Iron Horses, page 38
With its centerpiece, the 300-foot-long high bridge, the Georgetown Loop was an impressive engineering achievement, even though its track went no farther west than another 4 miles; this was Jay Gould’s last effort to build straight west from Denver. (Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, W. H. Jackson, WHJ-770)
William Barstow Strong pushed the Santa Fe through a decade of unbridled expansion. (Kansas State Historical Society)
Edward Payson Ripley took the Santa Fe from bankruptcy to the top of the heap. (Kansas State Historical Society)
A 4-6-0 ten-wheeler stops at Needles eastbound with two baggage cars and five coaches of the California Limited; the El Garces Harvey House at Needles was opened about 1901 and operated until 1948. (Kansas State Historical Society)
The only thing finer than Fred Harvey dining trackside was the elegance of a dinner in the dining car of the California Limited. (Kansas State Historical Society)
Nellie Bly captured the imagination of America with her round-the-world journey. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-75620)
The original crossing at Needles via a long, wooden trestle susceptible to floods was replaced by this cantilever bridge a few miles to the south at Topock in 1890; it served the Santa Fe until 1947, when it became the route of U.S. 66. (Colorado Historical Society, scan 20101516, W. H. Jackson Collection)
Jay Gould had his hand in many railroads but came up short in his transcontinental quest. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-104428)
George Gould tried to surpass his father in assembling a transcontinental empire. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-64445)
This great bridge across the Pecos River near its confluence with the Rio Grande was the key to the Southern Pacific’s reaching across Texas to complete Huntington’s Sunset Route from San Francisco to New Orleans. (Colorado Historical Society, scan 20103651, W. H. Jackson Collection)
Fred Harvey’s tasty and affordable meals gave the Santa Fe a reliable advertising ace. (Kansas State Historical Society)
This Fred Harvey pass was good all along the Santa Fe and its associated lines; note that the number 2 in the date 1892 is printed upside down to make counterfeiting less likely. (Kansas State Historical Society)
The Harvey House at Syracuse, Kansas, just east of the Colorado-Kansas line, was originally a frame structure with only a lunch counter; it burned in 1906 and was eventually replaced by the Spanish-styled architecture of the Sequoyah Hotel. (Kansas State Historical Society)
If there was one thing besides elevation gain that made the Santa Fe route the ultimate winner in the Southwest transcontinental race, it was the lack of heavy snow; here the Colorado Midland, its one-time subsidiary, battles snow drifts on Hagerman Pass about 1900. (Colorado Historical Society, scan 20030238, Buckwalter Collection)
Famed railroad photographer Otto Perry caught the first run of the Super Chief westbound near La Junta, Colorado, on May 13, 1936, doing a reported seventy-five miles per hour; the blunt-nosed locomotive didn’t last long but was the prototype for streamliners to come. (Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Otto Perry, OP-211)
Two of Baldwin Locomotive Works’s big and mighty 2-10-2 locomotives blast up the south side of Raton Pass near Lynn, New Mexico, in 1944, during the rush of World War II. (Colorado Historical Society, negative F-23, 160)
This photo combines two legends: the Moffat Tunnel that at long last gave Denver a rail connection straight west and the Vista Domes of the Denver and Rio Grande’s vaunted California Zephyr. Even General Palmer had predicted that “someday they will call us slow old coaches.” (Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-5698)
The Chief, train no. 20, pounds upgrade near Raton, New Mexico, with engine no. 1790, a 2-8-8-2 in the lead as a helper, followed by road engine no. 3784, a 4-8-4 Northern; the date was June 16, 1945, and steam was enjoying its last heyday at the close of World War II. (Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Otto Perry, OP-1351)
The Super Chief pauses at Albuquerque to refuel from tank cars in March 1943 at the height of World War II. (Library of Congress, Jack Delano, LC-USW3-020412-D)
Acknowledgments
This book rests on my research in special collections and personal papers, but I would be remiss if I did not thank the historians who have traveled the grade ahead of me. Their works are gratefully acknowledged in the bibliography, but from that list I must single out: Maury Klein for his exhaustive history of the Union Pacific and his insightful biographies of Jay Gould and E. H. Harriman; Richard Saunders, Jr., for his authoritative two-volume study of American railroads in the twentieth century; and Keith L. Bryant, Jr., for his landmark history of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.
