West by Southwest Ernie Bulow

from December 2019 Gallup Journey Magazine

Walking in Beauty Katie Sharpton

THE IRON HORSE THE IRON HORSE

SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON RAILROADS SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON RAILROADS

Ihave always enjoyed folk definitions of words—the sillier the better. I once read that the Natives used to call an automobile the “thing that runs by itself.” Crazy-no? Today I take on “iron horse,” or the more general iron trail, iron road, metal road, etc.

In 1962 I got to see tracks up close and personal. I went to work that summer at the copper smelter in McGill, Nevada— one hundred twenty miles from the nearest town, not counting the nearby village of Ely, which actually provided the services.

There were two big constructs—the mill which crushed and concentrated the copper ore, and the smelter where it was melted down to extract the copper. The air was so bad it would turn sagebrush into copper sculptures. The short track spur was used to move ore between the two locations. That summer they decided to replace the little section with new ties and rails. In those days this was still hand work, sorry to say.

Cross-ties are heavy when new, but saturated with minerals, they were literally petrified. Of course I got the worst of the bad jobs. The good thing was seeing the skill of these tobacco-chewing characters; cross ties were laid, then a big crew used something like the tongs they carried big blocks of ice with, and a couple of fellows laid thick metal plates to rest the rail on.

Those big iron rails were laid into place and the plates adjusted for alignment. Another guy moved along the track setting the spikes. They had to be precisely placed so they stood perfectly straight up. One man stood on each side of the rail and wielded a “spike maul.” This is essentially a pick with both ends ground off flat. That small face doesn’t allow for any mistakes.

The two “gandy dancers” would swing from alternating sides; when the spike was driven, then took one step to the right and the whirling mauls never missed a stroke. There were rarely any misses, for obvious reasons. And what’s a gandy dancer you ask? Simply a track worker. But the folk etymology is unusually fictional. I was told at the time it came from the brand of shovel used.

Over the years this has been expanded to refer to a Chicago company which made lots, maybe all, the tools used in track work. In actuality there appears to never have been such a company. It’s moot now because virtually nothing is done with hand tools. One of the great moments was the meeting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah, at the north end of the Great Salt Lake, once again popular knowledge and the real event only had the word Promontory in common. Promontory is just what it sounds like. It is a spur of low mountains that extends mile into the lake from the north. Technology of the time didn’t allow for rails across the huge lake. But that’s not the most interesting part. My wife’s grandfather had homesteaded on

A SELECTION OF DATE NAILS SPIKE MAULS MAKE GOOD DOOR HANDLES. MAP OF NEARBY LAND GRANTS

Ernie Bulow

West by Southwest

by Ernie Bulow

Promontory around 1900 and we drove out there one day. There was a curious thing. There was not one but two grades running parallel for mile after mile. Because of the Federal Government’s land grant bribes to the railroads, every mile of track they laid was worth between 20 and 50 miles of checkerboard. A section is a square mile.

Checkerboard is a common term around here, but not everyone knows what it is. Land on either side of the right of way was divided between the railroad and the Feds. And both were free to sell these lands. The west of the Mississippi sale of the federal sections financed the Land Grant Colleges (Utah State, New Mexico State, and all the rest.)

The down side of this great idea comes from the fact that much of this land was already occupied—By the Natives. The

land around the current village of Zuni wasn’t much affected, but the land up by Pescado was almost lost. Not long ago I wrote about the Pleasant Valley War. The Hash Knife Outfit had acquired more than a million acres of this “railroad” land. - ernie@buffalomedicine.com The television series “Hell on Wheels” is a wonderful study in the whole history. It is quite accurate, especially the machinations of Brigham Young who wanted (demanded) that the right of way crossed the Utah territory, essential to the Mormon Church. Interest in railroad history has almost disappeared in recent years, but various tools and pieces of metal lend themselves to Old West decor. There is another odd item most people have never heard of—date nails. Every tie laid by hand had a date nail driven into one end. Some are simple year designations, some had other information. Some are quite valuable. The northern continental tracks were finished shortly after the end of the Civil War—1869— but the southern route took years more. The route had endless problems, mostly financial, and it is hard to know which company actually laid rail through Gallup. The earliest photo I have found shows the road as A, & P. R. R. It is common usage to call our Iron Horse the Santa Fe line, but that PHOTOS LIKE THE DRIVING OF THE GOLDEN SPIKE ARE company doesn’t seem COMMONLY STAGED AFTER THE FACT. to have existed as a stand alone, giving us AT&SF and today BNSF. The route through Gallup was determined by three factors: It was a bit easier than the long established trail through Zuni land, there was plenty of wood easily accessible (some track grades are visible in the Zuni Mountains.) But best of all, there was unlimited coal. Too bad this is one more page in Old West history that is gone. GALLUP, NM’S, FIRST STATION WAS TWO-STORY A PILE OF SPIKES ANVILS FOR JEWELERS WERE MADE OUT OF PIECES OF TRACK. THIS SMALLER ONE CAME FROM THE SHAFTS UNDERNEATH GALLUP.