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 Oanlanc), Calilottiia. 
 
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 This autobiography begins today, November 30, 
 1940. I was born November 30, 1863. About 105 
 years ago, my paternal and maternal grandparents 
 emigrated with their families in covered wagons from 
 the Chester District of South Carolina to Perry 
 County, Illinois. About 95 years ago, my parents, 
 Hugh and Jane Campbell, pre-empted 280 acres of 
 virgin timber land three miles west of Pinckneyville 
 in said county and made them into a typical American 
 farm while they were rearing their children. When I 
 think of my parents and all they accomplished by 
 self-reliant work, my hat, in reverence and humility, 
 is off to the pioneer parents of America. My twin 
 brother, Grant, and I were the youngest of nine chil- 
 dren. After I was sixteen, I was much away from 
 home at school or teaching school until, in 1888, I 
 went to the frontier of the United States on the Rio 
 Grande, beyond which lies Mexico. And thereon 
 hangs a tale. Now Mrs. Campbell and I, retired, 
 
 ) have our home in the Golden West near the Golden 
 Gate. The following recital is little more than an 
 
 P outline limited to not more than can be read in 30 
 minutes, necessarily excluding much of detail and 
 
 N incident in a life approaching four score years. 
 
 ; 
 
 Our father died when Grant and I were nearly 
 
 "~~: eight years old, leaving mother to carry on with the 
 
 ,;>i 5help of the children. When we were 10, we began 
 
 '-' helping with the plowing, the sowing and the reap- 
 
 ^ ing. One of us would hold the plow and the other 
 
 would drive the plow horses, each of us taking turns
 
 with the plow and the driving. When we were 14, 
 we felt quite grown up, and each began to do the 
 work of a farm hand. In those days, there would 
 have been insurrection on the farm had work thereon 
 been prohibited before the age of 18. The work of 
 children should be wisely tempered to age and capa- 
 city. The work we did gave us strength and self- 
 reliance. In 1871, when eight years old, I earned my 
 first money on the railroad as water boy for a con- 
 tractor who was grading the roadbed of a railroad 
 across my father's farm. In 1931, 60 years later, I 
 received my last wage for active service when I re- 
 tired as Chief Engineer of the Northwestern Pacific 
 Railroad. Thus, I began and ended, "Working on 
 the Railroad." 
 
 /4bout 110 years ago on an oak-crowned hill 
 subsequently marking the northwestern limit of our 
 farm, a Presbyterian church building was erected and 
 called Hopewell. That House of God still stands 
 and the Word is still proclaimed there. There, the 
 children are consecrated in the rite of infant baptism. 
 It seems that the record of the christenings during 
 the first three decades was lost. Grant and I were the 
 infants whose names now occupy the first two places 
 on the existing baptismal roll. Nevertheless, I fear 
 that he and I may have exhibited at sundry times 
 some of the original sin which Calvinistic dogma 
 avers to be inherent even in infants because of the 
 apple incident in the Garden of Eden. When our 
 daughter, Marian, was a little girl, she detected evi-
 
 dence of the soundness of the dogma by observation 
 of her two, and younger, brothers. She reproved 
 them, averring that her daddy had been a good little 
 boy. Later, one of her aunts recited some stories of 
 the near-infancy of daddy which shocked her greatly. 
 After mature deliberation, she confided in her mother, 
 saying, "Well, mamma, I guess there never are any 
 good little boys." But I cherish a hope that, in ma- 
 turity, my brothers and I gave countenance to the 
 proverb which says, "Train up a child in the way he 
 should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it." All of us became Ruling Elders of the 
 Church. For more than 50 years, my oldest brother 
 was Clerk of the Session at Hopewell. 
 
