Guide to MS077 Southern Pacific Company (Rio Grande Division) Records

Authors

Marsha J. Labodda, University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Irma Montelongo
Robert Peartree

Publication Date

6-6-2008

Comments

Robert Peartree began the inventory of the Legal files of the Southern Pacific Company (Rio Grande Division) records in 1994 as a volunteer in the UTEP Library’s Special Collections Department. Later, Irma Montelongo began an inventory of the GFA, or General Freight Agent, files. Marsha Labodda completed the GFA and all the remaining boxes of the Southern Pacific records donated in 1969 to the University of Texas at El Paso. Gifts from Vernon Glover, a railroad historian presently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, funded Irma Montelongo’s and Marsha Labodda’s work. A grant from the Union Pacific Foundation funded map cases, shelving, and preservation supplies for the project.

Abstract

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company arrived in El Paso laying rails from the west in May 1881 in its attempt to complete the second transcontinental railroad route. East of El Paso, construction was handled by a Texas company, the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio line. Joining the GH & SA and the Texas & New Orleans line, the route became known as the Sunset Route. In 1924, the Southern Pacific System acquired the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, known best for providing transportation for the coal and copper industries in the Southwest. The Rio Grande Division of the Southern Pacific Company included railway lines north and west of El Paso as far west as Arizona and as far north as Tucumcari, New Mexico. Other lines absorbed into this division include El Paso and Northeastern, Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railroad, El Paso and Rock Island and Arizona and New Mexico Railway Company. This collection was donated to the C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department of the University of Texas at El Paso Library in 1969. Offices or subsidiary companies that generated the records include: Arizona & New Mexico Railway Company; General Auditor’s Department; El Paso Legal Department; General Claims Agent’s Office; General Freight and Passenger Agent’s Office; Land and Tax Agent’s Office; El Paso Operating Department (Maintenance of Way); and The Pullman Company. Correspondence, ledgers, contracts, legal files, court cases, financial records, maintenance records, maps, plans, and incidental photographs reflect the activities of the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, Southern Pacific within the Rio Grande Division, and certain predecessor or subsidiary lines including El Paso Northern Railway, El Paso and Northeastern Railroad, Arizona and New Mexico Railway, El Paso and Rock Island Railroad, Burro Mountain Railroad Company, Dawson Railway and Coal Company, El Paso Southern Railway Company, and Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railroad. Major correspondents include Charles B. Eddy, William A. Hawkins, and John Franklin. Topics include railroad construction, water resources, Bonito Dam, railroad operation and maintenance, Mexican bracero workers, railroad-related lawsuits. The collection also includes source material on the coal, copper, cattle, and timber industries in the Southwest.