Colorado—historically and as a research location—was at the center of much of this story. The Colorado Historical Society houses the William Jackson Palmer, John Evans, and Denver and Rio Grande collections. The Western History Department of the Denver Public Library, in addition to superb newspaper and photograph collections, holds a microfilm set of the Collis P. Huntington Papers. And I always appreciate the respite of the Penrose Library of the University of Denver, as well as the special collections of the University of Colorado.
Like the Santa Fe, the Kansas Historical Society is at the top of the heap, and I particularly appreciate the assistance there of Nancy Sherbert and Lisa Keys. Thanks, as well, to Sally King, the curator of the art and photo archives of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and to Al Dunton of Centennial Galleries, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Of course, the places where railroad history and realism come together best are the railroad museums. In particular, my thanks go to the Colorado Railroad Museum, the Arizona Railway Museum, the California State Railroad Museum, the Orange Empire Railway Museum, the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, and the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum (San Diego).
Once again, I thank the skill and patience of David Lambert for making legible maps from my scratches. I also appreciate the research assistance of Greg W. Stoehr at the University of Arizona and the Arizona Historical Society libraries, Monica Wisler at the San Diego Public Library, and Shea Houlihan at the University of Texas El Paso Library. I am particularly grateful to James E. Fell, Jr., and Lyndon J. Lampert, both accomplished writers and historians, for their critical reviews and insights. Courtney Turco deserves high praise for doing numerous tasks exceedingly well.
It would be difficult to find a more knowledgeable railroad enthusiast and historian than my highly esteemed agent, Alexander C. Hoyt. He is simply the best. My deep thanks go to Alex at many levels.
As always, I have enjoyed my research in the field: chasing trains across the Southwest, riding the rails with Marlene, and exploring abandoned grades from Marshall Pass to Alpine Tunnel with my friends Anne and Omar Richardson.
List of Maps
General Routes of the Pacific Railroad Surveys of 1853
Early Transcontinental Contenders, Circa 1863
Kansas Pacific Construction, 1865–1870
Western U.S. Transcontinental Routes, 1869
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Construction, 1868–1872
Competition in Colorado, Early 1870s
San Francisco Bay Area Railroads, Circa 1870
Western U.S. Transcontinental Routes, 1877
The Drive for Southern California, Mid-1870s
The Tehachapi Loop
Yuma Crossings
Southern Colorado Battles, 1878–1879
Raton Pass Shoo-fly and Tunnel, 1878–1879
The Royal Gorge
The Santa Fe Meets the Southern Pacific at Deming
Texas and Pacific Construction
Western U.S. Transcontinental Routes, 1883
The Santa Fe Meets the Southern Pacific at Needles
Needles Crossings
The California Southern
Colorado Battleground, 1888
The Georgetown Loop
Santa Fe Expansion into Texas
American-Backed Railroad Ventures in Mexico
Santa Fe Racetrack to Chicago, 1887
The Battle for Southern California, 1887–1890
Western U.S. Transcontinental Routes, 1910
San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway
Western Pacific Extension
The Santa Fe’s Belen Cutoff, 1908
Notes
CHAPTER 1: LINES UPON THE MAP
1. Oscar Osburn Winther, The Transportation Frontier: 1865–1890 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), pp. 48–49; Butterfield Overland Mail—The Pinery, Guadalupe Mountains National Park brochure, 1988; Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, eds., The Butterfield Overland Mail (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1942), pp. 72–76.
