The Arizona champion., 1891-01-03
ABOUT RAILROADS.
An Able Article By General W, o. O'Nelu
 On this Important Subject,
Phoenix Republican.

space to present to the public and leg ] islators elect an advisable Uf extend ing to railroads the only encourage ment in the power of the Territory to now grant, to-wit: Exemption from taxation for term of years of all railroas built within two years ifrom l the passage of the bill, providing, l however, that no subsidized roads 1 shall be benefited by such act.
 Today the destinies of the several sections of Arizona are unknown quantities, because of the lack of more thorough railroad connections with each other, as we'll as with the out side world. Within the last week the coppersseamp of the United Verde mines of Jerome twenty-efght miles from Prescott, has been closed down, and from I5o to 200 men therby thrown out of employment until next May, because of early winter storms which have made wagon freighting impossible. The closing of this camp means not only the lying idle for fouf or five months of the men directly connected with it, but it also means that the farming settlements of the Verde valley, the second largest az ricultural valley in Arizona, accord- Ing to present production, must look elsewhere for a market for their wares | or allow them to go to2Waste. With raiIroad connections this mining camp would have continued in active operations thruogout the entire winter and hereby given employment to a couple of hundred men who are now "packing their blankets, in serch o{ other work.
 Within almost the same period 'floggins" has been made impossible, through storms, on the San Francisco mountains, and as a result the saw mills of that section will have to close as soon as the present supply of "saw logs" Is exhausted. This is the chief industry of Flagstaff and vicinity.
 During the few short summer mounths that the mills in that sec ton are able to rIn, the lumber pro duced amounts to from 10. 900, 900 to 12, 900, 900 1t. and the number of men directly employed ranges from 800 to 1000. When the snow oEce flies the old "bull team" style of huliug in logs is immediatly an inn possibility, and all Y ork must be sus pended until another summer; comes.
 The timber in the immediate vic inity of the mills has been exausted; ten, fifteen or twenty niles distant Ethe supply is unlimited. With prop CT railroad facilities, the summer would see millions of logs cut annual l ly for winter saving, and either brought to the mills during the sum mer, or hauled in during the winter, as is done in the lumber camps of other States, whare miles and miles of railroad are constructed solely for "logging". purposes. With proper Frailroad connections, these mills, which by their buisness, supply the very life blood of bhisnesS tof the greater part of Northern Arizona, would be enabled to continue opera tions the year round, and instead of being ten or twelve million feet an nually, the product of Arizona lum- Der would be four or five fold greater.
 These are but two of the many ex amples in Northern Arizona. To the residents of the southern portion of the Territory the necessity for ear ly and closer railroad communlca- tions just as urgent. For; ten years Florence has seen no advance pro portionate to the great resources 1t possesses, because of its isolation from railroads conectiohs. Its fer> tile fields, superb climate, abundant water; its advantageous location as the entrepot of rich mining country have availed 1t nothing until the iron Ebandi of commerce put 1t in touch with the centers of American wealth and industry.
 As with Florence, so with Globe, only the latter has tough: fight for existance never perhaps equaIed in the West. Nothing but the indomlt- able courage of its citizens, combined with mineral wealth-the greatness of which it as yet scarcely dreamed of by the' most sanguine-would have I kept 1t in the lines of Arizona bulls ion producers. All credit to the Egrif and buisness skill that kept 1t there, distant, as 1t was, of over min
 ty meles, too in the worst Indian country in the Southwest, With rail roads connecting tEere would not be on the Pacific Coast lhe' peer of ,i.Globe as a mining camp, but until that day she and her people must rest content with what they are.
 Phoenix and its immediate vicini, y have relizec, what railroad con- necfion means. From a small col lection of adobe huts, in less than four years 1t has became one of the virgin cities of the West-a land of unlimlt- ed credit as of unlimited possibilities, with standing ID he money markets of the world that gives its enterprises a hearing wherever their promoters may demand, but what proportionate progress H.s Qeen elsewhere in the valleys of the Salt and Gila? For answer look from Phoenix westward, for nearly 200 miles, to the California