Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1905-06-02
BUILDING OF
AN EMPIRE
Interesting Interview With E. C.
Mcconnell, Mayor Of Durango,
One of the ''Pushers.
WATER, COAL AND STEEL
The Combination Will Make San Juan
County and Surrounding Country
Prosperous and Popuous.

E. c. Mcconnell, mayor of the city
of Durango and president of the State
Bank in that city, is an enthusiast,
one of the class of men who are max
ing the west what 1t is. He is in San
Ia Fe on railroad and legal business
and in his spare moments took time to
tell the New Mexican of the bright
prospects of the immediate future for
San Juan County, New Mexico, and
the city of Durango, Colorado, just
across the San Juan County line.
1t was Mr. Mcconnell who years
| ago began working on projects that
would bring more railroads to that
corner of the Centennial State and In
cidentally to the northwestern part of
the Sunshine Territory. As business
man and financier he recognized the
possibilities that are dormant in the
development of the immense coal
fields on the La Plata River and In
the surrounding country. He was
called visionary for a time but des-
pite discouragements and rebuffs he
continued to push until today, two
great railroad systems are fighting for
the long neglected but rich empire
that is practically undeveloped, and a
third railroad has surveyed line into
it and intends to begin construction
in the near future, thus following the
example of one Of the two contending
railroads which has already com
menced the work of construction.
The project, with which Mr.. Nc.
Connell is Immediately connected, is
the Arizona and Colorado Railroad,
which recently, as stated and de-
scribed in the New Mexican, filed its
plats of a railroad survey from Du-
range to a point between Grants and
Bluewater on the Santa Fe-Pacific
Railway in Valencia County. The
main line is to start at Durango and
then running along the Las Animas
River is to pass through Aztec and
Pennington near the latter point
crossing the San Juan River and then
to swing southeast across the mesas
of southern San Juan and of McKin-
ley Counties until it strikes the San
Jose River in Valencia County From
there it is to turn southwestward
through western Valencia and Socor-
70 Counties to the headwaters Of the
San Francisco River on the Gila For.
est Reserve, which it follows into Ari-
zona where the terminus is to be,
Cochise on the Southern Pacific Rail-
way. Another line has been surveyed
from Durango, somewhat to the west
of the proposed main line. 1t will
pass through Gallup. A branch line
has been surveyed from Pennington
into the La Plata coal fields, the de-
velopment of which is the immediate
object of the proposed railroad lines
in order to supply the Unsuitable de-
mand for coal of the great smelters at
Clifton, Morenci, Douglas, Bisbee and
Nacosari. But the road will also Sc
cure large tonnage from the cattle
and sheep industries of western New
Mexico and from the development of
the natural wealth of that undevel-
oped domain. Interests allied with the
Arizona and Colorado Railroad, sup.
posed to be the Southern Pacific, have
acquired many thousand acres of coal
land in western Valencia and Socorro
Counties. That section is also des.
tined to be a great shipper of salt and
minerals.
In Mr.. McConnell's opinion, one of
the greatest reservoir systems in this
will be constructed in the
near future by the Reclamation Ser
vice in the La Plata Valley. 1t in
wolves the turning of part of the wat.
ers of the Las Animas River into the
La Plata and is to reclaim from $780,
900 to 100000 acres of fertile land
The surveys have been completed and
the land withdrawn temporarily from
public entry. The land to be recov-
cred lies along the La Plata and the
San Juan Rivers from the Colorado
boundary to Jewett. An effort will be
made to extend the ditch system even
further, into the Navajo Reservation.
When this project is realized, then
San Juan County and particularly that
portion which is included under this
great irrigation project and which is
to the immense coal fields,
will become a prosperous empire in
Itself Mr. Mcconnell has travelled
and he says, nowhere
else, either in Colorado or in New
Mexico, is there another valley which
Is the equal of the San Juan Valley In
The combination of ideal climate, fruit
fulness, coal measures and a good and
plentiful water supply
Mr.. Mcconnell, while in Santa Fe,
Is the guest of Mr.. and Mrs. c. w.
Fay, near relatives. Mr. and Mrs.
Paul AT. Walter and John K Stauf-
fer of this CITY are also distant rela.