The railroad transformed Paradise after operations began in November 1903 and a depot was built in 1904, with the rail yard including the depot, a water tank, a stockyard, a siding and spur, and a motorcar house farther up the track. Stores and offices were built near the depot, residential subdivisions sprang up, and commerce shifted from Old Paradise on Clark Road to the new town site. In 1905, Dr. W.E. Mack built an olive processing plant east of the railroad tracks and shipped pickled olives and olive oil under the Highlands Farms Brand. On April 20, 1905, the Congregational Church filed incorporation papers for Sierra Polytechnic Institute, a vocational and technical school on College Hill that operated between 1906 and 1910. The depot was retired on January 19, 1960, and the rail yard continued to shape Paradise as the site of Paradise Community Park, completed in 2006 as a place for the community to gather.