 At the age of 12, I had read all of the Bible 
 once, and many of its stories many times. Then I 
 found on an upper shelf of one of the closets of our 
 house a number of leather bound volumes of lectures 
 by one of the noted theologians of the Calvinistic 
 interpretation of the Bible story of man's creation, 
 his loss of immortality, and God's plan for his re- 
 demption. The clarity and force of premise and 
 reasoning in those lectures held my attention, and I 
 followed the great theologian through the pro- 
 fundities of Foreordination, Predestination, Calling, 
 and Election, or Damnation, to the heights of Heaven 
 or the depths of Hell. In the lectures, the hinges of 
 Hell are never cold; and there is never an effort to 
 lower the temperature of the Abyss. Always there 
 have been questions in my mind about statements of
 
 the Scriptures and theological interpretations thereof. 
 It seems to me that, in scriptural foundation, logic, 
 candor and courage, the Calvinistic Confession of 
 Faith is second to none. But it is no purpose or desire 
 of mine to incite theological controversy. Job, the 
 patient hero of the Old Testament, was confused and 
 oppressed by many insoluble questions within his 
 own mind or pressed upon him by his three critics 
 and monitors. But he was able to rise above them 
 and say, "For I know that my Redeemer liveth." I 
 have cited my boyhood excursion into the mysteries 
 of the relations between God and man to say that 
 those lectures were literature of high order from 
 which my youthful intellect and soul derived some- 
 thing of strength and courage. 
 
 Afy earliest recollection is of the time when I sat 
 down into a small brass bucket, full of water, on the 
 kitchen floor. I was still wearing dresses; and often 
 through the years I have seen a wet dress drying 
 before the fire. One morning when I had grown up 
 to pants, I stepped off the front porch and found the 
 depth of the snow which had fallen during the night 
 equal to the length of my leg. One day Grant and I 
 were out with our father. On the v/ay back, there 
 was a rail fence. Father lifted us over, and he 
 climbed over carefully, explaining that he was no 
 longer young and weighed 200 pounds. Back at the 
 house, Grant's explanation to his mother was that 
 father was careful about the fence because he was 
 200 years old. There are memories of many things
 
 and incidents. The scenes of my childhood could 
 have been the inspiration of the "Old Oaken Bucket." 
 We had the well and, "The old oaken bucket, the 
 iron-bound bucket, the moss-covered bucket which 
 hangs in the well." A memorable occasion was my 
 first day at the school house standing one-quarter 
 mile south of our house, where, in 1870, I began as 
 pupil to learn the Three Rs and the American game 
 of fair play; and where, in 1885, I ended as teacher. 
 Half a century later, I returned and met again at an 
 Home Coming on the old school ground, girls and 
 boys whom I had not seen for 50 years. This Home 
 Coming is now an annual event at Van Brunt School, 
 the school of my childhood. 
 
 My pupil years at Van Brunt were followed by 
 one year at Ewing College, Franklin County, Illinois, 
 and one year at the National Normal University, 
 Lebanon, Ohio. Then three years of teaching, first 
 at Van Brunt, second in Central Illinois, and finally 
 at the Baird School six miles southeast of Van Brunt. 
 And the teaching engagement at Baird's is the begin- 
 ning of the story of going to the Rio Grande men- 
 tioned in the opening paragraph hereof, wherein 
 romance led to many things in new fields. 
 
 In July of 1887, being at home from my second 
 year of teaching, I decided to return and teach again 
 in Central Illinois. I rode into Pinckneyville to ar- 
 range accordingly. On the public square I met Mr.
 
 Pringle Anderson, a fellow teacher, and told him of 
 my decision. He informed me that the Baird School 
 was open for a teacher and suggested that I see Mr. 
 Matthew Rule of the school board about it. Mr. 
 Rule had been a hero of my childhood because he 
 was Marshal of the Perry County Fair, wore a big, 
 red sash, rode a fine horse and told everybody how it 
 was. Subsequently, he was President of the Fair 
 many years. I also knew his wife, Mary Jane Rule, 
 the most famous cook of the countryside. She cooked 
 the wedding dinner of one of my brothers. But I 
 had never met or knowingly seen the young lady 
 whom I shall presently present. Being willing to 
 help Mr. Rule find a good teacher, and acting on 
 Anderson's suggestion, I instantly bestrode my horse 
 ("In all the wide border, his steed was the best"), 
 and rode, not like Lochinvar, "Out of the West," but 
 out of the North into the Baird School District and 
 up a long lane to a large farm house. Stopping at 
 the gate and seeing no one, I yelled "hello." (There 
 were no auto horns then.) Presently, while I re- 
 mained in the saddle, a young lady with curly hair 
 under a sunbonnet came out and down to the gate, 
 neither she nor I, at the moment, being aware of the 
 long trail of destiny into which she was walking. I 
 have the honor to present Elizabeth Loretta Rule. 
 
 At the gate, I stated my mission. Elizabeth said 
 her father was helping a neighbor with the wheat 
 threshing and promised to present my application to 
 him. Within the week, I had word that I could teach
 
 at Bairds. I sent to Elizabeth's mother a message 
 saying I was coming to board with her. And come I 
 did. And what boarding it was! Food and cooking 
 in quantity and quality second to none, laundry, 
 feather bed, horses to ride, a buggy to drive in sun- 
 shine and a sleigh in snow. And before they got me 
 off the place, Elizabeth, the jewel of the household, 
 was mine. All that for ten dollars per month. More- 
 over, when I tendered the first ten dollars for the 
 first month, Elizabeth's mother said, "Never mind, 
 you can pay when the school year ends." At the end, 
 she found that I owed her five dollars less than ten 
 dollars per month. It seems that I had been away a 
 number of times seeing my mother. 
 
 School opened in October. Until Christmas, 
 Elizabeth was one of my pupils. On Christmas Eve, 
 I had a momentous interview with her parents, ex- 
 plaining that Elizabeth had said yes on the preceding 
 Thanksgiving Eve. (I was a fast worker.) They gave 
 us their blessing, suggesting that it would be proper 
 to consider Elizabeth's school days closed. Accord- 
 ingly I gave honorable release from school to my 
 most dutiful and best loved scholar. On the follow- 
 ing May 10 (her birthday) of 1888, we were mar- 
 ried in her home in traditional rural setting and cere- 
 mony, with the Infare at my mother's house the next 
 day. From that day to this one, 52 years later, Eliza- 
 beth has been a good sport, maintaining that, had 
 she forseen all that would happen, the road ahead 
 would not have stopped her walk to the gate.
 
 A year before we met, Elizabeth had spent a 
 year with her cousin, Mrs. Emerson, a young matron 
 living in El Paso, Texas, on the Rio Grande, the old 
 Mexican city, Paso del Norte, Mexico (now Juarez), 
 being across the river from El Paso. Until the com- 
 ing of the railroad to it in 1880-1881, El Paso, youth- 
 ful, compared to Paso del Norte, but founded in 
 1827, was a village more Mexican than American. 
 El Paso means The Pass, the Spaniards from the 
 South calling it Paso del Norte, or The Pass of the 
 North; and the Rio Grande, The Grand River, they 
 called Rio Bravo del Norte, The Brave River of the 
 North. This pass at which El Paso is located and 
 through which the river flows, was, in 1880, the focal 
 point upon which the southern transcontinental rail- 
 way routes converged. Under the impact of the rail- 
 ways, El Paso blew wide open as one of the last of 
 the roaring frontier towns of the Wild West where 
 not a few of the bad men of the West died with their 
 boots on, as was right and proper for them, some of 
 them after Elizabeth and I made El Paso our home. 
 In the subsequent half-century, El Paso grew into law 
 and order, every muncipal convenience, and a pop- 
 ulation of more than 100,000. 
 
 During the year she was in El Paso, Elizabeth 
 was captivated by the sunshine and the romance of 
 the great Southwest. When, before our marriage, we 
 were considering our future, she suggested that we 
 go to El Paso and court or dare Dame Fortune there. 
 I called her hand. At the time of our marriage, Mr.
 
 Emerson was in St. Louis buying merchandise for his 
 business in El Paso, Mrs. Emerson was visiting home 
 folks at Pinckneyville, both were returning to El 
 Paso, he in May, and she in October. Twelve days 
 after the wedding, I left for El Paso with Emerson, 
 Elizabeth coming in October with Mrs. Emerson. 
 
 Aiter arrival in El Paso in a land where oppor- 
 tunity abounded, things began to happen. I found 
 myself working with the County Surveyor. In due 
 time I was appointed Deputy County Surveyor. A 
 ten thousand dollar bond was required. Fortunately, 
 I had acquired some substantial friends, and the 
 matter was readily arranged. In due time and over 
 my protest, I was elected County Surveyor, but de- 
 clined the office because I had been appointed and 
 then elected City Engineer of El Paso. I was re- 
 elected; but before the end of my second term, the 
 political boss of El Paso and I came to a parting of 
 the way, resulting in my exit at the next election; an 
 event over which Elizabeth cried a little. Eventually, 
 we realized that we had been kicked upstairs, and 
 that the loss of a political job may not be a bad thing. 
 I became a director and Chief Engineer of the Rio 
 Grande Dam and Irrigation Company, organized for 
 development of irrigation of the Rio Grande Valley 
 in El Paso territory. That is another story. Also, 
 leaving the city service led me into railway engineer- 
 ing, construction and operation. That is an addi- 
 tional story.
 
 Thus an accidental meeting with my friend 
 Anderson, and his casual suggestion, led me to Eliza- 
 beth at the gate; and her story of the Southwest led 
 us to El Paso. And El Paso led to many things. After 
 the more than 50 years wherein Elizabeth and I have 
 walked together, I can, in leisure and the light of 
 retrospect, trace a chain wherein certain links, seem- 
 ingly insignificant as they were forged, are now dis- 
 cernible as turning points or opening doors on the 
 road of destiny. This reminds one of what Robert 
 Burns said about well-laid plans of mice and men. 
 Out of it all, it is not difficult to acquire humility. 
 
 £1 Paso was our home for 37 years, 1888-1925, 
 except four years, 1901-1904, in St. Louis, where we 
 resided while I was engaged in construction of the 
 St. Louis, Kansas City and Colorado Railroad (now 
 a Rock Island line) from St. Louis to Kansas City. 
 In 1925 I went to the Southern Pacific Company with 
 office in San Francisco and home in Oakland, result- 
 ing from purchase by Southern Pacific of the El Paso 
 and Southwestern Railway System of which I was 
 Chief Engineer. 
 
 Our children, Marian, 51, Logan, 48, and Doyle, 
 45, were born in El Paso. We have difficulty in ad- 
 justing ourselves to such maturity of our offspring. 
 We think of them as children. But the arithmetic 
 which Elizabeth learned from me at Bairds says that 
 our babies are no longer babies. They are married
 
 and have houses and children. Marian's home is in 
 Baton Rouge. She has developed much talent in the 
 Art of Etching, the old plantations of Louisiana and 
 the French Quarter of New Orleans being excellent 
 fields for such work. Logan is with the Sun Oil 
 Company with office in Philadelphia. Doyle is with 
 the Southern Pacific Company with headquarters in 
 San Francisco. Each of the boys has a country home 
 near his city. When they were ready for college, they 
 knew the West. We decided that they should like- 
 wise know the East. Accordingly, we selected the 
 Pennsylvania Military College at Chester, Pennsyl- 
 vania, only 30 minutes from the Liberty Bell. Both 
 boys graduated in Civil Engineering and began work 
 with the Pennsylvania Railroad. When World 
 War I engulfed us, they enlisted in the Artillery, 
 went through Camp Dix, trained recruits at Camp 
 Jackson, qualified as Battery Commanders in the Fort 
 Sill School of Fire, and were under orders for Over- 
 seas when the Armistice was signed. Doyle returned 
 to the Pennsylvania Railroad, coming later to the 
 Southern Pacific. Logan turned from Engineering to 
 Oil. Elizabeth and I make grateful acknowledgment 
 to our God for the generosity of Time in dealing so 
 gently with us and our children, whereby the entire 
 family has come to such maturity. 
 
 A tribute to Elizabeth will be timely here. While 
 our children were growing from babyhood to High 
 School, I was, necessarily, away much of the time. I 
 did not see our second son until after he had been
 
 disturbing the peace for three weeks. Elizabeth's job 
 was to keep the home fire burning and rear and train 
 the children. She accomplished this superlative as- 
 signment superbly. Also she was active in church 
 and community. During the war she was Captain of 
 the Canteen Unit of the Red Cross at El Paso, which 
 rendered individual health and social service to 
 154,894 soldier boys of local training camps or in 
 troop trains passing through. King Solomon de- 
 scribed her and my mother when he said: "Strength 
 and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in 
 time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; 
 and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh 
 well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the 
 bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call 
 her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 
 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou 
 excellest them all." 
 
