In my June 1962 issue of Railroad magazine is a reference to a long gone Arizona railroad called the Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad and a place called the Pumphandle Ranch. Has anyone heard of a arizona ranch called the pumphandle ranch? the magazine said the railroad ran from Tuscon to Pumphandle Ranch 91 miles.
I've never heard of the Pumphandle Ranch, but did find reference to an Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad that apparently was begun in 1883 but collapsed in 1887, with the intent to connect Tucson to the Denver & Rio Grande.
http://www.pacificng.com/template.php?page=roads/az/index.php
Magee Road is still a thoroughfare in west Tucson, and the city limits have extended far beyond it.
I'm not sure how that original article came up with a distance of 91 miles from Tucson for the Pumphandle Ranch, because the railroad was only constructed for something like 10 miles.
The SPV atlas shows the road as having been constructed as far as a location called Magee Road, about ten miles from Tucson.
A Yahoo search for "Pumphandle Ranch" found nothing usable..
Johnny
The link posted by cacole above -
http://www.pacificng.com/template.php?page=roads/az/angrr/index.htm
- says Tucson to Globe (a big mining site) via Oracle; does not mention the Pumphandle Ranch.
The Prospectus -
http://books.google.com/books?id=wj81AQAAMAAJ&dq=arizona%20narrow%20gauge%20railroad&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false
- says Tucson to Globe is 110 miles. So the Pumphandle Ranch would have been about 20 miles south of Globe, perhaps near Hayden and on the route of what is now the Copper Basin Rwy. near there - see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Basin_Railway
I suspect the Pumphandle Ranch moniker vanished into the mists of obscurity long before this Internet thing was invented.
- Paul North.
DeggestyA Yahoo search for "Pumphandle Ranch" found nothing usable..
Same on Google. Closest I found was part of what appeared to be a novel, but I didn't feel like reading it to see where it was based.
I took a look around the areas mentioned on the Topo maps on Acme Mapper, as sometimes obscure place names will show up on them, but no luck there, either.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Myrick's Railroads of Arizona, Vol 1 mentions that the ANG ran by (or was projected to run by) the Steam Pump Ranch, which was a few miles north of Tuscon. Only about 10 miles of track was laid, though grading went a bit farther.
- Erik
P.S. I bought the book either late 1977 or early 1978, was intrigued by a comment on the Arizona Mineral Belt, and waiting for it to be covered in one of the subsequent volumes...
That "bit further" was about another 30 miles of grading. The railroad's undoing was the flash flood prone Rillito wash wiping out a 386 ft timber pile trestle over the river a year after they ran out of money and 4 years from inception(Myrick & Hilton)
Steam Pump Ranch still exists (Historic Site, interesting story) and shows up in the early quads, but no Pump Handle Ranch. Railroad was pulled-up in 1894 after a brief flirt with a new owner and renaming to Tucson, Globe & Northwestern RR...
Erik: Myrick's collection and notes now reside at CRRM Richardson Library - Golden.
Steam Pump Ranch: N 32.40510 W 110.95071
tree68 Steam Pump Ranch: N 32.40510 W 110.95071
DeggestyAccording to Bing Maps, those coordinates put you at 10897 Oracle Road in Tucson--which is a retaurant called "Haus of Brats." Steam Pump Village is northeast of there, on Oracle Road.
Google Maps puts those coordinate at the "Oro Valley Farmer's Market at Steam Pump, and on Acme Mapper (topo), the spot is clearly marked as "Steam Pump Ranch." Bing points to the same spot.
A search for "Haus of Brats" shows that it's not a location at all, but a food truck. I would presume that the business is based there, hence the reference.
caboose63 In my June 1962 issue of Railroad magazine is a reference to a long gone Arizona railroad called the Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad and a place called the Pumphandle Ranch. Has anyone heard of a arizona ranch called the pumphandle ranch? the magazine said the railroad ran from Tuscon to Pumphandle Ranch 91 miles.
The next level up of research would be the actual land records from the territorial days (Arizona didn't become a state until 1912, the last of the lower 48 to accomplish that), and specifically the right-of-way grant/ acquisition records. That would not be an easy task, and unless you can afford a couple thousand $ to hire a professional knowledgeable in such things, might take between a week and a month to 1) learn the system; 2) do some research; 3) see how your results compare to what the on-the-ground conditions were then and and are now (i.e., ghost towns); then perhaps repeat 2) and 3) a couple more times. That might involve trips to the state and/ or federal archives and 2 local county land offices - the apparent location is near the boundary between Gila and Pinal Counties, so it might be in either one.
I'm no expert in this kind of thing in AZ or anywhere out west; mudchicken is, though, and perhaps he can add some more suggestions.
mudchicken That "bit further" was about another 30 miles of grading. The railroad's undoing was the flash flood prone Rillito wash wiping out a 386 ft timber pile trestle over the river a year after they ran out of money and 4 years from inception(Myrick & Hilton) Steam Pump Ranch still exists (Historic Site, interesting story) and shows up in the early quads, but no Pump Handle Ranch. Railroad was pulled-up in 1894 after a brief flirt with a new owner and renaming to Tucson, Globe & Northwestern RR... Erik: Myrick's collection and notes now reside at CRRM Richardson Library - Golden.
And that added to what Johnnie (Deggesty) Posted on this Thread:
Deggesty wrote the following post 18 hours ago:
(Larry)tree68: Noted:
"...According to Bing Maps, those coordinates put you at 10897 Oracle Road in Tucson--which is a retaurant called "Haus of Brats." Steam Pump Village is northeast of there, on Oracle Road..."
DUPLICATE POST
"I'm no expert in this kind of thing in AZ or anywhere out west; mudchicken is, though, and perhaps he can add some more suggestions". - PDN
Hardly an expert on southern AZ, but that country has a checkered past that includes the Gadsden Purchase (right in the middle of that) with Mexican/Spanish influences written in German, Late statehood and a tardy General Land Office presence. I'd go looking for GLO township and filing plats (and some mineral surveys) first (USGS quads sometimes did not happen until post WW2 and some of the early ones are post 1900. The mapping followed the money and the people... My former railroad employer further north in AZ often did sectional breakdown of land where they were lucky to find open spaces where GLO at least did the township exteriors (range lines and township lines, six mile squares)...and there is NO sectional breakdown on the Indian Nation (how SP's G&GV Ry got through there was an adventure as it was 20 years After Arizona NG - might go looking for ANG GLO filing Maps in as much as there was considerable construction activity. A visit to Arizona's local NARA depository in Phoenix might also come into play in RG-049 along with the BLM state office, also the Army's Topags mapping and Hayden surveys)
T2S R16E Gila Salt River Meridian E-SE of Globe:
http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=202459&sid=dmdqn5b4.nzl#surveyDetailsTabIndex=1
(GLO got here in 1926!)
If caboose63 has the time and lives in AZ, happy brain damage!
Steam Pump Village is the name of a shopping center on Oracle Road.
Having driven that route a few times, I cannot imagine why any railroad would take such a route to go from Tucson northward. By the time you reach Winkelman, you're in the copper mining region with deep chasms and craggy peaks, where there is barely even room for a highway to get through, with up to 9% grades.
During the time the ANG was being built, settlements were few and far between, and there may even have been locations that were referred to as 'hostile Indian territory', thus a ranch of any size would have been a point of reference.
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