2. W. H. Emory, Notes on a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego, in California, Including Parts of the Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila Rivers, 30th Cong., 1st sess., H.R. Ex. Doc. 41, pp. 35–36.
3. “The consequences of such”: William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 1803–1863 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), p. 209. Colonel Abert should not be confused with his son, Lieutenant James W. Abert, who served in New Mexico in 1846.
4. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 263.
5. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 218–19, 265.
6. Congressional Globe, 32nd Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 26 (March 2, 1853), p. 841.
7. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 262.
8. Calculating grade requires basic trigonometry. The rise (or fall) of a line over its particular run (distance) is expressed as a percentage. A vertical rise in elevation of 52.8 feet over a horizontal distance of 1 mile equals a grade of 1 percent—quite gentle (52.8 divided by 5,280 equals .01, or 1 percent). A rise of 211 feet over 1 mile makes for a grade of 4 percent—quite steep in railroad terms.
9. Reports of the Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, 33rd Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. Ex. Doc. 91 (hereinafter Pacific Railroad Reports; note the reports are individually paginated, although they may be combined in one volume), vol. 1, p. iv.
10. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 305.
11. Jefferson Davis, “Introduction,” Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 1, p. 12.
12. Philip Henry Overmeyer, “George B. McClellan and the Pacific Northwest,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 32 (1941): 48–60.
13. Isaac I. Stevens, Narrative and Final Report of Explorations for a Route for a Pacific Railroad near the Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth Parallels of North Latitude from St. Paul to Puget Sound, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 12, p. 331.
14. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 283.
15. For an account, see Howard Stansbury, An Exploration to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1852).
16. E. G. Beckwith, Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad, by Capt. J. W. Gunnison, Topographical Engineers, near the 38th and 39th Parallels of North Latitude, from the Mouth of the Kansas River, Mo., to the Sevier Lake, in the Great Basin, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 2, p. 85.
17. Beckwith, Report, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 2, pp. 56, 70.
18. Benton was so obsessed with the 38th parallel corridor that he financed two private expeditions along it that same year. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who had just been appointed Indian agent for California and Nevada under Benton’s patronage, led one party. Lest Gunnison’s official report prove negative, Benton hedged his bets by dispatching an eastern reporter named Gwin Harris Heap along with Beale as his press agent. Frémont led the other private excursion, although having apparently learned nothing from his 1848 trip, he again entered the mountains late in the season and achieved little more than following on Gunnison’s heels (Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 284).
19. A. W. Whipple, Report of Explorations for a Railway Route near the Thirty-fifth Parallel of North Latitude from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 3, p. 132; cost estimates in Report of Captain A. A. Humphreys, Top. Engineers, upon the Progress of the Pacific Railroad Explorations and Surveys, 34th Cong., 1st sess., Senate Ex. Doc. 1, pt. 2, p. 94.
20. John G. Parke, Report of Explorations for That Portion of a Railroad Route, Near the Thirty-second Parallel of North Latitude, Lying Between Dona Ana, on the Rio Grande, and Pimas Villages, on the Gila, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 2, pp. 4, 18–19.
21. John Pope, Report of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific Railroad, near the Thirty-second Parallel of North Latitude, from the Red River to the Rio Grande, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 2, p. 56.
22. Pope, Report, Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. 2, pp. 35, 49–50.
23. Congressional Globe, 35th Cong., 2nd sess., pt. 1 (December 14, 1858), p. 73.
CHAPTER 2: LEARNING THE RAILS
1. “Nothing stops us”: William Jackson Palmer Collection, Stephen H. Hart Library, Colorado Historical Society, Denver (hereinafter Palmer Collection), Box 8, File Folder (FF) 641 (Palmer to Isaac Clothier, June 23, 1853).
2. “spending the time”: John S. Fisher, A Builder of the West: The Life of General William Jackson Palmer (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, 1939), p. 40; salary in Palmer Collection, Box 3, FF 223 (Palmer daily pocket diary, June 1, 1857).