 In seeing the children and the old home places 
 occasionally, we have much driving about the coun- 
 try. On the highways from ocean to ocean and back 
 to the starting point involves some work and risks. 
 We are somewhat fed up on liquidating such dis- 
 tances that way. However, we find the car a great 
 convenience when we get to places where we sojourn 
 a bit. After much highway travel, we are impressed 
 as never before by the extraordinary safety and com- 
 fort of America's modern railway trains. In the 
 interest of balanced perspective, we suggest that 
 automobile fans ride the rails occasionally.
 
 My civil engineering activities covering 50 years 
 include being: Deputy Surveyor, El Paso County, 
 Texas, 1888-1890. City Engineer, El Paso, Texas, 
 1890-1894. Resident Engineer, Rio Grande North- 
 ern Railroad, 1894-1895. Chief Engineer, Rio Grande 
 Dam and Irrigation Company, 1894-1898. Chief 
 Engineer, Rio Grande Irrigation and Land Company, 
 Limited, 1895-1898. Locating Engineer, Rio Grande 
 Sierra Madre and Pacific Railway, 1895-1896. Chief 
 Engineer, El Paso and Northeastern Railway, 1897- 
 1898. Locating Engineer, Santa Fe Railway, 1899- 
 1900. Engineer in Charge, Construction, Arizona 
 and New Mexico Railway, 1900-1901. Chief Engi- 
 neer, Construction, St. Louis, Kansas City and Colo- 
 rado Railroad, 1901-1904. Chief Engineer, El Paso 
 and Southwestern Railway System, 1905-1925. As- 
 sistant to Chief Engineer, Southern Pacific Company, 
 1925-1928. Chief Engineer, Northwestern Pacific 
 Railroad, 1928-1931. Member, American Society of 
 Civil Engineers, 1901. Member, American Railway 
 Engineering Association, 1906. Honorary Degree, 
 M. C. E., Pennsylvania Military College, 1916. Presi- 
 dent, American Railway Engineering Association, 
 1922-1923. Life Member, American Railway Engi- 
 neering Association, 1934. Life Member, American 
 Society of Civil Engineers, 1937. Honorary Member, 
 American Railway Engineering Association, 1938. 
 
 delated incidental events similar to those lead- 
 ing to El Paso are likewise discernible in the activi- 
 ties captioned in the preceding paragraph. Being
 
 deputy surveyor associated me with people influen- 
 tial in municipal affairs when the city needed a new 
 city engineer. Being city engineer resulted in invita- 
 tion to come into the irrigation companies. Being 
 chief engineer of the companies contacted the chief 
 engineer of the Santa Fe Railway and brought about 
 relations which made me chief engineer of construc- 
 tion of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Colorado Rail- 
 road. In various channels, a sequence of events is 
 traceable, an illustration being the related doings of 
 W. A. Hawkins, H. J. Simmons and myself, re- 
 counted later. Advancement is largely a result of 
 being, in place and time, ready and adequate for 
 opportunity. 
 
 Land surveying on the Rio Grande frontier a 
 half-century ago was an interesting occupation con- 
 sisting largely of retracement of original surveys 
 made necessary by imperfections or indefiniteness in 
 original work or records, disappearance of original 
 corners and their identification marks, and rising 
 land values incident to growing development of the 
 frontier following advent of the railroads. Out of 
 this situation, a multitude of conflicts of land lines 
 and controversies arose, adjudication of which in the 
 vicinity of El Paso alone required a quarter-century 
 of litigation. All this was not surprising in view of 
 the oldness of the original surveys, especially the 
 almost ancient Spanish land grants, the lands having 
 little value when first granted and surveyed. At that 
 time, there was, no doubt, no realization that, in a
 
 then distant future, clear identification of the sur- 
 veys would be of great importance. Some of the older 
 records show that, in some cases, the surveyor's chain 
 was a rope. The original land grants and surveys 
 being of Spanish origin, the surveys were measured 
 and recorded in units of the Spanish league or vara, 
 the linear value of the league being 2.63 miles; and 
 36 varas being equal to 100 feet. 
 
