![]() ![]() ![]() It consisted of fourteen saloons, ten gambling houses, four brothels and two dance halls. The center street, however, was not named Main Street, but "Hell Street". The town was designed with two lines of buildings facing one another across the rock bed main street. Its population was mostly railroad workers, along with passing outlaws, gamblers, and prostitutes. No lawmen were employed by the community initially, so it quickly became a very dangerous place. Originally a small mobile business community catering to the needs of railroad men, once the railroad stopped at the edge of the canyon this community quickly produced numerous saloons, brothels, dance halls, and gambling houses, all of which remained open 24 hours a day. Work quickly progressed until the A&P crew linked up with the Southern Pacific Railroad crews at Needles, California on August 9, 1883. Crews were sent ahead to survey the route, prepare the grade and bed, cut and prestage railroad ties and other supplies in advance of the iron rails that would accompany the trains once the canyon was spanned when the new bridge arrived. Although the railroad ended at the edge of the canyon, work on the railroad route still progressed. The ruins of the lodgings of the railroad workmen are on the west end of the bridge site. The original pillars the bridge was mounted on were excavated from the surrounding Kaibab Limestone and shaped on site by Italian stonemasons. ![]() Consequently, for six months the transcontinental railroad ended at the lip of Canyon Diablo while another bridge was manufactured and shipped to the work site. The bridge story is that the original bridge when ordered was not long enough to span Canyon Diablo, and this was only discovered when the bridge arrived on site from the manufacturer. The ramshackle community originated in 1880, due to construction delays attributed to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad ordering the wrong span length railroad bridge across the canyon. Cowboys hold up the corpse of outlaw John Shaw, who died in the Canyon Diablo shootout, 1905. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |