cows peering through a barbed-wire fence.

As a freight train blows its horn in the distance, one thing is sure: You're not in Borden anymore.