 My work in re-establishment of boundary lines 
 did not finally cease in termination of my contact 
 with the surveys described above. From El Paso 
 northward to the Thirty-second Parallel of Latitude, 
 the Rio Grande is the boundary between Texas and 
 New Mexico; and, from the river eastward, the par- 
 allel is also a boundary between the States. The 
 position of the river was determined in 1852 by the 
 International Boundary Commission of the United 
 States and Mexico following the Mexican War. The 
 position of the parallel was determined in 1859 by 
 the Boundary Commission of the United States and 
 Texas. About 1912, New Mexico brought suit against 
 Texas on allegations requiring proof of said posi- 
 tions of river and parallel as established by said 
 commissions. The controversy arose because, subse- 
 quent to 1852, the river changed its position several 
 times. About 1914, I was called into the case to re- 
 establish on the ground the aforesaid positions of 
 river and parallel. This I did to the satisfaction of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States by repro- 
 ducing on the ground from original records the sur-
 
 veys of said commissions, consisting of extensive 
 systems of triangulation. This job was one of the 
 most interesting of special assignments. 
 
 JFhile City Engineer of El Paso I directed the 
 engineering work of that growing city, laying out 
 new additions, establishing street grades, building 
 and paving streets and sidewalks, extending the 
 sewer system, planning a new water supply, building 
 a river front levee, etc. Subsequently through the 
 years wherein our home was there, I enjoyed the 
 privilege of having a part in the life and welfare of 
 the community. 
 
 U^hile I was with the City of El Paso, friends of 
 mine there organized the Rio Grande Dam and Irri- 
 gation Company for development of irrigation of the 
 Rio Grande Valley tributary to El Paso and invited 
 me to come in as a director and chief engineer. I 
 began the surveys in 1893. When the plans were 
 complete in 1894, they covered the valley from Ele- 
 phant Butte, 112 miles above, to Fort Quitman, 90 
 miles below El Paso, the proposed irrigation works 
 consisting of a storage dam at Elephant Butte, diver- 
 sion dams at Hot Springs, Caballo, Fort Selden, and 
 El Paso, with irrigation canals from the diversion 
 dams. Money for the enterprise could not be found 
 in the United States. The plans and the engineering 
 report were taken to London, and the financing was 
 done there through the Rio Grande Irrigation and
 
 Land Company, Limited, organized for that purpose, 
 the English Company sending Col. Engeldue of the 
 Royal Engineers, retired, and an authority on irriga- 
 tion in India, to El Paso to examine and report on 
 the enterprise. The American company's plans were 
 approved without change. I was recalled from Mex- 
 ico where I was engaged on railway location and 
 began in 1896 as Chief Engineer of the English com- 
 pany the construction of the Fort Selden unit of the 
 irrigation enterprise. In 1897, the construction was 
 enjoined by the United States on an affidavit that the 
 proposed irrigation works would impair the naviga- 
 ble capacity of the Rio Grande. 
 
 For ten years the suit ran the gamut of the 
 courts, going three times to the Supreme Court of 
 the United States which finally voided the rights of 
 the American company in 1907 on the ground that it 
 had failed to complete its irrigation works within the 
 five years allowed by its charter, notwithstanding the 
 obvious fact that no sane investment would proceed 
 under a threat so ominous. No opinion on obstruc- 
 tion of navigation was delivered. Meanwhile, in 
 1904, the Reclamation Service of the United States 
 had taken possession of the enterprise and proceeded 
 to construction of a storage dam and diversion dams 
 substantially on the dam sites of the Company with- 
 out waiting for a court verdict on obstruction of 
 navigation. There is remarkable similarity between 
 the plans of the Company and those of the Reclama- 
 tion Service, the one substantial difference being
 
 that, at Elephant Butte, said Service constructed 
 initially a storage dam providing at once ultimate 
 storage. The Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Com- 
 pany was a pioneer offering the Rio Grande Valley 
 tributary to El Paso a modern plan for irrigation. I 
 still retain much satisfaction in my connection with 
 it and the contacts made therein. 
 
