WHISTLING DOWN THE CANYON

Resting and rusting atop the high mountains near the abandoned mining town of Metcalf are three babygauge locomotives. Long forgotten by the world-for they are in an almost inaccessible spot-the tiny engines once played an important part in the romance of Arizona railways. Along with a locomotive at the Arizona Museum in Phoenix and one in front of Phelps Dodge's Clifton store, the three comprise the last of a group of miniature engines that once busily plied to and fro in the canyons and atop the mountains of the Clifton-Morenci district.

The story of these Tom-Thumb locomotives and their matching ore cars is closely interwoven with the many difficulties which beset Henry Lesinsky and his partners in 1872 after they commenced mining activity near Clifton. From the beginning the Gila River Mining Company (later the Longfellow Mining Company) encountered terrific transportation problems. Rich rock first taken from the fabled Longfellow mine was hauled across the nation to Baltimore to be smelted. After the ore proved unbelievably rich in copper, a small Mexicantype furnace was erected at the Stone House on Chase Creek. This location was shortly abandoned because of lack of water and another furnace built at the mouth of Chase Creek.

Burros and mules were first used to pack ore to the smelters, a method later replaced by sturdy freight wagons pulled by teams of liorses. And for a short period of time both ore and crudely smelted copper were hauled 1200 miles by freight wagons to Kansas City and from that point transported by train to Baltimore.

In their constant efforts to lower operating costs, the capable and energetic Jewish-born Lesinsky and his associates next made Arizona history by laying a 20-inch track from the Longfellow mine to the Clifton smelter, a distance of more than four miles. In his late years, S. J. (Sammy) Fruedenthal, one of Lesinsky's partners, would laughingly claim the title of "superintendent of locomotion" on Arizona's first railroad.

"Hymen Abraham and I were both engineers on this road. We pulled the throttle on two mules, tandem, which pulled the ore cars upgrade. When the steam got low, we would give the rear male's tail a twist. Sometimes the effect was startling. Gravity took care of the locomotion on the feruen trip.

Early in the year 1879, the Longfellow Mining Company ordered a font and one-half ton locomotive from the H. K. Porter Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The little engine was hauled from the railroad terminus in Colorado to Clifton by bull teams. Chinese were imported from San Francisco to build, grade, and lay trick. M. E. Davis, formerly of the Santa Monica, Railroad, served, as the line's engineer, On Christmas Day, 1879, the good people of Clifton happily and proudly celebrated the little locomotive's arrival with a grand railway excursion to the Longfellow mine, Couples danced merrily on the huge platform that received ore from the mine and after returning to Clifton in the evening, speeches were made by Lesinsky and Louis Smedbeck, mine superintendent. A salute of fifty guns were fired and an enthusiastic cry of "Viva la Compañía xent the crisp December air.

Henry (Dad) Arbuckle, who had previous railroad experience with the Union Pacific, was engaged to help assemble the wood-burning locomotive and be its first engineer. In an issue of the CLIFTON CLARION (Feb. 18, 1985) he tells of the locomotive's first day of opera "When everything was put together, we got up steam and started up the track. At the sound of the whistle the natives went wild, for you must reinember that few, if any of them, had ever seen steam cars-and El Vapor, as they called the engine, was a nine days wonder to them."

In the same issue of the CLIFTON CLARION, Dad told of the 1882 Indian raid which caused the loss of a number of lives in the Clifton-Morenci area, but failed to bloody the bold little engine, regardless of many stories to the contrary: "You remember that was the time the Chiricalmas.. left the reservation and made their heir trail of blood from the sub-agency to the Sierra Madres Those were exciting times. Clifton had, no telegraphic communication with the outside world, and we know nothing of the break until the Apaches were upon us. Thore was a section gang working up near the stone house repairing the track. Billy Delaney, who afterwards got so much notoriety for his many misdeeds, was one of the party of four men.

"As I came down off the first trip. I told them, of rumors that Indians were in the neighborhood and advised them to keep a sharp lookout. They did so and saved their lives by it. I started up the road on my sec ond trip. As I came around the second bend, below the stone house, where there is a considerable stretch of track which you can look up, the curves not being suf ficiently sharp to shut out your view, I discovered. the section gang coming down the road at a breakneck speed and waving their hats as a signal for me to stop or turn back. From my seat in the cab, I could see the old ore road that comes down into the canyon at the stone house, at least a portion of it, and. I at once understood the canse of the section men's flight. Coming down the ore road was a band of fifteen of twenty Apaches, and they were making good time, too."

"I took in the situation at once. I never thought about any more of them cutting down any of the mumerous, small tributary canyons afoot, and knowing that those on horseback would have to follow the windings of the wagon road to get down to the track, I determined to pull up and meet the boys, notwithstanding that they kept waving their hats to go back. Just as we were about up to them, my fireman called to me to look up on the hill, and not over 300 yards from us, I discovered five or six Indians running along its brow and trying to head off the section men who, by this time, had jumped into the car's. I turned the throttle wide open, after reversing the engine, and we started down the track at a lively rate. The Indians on the hill, before we got out of sight, numbered more than twenty. They fired a mumber of times at the engine, but failed to do any injury, and we arrived, in. Clifton all right."

