b'RIDING THE RAILSTO THE BRADSHAW MINESBy Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerT HERE WAS A TIME when you could ride the rails into the Bradshaws from Prescott or most any other point along the famed Peavine that ran from the north end of Yavapai County to the south end. From the Prescott Depot on the main Peavine line, you could transfer to the Prescott and Eastern Railroad that ran to Mayer and then on the Bradshaw Mountain Railroad to the mining camps betweenPrescott DepotMayer and Oland or Crown King. Names now but ghosts of the memory were regular stops along the P&E and the Bradshaw line, places like Cherry Creek, Iron King, Henrietta, Eugenie, Poland, Arizona City, Turkey Creek, Middleton, Horse Thief, and Crown King. A few of these old mining camps still survive. Most are long forgotten or unknown to todays Arizonans. Ninety years ago, however, the dawn of these two railroads opened up the mountains, mines, mills, and mining camps of Yavapai County to all and made the county hum with activity for the following quarter-century. By statehood in 1912, the mines had started to play out and by WWI the railroads serving them were fast falling into decline. But before they did, Territorial Yavapai County had boom times along the rails that increased the quality and richness of life in a way no other event has done since. Picture yourself leaving the old Prescott Depot on aMountain lines, they didnt want anyone else to ownbaths, and every business necessary for a mining camp. Prescott & Eastern train. As the P&E train wound pastthem and knew the determined Murphy would putYou checked in to the Poland Hotel but had trouble Point of Rocks at Granite Dells it left the main Santa Fetogether a group of other investors if Santa Fe did notsleeping. The continuous round-the-clock pounding of line at the Dells junction and headed eastward acrossback his plan. the stamps at the mill kept you and others awake. The what is now Prescott Valley to Yaegar. Taking a widemill closed down in 1913, having produced nearly $1.5 curve in the tracks southward after Yaeger the trainPoland & Frank Murphy million in silver lead from the Poland and other mines then stopped at Cherry Creek, Iron King, Chaparral andThe Poland Mine was named after a miner named Davisin the area.Huron before coming to Poland Junction. The train youR. Poland. It was limited to placer mining in the 1860s were on was a mix consisting of freight, ore, mail, andand 70s, but by the 1880s enough gold was being foundThe Humboldt Connectionpassenger cars. You had business at the Poland mine andto warrant the construction of a quartz mill. Then FrankIn 1899 as the P&E tracks reached Humboldt, a smelter the train you were riding took the fork in the tracks atMurphy and his associates bought the mine in the earlywas built by the Val Verde Corporation. The smelter Poland Junction and headed westward. Henrietta was the1890s. Drilling uncovered a large ore body and shaftsoperated successfully until 1903 when a furnace blew first stop, then Eugenie, Providence, Block, and finallywere dug. A 20 stamp mill was built, a concentrator,up and the wooden structure was destroyed in the fire. Poland, a teeming mining camp made possible by theand finally, in May of 1904, the rail branch off the P&EIn 1905, Murphy and his associates bought what was railroad you were riding. and Bradshaw lines. Poland was typical of Murphysleft of the destroyed smelter and built a new, larger, and vision, one he had applied at the Congress Mine withmore efficient smelter on the site. When completed it Each Dependent on the Other great success. Expand the mine to recover all of the orewas the largest smelter in Arizona Territory, operated by It is impossible to determine whether the railroadpossible and build a railroad to the mine to move thethe Consolidated Arizona Smelting Company, a Murphy made the lines flourish or the mines made the railroadmachinery in and precious metals out economically. firm. In the crash of 1907, Consolidated went bankrupt. possible. But, certainly, many of the mines along the P&ESouthwest Metals Company took over the smelter and and Bradshaw lines were not feasible until the railroadThis time Murphy envisioned additional revenues fromit operated into the 1930s. Ores from a large number reached them. Freighting supplies in and ore out byWalker. He built an 8,017 ft. haulage tunnel to link theof mines throughout the Big Bug and Walker Districts wagon and team over the rugged, mountainous trails thatrich mines of Walker with Poland, its stamp mill andand other parts of the territory and state were processed led to these mines, spread out over the vast area east ofconcentrator, and his railroad. The tunnel fed high-gradeat the Humboldt smelter, all arriving on Frank Murphy Prescott, was cost-prohibitive to many of the operations,ore into Poland from Walker, the French Sheldon, andand Santa Fes railway system.eliminating any chance of profitable returns to investors. many other Walker District mines until 1930. These ores then rode the rails out to Poland Junction and on to theHumboldt was named after German explorer and If the mines had not been there, however, there wouldmain Santa Fe Line junction at Granite Dells. geographer Baron Alexander Von Humboldt. Rivers, have been no reason to build the P&E and Bradshaw railmountains, towns, and mines across the west were lines. Potential passenger revenue was far too small toWalker grew to a town of some 500 miners andnamed after the famous 18th-century explorer. Long support the lines. There was considerable debate betweenbusinessmen. Adding to the profitability of the Polandbefore Humboldt predicted Primeria Alta, the area that Prescott railroad promoter, mine owner and visionaryspur off the P&E and Bradshaw lines was the Henrietta,was to become Arizona, would be a treasure vault of Frank Murphy, and Santa Fe executives who Murphya mine that produced over one million dollars in goldminerals, Indians had discovered the silver lodes around wanted to finance the lines as to whether the freightbefore closing in 1910. On your train ride to Poland inHumboldt. Miners arriving in the 1860s at what was revenue from the mines would be adequate to makethe early 1900s, you found a mining camp of some 800to become the Silver Belt Mine found shallow digs and the lines pay. Murphy prevailed. While Santa Fe execspeople. The camp had a telephone, electric lights, hotpit houses where the Indians had taken colorful surface were reluctant to invest in the P&E and the Bradshawrocks from the area.42 June 2021'