New-York tribune., 1879-05-06
TO LEADVILLE UYDER DIFFICULTIES.

The rising fnrore in mining speculatioDs draws
all eyes to the new mining camps and first, as the
current of talk now runs to Leadyille Every
thing about this new Golconda is phenomenal-
the richness of the ore, the ease OF the MN
ing the rapidity of growth. the tremen-
dous investments by conldng capitalists And
now comes a fight about getting railroad to
the place which called thousand armed men INTO
the field taxed the powers Of the local courts, and
has at last evoked the adverse decision of the Su-
preme Court. The trouble waa, that nature had
made the railroad bed-and had made but one, while
two rival roads wanted to use it, Through the front
range of the Rocky Mountains there Is cut out Tor
the Arkansas River gorge 1000 feet hIgh be-
tween walls of solid porphyry, which at the bot
tom are in some places scarcely more than forty
feet apart. Through this the rival roads to Lead
Vile must run, or the one which failed to get 1t
must take circuitOus routes by steep grades and
long detours across the mountains.
Two roads tried TO occupy it before the courts
interyened and as late as April, 1873. thousand
armed men held the gorge. Even within month
the Atchison Topeka and Santa F6 Road has guarded
the lower twenty miles of the deie by an armed
band of over 200 men brought from Kansas. The
upper defile has been held by the Denver and Rio
Grande Company, with smaller force regularly
intrenched. While thus resting upon their arms,
the Atchson Company absolutely went ahead,
graded the entire road to Leadyile, 115 miles,
and even laid the rail on some twelve miles of it.
Now the Supreme Court IN the decision elsewhere
printed reverses the decision of the Circuit Court.
and awards the prior right through the
gorge to the Rio Grande Company. enjoin-
ing the other from interfering with OF
obstructing it. 1t would seem, therefore,
that the Rio Grande has nothing to do but enter IN
tI,ax rorlyt tI,atI 10 alrn V
done for it; while the rival line, if it builds
at all, is forced to take possession. of the
south side of the river. The decision provides that
if in any part of the Grand Canon it IS impracti-
cable or impossible to lay down more than one
road-bed and track, the court will rec
ognize the prior right of the RIO Grande
Company to construct and operate that track for its
own business, and should upon equitable terms
secure the right of the rival company to
use the same road-bed and track after
completion-the latter paying an equitable
share of the cost. 1t is claimed, however,
that there is room to make (although with much
greater difficulty a road-bed on the other side of
the river, all the way.
novel feature of the case is, that
before the appeal of the Rio Grande to
the Supreme Court had been heard. the AtchisOn
Company negotiated million OF bonds
and million and half OF stock, based upon the
supposed right of way which the Supreme Court has
now overturned. The bOndshave been quoted at lOi
and the stock at about 20, both being held mainly
in Boston. A question may now arise as to the
equitable claim of the bondholders upon the stock
holders: and this again may be complicated by the
fact that the stock was probably given away in the
first place as means of securing the taking of the
bonds Altogether, the decision promises to raise
multiplicity of nice points, and to lend peculiar
interest to the present modes of getting to the great
mining centre,