343 
A Canyon Railway 
and Pacific from Isleta to The Needles, in 1880-83, of tho 
Rio Grande Western across the Green at Gunnison Valley, 
simplified travel in the Basin of the Colorado. A new railway 
was then proposed from Grand Junction, Colorado, down the 
Colorado River, through the Canyons to the Gulf of California, 
a distance of twelve hundred miles. At that time coal was a 
difficult article to procure on the Pacific Coast, and it was 
thought that this “water-level’’ road, crossing no mountains. 
Camp at Oak Spring, Uinkaret Mountains. 
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp. 
would be profitable in bringing the coal of Colorado to the 
Golden Gate. At present coal in abundance is to be had in 
the Puget Sound region, and this reason for constructing a 
Grand Canyon railway is done away with. There is nothing 
to support a railway through the three hundred miles of the 
great gorge (or through the other two hundred miles of canyon 
to the Junction), except tourist travel and the possible develop¬ 
ment of mines. These are manifestly insufficient at the pre¬ 
sent time to warrant even a less costly railway, which, averaging 
