ASM Straightening out Railroad Lines

December 2003

Rick Karl, Arizona State Museum researcher and AZSITE database manager, is researching early railroad routes through the Arizona Territory.

Along with archaeological sites, the AZSITE database records railroad lines (or “linear resources” as they are formally called). Over the past few decades numerous new segments of Arizona’s historic railroads have been identified and given new inventory numbers. This method has produced a confusing abundance of numbers assigned to the same railroad.  In some cases, the same segment has been assigned more than one number. Many are even assigned to the wrong railroad company. While frustrating to the modern-day researcher, the misidentification is understandable because competing railroads often ran parallel tracks going to the same location. To remedy this, Arizona State Museum has adopted a “single number” policy for linear resource recording. This new policy was the impetus for Karl’s research.

“Misidentification and multiple resource numbers have made compliance work (archaeological research that must be done prior to any new construction groundbreaking) and academic research extremely difficult and confusing,” says Karl. “I hope to consolidate the numbers by locating the railroad beds of the original lines. This should prove very helpful to researchers.”

Three routes in southeastern Arizona were initially defined by Jane Childress of the Bureau of Land Management and recorded in the AZSITE database. Karl’s research picks up where Childress left off.

Karl’s attention is currently focused on the Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR) route from Yuma to Lordsburg, NM. The first railroad to enter the Arizona Territory, SPRR’s line crossed the Colorado River into the Fort Yuma Military Reservation. The initial track was laid along Madison Avenue to (approx.) 1st Street in Yuma. The first train, Southern Pacific locomotive engine #31, rolled into Arizona on Sunday, September 30, 1877, however, the military garrison at Fort Yuma (about 6 soldiers) blocked the track and denied entry into the military reservation. It took President Hayes’ approval before the first passenger train—the Arizona Express from Los Angeles—could cross into Arizona.

After some economic problems, a new SPRR corporation continued crossing Arizona to New Mexico and eventually connected with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe near Deming. Karl will plot the entire route with the aid of materials from the University of Arizona, the Library of Congress, and with information from the Rails-to-Trails organization. In keeping with ASM’s new policy, a single number will be assigned to the route—AZ Z:2:40 (ASM).

The information will be available on AZSITE, of course, but Karl also plans to compile a monograph containing maps and an extensive history of the railroads in the Arizona Territory.