Nostalgia & History > Railroad Prospectors

This morning’s Denver Post had an article on prospecting for gold and gold panning.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_22070793/prospecting-gold-can-dig-up-issues-property-rights

I did a Google Image Search for Railroad Prospectors and got a number of images.

On the following website, “Official Tumblr [blog] for the book "FULL STEAM AHEAD: THE LIFE AND ART OF WARD KIMBALL". Coming SUMMER 2013 from Chronicle Books!,”

is a terrific cartoon of a prospector and a railfan.

http://wardkimball.tumblr.com/post/35269958726/161-in-this-1941-drawing-ward-pokes-fun-at-the

Wikipedia has a webpage on Ward Kimball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr

The following excerpt is from the above webpage.

“Along with his employer and friend Walt Disney, and fellow mate Ollie Johnston, Kimball also collected old railroad ephemera. Kimball was an avid railway enthusiast and donated his 3 ft (914 mm) gauge collection to the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California. A full-sized steam locomotive, - which Kimball ran on his private 3-acre (12,000 m2) backyard railroad known as ‘Grizzly Flats Railroad’ in San Gabriel, California - bears some of his original artwork on the headlamp and cab, and is on permanent display at the museum.”

Picture 1 is from the following website,

http://www.darringtonwatourism.com/darrington-history/looking-at-the-town-history

The following excerpt is from the above webpage.

“A prospector sees the mountains differently from most folks. They can look at a rock ledge and evaluate its mineral composition and whether the lode ore could turn a profit. Many of the prospectors never made the trip all the way to Monte Cristo. They explored the mountains of the Darrington area and found veins of gold, silver, copper and more. The travel through Darrington was bypassed in 1894 when the railroad was completed connecting Monte Cristo and Everett to the west. By this time the upper Stillaguamish Valley had grown into a small mining settlement which was named Darrington on July 22, 1891 when they filed for their first post office. There were many mining claims and prospectors in the surrounding mountains and the valley thundered with dynomite blasts. With the discovery of mineral wealth the problem of getting the ore out of the valley was becoming a real obstacle. But for prospector Charles Burns it became a challenge, he had a big dream to bring the train all the way to this new mining town and it was through his perseverance that the first train reached Darrington June 29, 1901 to pick up the first load of ore.”

Picture 1, “The first train to Darrington, photo from the Darrington Historical Society.”

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Picture 2 is from the following website,

http://grandcanyonhistory.clas.asu.edu/history_loggingminingranching_mining.html

Picture 2, “Flagstaff rose from the chaos of an Atlantic & Pacific Railroad camp in 1882, to become the major outfitting center for prospectors’ and miners’ canyon operations. These men are ‘packed for the Grand Canyon,’ circa 1890s. Credit: NAU Cline Library, Russell Wahmann Collection, NAU.PH.433.6.”

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Picture 3 is from the following website,

http://arizona100.wordpress.com/page/6

Picture 3, “The solitary prospector wandering the mountains with his train of burros became an icon of the desert southwest. It appears this guy has a dry washer loaded up, along with several five-gallon square steel cans of water. He must have camped with few bedding comforts and little food.”

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Pictures 4 and 5 are from the following website,

http://www.wpyr.com/history/facts.html

The following excerpt is from the above webpage.

‘The White Pass & Yukon Route climbs from sea level in Skagway to almost 3000 feet at the summit in just 20 miles and features steep grades of almost 3.9%. The tight curves of the White Pass called for a narrow gauge railroad. The rails were three feet apart on a 10-foot-wide road bed and meant lower construction costs.
On July 21, 1898, two months after construction began, the railroad’s first engine went into service over the first four miles of completed track. The WP&YR was the northernmost railroad in the Western Hemisphere.
Building the one hundred and ten miles of track was a challenge in every way. Construction required cliff hanging turns of 16 degrees, building two tunnels and numerous bridges and trestles. Work on the tunnel at Mile 16 took place in the dead of winter with heavy snow and temperatures as low as 60 below slowed the work. The workers reached the summit of White Pass on February 20, 1899 and by July 6, 1899 construction reached Lake Bennett and the beginning of the river and lakes route.
While construction crews battled their way north laying rail, another crew came from the north heading south and together they met on July 29, 1900 in Carcross where a ceremonial golden spike was driven by Samuel H. Graves, the president of the railroad. Thirty five thousand men worked on the construction of the railroad – some for a day, others for a longer period but all shared in the dream and the hardship.
The $10 million project was the product of British financing, American engineering and Canadian contracting. Tens of thousands of men and 450 tons of explosives overcame harsh and challenging climate and geography to create the ‘Railway Built of Gold.”

Picture 4, “Removing the work of a blast.”

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Picture 5, “The Steel Cantilever Bridge.”

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Picture 6 is from the following webpage,

http://ochistorical.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

Picture 6, “Railroad Crew.”

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Picture 7 is from the following webpage.

http://www.thetrain.com/Railway-History-5683.html

The following excerpts are from the above webpage.

“Grand Canyon country was a far-off distant land in the late 1800s. Only the most adventurous of explorers could rough the elements to see it with its remote location in northern Arizona, still a territory at the time. But Americans were on the move and going west. American ingenuity was hard at work in the form of the railroads, being built and tying the nation together. The main line west was built from Chicago to Los Angeles and it passed through Williams, Arizona. Grand Canyon Railway made its first journey to the Grand Canyon on September 17, 1901.”

“The Railroad was originally built to transport ore in the Wild West from the Anita mines, 45 miles north of Williams in the late 1800s. Buckey O'Neill, sheriff of Yavapi County, mayor of Prescott, prospector, promoter and later one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, realized money could be made in the mines. He traveled east to gain the support and investment. O'Neill gained the support of Thomas Lombard from the investment firm of Lombard, Goode and Company in New York. Together they entered conversations with the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad. To help gain the interest of the Santa Fe, O'Neill sent ore samples of gold saying he had mined the samples from the Grand Canyon. In the same letter, however, O'Neill also recognized the potential for tourism so he spoke to the natural beauty of the region and the canyon. O'Neill continued to flirt with the Santa Fe through the years seeking their investment. He also tried to get local investors, which he did, and in 1897 the Santa Fe and Grand Canyon Railroad Company was incorporated. Development of the tracks north from Williams began. O'Neill would not see its completion. He left to fight in the Spanish American War behind Colonel Theodore Roosevelt where he died in 1898.”

Picture 7, No caption.

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Photo #5 is on the White Pass and Yukon rr, wag216

That story on the WP&YRR was really interesting as we rode it on the 1st of Sept 2012. upkpfan