Builders of the Santa Fe

On the following morning they started out again.  The snow lay deep and continued to fall; travel was difficult.  Toward night they met a rancher, who dissuaded them from further attempting to get over the mountain at that season of the year. 

The party then struck off to the west and south toward Fort Yuma. 

"I kept a good cook and served good meals."

As is commonly known, this region is one of the most forbidding of deserts and the trip was fraught with hardships.  Scarcely a blade of grass could be found for their animals, and it was by rare good luck that a ranch near Old Camp Date Creek was found, where Kingman bought corn or the horses; the price paid was eight cents per pound.  Their journey for most of the distance followed an old  freight wagon road along which several deep wells had been sunk.  The water, however, on being drawn from the ground was so warm that it had to be cooled before man or beast could drink it.

Leaving Yuma on January 16, Kingman and his men started back east along the Southern Pacific right of way and the Gila Bend.  At Picacho they found a Southern Pacific force laying track toward Tucson.  The Santa Fe men reached that town on February 5 and after a night's rest they pushed on to Tombstone, where they arrived on the eighth.  That night they camped in a nasty sleetstorm and at daybreak they awoke in two inches of ice and snow, with their camp equipment frozen stiff.  Hurrying on to Silver City, Kingman took stage for Santa Fe, where Chief Engineer Robinson had his headquarters. 

After conferring some time Robinson sent Kingman to Albuquerque, whence the latter started surveys west along the thirty-fifth parallel.  This was the old Atlantic & Pacific  route to which allusion has been made and upon which little or no work had as yet been done.  After making three locations as far as the Rio Puerco, one of which via Isleta was afterward chosen for the road to follow, Kingman was instructed to move west from Laguna and locate a preliminary line as quickly as possible.

Making his headquarters at the Sunset Crossing of the Little Colorado he proceeded without delay.  Mr. Kingman had left the following brief description of camp life while on this survey.  It is of interest because it pictures a cheerful phase of the life that the builders of the Santa Fe led, while determining the course which that great highway was to follow.  Kingman says:
 

I had good mule teams and a saddle horse, was well supplied with provisions; had tents, a cookstove and water barrels.  I kept a good cook and served good meals.  My rule was to have breakfast at sunrise, reach the end of the line as soon as we could (which end of the line would, of course, be some distance from camp), work until 12 o'clock, give the boys an hour for dinner, usually make hot coffee and have a good basket of lunch and some canned goods for relish.  Then we worked in the afternoon until 5 or 5:30, quitting in time to reach camp just before sundown. The boys always enjoyed eating supper just before dark, after which we assembled around a good campfire.  In a crowd of fifteen men there are always three or four good story tellers and one or two with a little more wit than the others, and usually a majority who are inclined to enjoy life and make the others comfortable.  Then there is always one, sometimes two, who think themselves most miserable and are inclined to find fault with everybody and everything.  These always get what they deserve and find that the world is just what they make it.

J. W. Sterritt and a party had been sent into the San Francisco Mountains before Kingman.  Prior to the latter's arrival Sterritt had run a line from Walnut Creek to Flagstaff,  crossing Walnut Creek en route on a 75-foot fill.  Kingman, meanwhile having surveyed from Sunset Crossing to Canõn Diablo, then joined Sterritt at Flagstaff.  There some dispute arose between the two men.  Having been sent out with higher rank than Sterritt, Kingman openly criticized the line which his colleague had established.  As a result Sterritt took his men back to Albuquerque, while Kingman relocated the line in question.  That his contention was justified was proven by his crossing Walnut Creek with a fill of only 25 feet.  The high bridge over Canõn Diablo, however, was scarcely avoidable.  It is there yet.