In 1915, Sheriff Johnson acquires several parcels known as Star Ranch.   To this day, Star Ranch has one of the pastures named in his honor.

Spreckels personally took it upon himself to provide San Diego with its much-desired railroad over the mountains eastward.  In 1905, he announced that he would form the San Diego & Arizona (SD&A) Railway Company and build a 148-mile line between San Diego and El Centro for a cost of $6 million.  Dubbed The Impossible Railroad by many engineers of its day due to the immense geophysical and topographical challenges involved, the line was established to provide San Diego with a direct rail link to the east by connecting it with the Southern Pacific Railroad lines in El Centro, California.

Campo was a critical component of the seventy-mile Desert Line which extended north and east from the International Border junction (referred to as "Division") to Plaster City, a gypsum producing town west of El Centro.  Groundbreaking ceremonies for the SD & A Railroad were held on September 7, 1907.

Due to the outbreak of WWI, by January 1914, railroad building throughout the country was now at a standstill except for the San Diego & Arizona Railway. The great floods of January 1916 resulted in extensive damage to the work already underway along Campo Creek. The rails reached Campo, 65 miles from San Diego, and on October 2, 1916, a combination rail and auto service was inaugurated. Passenger service first began by train to Campo, transferring there to 12 passenger open touring cars of the White Star Motor Company to El Centro. Touring cars also took guests to the Buckman Springs resort.  Other touring car companies that arrived in the Campo Valley included Mack Motorstage, Dodge Motorstage, and Cadillac Motorstage in 1923.

In 1917, the federal government seized control of all railroads and stopped construction as part of its war effort to conserve resources. The U.S. government later granted Spreckels special exemption because SD&A would later serve military installations. Track laying began east from Campo and the towers and piers for the Campo Creek Bridge were completed by the end of 1918.  

One of the Campo Creek trestles as seen near Star Ranch

A worldwide influenza pandemic plagued construction activity in 1919. Construction workers in the camps at Carriso Gorge were especially hard hit. In order to avoid contracting the killer virus, people were encouraged to maintain proper rest, to get fresh air and maintain general hygiene, and avoid physical exhaustion and exposure to the cold.  The pandemic caused the United States largely to "…grind to a stop. Fear drove everybody inside.” Across the United States, "60% absentee rates" and empty city streets were common. The ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic which killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide finally reached  the  Campo  area.   By  late  1918,  laws  were
passed in San Diego and throughout California requiring people to wear ‘gauze masks’ to help prevent the spread of the killer virus.  The following ditty was often heard in San Diego and the Campo Valley.  “Obey the laws and wear the gauze.  Protect your jaws from septic paws”.

On November 15, 1919 construction of SD&A was finally completed at a cost of three times its anticipated budget. Unfortunately, Campo near Star Ranch was not the site of the “Golden Spike”—the last spike driven at the completion of the rail line.  That distinction went to Jacumba at the site of the Carriso Gorge crossing. 

“If ever a railroad was a monument to one man's undaunted courage, indefatigable energy and steadfast determination to surmount overwhelming odds, the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway is a vibrant memorial to John Diedrich Spreckels, the last of America's great railroad builders.”