Source
the Colorado
Newspaper site.
The Morning Times
Cripple Creek, Colorado, Saturday, January 1,
1898
page 1
COUP D'ETAT BY F.&C.C. RAILWAY
Fifty Men Working Over the Midland Grade at
Victor
Was Seized at 3:10 A.M
Waited Until the Eleven O'clock Terminal Train
Had Passed By.
UP TO THE PORTLAND MINE
Advantage Taken of New Year and Sunday to Evade
Injunction Proceedings.
At
3:10 this morning, the Florence and Cripple Creek railroad carried
out the boldest and most successful coup d'etat so far attempted
in its warfare with the Midland Terminal railroad.
About fifty men
who were armed with picks and shovels, hammers and saws, were
suddenly turned loose on the Midland Terminal, and in a short time
a crossing had been effected of the tracks of the rival road, and
the line of the Florence and Cripple Creek was well on the way to
the Portland mine, in the effort to reach which the trouble three
months ago occurred.
The
stroke had been well planned. Today is a legal holiday, tomorrow
will be Sunday, and not until Monday morning can the courts issue
injunctions, or take any official cognizance of the matter. And
long before that time the road will have been completed.
By nightfall
everything was in readiness. A train, loaded with timbers all
ready to be set up, with cross ties, rails, spikes, tools and men,
stood on the side track at Alta Vista, ready to make the descent.
But, this could
not be done this early. The Midland Terminal has a passenger train
which leaves Cripple Creek at 11 o'clock, and the train men would
surely see the work and give alarm.
So
the train, with its load of men and material, was held until the
midnight Terminal had gone by, when it was hurried into Victor and
the work begun.
As a precaution
every avenue of approach was guarded, every switch of the Midland
Terminal was spiked, so that no rival train could by any possibility
be rushed to the scene, and every engine in the yard was watched.
The
crossing was made on the ground of the Taylor and Brunton sampler,
over which there was a squabble when the Midland Terminal people
tried to lay their own track there.
It was necessary
for the new line to be laid on a trestle twenty-five feet above
the ground, but the train had brought an ample supply of timbers
ready fitted to be joined together, and there were fifty pairs of
skilled hands ready for the work, so that when the sun rises on
the scene the line towards the great Portland will be well on its
way to completion, and the entrance to that property, which has
cost both human life and treasure, will have been secured.
