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New Mexico's Railroads David Myrick Historical Survey REVISED Soft Cover
New Mexicos Railroads By David Myrick An Historical Survey REVISED EDITION
Soft Cover
276 pages
Copyright 1970 and 1990, SECOND paperback printing of the revised edition 1993
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xiii
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway 1
Santa Fe 1
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad 17
Belen Cutoff 20
Colmor Cutoff 25
Santa Fe Lines in New Mexico 29
Pecos River Valley 39
Potash and Sulphur 44
New Mexico Central Railway 49
Southern Pacific Transportation Company 59
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company of New Mexico 59
El Paso and Northeastern Railroad System 71
El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Company 92
Tucumcari 106
Introduction
Early in 1912, New Mexico became the 47th state of the Union, but this late entry in no way shrinks the extended history of European discovery and settlement which predates that of many areas along the Atlantic seaboard. Santa Fe, the capital of the state, founded by the Spanish in 1610, was the objective of traders from a vast area. Journeys of the traders to and from the Missouri resulted in the Santa Fe Trail. Not surprisingly, New Mexico figured prominently in the Pacific Railroad Surveys of 1853-56, although nearly a quarter of a century was to go by before the first locomotive whistle echoed through a mountain pass leading into the territory.
Early railroad proposals were concerned with building through the territory while actual railroad building, measured by the number of lines, was largely for development within the borders of New Mexico. The slogan, "Land of Enchantment", may have provided the stimulus to bring many visitors to this part of the southwest in later years, but it was the unusually wide range of natural resources that brought pioneer industry, jobs, people and the short line railroads that served them. Extensive coal deposits, oil fields, potash mines, metals such as copper, zinc, lead, iron, silver and gold, agricultural and livestock lands and great stands of timber were effectively linked to markets by rail-both short lines and branches feeding to the main lines of major systems.
The number of railroads in New Mexico's history can be expanded or contracted at will depending on definitions. Most of the larger railroads were the result of a series of combinations of corporate names, often the same piece of track having a succession of legal ownerships. Of the companies owning or operating rail properties in New Mexico, the enlarged definition would probably yield a number in excess of 100. A list of railroads filing papers of incorporation in the Territorial days is almost double that number. As Texas laws for many years required that railroads operating in that state he incorporated under its laws, railroads running from El Paso into New Mexico added still more corporations to the list. Because of their significant contribution to the overall railroad history of New Mexico, railroads in Western Texas are included in this book.
Though major railroad projects such as the Atlantic and Pacific had their inception earlier, November 1, 1869 was the date of the first railroad incorporation in New Mexico. While its principal office was given as Santa Fe, the title gave no hint as to the area to be served: Mississippi Valley and Pacific Rail Road Company. One of its several proposed routes was from Gallup to Raton Pass to meet the Kansas Pacific. The promoters also had in mind a later project to follow Beal's wagon road across Arizona to meet proposed California railroads near Fort Mohave.
A few weeks later, some of the same busy people filed papers for their El Paso and Rio Gila Railroad and Telegraph Company. Projected routes included one from El Paso to Yuma, El Paso to Delaware Creek, Texas (near the southeast corner of New Mexico where the Santa Fe completed its sulphur branch in 1969), as well as a link to their other system. Great ideas were these railroads hut, with no construction funds forthcoming, ideas are all they were.
More incorporations were to take place, but it was not until late in 1878 that the first railroad entered New Mexico. Steaming across the boundary at Raton Pass, the Santa Fe opened an active period of construction in New Mexico in which two other companies soon joined. By the time the Santa Fe had finished building southward through the territory to reach El Paso in June 1881, three railroads had built over 1,000 miles - all in just 30 months.
In this brief period of time when one-third of the total railroad mileage of New Mexico was built, the Santa Fe's extensions included a line to Deming to meet the Southern Pacific, thus forming the nation's second transcontinental railroad, as well as a branch to the territorial capital. Through the affiliated Atlantic and Pacific, its tracks reached westward through Gallup into Arizona on the way to California.
