Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-07-26
CLIFTON.
ONE OF THE PROSPEROUS CAMPS OF
 ARIZONA.
Evidences of Scotch Nerve---Rich and Prosperous Mines Finely Developed-- Some Marvellous Engineering Feats
 Accomplished on Small
 Railway.
Correspondence Phenix Republican.

Correspondence Phenix Republican.
 Nestled along the San Francisco river in the mountains of Eastern Graham county lies the busy little mining camp of Cliff ton. Arizona. Being off direct line of travel and the mines principally owned by foreign capitalists, the place in prob ably less familiar to the majority of Ari- zonans than any other camp of consider able importance in the Territory. While not quite as large as the mines of the Copper Queen Company at Bisbee, they are very considerable and support most thriving settlement. There are about AGO men employed in the mines and smelters and population of near 2000 depend upon their labor As mentioned above the property is owned mainly by foreign capital the principal office of the company being located at Edinburgh, Scotland. Tie Superintendents of tie different departments such as furnaces, mines. railways, etc, are Scotchmen, as are in fact majority of the Norkmen. All are men of education and culture and possessed of that indomitable Scotch will which knows no failure.
 As evidence of their persistency and faith in the ultimate success of the mines may be mentioned the wonderful railroad building at a cost of several millions of dollars, before scarcely any ore had been taken from the earth. But such persis- tency won finally as it ought always to do
 First was built three-foot gauge rail road from Lordsburg. N. M, at a con nection with the Southern Pacific to Clifton, a distance of seyenty-one miles. This road in itself is a giant piece of en- gineering, the grade in reaching the sum of 4ba I1f c7,71r of 4bs, MOcrol1r-, mountains, seven miles south of Clifton, being forty feet to the mile and the curves in several places being on an arc of circle of 32 .
 But the most wonderful piece of en- gineering in connection with this vast property and for that matter in the world, IS the twenty-inch guage railroad which runs from the smelter and reduction works at Clifton, up Chase Creek Canon to the mines above. Every little while one reads about the enormous grades on the Rio Grande in crossing the Mullen noun tains, yet none of them compare to this. Some time ago I remember reading a de- scription of the new trans-Andes railroad in South America. in which it was said, 1 if remember aright, that the grade on l the Chili side was in some places 265 feet to the mile, the heaviest grade, of any railroad in the world. Right here in our own Territory of Arizona we have a rail road which far exceeds that. The main | line of this twenty-:nch railroad in nine. miles in length and with it's several i branches has a total length of sixteen miles. In no place on the main line has 1t grade less than POO feet to the mile while at one point for distance of about 1 three furlongs the grade is at the rate of 1 303 feet to the mile. The engine and cars for this road are built especially for 1t in Pittsburg, Pa. The engines weigh twelve l tons each. The cars are of steel weigh | ing little over half a ton each and have l a carrying capacity of about three and a half tons of ore. Capt. U. E. Davis, the 1 engineer in charge in the construction of l this road, in speaking of it said:
 i T take more pride in this work than any other piece of engineering in all my life. 1 was one of the engineers in the construction of the Central Pacific, of the Southern Pacific and have had charge of i other small lines. None 0f these, howeves, presented obstacles but what any engineer of fairly good skill could solve. But this i l consider Is a conception. Not only the i greatest grades but the greatest curves, one of the latter being on an arc of 45 de grees, and its successful working setting at nought all the old and prescribed rules of engineering science. I shall al ways consider this the crowning triumph of my life"
 The mines at Clifton were first dis covered by some soldiers of the Califor- mia column who had been dispatched to find a road down the Gila river. and com ing to box canon, were obliged to turn back, when they came across the hill on which is located the Longfellow mine discovering the copper and iron which has since developed into the great copper
 camp of Clifton.
 Connected with the twenty-inch gauge
 railroad are several gravity inclines reach ing to the opening of the mines hundreds of feet above. One of these located at the Longfellow mine is 2200 feet in
 length the elevation in that distance be- ing a little over 800 feet. At the Meteali mine the incline is 3300 feet in length and on an exact angle of 45 degrees, the raise thus being 1850 feet.
 Besides all the mines and properties of
 the Arizona Copper Company there are
 several other valuable locations in close
 proximity. At Morenci, about two miles
 from the Longfellow mine, is situated the
 mines and smelters of Detroit Copper Company, which employs over 150 men
 The others are smaller properties, but all help to add to the wealth of the camp, one , of the best being the gold mine of J. II
 Hovey, few miles distant.