El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-01-15
Ell PASO AS A
COAL CENTER
Projects On Foot That May
Give Her That Prestige.
THE NORTHERN SONORA
Fields Likely To Be Added To the
White Oaks Coal File Ids Ii Ex-
plordtions Are Satisfactory.

White Oaks Coal Fields If Ex-
pIorations Are Satisfactory.
The successful mining of coal at Cap
ftan by the New Mexico Fuel company,
one of the affiliated companies OF the
New Mexico Coal and Railway COM
pany, has produced an effect far more
beneficial to Ell Paso and more far
reaching than is gene rally supposed.
AS one direct result OF the success
full output on the White Oaks road, an
effort will be made to locate coal fields
IN eastern Sonora and probably to ex-
tend to them the Sierra Madre road.
If this should be done, Ell Paso would
have two coal roads feeding her COM
merce aud the railroads, and this city
would become the great coal center OF
the southwest.
Several weeks ago, Gen. Dodge, pre-
sident of the board of directors of the
Colorado and Southern railroad. came
TO this city with Morgan Jones, former
ly president of the Fort Worth
and Denver City road. who is
largely interested in coal properties in
Colorado. These gentlemen made q
trip over the Sierra Madre and White
Oaks, end q vast system extending
from Chicago through to the Pacific
coast was heralded in one of the local
papers, with these two roads as part,
and their immediate extension as q
certainty. The proposed extensions
were denied emphatically by the
gentlemen in question, aud they went
away ss they had come with the gen.
eral public 10 wiser in regard to their
errand than at first.
Last night Morgan Jones came back
to Ell Paso. He is not here to make
she Sierra Madre a part of any great
system. but he is hunting for coal.
Several days ago bunch of twenty
pack mules. with Q complete camp and
prospecting equipment were sent out
from Casas Grandes, the present
southern terminus of the Sierra Madre
road. These pack animals were sent
to point eighty miles west of
Casas Grandes, and they are there to
await the arrival OF q party headed by
Morgan Jones and Britton Davis, of
the Juarez company, and will then be
ased in transporting the party and its
equipment on q trip OF exploration
through northern Sonora in search
for coal.
From Casas Grsndes the party will
90 almost directly west by way of the
Carretas ranch on past the Dos Catezos
mines, into the Pilsres mining district,
in eastern Sonora, on the western slope
OF the Sierra Madre divide. tbs some
where in that locality that they expect
to find coal.
Ii they find satisfactory evidence of
the existence of large beds Of coal,
they will continue % In the direction
af the Pacific coast in an endeavor to
find suitable line of road and an out
let to the coast down the Yaqui river.
The attempt to fnd the coal is not
made on behalf OF the Sierra Madre
people, but If the coal is found, the
road will almost certainly be extended
to the beds, and then the possibility of
. Pacific coast extension, the great
western divide once passed, will be
considered.
Mr.. Jones came in over the Texas
and Pacific last night, and YVES met at
the station by Britton Davis. He went
1t once to the Pierson hotel, and with
in few minutes, was closeted with J
A and C. B. Eddy. who had called.
evidently by appointment.
After their long talk WAS ended, Mr..
Jones talked, but guardedly. concern
ing the cause of his visit.
mo, he said, ST am not down here
on behalf of the Rock Island people, and
you may reiterate the statement made
in THE HERALD denying that we are
figuring on any great transcontinental
scheme. l am going down with Mr..
Davis to look at some mines. The
bunch of mules, twenty in all, has been
sent out from Casas Grandes, and we
make the trip from that town west in
wagons to the foot of the Sierra Madre
divide. There we take to the pack
trains. aud go on to look into some
mining property. We are going to
look up these mines, the exact nature
of which l may not tell you, and then
we may go on in the direction of the
Pacific coast"
The only kind of mines Mr.. Jones
has been interested in to any great ex-
tent is coal mines, sad when be talks OF
exploring mines, it is reasonable to
suppose that coal, in which he has been
Interested all his business life, is meant.
In view of what Mr.. Jones himself
said, in confidence aud not for publica-
ton, the assumption OF a search for
coal ia reasonable and logical.