Also entering from the north were the narrow gauge tracks of the Denver and Rio Grande. One line approached Santa Fe (the final link was not accomplished until 1887) while another traversed part of the lumber lands in Rio Arriha County on the way to the silver mines around Durango, Colorado.
Into the southwestern corner of New Mexico came the Southern Pacific in 1880 to continue on to Deming, then across the Rio Grande to El Paso and beyond.
Thus in a relatively short span of time, a major step in the transformation of New Mexico's mode of transportation took place. Although horse drawn wagons were still important to the way of life of many isolated towns and would continue to be so well into this century, the steam locomotive was beginning to bring about many changes in the economy of the territory.
The balance of the decade ending in 1890 reflected little major construction insofar as New Mexico railroads were concerned, the notable exception being the driving of the last spike in the northeastern part of the territory in 1888 to mark the completion of the present Colorado and Southern Railway from Denver to Texas. El Paso, already served by railroads from three different directions, celebrated the opening of the Mexican Central from Juarez, its neighboring city just across the Rio Grande, to Chihuahua in 1882. And in that same year trains of the Texas and Pacific came into El Paso for the first time.
The general economic depression which spread across the country during the 1890's curtailed railroad developments, but some new short lines appeared in New Mexico. Continuing the trend initiated in the late 1880's, a few more lumber railroads reached out into the woods. This was also the time that tracks were laid in Pecos Valley for a road which eventually became part of the Santa Fe family.
Working intermittently between economic slumps during the first decade of this century, entrepreneurs filled out most of the railroad map of New Mexico. Col. Eddy's road, the El Paso and Northeastern, which during 1898 and 1899 had built almost 200 miles north of El Paso, continued its course to meet the Rock Island at Santa Rosa in 1902. This was also the decade that the Santa Fe opened the Belen Cutoff, a new freight route across New Mexico avoiding the heavy grades of Raton Pass.
The copper road, El Paso and Southwestern, moving eastward from Arizona, reached El Paso late in 1902; three years later it absorbed Col. Eddy's road.
Several lines were built to tap coal mines and timber lands during this decade. In addition to a line Col. Eddy built to his Dawson coal properties, the St. Louis Rocky Mountain and Pacific Railway also served coal mines and provided an outlet for the Cimarron and Northwestern Railway, a lumber carrier in Colfax County. Another independent line was the New Mexico Central which provided an alternate route to the territorial capital and added 116 miles of railroad to the total.
During these years (1901-1910), over 1,200 miles of railroad were built. In 1914, the eleven common carrier companies reporting to the State Corporation Commission of New Mexico operated, 3,124 miles of railroad in New Mexico. As subsequent additions were offset by abandonments, the total common carrier mileage was held to about 3,000 miles through 1930. Winding through the woods were many more miles of lumber roads with short branches, often temporary in nature, lasting only long enough to permit cutting of a stand of timber. Other industrial spurs served coal and copper mines.
After World War I, additional mileages were generally limited to lumber roads, the most important being the Santa Fe Northwestern Railway. It was in 1924 that a major change in railroad ownership took place when the Southern Pacific acquired the system of the El Paso and Southwestern. Southeastern New Mexico welcomed its first train when the Texas-New Mexico came into Hobbs and Lovington in 1930.
In the ninety years since the first railroad came into New Mexico, it is worthy of note that about 80% of the common carrier mileage was built in two periods: 1878-1882 and 1898-1910. At the end of 1968, there were six common carrier railroads operating 2,225 miles in New Mexico but only five a year later as the 99 miles of narrow gauge lines of the Rio Grande were abandoned. Construction of new lines still continues in the form of branch lines to serve coal or sulphur deposits. Of the industrial railroads, the last of the logging railroads disappeared some years ago along with the mining roads but, here again, new construction does occur, an example being the Phelps Dodge railroad to Tyrone, finished in 1967.
Though the railroads of the past are no longer operating, their history is not forgotten. Many people, both as individuals and in such organizations as the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club, the Colorado Railroad Museum and the Railroad Club of New Mexico, through their dedicated interests, are adding to the knowledge of the part played by railroads in Western history.
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