 In the paragraph following the foregoing state- 
 ment of my Engineering activities covering 50 years, 
 related doings of W. A. Hawkins, H. J. Simmons 
 and myself were mentioned. Hawkins and I were 
 associated in the operations of the irrigation com- 
 panies just described, he as attorney, and I as engi- 
 neer, beginning in 1894. This led to our association 
 in the same relations in the construction of the El 
 Paso and Northeastern Railway, beginning in 1897. 
 Simmons and I were associated in the conversion of 
 the Arizona and New Mexico Railway from a narrow 
 gage to a standard gage railroad, he as superintend- 
 ent and I as engineer, beginning in 1900. While 
 with Simmons, in 1901, and resulting from my work 
 on the Santa Fe Railway in 1899-1900, said work 
 itself being the result of my contact with the Santa 
 Fe in the aforesaid irrigation operations, I received 
 and finally accepted repeated invitation to come to 
 St. Louis for construction of the St. Louis, Kansas 
 City and Colorado Railroad. During the years 1901- 
 1904, wherein I was engaged on the last-named con- 
 struction, the El Paso and Northeastern Railway 
 named above and which I had constructed from El
 
 Paso, Texas, to Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1897- 
 1898, was extended to a coal field and coal mines at 
 Dawson, New Mexico, by the owners of the coal 
 field and mines and the railway. During this rail- 
 way extension to Dawson, the Phelps Dodge Com- 
 pany built the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad 
 from their copper mines and smelters in Arizona to 
 El Paso, and became the principal consumer of coal 
 and coke from Dawson, the fuel being hauled over 
 said railroads from Dawson to said mines and smelt- 
 ers, Simmons having become General Manager of 
 the El Paso and Southwestern.. 
 
 Meanwhile, I had, in the summer of 1904, fin- 
 ished construction of the St. Louis, Kansas City and 
 Colorado Railroad. A wire came from Simmons ask- 
 ing if I could meet him in Chicago. There, he told 
 me that Phelps Dodge had decided to have a fuel 
 supply of their own, and asked me to return to El 
 Paso and locate the necessary railway line to a coal 
 field which they proposed to acquire in the north- 
 western corner of New Mexico. Within 30 days I 
 had the survey under way and completed in seven 
 months. And a very good line it was on maximum 
 curvature of 3 degrees and maximum grade of 0.7 
 percent, nothwithstanding a crossing of the Conti- 
 nental Divide. 
 
 As I came out of the hotel onto Michigan Av- 
 enue after the meeting and agreement with Simmons,
 
 I ran into Hawkins whom I had not seen for four 
 years. Glad to see each other, we went around to 
 the Hamilton Club and talked of old times, what we 
 were doing and proposed doing. I noticed that he 
 v/as quite interested as I told him of the meeting 
 with Simmons and its objective. I did not see him 
 again until the following spring in El Paso where 
 he told me that, immediately after our meeting in 
 Chicago, he went to New York and explained to his 
 clients, the owners of the El Paso and Northeastern 
 Railway and the coal mines at Dawson how they 
 were about to lose a vital customer, the result being 
 that, while I was in the Rocky Mountain country 
 locating the proposed railroad in the winter of 1904- 
 1905, negotiations were opened whereby the Phelps 
 Dodge Company bought said railway and mines, 
 thereby making unnecessary acquisition of the pro- 
 posed new fuel supply and railroad. The El Paso 
 and Southwestern Railroad and the El Paso and 
 Northeastern Railway were immediately consolidated 
 in 1905 into the El Paso and Southwestern Railway 
 System, wherein Simmons was Vice-President and 
 General Manager, Hawkins was General Council, 
 and I was Chief Engineer. 
 
 From 1905 until it became a part of the Pacific 
 Lines of Southern Pacific Company in 1925, the El 
 Paso and Southwestern became, in physical fitness, 
 second to no other road. Its main line was the mid- 
 dle link of a through route from Chicago to Los 
 Angeles composed of the Rock Island, the El Paso
 
 and Southwestern and the Southern Pacific. When 
 the El Paso and Southwestern received trains late, it 
 delivered them on time at the other end. It consist- 
 ently maintained one of the lowest operating ratios. 
 Its Operating Staff, adequate without superfluity, 
 was distinguished for close and harmonious co-oper- 
 ation, constituting one of the happiest of railway 
 families. That was the railroad, of which, in 1897- 
 1898, I built the first unit from El Paso, Texas, to 
 Alamogordo, New Mexico, and, in 1912-1914, the 
 last unit, from Fairbank to Tucson, Arizona. 
 
