156

 

CROFUTT’S NEW OVERLAND TOURIST

 

slope down to the river brink. Seams of | the road that comes in here and note what

iron ore and copper-bearing rock break | can be seen.

the monotony of color, showing the exist-
ence of large deposits of these materials

among these brown old mountains. Now
we pass “Red Cliff,” which rears its bat-
tered frontlet 800 feet above the water. A

colony of swallows have taken possession
of the rock, and built their curious nests
upon its face. From out their mud pal-
aces they look down upon us, no doubt
wondering aboutthe great monster rushing
past, and after he has disappeared, gossip-
ing among themselves of the good old
times when his presence was unknown in
the canyon. Now we pass “Maggie's
Bower,” a brown arch on the face of the
cliff, about 500 feet from its base. We
could not see much bower — unless it was
the left bower, for we defé it behind us.
Twisting in and around these projecting
cliffs, 9.1 miles from Carlin, we reach
Palisade—a station, in the midst of
the Palisades, and apparently locked in on
all sides. This is a busy place for a small
one of only 200 population, as it is the
junction of the Eureka & Palisade rail-
road, where are located their machine and
workshops. Most of the box and flat cars
ofthis company are made here in their
own shops. The amount of freight han-
died at this station is enormous. Passen-
gers can, almost always, see large piles of
base bullion pigs piled up at the freight
house, awaiting shipment. This bullion is
mostly freighted here from the smeltin
furnaces at Eureka, by the Eureka an
Palisade railroad, which alone handled
31,038,884 pounds during the year 1877.
One great item of freight taken down
over this road—the E. & P.—is timber
from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, for use
in timbering up the mines at Eureka.
Palisade, beside the machine shops
above named, has several large build-
ings, used by the Railroad Company, for
a and storage and one a fine, com-
modious passenger station; these with
several stores, hotels, restaurants and
; saloons make up the town.

The station is supplied with water from
a huge tank, situated upon the mountain
side, to the north, 300 feet above the sta-
tion. This tankin turn is supplied from
springs situated further up the mountain,
that never fail in their supply.

Now, as we started out to see what was

worth seeing, let us take a run down over |

 

Eureka & Palisade Railroad.

Principal Office, Eureka, Nevada.
TR. MECC. sn OVROM OMNE,. 5 os ce ce beae es Eureka.
P. yvenes .... Gerd BW t..  occccsc es

j Hureka.
I. F. Lawuzr..Gen'l F. P. & T. Agt...Palisade.

This road is a three-foot narrow gauge,
commenced in December, 1873, and com-
pleted to Eureka in October, 1874, and is
90 miles in length. Passenger trains leave
for the South on arrival of trains on the
Central, and arrive in time to connect for
either the Eastor West. The trains make
full 20 miles an hour, and the cars are as
commodious and nice as on any road in
this country.

Leaving Palisade we cross the Humboldt
River and start for the West, the C. P. on
the north side of the river and our little
train on the south side. But a few hun-
dred yards from the station we curve
around to the left, while the C. P. makes a
similar one to the right and is soon lost to
view. ‘The general course of our train is
south, following up Pine Valley, which is,
for the first ten miles, covered with sage-
brush—as is also thesurrounding hills.

Bu.uron—is the first station on the bills,
eight miles from Palisade, but we pass it,
and the valley widens and 4.25 miles fur-
ther is over one mile in width, Now our
train is at

Evans—a simple side-track, important
only to a few settlers near, who are culti-
vating small fields and watching herds of
cattle and sheep, which find good ranges on
the hills, ravines, and neighboring valleys.
Some fields are fenced, for the protection
of the grass, which is cut for hay. The
Cortez Mountains are on the west—the
right side—and the Diamond range on the
left.

Wiiiarp’s—is 15 miles from Palisade,
and four miles from

Hay Rancu—This station is the first
from Palisade where anything like busi-
ness isto be seen. Here the Railroad Com-
pany have 2,500 acres of bottom land
fenced, on which they cut annually about
1,000 tons of hay, which they bale and
store away in those long warehouses to be
seen on the right of the road. The com-
pany run freight teams from the end of
their road at Eureka, and—in connection

| with it—to Pioche and all intermediate

places. These teams are composed of 18
mules each, with three and sometimes four