Sontag came to California to work for the Southern Pacific Transportation Company . He crushed a leg while coupling rail cars in the company yard in Fresno . He accused Southern Pacific of failure to care for his on-the-job wounds and then refusal to rehire him after he had healed . In 1889 , John Sontag was employed on a farm in Tulare County near Visalia by Christopher " Chris " Evans , a Canadian who had migrated to California . Evans was outraged over the dealings of the Southern Pacific , for high freight rates and the application of undue pressure to force landowners to sell their property to the railroad . The seizure of particularly valuable wheat-farming land is known as the Mussel Slough Tragedy . Though called the Pacific and Southwestern , the Southern Pacific is the actual villain of Frank Norris ' 1901 muckraking novel , '' The Octopus : A Story of California '' , a dramatization set in the San Joaquin Valley and stemming from the injustice of Mussel Slough
Mussel Slough Tragedy
Mussel Slough Tragedy
John Sontag