 The acquisition of El Paso and Southwestern by 
 Southern Pacific was the outcome of El Paso and 
 Southwestern ambitions to go on to the Pacific Coast 
 from Tucson, evidenced by certain sundry overt acts 
 of El Paso and Southwestern, such as extension sur- 
 veys, acquisition of real estate for terminals in Los 
 Angeies, etc. Southern Pacific had a different idea 
 about the matter in the form of an offer to buy 
 the El Paso and Southwestern at a price which was 
 sufficient to liquidate the ambitions to go on to the 
 Coast. That was the sensible economic solution 
 rather than a paralleling of Southern Pacific all the 
 way to Los Angeles. The result transferred my citi- 
 zenship from Texas to California, my services to 
 Southern Pacific, and eventually made me Chief En- 
 gineer of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, a South- 
 ern Pacific subsidiary, in 1928, from which position 
 I retired from active service in 1931.
 
 The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, extending 
 about 300 miles northward from San Francisco Bay 
 through the Redwood Empire, is in an interesting 
 and delightful region. To feel as well as to see the 
 redwood trees, one should go alone into the heart of 
 a forest of them and, in the perfect stillness and 
 peace therein, stand in the presence of majestic 
 giants, older than the story of the Star of Bethlehem, 
 whose foliage, beginning high above the ground, 
 shuts out the direct rays of the sun and admits soft 
 diffused light beneath, the grandeur of nature's 
 handiwork producing a sensation of being in the 
 very Temple of God. 
 
 Some of my activities were in Mexico, during 
 which I was in Mexico City more than once. The 
 city lies in a great bowl-shaped valley surrounded 
 by towering mountains on the interior plateau of 
 Mexico at a general elevation of about 8000 feet 
 above sea level, the mountains reaching up to much 
 higher elevations, all within the tropical zone, one 
 result being an exceedingly equable and salubrious 
 climate. That country is something to see and enjoy. 
 
 7n 1896 I located the Rio Grande Sierra Madre 
 and Pacific Railroad of Mexico from Juarez across 
 the river from El Paso to Colonia Dublan in north- 
 ern Mexico; and in 1899, made surveys for exten- 
 sion of the road into the plateau area of the Sierra 
 Madre Mountains of Mexico, a beautiful and inter-
 
 esting region. From the El Paso and Southwestern 
 railroad at Douglas, Arizona, Phelps Dodge Com- 
 pany had a railroad running south into Mexico to 
 copper mine and smelter properties and operations 
 of the Company. I made surveys for extension of 
 this road to the Gulf of California, in connection 
 with which I had occasion to be in Mexico City. 
 
 IFhile in and about Mexico City on business or 
 pleasure before the Madera revolution in 1911, there 
 was opportunity to observe the surface appearance 
 of the social and political situation and the people 
 by which Diaz had surrounded himself. It seemed 
 to me that therein there were a lot of able men who 
 had had opportunity for training and qualification 
 in government and should be able and ready and 
 would carry on the Government without revolution 
 when Diaz relinquished the reins. But the subse- 
 quent revolutions seem to indicate that the hope was 
 not well founded. 
 
 To the American Railway Engineering Associa- 
 tion, I am irretrievably debtor, having received from 
 it values greater than those I could give to it, not- 
 w ithstanding I did not, in the first quarter-century of 
 membership therein, miss an annual convention or 
 board meeting during the eleven years wherein I 
 served on the Board of Direction. The Association 
 conferred upon me every honor within its gift. Above 
 all, it provided wide privilege and opportunity for
 
 priceless contact and friendship in a large company 
 of fine men. Therein, one finds a high order of 
 value, satisfaction and happiness. 
 
 / have enjoyed having a part in the affairs and 
 human relations, secular and religious, of the people 
 wherein are inestimable profit and pleasure in un- 
 derstanding, appreciation and participation in the 
 progress of human welfare. I have found things 
 immutably right, things immutably wrong, and things 
 not having immutability of Tightness or wrongness. 
 What is right? What is wrong? And when and 
 why? In candid retrospection, I doubt not that every- 
 one is convinced that he or she has not been right all 
 of the time. But you may hope that you have been 
 right most of the time. And now, facing the sunset 
 of this life and the sunrise of Immortality beyond, 
 Elizabeth and I are content and unafraid.

 
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