El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-02
The Arizona FreighterS
Dwindng In Importance As the
D,roads Exend-Drearlness Melancholy Of the Life.
Few White en Engaged In 1t Now
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| D.sert +eamsters-the white Arabs
y, Tia American Sahara, as some one
has antly called them-are passing
awav. and the cause of the passing Is
| the iron horse on the steel rails. Len
wears ago there were several hunoreo
teamsters on the deserts OF Southern
California, and wagon trains unlike
ANYTHING else in the world, because OF
their enormous size and the sturenoous
loads which they carried, arrived by
the balf-dozen every week in such
desert railroad towns as Daggett, Bar
stow, Mojave, and Lancaster. They
were the only connection between
desert mining and borax camps and
the outside world. Since those days
railroads have been built across the
deserts to Randsburg, Ivanpah, and
Kramer, and, besides, the Atch1son,
| Topeka & Santa Fe company has done
some very extensive railroad building
on the Colorado and Mojave deserts.
Today there are less than fifty genuine
desert teamsters left in Southern Cali
fornis, and their number Is diminish
ing every month. ,oo
Ten years ago there were over 1,2OO
teamsters on the deserts and In the
arid mountains of Arizona. The
branch railroads from Ash Fork to
Benson to Bisbee, have cut the num-
Der of freight teamsters In the whole
territory down to about $50. And
now the railroad which the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad compa-
ny is about to build from Flagstaff,
Ariz. through the copper and lumber
fields to the Grand Canyon OF the Colo
RADIO will reduce the ranks OF the team
sters in that part of the territory to
f,1 Tn daNRdA
likely there will be scarcely q dozen
teamsters engaged in feaighting mer.
chaudise and ore across the deserts OF
the southwest.
"The drea riness and melancholy
produced by months of freight leaning
across the desert and through the Dist
ering mountains is indescribable,"
py Jack" in Colonel Roosevelt's rough
riders) to the writer. ST have lived
alone for three and four months at q
time in mining cabin away over In
the Verde mountains, and have been
where 1 never saw q human being for
two and three weeks at stretch, but
the two trips I made as teamster from
Phoenix to Prescott and back during
the summer of 1894 were enough Tor
me. 1t would take at least 81 900 trip
to get me to contract to do more freight
hauling like that.
"What is it that makee freighting
on the deserts so frightful? Why, the
solitude, the hot sun, the aridity that
makes one almost mummy before he
knows it, the slow, steady, humdrum
creaktng of the freight wagons as they
just move through the sea of sand, the
whitening heat that comes cease!essly
day by day to ones face while he is out
on a trip, and the depressing scenery
all about all turn ones disposition up
side down. The nightly camps on the
hot sand and the swallowing of cheap,
half cooked food are in themselves
enough to upset a common mans
ly tell of the awful monotony of a seven
days. trip across the ella desert,
through the furnace like canons, over
the white, scalded alkali foothills, and
then up through the desolate, forbid
ding, and lifeless mountains to the Rio
Hssayampa, on the way from Phoenix
to Prescott. that freight teamsters
intelligent the teamster, SO much the
more dreadful the monotonous solitude |
and enervating the conditions OF the |
trip"
TWENTY ONE DAYS OF DEAFNESS. |
Most of the freight transfers on the |
deserts nowadays are Mexicans or |
halfbreed Indians. The average white |
man is untitled by temperament for |
such hardships and depressing |
solitude. There are some freight
teaming runs that require seventeen
days for the round trip, and during the
journey the man with the teams spend
of the time remote from
acy other human being. 1t requires
twenty one days to make the round
trip from Mojave to the Death, valley
borax works in California, and 1t is
seldom that q teamster sees even four
or five persons on his long, weary
journey across the desert. On
many desert freight wagons are two
The former sits at the front of the first
wagon and looks out for the horses
and mules, the swamper is at the front
Of tho first wagon. His. duty is to
work the ponderous brakes on the big
wagon on down grades and to urge on
the dallying horses and mules by
means of stones and rocks thrown at
the beasts on the upgrsdes.
Tourists who look for first time up
On the fourteen and more horse teams
and the stupendous wagons they haul
are always most absorbed in the dra-
matte scenes of the departure of the
vehicles for the desert. 1t
is worth long waiting to observe the
veteran teamster ascend to his throne
and authoritatively pick up the jerk
rein and bid his equine subjects to get !.
up and go. See how the teamster, with /,
lace as sunburned and red as an Apa-
,he's, first bites fresh chunk of plug I
;obscco, tilts his greasy sombrero
.slsnt his forehead, and then like q
rained athlete climbs over the great
wagon wheels and throws himself on /
he board wagon seat ten and twelve {
eet above the ground. Observe his