The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1912-02-08
THE OVERSEE RAILROAD
A Little Story of the Bsilding Of the Ralsoad That
Goes to Key West Over the Sea.

ordinary men He was Yale athlete
Of such ability that he had rowed ON
five university crews and had been a
substitute on sixth. Coming to Flor
ida fresh from the Yale Law school
in 1885 to take berth with the legal
department OF one of the first rail-
roads in the state. he was induced to
join Mr.. Fiagler's interests twenty
years ago He became the one-men
power In direct management of prop
erty which expended year by year un-
| I'll they had reached vast proportions.
He had to create the East Coast rail-
road system. and to equip himself 20
handle the greatest hotel interests IN
the world. on top OF which TASKS he
was requested t. put a railroad into
Key West ana was made wholly re-
sponsible for the undertaking. Four
lteen thousand people have been on his
pay-rolls at one time in Florida And
the enterprises controlled by him have
involved from thirty to forty millions
of capital.
The first plan for extending the
railroad south OF Miami attempted to
find a way across the Everglades TO
Cape Sable. the southermost tip OF shs
Florida Peninsula, eighty miles from
dry land. Engineering PARTIES spent
months at a time in this, the most
hostile and Inaccessible wilderness
left in the United States They suffer
ed such hardships and torments as
have been endured elsewhere only In
the heart Of africa One outfit had 20
Be rs>enpd y 4 relief szpsndision and
was found on the verge Of starvation
The survey was carried through to
Cape Sable. the land ~as found i'm
practicable for railroad building. and
the Geld OF action was therefore shit
ed to the route across the keys Lo-
eating this erratic line was an Alice
Northumberland task OF itself. The sur
veying party had to do most of its
work afoat- and some OF Its men were
lost among tie hundreds OF keys for
/ a. -. 4. 49, r-l--- -,-t.~ -~xn-.
as many keys as possible. and finally
selected forty-one across which 20
run the road. There. were gaps be-
! tween them so wide. however. that
towers had TO be built for sighting
the instruments. In other words these
distances which must be bridged were
so great that the curvature OF the
earth hid the rodman on the key from
the man with the transit
The next step was to find the right
construction engineer. for upon this
officials ability the enterprise mus:
hang in the final issue.
Down at Tampico. fragil-Lsoking,
sun-burned man OF middle age was
putting three and half million dol
lars belonging to the Mexican govera-
ment into n pier half a mile long. He
was a taciturn. almost different per-
son, this quiet little engineer J. <.
Meredith by name But he knew all
about re-enforced concrete; he had
built bridges all over the face of the
map, and his hard-working brother
engineers considered him a man of
much courage and resourcefulness.
After he had finished with his tremcn-
dous Tampico pier. he was summoned
to confer with the viceroy, j. r. Par
rott. The latter expected the engineer
to demand a month to look over the
ground and another month or so 20
make up his mind. but to his ques-
,ions Mr.. Meredith replied:
I'm ready to begin work this after
noon. but Id like few days TO 80
home to Kansas City and pack some
things and see my family. as I'll have
to be on this Job for several years.
As soon as the engineer reported for
duty, hs began to study the surveys
of this extraordinary railroad propo-