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RGS Story, The Rio Grande Southern Vol VII 7 Dolores and McPhee MAP
The RGS Story Vol 7 Dolores and McPhee by W. George Cook, Dell A McCoy & Russ Collman
Hard Cover w/Plastic Protective Cover Map in back pocket
496 pages Reflections from the lights on some photos.
Copyright 1998
CONTENTS
1. Valley of the River of Sorrows 13
2. Alvin Asbury Rust 79
3. RGS Passenger Train Service at Dolores in the 1920's 87
4. Hoofprints in Dolores 161
5. A Day With the Montezuma Lumber Company at McPhee 193
6. The New Mexico Lumber Company Railroad at... McPhee, Colorado 221
Beaver Camp 271
Action in the Woods 303
Operational Problems 341
The Final Expansion 371
Run By Contractor 393
7. Montezuma Lumber Company Railroad 405
Trucking Distant Timber 425
Logs Arrive Via FIGS 451
Mill Fire at McPhee 459
MAP LIST
DOLORES MAPS
Sanborn Insurance Company Map, Dolores 1910 33
Sanborn Insurance Company Map, Dolores 1919 77
Dolores - RGS Map by Jim Key 104
Dolores to Lost Ca 90
RGS Evaluation Map of Dolores 1919 91
Sanborn Insurance Company Map, Dolores 1939 138
LOGGING MAPS
McPhee, Colorado, drawn by Jim Key 223
New Mexico Lumber Company Railroad drawn by Jim Key 224
McPhee to Horse Camp 242
Bean Canyon to Horse Camp 245
New Mexico Lumber Company Coal Mine 250
Turkey Creek Trestle to Beaver Camp 255
Rock Creek Trestle 263
Profile of NMLCo. Railroad by Jim Key 302
Long Draw, North of Beaver Camp 340
Beaver Camp Wye 355
Johnson Camp to Milepost 36 358
Plateau Creek Trestle 360
Morrison Ranch to End-of-Track 370
NMLCo. Proposed Lines 386
Montezuma National Forest 1927 426
DRAWINGS
Locomotive Nos. 6 or 7 by Ed Gebhardt 230
NMLCo. 19-Foot Skeleton Log Car by Charles Goodrich 239
Rock Creek Trestle by Joe Sacks 258
New Mexico Lumber Company Car No. 525 by Herman H. Darr 293
NMLCo. Shay No. 7 by Al Armitage 390
Locomotive Roster of NEW MEXICO LUMBER COMPANY 404
Locomotive Roster of MONTEZUMA LUMBER COMPANY 405
INTRODUCTION
LOCAL HISTORIES strike a responsive chord in the hearts and minds of most Americans. Whether tracing the family genealogy, following the boom and bust cycle of a Rocky Mountain mining camp, or chronicling the progress of a "hell on wheels" High Plains railroad town, local histories can provide an insightful glance into the development of the American character. When this look combines an eye for colorful detail, with a regional or national perspective, local histories become a valuable archival and public resource.
The history of the lower Dolores River Valley in southwestern Colorado achieves this historical synthesis. The four essays show how the rugged land itself shaped the valley's past and will determine its future. The very geographical factors that hindered permanent settlement - steep canyon walls, high altitude and poor soil - have today attracted the intense interest of Bureau of Reclamation hydrologists as an ideal site for a storage reservoir [now the McPhee Reservoir].
Duane Smith in his overview, Valley of the River of Sorrows, traces the slow, yet methodical, historical progress of the valley. Although initially explored by the Franciscan Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776, the valley was destined to languish almost a century before settlement. Yet, assured of a thriving market for their goods in the nearby mining community of Rico, a dependable transportation network and psychological security with the removal of the Ute Indians, pioneers began homesteading the valley in the 1870's and 1880's.
While settlers south of Dolores lamented the limited acreage available for farming, their neighbors in the adjacent Montezuma Valley faced an even greater challenge. The valley lacked water. However, frontier initiative and technology succeeded in bringing water to the fertile Montezuma Valley. The Montezuma Irrigation System was built to channel water from the Dolores River through a steep divide by blasting, drilling and excavating a 5,400-foot tunnel and a 4,000-foot "Great Cut." The system represents one of the earliest large-scale privately funded and continuously operating irrigation projects in the southwestern United States.
Settlement of the lower river valley followed a familiar Western pattern. Hyperbole and frontier "boosterism" were soon stripped away, leaving harsh reality. Pioneers overcame isolation and the limitations of the land itself; their determination punctuated with the continuation of homesteading, even after passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which severely curtailed homesteading in the West.
Although agriculture was fated to remain small-scale, the New Mexico Lumber Company's milling operation at McPhee grew at an astounding rate. The birth, growth and eventual death of the company town of McPhee is traced in this account. Founded in 1924, the company town soon became the site of Colorado's most productive lumber operation. Capitalizing on the successful purchase of four-million board feet within the Montezuma National Forest, the lumber company constructed its mill and town five miles south of Dolores. Like many industrialists locating their companies in isolated rural areas, William McPhee chose to build a company town to house his employees and to attract a more stable work force. The town featured a large stone sawmill, ethnically segregated housing for more than 1,400 employees and the last logging railroad in southwestern Colorado.
The sounds historically associated with the New Mexico Lumber Company's mill and town no longer echo through the river valley; and only skeletal frames of the once-numerous homesteads remain scattered along the valley. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has constructed the large McPhee Reservoir, flooding the valley in order to store the river's waters. By so doing, the bureau has realized the aspirations held by those first farsighted entrepreneurs who, more than a century earlier, began construction of the Montezuma Valley Irrigation System. The historical essay that follows hopefully will provide a lasting testimony to those hard-working pioneers who settled the lower Dolores River Valley. - Editor
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