Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-02-17
HEADED FOR Ell PAS0.
The Peoos Valley Railway and the Work Of
President Hagerman.

l ~ Il SSop ' NiiOy AepA WY "1N IL v "a
President Hagerman,
Many of the great railways of this
| country have been made by linking to-
| sether small lines by mean of extern
| slons, and thus properties which, stand
ing by themselves, We're of smah i'm
| p%ortance and Improbable. have Deem
made valuable and business been built
up wllere home before existed. Such bids
'air to be the destiny of the Pecos Val
gey railway, with headquarters in New
Mexico. Originally consisting of but a
5pur, so to speak. beginning at a june
| don on the Texas 4 Pacific lines, and
1t the mercy Of the Texas company, it
| iound Itself largely hampered in carry
irg out the object for which it was
| built, through an uninhabited region of
ninety miles. from unimportant june
ton to Carlsbad, then but begun as a
Town. This object was the settlement
of the Pecos valley, where a great irri-
| CATION company was establishing an
extensive system of reservoirs and ca
nails. assisting settlers to bring land I'm
der cultivation and to aid them in mar
0lting their products. While the COM
pany CARRIED out it's plans admirably
with regard to construction of the irri-
cation works and built the railway be-
fore there was my traffic, the circuitous
route necessary to REACH the valley from
the states from which immigrants We're
desired proved to be a serious impedi-
ment to securing people to utilize the
lands made ready for them by the canal
system. 1t was found still later, when
products We're ready for market, that
the outlet toward the south involved
heavy transportation rates Through
Texas, where the Texas & Pacific had
the long haul.
The principal spirit in the establish
nent of the Pecos valley irrigation en-
terprise and the railway up the valley
was j. j. Hagerman, of Colorado
Springs, who had achieved the con
struction of the famous Colorado Mid
and, when many railway men Thought
the task impossible of accomplishment.
Having not only constructed this line,
but also financed 1T through difficulties
md disposed of it to the advantage of
himself and associates, and succeeded
n making the Mobile Gibson mine one
If the wonders of Colorado and a great
producer, he turned his attention to the
redemption of the great Pecos valley in
New Mexico, with the belief that its re-
7emption through irrigation would be
the most useful work of his life.
WHY ROAD WAS STARTED.
The construction of the first ninety
miles of the railway was but an incl
lent to THAT end. In due time, when the
conditions We're ready, he built the line
seventy-five miles further, to the Ros-
we'll country, where agriculture, stock
raising and fruit growing were estab-
lished under local irrigation enter
prises before the canal system which
he created was begun. But this extern
SION did not obviate the necessity for
a direct outlet toward the east and
north, but greatly increased such need.
Ere the Santa Fe railway corporation
got into the sore straits which ended in
he appointment of a receiver, Mr.. Fla
german had arranged with President
MARVEL of that company a traffic agree
ment under which the Santa Fe road
would be extended westward across the
Texas plains, starting from its line
reaching a few miles east of Amarillo
to a point near Old Fort Summer, on the
Pecos, above Roswell. There it was to
be met by an extension of the Pecos
valley line from Roswell to "a junction
with the Santa Fe line near Las Vegas.
The death of President MARVEL and the
financial distress that came during the
dull years of the second Cleveland add
m~inistrationl in the United States to
to the Santa Fe and the Pecos valley
companies alike, causing receivers to
be appointed, prevented such railway
building. But the necessity of having a
receiver did not daunt the indefatigable |
Hagernan, and with unflagging zeal he
labored to bring about the construction |
of an extension of his ine. As the Santa
Fe could not build across the Texas
plains he determined that his own |
company should, and at the dawn of
prosperity, the receiver was dispensed
with and the president of the company
was able to finance the enterprise at
last, through having faith enough in
the Pecos country and the region to be
.traversed, to pledge his own interests
in the railway. Thus was the Pecos
valley line built for 225 miles more,
placing the Pecos valley and the ex-
trenle west Texas country much near
err Kansas City than by any other
The new line ait once sprang
into success as the cattle route OF the
west, and from the momen Of its com
captured all the business of the
Texas & Pacific, so far as handling the
cattle from the south of and adjacent
to Pecos City. Texas. and from the
plains north OF Midland and east OF the
Pecos valley.