The Delta independent., 1902-11-28


orado, Arizona & Gulf Railroad Com
pany, the Southwestern Fuel & Iron
Company, the Gage National Reduction
Company, and the Bear Creek Mining
& Reduction Company will be filed
| within a few weeks. Their aggregate
capitalization will be $50, 100000, which
is said to have been subscribed. The
four corporations will develop and fur
nish transportation to new areas of
southwestern Colorado, northwestern
New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and
central Arizona. Denver will furnish
supplies for vast territory with great
natural resources. he'route between
this city and the Pacific coast as
planned would be $50 miles shorter
than any other railway projected OF
already in operation.
The railroad is generally claimed to
be Gould project which will, when
completed, furnish a western outlet
for the Missouri Pacific-Denver & Rio
Grande systems, and also for Gould's
Texas Pacific system. The route will
extend almost in a direct line from
Denver southwesterly to San Pedro
harbor, on the coast of southern Cali
fornia. The coordinate corporations
are expected to develop the coal beds
in the sections through which the rail-
road will pass. utilize the iron deposits
which have lain dormant for lack of
transportation facilities, and also open
up the richest gold-bearing sections of
Colorado and southeastern Utah.
Charles H. Gage, who has been one
of the chief promoters of the COM
bined enterprises, returned from the
East few weeks ago, and announced
that he had been promised all the as
sistance required. There is no doubt,
he says, that each one of the enter
prises will be inaugurated early next
year and carried through without de-
lay.
Some of the best financiers of the
East he says, are interested in the
companies, including, in addition to
the Gould railroad representatives, j.
E. Krepps of Pittsburg, general western
representative of Douglas, Lacy & Co.,
New York bankers; George c. Carson
of Pittsburg, inventor of the Carson
process for the manufacture Of steel
and many times a millionaire; T. P.
Shonts of Chicago, president of the IL
linois, Indiana & Iowa Railway Com
pany, and also heavily interested in
eastern and middle states railways.
Charles E. Mcconnell, president of the
Smelter City Bank Of Durango, Colo
RADIO, is interested in the companies,
together with other capitalists who
have been holding coal and iron lands
in the southwest for many years, cher
ishing the hope that some day they
might develop them.
Most of the capital has been pledged
in the East. says Gage. and title has
been acquired to many acres of the
best coking coal land in the vicinity Of
Durango, southeastern Utah and
northeastern New Mexico. to thou
sands of acres of the superior timber
of the Mogollon section of Arizona.
and to the vast iron deposits in south
ern and central Utah. Much Of the lat
ter is manganese, having no peer any
where in the United States.
The new railroad as planned will
commence, on the northeastern end. at
Creede, follow the Rio Grande to its
head, and there open up the Bear
Creek mining district. The principal
camp in the district will be known as
Gold Cliff. This section carries i'm
mensely rich deposits Of tellurium ores,
but the values have been lost in smelt-
ing processes. The deposits lay dor
mant except for spasmodic efforts
made by poor prospectors to make
them pay, which were unsuccessful
partly on account of the inaccessibility
Of the district and partly because there
were no known processes for saving
the gold values. Leaving the head OF
Bear creek the new line will strike the
head OF the Valiesita, on the continen-
tai divide of the San Juan range, and
following this stream have water
level route, forty-five miles to Du-
range.
From Durango south the road will
follow the Animas river to the juno
ton of that stream with the San Juan,
affording railroad facilities to the rich
agricultural and fruit-growing region
OF Pennington, New Mexico, and Mon
tezuma county, Colorado.
In the vicinity of Pennington will
be located the steel plant of the South
western Fuel and I-on Company. to
be built on the most modern plans and
to utilize a process for the manufacture
of steel which is the sole property Of
its inventor, George G. Carson. These
patents are said to enable a manufac-
turer to produce steel and iron prod
ucts, given the natural resources cheap
ly, for one-half the cost Of making the
same articles by any Of the processes
used at Pittsburg or any other steel
works in the world.
Following the San Juan river west
ward, the new road is to have branch
into the iron fields OF Utah, which is to
furnish the Pennington plant with
raw products. The main line will con-
tinue almost directly through central
Arizona, opening a country about 100
miles south Of the Santa Fe road and
100 miles north of the Southern Pacific,
rich in gold, silver and copper deposits.
Thence to .-.e San Pedro harbor,
through southern California, the coun-
try along the route is well populated.
A line also will be constructed run
ming southeast from the main line to
Clifton, Arizona, tapping en- route a
territory having magnificent gold re-
sources, all of which are to be treated
at the plant Of the new corporation
known as the Gage National Reduc.
ton company.
One of its ore reduction plants will