Los Angeles herald., 1890-08-02
THE LOGIC OF FRAILRoADDEvELePMENT

THE LOGIC OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. OF
Notwithstanding all that has been
said semi-officially and otherwise about
the extension of the Central Utah road
terminating at Phoebe, we cannot recon-
cile so ''lame and impotent" conclu-
sion with the business and railroad
reasons that exist for its speedy contin-
uation to connection with the railroads
that reach Los Angeles, if not its inde-
pendent extension of the road direct to
this city. No one can see why Phoebe
any more than Milford should be the
terminus. All the business that Phoebe
and the country intervening from Frisco
would give would not pay for the cost of
reaching Phoebe. Thereare better mining
districts this side OF Phoebe than east of
it. There are not only better mining
districts, but there are other interests
that are awaiting transportation to fur
nish vast amount of railroad business.
Soda beds, borax fields and salt deposits
exist in Inyo and Southwestern Nevada
that will furnish employment to great
numbers of people. D. o. Mills is about
to work borax marsh, recently discov
cred, that is considered far more exten-
sive and valuable than the celebrated
borax properties of VIM. T. Coleman, in
the vicinity of Slate range. All these
sources of railroad business would be
tapped by the Central Utah railway if
continued to Los Angeles.
We have frequently enumerated the
mining districts lying this side of Pi-
oche that are now dormant, but which
would be active and productive if pro-
vided with transportation facilities. The
road would really be the outlet to all the
business of Southwestern Nevada from
White Pine to the California line. The
Carson and Colorado road would be
turned, so to speak, end for end, by the
extension of the Utah road to Los An
geles. For then, instead OF being a
feeder to the Central Pacific by way of
the Virginia and Reno road, with which
it connects at its present terminus at
Mound House, it would become feeder
to the Utah road somewhere south
and west of Keeler, at Ovens lake.
| Bodie, Candelaria, Kearsarge, Cerro
Gordo and the series Of mining districts
in and beyond Inyo would become trib
utary to the new road.
OF course, in the limits of newspaper
article, we can only glance at the bust
ness possibilities which a railroad can
develop in the vast territory that will be
tributary to the extension of the Utah
Central. But anyone who knows the
country to be traversed is aware of its
great richness in mines, minerals and
salts, and these even only hint at
the other resources of the terri
tory referred to, for there are
great stretches of grazing country
in the valleys running into the desert
and as fine farming and fruit lands in
some of these valleys as can be found or
the coast.
Now it is not reasonable to suppose
that the extension of road which has
transcontinental connections and no out
let on the Pacific coast is going to stoI
at Phoebe, when two hundred and fifty
miles further would give it that outlet
If there were no business to be developed
between Phoebe and Los Angeles, ever
then there would be sound and wise
policy on the part of the directors of the
Union Pacific in building to this city, i
for no other purpose than as lever tt
secure concessions from rival lines a
other points. The Union Pacific is il
competition with the Southern Pacifi,
for Oregon traffic. 1t has now no claim
upon that road for a share of Southern
California traffic, all of which the South
ern Pacific controls through its Sunse
route advantages. But if the Union Pa
cifc reached here through the Utal
Central extension it could justly de
mand share of the business of South
ern California that it now has no claim
to, although much of it is sent over it,
line by way of Ogden. The Union Pa
cific would be perfect railroad in it's en-
tire system with this extension; with
out it, it is like man who lacks al
arm. With this extension it would enter
California by the natural, and therefore
the cheapest, route. 1t would have its
foot upon the coast, a point of vantage
from which it could ramify it's facilities
to meet the great future growth of the
state.
The extension of the Utah Centra
may stop for the present at Pioche; but
it cannot have its terminus there fol
any length of time. 1t is not in the
logic of the situation or in the interest
of the company that it should end no
where when a great somewhere is just
beyond.
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