3. “John Edgar Thomson,” Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 18 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943), p. 486; Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 260–61; James A. Ward, J. Edgar Thomson: Master of the Pennsylvania (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), pp. 25, 42.
4. Ward, Thomson, pp. 70, 78, 80, 90; Timothy Jacobs, The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad (Greenwich, Conn.: Bonanza Books, 1988), pp. 21, 24–25.
5. “Quick-witted, dapper”: Ward, Thomson, p. 95–96; “the best investment”: Martin, Railroads Triumphant, pp. 263–64; see also Scott biography at www.texaspacificrailway.org/history and “Re-assessing Tom Scott, the ‘Railroad Prince,’ ” a paper given for the Mid-America Conference on History, Furman University, September 16, 1995, by T. Lloyd Benson and Trina Rossman.
6. “You Pennsylvania people”: Lela Barnes, ed., “Letters of Cyrus Kurtz Holliday, 1854–1859,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 6 (August 1937): 249 (Holliday to Mary Holliday, December 31, 1854); Holliday biographical information from Keith L. Bryant, Jr., History of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974), pp. 4–9; L. L. Waters, Steel Trails to Santa Fe (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1950), pp. 24–29.
7. This account of Huntington’s early years is from David Lavender, The Great Persuader (New York: Doubleday, 1970), specifically, “a fine trip,” p. 39. In December 1887, when the Frémonts moved from New York to Los Angeles for his health, they were nearly destitute after numerous fortunes made and lost. Collis P. Huntington, then at the height of his railroad powers, gave them free passage. Pride initially forced Frémont to reject the offer, but Huntington was quick with a magnanimous reply: “You forget,” he told the old explorer, “our road goes over your buried campfires and climbs many a grade you jogged over on a mule; I think we rather owe you this.” Tom Chaffin, Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), pp. 3–4.
8. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company, pp. 20–21; quoted in Brit Allan Storey, “William Jackson Palmer: A Biography,” unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1968, p. 38.
9. Palmer Collection, Box 9, FF 696 (Palmer to John and Matilda Palmer, September 10, 1859).
10. Palmer Collection, Box 4, FF 243 (draft letter, Thomson to Gov. Hon. Alex Stevens [sic], Ga, undated; back has “Manuscript of letter to Hon. Jno. C. Kunkel relative to Pacific Railroad May 20, 1858.” In another hand: “proposed but never sent J. Edgar Thomson”).
11. Palmer Collection, Box 4, FF 250 (Ellet to Palmer, March 19, 1860).
12. Palmer Collection, Box 7, FF 496 (Palmer to Lamborn, March 6, 1861).
CHAPTER 3: AN INTERRUPTION OF WAR
1. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, vol. 2, p. 596, hereinafter cited as Official Records (Thomson to Cameron, April 23, 1861).
2. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 2, p. 596 (Thomson to Cameron, April 23, 1861).
3. Palmer Collection, Box 2, FF 78 (Scott to Palmer, May 8, 1861).
4. Fisher, A Builder of the West, p. 75.
5. Palmer Collection, Box 3, FF 184 (Palmer to Jackson, April 10, 1862).
6. David Haward Bain, Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 110.
7. Bain, Empire Express, pp. 106–8.
8. Lavender, The Great Persuader, pp. 97–98; Bain, Empire Express, p. 110.
9. Bain, Empire Express, pp. 112–14.
10. Bain, Empire Express, pp. 115–16; U.S. Statutes at Large, 37th Cong., 2nd sess., chap. 120 (1862), pp. 492–95; for an analysis of the traditional “drawn the elephant” quote, see Lavender, The Great Persuader, pp. 113, 391n5.
11. Robert C. Black III, The Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), pp. 185–91.
12. John Bowers, Chickamauga and Chattanooga: The Battles That Doomed the Confederacy (New York: Avon Books, 1995), pp. 136–38, 153.
