Arizona republican., 1898-07-13
QUIETLY WORKING.
The Big Bug Railroad Making
 Progress.
Seeking Publicity inc Sanfa re Peopie Are Constructing This New Branch Rapidly.

Prescott, Ariz., July 12.-(Special.)- have just returned from trip over the grade of the Prescott & Eastern railroad. I learned sev- eral months ago that the s. F. P. 6 P. people had decided to build line to Big Bug. Although I have read the Prescott papers care fully since then, had seen but few references to the road and gained no idea whatever of the progress of the, work. 1 am at a loss to know why such an enterprise, carried on in country where railroads are such a, vital necessity, should be suffered to proceed without the publicity generally accorded to matters of such great inn portance to many communities.
 | To say that was interested in what saw along the line Is putting 1t mildly indeed The evidences of good engineering and excellent work | manship are abundant from the time one leaves the Point of Rocks, six miles from Prescott, until the end of the grade is reached, about eighteen the Point of Rocks to Joe Mayors fn
 
 Fully 65 per cent of the grade is com pleted and about one-half mile of track has been laid from the Point of Rocks. This track has several sid, | ings and Is an excellent piece of work. It is expected that track laying and | bridge building will begin this week. Probably about October 1. the road will be completed. When the trains begin to run over this picturesaue l line a new avenue for sight-seers will be opened and a magnificent mining country will be put in close touch with the outside world.
 The main idea of the const<uctors of this railway is to open up the McCabe, Chapparal, Big Bug. Crowned King, Cherry Creek. Rumble Bee and other rich mining districts in Yavapai coun- ty It is estimated that at least one i hundred good mines are tributary to the last ten miles of the road. Most of these are now producing mines. The development that will be influenced by the new road will make many pay
 ing mines of pronarties that today with the inadequate facilities for transporting ore, cannot be made profitable.
 l l WdlK6Q IrOm LHe IOlnL or ROCKS to the end of the track where a wagon was waiting to oorry me over the grade. It was fresh, crisp morning Magnificent vfewr abounded. To the northeast over the intervening hills could be seen the smoke from the smelters at Jerome. The valley spreads out for miles ahead, and the grade of the Big Bug road leads across it to the hills in the distance. The gradients are easy until the neighbor- hood of the McCabe mine is reached, where the chief engineering problems connected with the line beern. There is one cut of ffty-iVe feet, and sev- eral bridges of considerable length will have to be constructed. There are few three per cent grades, but the engineering difficulties are not serious at any point along the line
 The contractors have been unable lately to secure a full complement Of men and as a result the work has Jagged somewhat. Forty or fifty men desired to celebrate the Fourth and on receiving their money they made for Prescott or Phoenix or some otner point where excellent facilities were afforded for celebrating.
 I found MT. S. H. Robinson and Mir Grant of the Minnesota CoIstruc- tion company at one of the camps about eighteen miles from the Point