The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1897-07-27
gray dawn peeped over the mountain
tops.-Louisville Courier-Journal.
NEW TRUNK RAILWAY


tops.-Louisville Courier-Journal.
NEW TRUNK RAILWAY
A fact that Is not appreciated either
in Arizona or abroad is that the Santa
Fe people are at work on railroad
that will fairly revolutionize transporta-
ton in the southwest, designed to tap
the country where now the Southern Pa
cific Is supreme. A year or 80 ago the
Santa Fe had an idea that it might not
be able to get the Atlantic and Pacific
road on foreclosure; that Is, not on any
terms that it would be advisable to
make. So Major G. w. Vaughn was sent
out to look up another route across Arr
IONA. Vaughn is the engineer who laid
out the Santa Fe Chicago extension and
who built the Santa Fe, Prescott and
Phoenix. His preliminary survey show
ed the pracf1cability of a road from the
Santa Fe connection at Silver City, New
Mexico, to Globe or Florence, to Phoenix
and to Victor Call crossing the Colora-
do at Parker ard using seventy-five
miles of the Santa Fe, Prescott and
Phoenix line from Phoenix to Congress
Junction.
AS it happened, the Santa Fe got the
Vaughn's work has had result. For
weeks large party of Santa Fe survey
ors has been at work surveying the
line from Silver City west. The line
will enter Arizona above Duncan, a sta
ton on the Arizona and New Mexico
narrow gauge. 1t will cross the narrow
gauge only few miles below Clifton, a
camp of unlimited freight possibilities,
with two of the largest copper compa-
MES of the world producing bullion.
Thence west it will go to- Globe, possl-
bly, by way of the agriculturally import
ant ella valley, though second and
somewhat shorter route has been staked
out to the north. And Globe has posi-
bilities for copper production that near
ly approach Clifton. From Globe to
Phoenix the route is already surveyed
and will soon be built by the Santa Fe,
Prescott and Phoenix road. That this
new road will have immense traffic from
the date of its opening is apparent
PROGRESSIVE RAILROAD
This Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix,
the pea Vine,' as it is called by rail-
readers, is one of the biggest little roads
in the west, and one of the best man
aged Though only two hundred miles
long it is run with all the style of a
trunk road, with model rolling stock, and
well cared for roadbed. Even it's freight
cars are to have automatic couplers, and
at once. The road was designed to
make a connection at Nogales with the
Sonora line, by way of Florence ana
Tucson. That project had to be aband-
oned when Huntington absorbed the
Sonora railway, and the terminus of the
line will be Globe, not Nogales. At
present, as sort of flyer, the Pea Vine
is building a railroad, broad-guage, of
course, into the Big Bug country, south
of Prescott. The road will be twenty
miles or so in length, and will tap one of
the oldest, best-developed, and richest
mining sections in Arizona. Not only
are there gold, silver and copper mines
by the hundred, but the road will run to
the famous Big Bug onyx quarries lately
sold by W. O. O'Neill to a company head
ed by Congressman Fowler of New Jer-
sey The freight producing capacity of
these quarries at present is stated to be
more than a trainload a day and the
Fowler company will try to introduce
the stone for ornamental building pur-
poses throughout the east. 1t is not be-
lieved that the road will start from
Prescott. The grades would be too
steep. A junction will need to be estab-
lished few miles north of that city. 1t
is to be expected that at Big Bug will
spring up one of the most important
towns Of Arizona.
JAMES H. MCLINTOCK.