The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-09-28

holders are women, and the control of
the building contracts is in the hands
OF women,
Mrs. Annie Kline Rikert is the presi-
dent of the Stockton and Tuolumne
County railroad, which is better known
as the woman's railroad, according to
the Chicago Inter Ocean. Mrs. Rikert
conceived the project of the woman's
railway about eighteen months ago,
and on the 9th of March this year
ground was broken and the project be-
gan to be thing of fact. The ground
was broken without any ceremonial
flourishes, or any of the fuss and feath-
ers dear to the feminine heart.
"The road was begun by getting
right down to hard work." says Mrs.
Rikert. "We'll have our hurrah at
the other end of the undertaking-the
place where the hurrah can come in
with propriety."
According to Mrs. Rikert the wo-
mans railroad happened because of
the good, old-fashioned fact that
straight line is the shortest distance
between two points. The two points
in the case are the mother lode and
tidewater. Mrs. Rikert, through her
roles of prospector and mine owner,
owns and operates mines on the mother
lode. During the five years in which
she has been riding and driving from
mine to mine back and forth between
Stockton and the mines she has studied
the needs and possibilities of the
| country with comprehensive eye.
Along the mother lode there are thous-
ands of tons of ore, and on the other
side of it in the timber belt there are
thousands of feet of lumber to be car
ried to tidewater at Stockton. From
tidewater at Stockton there are tons of
machinery, fuel, provisions, ETC., to
Der belt; and, incidentally, there are
passengers to be carried as well. Four
railroads meander about the country
and do with much circumlocution and
expense what the woman's railroad
means to do with directness and econ
omy.
"The road is necessity not only to
my own mines, but to the many others,
and to the timber belt" says Mrs. Ri.
kert, $50 said IF no one else will do
it I'll build that road myself, and I'll
build and equip it as first-class road
for $1,000,000.' 1t is we'll on the way
now-over seventeen miles of the sixty
odd are graded and ready for the rails"
Mrs. Rikert does more than figure on
paper as president. She is up at day.
light every morning, and from saddle
or buggy watches every rod as the
road progresses, going up and down the
line from section to section. When
asked how she came TO understand the
matters of grade and curve and culvert
and ballast she replied:
"My experience in mining and EN-.
ploying labor comes in handy on the
railroad. I've been seventeen years in
mining and many time have had one
hundred men on my payroll. What
ever do try to do with thoroughness
and understanding, and, of course,
when l started to build this road post.
ed myself on railroad building. If we
are women we know little more about
materials than the directors of the Val
ley Road did when they started out.
You've heard that story, haven't you,
about the fish plates? No? l must
tell it to you. On requisition sent in
one of the items was fish plates. A di-
rector gravely crossed it out with the
remark: I'VE haven't a directors car
yet. 80 l guess the men can get along
without fish plates On the woman's
road it's an understood thing that the
fishplates will be of steel = not OF
china"
Mrs. Rikert's father was Ninian e.
Kline, cotton grower and slave owner
near Vicksburg, Miss. He was known
during the war to the men who were
with General Grant at Vicksburg as
"Old Shotgun" and he and his men
were as feared in Mississippi where
they secured The country with double
barrelled shotguns, taking prisoners,
asking and giving no quarter, as were
Morgan and his men further North.
Annie Kline was a chip of the old
block. Instead OF sewing for the Con.
federate soldiers, as other women did,
she turned her horsemsnship to &C.
count and furnished them with infor.
nation about the Yankees and their
movements to the end of the war
About year after the surrender she
married and went to California, turn
ing prospector when her husband died
Her mining experiences sound like q
fairy tale. OF them Mrs. Rikert says
Seventeen years ago was left q
widow here in San Francisco, without
means and with my little girl to care
for. was not fitted for any ordinary
work. l didn't know anything about
sewing or keeping house. l had nc
business capacity at all. l couldn't en-.
terrain for moment the thought of 60
ing East again and being dependent on
my father. preferred an outdoor life
to any other, and, being in California
mining was the only thing could see
to turn to. 1 had never associated
with mining people, and knew nothing
more about mining than l had learned
of geology and mineralogy as a girl.
went to San Bernardino, got tent, {
little sheet-iron stove, camp bed, ant
provisions enough, as l supposed, Il
last year-they really lasted half tina
time. Then / hired teamster to TAKE
me, my little ive-year.old girl and my
outfit out on the Mojave desert, within
three miles of the Silver King mine.
pitched my tent near the well that sup
piled Calico camp. The outfit ant
. | AL