That Dad Arbuckle veas mighty proud of his stubby charge (or at least for a short period of time) there can be no doubt. Alex McLean, an important early-day figure around Clifton and. Morenci, who used to liken "Emma" to a large coffee pot, once quipped: "For awhile Ar buckle wore his hat perched on three haits, but when he found, he had to get off and push to get the thing to start, to say nothing of stopping three or four times on the trip to blow up, his hat resumed its natural position."

The funnel-smokestacked engine was first named the “Coronado” after the intrepid Spanish explorer who visited the Clifton region in 1540. But someone in Pittsburgh knew nothing of the Spaniard or misunderstood directions because the name “Coranada” was boldly written across the locomotive's boiler on its arrival in Clifton. The name was later changed to “Emma” after one of Arbuckle's daughters.

A fine lady named Hallie Smith still lives today in Clifton whose memories of Dad Arbuckle and the tiny train go back to the year 1882. Many a time she and her friend, Jessie Pomeroy, made the trip to Longfellow. and back with Dad Arbuckle. Life was unhurried in those days and Dad thought nothing of stopping his train to pick a few poppies or lupins for his young friends.

Meager records of the Davenport Besler Corporation of Davenport, Iowa, which took over the H. K. Porrer Company of Pittsburgh, indicate Lesinsky and partners were not disappointed in the tiny engine's performance because another order was received by the H. K. Porter Company on March 18, 1880, for a “6 x ro, 0-4-0, saddle tank locomotive built to 20” gauge, and of the wood burner type.” According to the records this order was shipped April 29, 1880, by steamer from New York to San Francisco and assigned to N. S. Arnold & Compaапу Boxed weight was 9,351 pounds and the price $2,600 plus $40 for boxing, f.o.b. Pittsburgh.

Another locomotive order from the Longfellow Min-ing Company was received by the H. K. Porter Company on March 27, 1882, and was handled through New York for shipment. This engine-much larger than its predecessors-8 x 14, 0-4-2, 20” gauge, saddle tank, wood burner -cost $5.950.

Lesinsky and his associates bowed out of the Clifton-Morenci mining picture in 1882 and were succeeded in 1983 by the Arizona Copper Company, a Scotch organ-ization. In August, 1883, a young man named James Colquhoun from the Old Country made his way into Clifton to take a job with the A.C.C. as a bookkeeper. Before the indomitable Scotchman left Clifton in 1907 because of ill health, he had not only become head of the A.C.C. but had introduced methods without which Arizona's great copper mines could not today profitably mine low-grade ore.

“Under Colquhoun's guiding hand, the Arizona Copper Company grew, and as mining increased in volume, more and larger locomotives and cars were used. At the side of the Arizona Museum in Phoenix is one of the larger engines ordered by the A.C.C. According to the CLIFTON CLARION (May 2, 1888), this locomotive was named the “Forman” and weighed about 14 tons.

One of the engines sitting atop the hill near Metcalf's site was named the “Rattlesnake.” (Its name can still dimly be seen on the cab.) The story of its arrival in Clifton and why it was so named can be found in the GRAHAM COUNTY BULLETIN (April 10, 1896), which was published in Solomonville: “The new engine built by the H. G. Rogers Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the Arizona Copper Company arrived last week and is now running between Clifton and Metcalf on the baby road. It is about three tons heavier than the old one. It is well built and neatly finished with all the modern improvements. Superintendent Colquhoun was asked what name should be put on it. He replied, 'Call it the Rattlesnake.' The name was suggested by the fact that the cars make quite a rattle while in motion, and the road resembles a snake as it winds along its course up the Chase Creek.” How the locomotive “Copperhead,” on exhibit in front of the Phelps Dodge Clifton store, received its name can be found in the memoirs of George Gamble, veteran engineer on the baby-gauge line: "As the work advanced and our engines became too small to handle it, they bought us larger ones, finally giving Arbuckle one which James Colquhoun, then superintendent for the A.C.C., named the Rattlesnake on account of the sharp winding curves it had to travel. A few months later Colquhoun came to me and said, 'George, we are going to order a new engine for you just like Arbuckle's-what would you name it? Studying a moment, I said, 'The nearest thing to a rattlesnake I know of is a copperhead so when the new engine arrived that name was painted on it."

In 1901 the Arizona Copper Company widened their three-foot gauge line from Lordsburg, New Mexico to Clifton and at the same time changed the Clifton-Metcalf tracks from twenty-inch to three-foot. Rolling stock from the Lordsburg line was put to use on the CliftonMetcalf run, bringing to an end Dad Arbuckle's long career as an engineer and another chapter of the little locomotive's history.

The engines sitting atop the hill were put to use in 1909 hauling ore from the Coronado mine to the Coronado incline, a job previously performed by mules. After fire and cave-ins had caused the mine's abandonment, the little locomotives ran no more.

Not far from the noisy hurry of the vast Morenci open-pit mine, the tiny engines keep lonely vigil over the domain they once reigned. No more do they whistle down the canyon-only the winds whistle through their darkened frames. Their only visitors are the sulking coyote, a few quail and an occasional rabbit.

Each locomotive is a part of Arizona's rich historical heritage. Each locomotive should be taken from its mountain grave and placed alongside a museum as constant evidence of the state's early days when daring, adventure and enterprise ruled and the West was young.