The evidence suggests that the San Francisco and San José and the Southern Pacific Railroad companies fell under the control of Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker some time in 1868. Mr. Stanford published a statement on March 6, 1868, to the effect that any rumor that the Central Pacific or Western Pacific Railroad Company or any person connected with either of them had purchased the Southern Pacific or the San Francisco and San José or any property or franchises connected therewith, or that any negotiations had been made tending to that result, was utterly without foundation.[169] On the other hand, it was Collis P. Huntington who signed a letter dated September 25, 1868, addressed to the Secretary of the Interior, at Washington, transmitting the annual report of the Southern Pacific Railroad required by the act of Congress. If Stanford told the truth in March, these two circumstances would indicate with sufficient precision the time when the associates took charge. In any case their influence was presently to appear.[170] Consolidation On October 12, 1870, the San Francisco and San José Railroad, the Southern Pacific, the Santa Clara and Pajaro Valley Railroad, and a new company, the California Southern, organized on paper only, were consolidated into a corporation known as the Southern Pacific Railroad of California. The directors for the first year were Lloyd Tevis, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Charles Mayne, and Peter Donahue. Plainly, Central Pacific interests were in control. The purpose of the new company was stated to be to construct and operate a railroad from San Francisco to the Colorado River, through the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Monterey, Fresno, Tulare, Kern, San Bernardino, and San Diego, together with a line from Gilroy through the counties of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey, to a point at or near Salinas City. This was not the line proposed in the articles of incorporation, as an examination of the accompanying map will show. It was, however, in the main the route designated by the Southern Pacific in 1867, upon which land had been withdrawn from entry by the government at Washington, and it had the advantage of reaching the eastern boundary of California with less mileage and fewer grades than the line originally laid out.[171] [Illustration: Proposed route of the Southern Pacific Railroad, according to map filed with the Commissioner of the General Land Office on January 3, 1867.]