And the West is History: RR survey crew at Twin Crossing – 1901

Thomas H Wigglesworth was a location and construction engineer with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad starting in 1878. He led survey crews for the railroad from Antonito to Silverton. He later did location surveys for Otto Mears on the Silverton Railroad to Red Mountain. In 1881, he surveyed the route from Rico to Durango that was used for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in 1890-91. In 1901 at the age of 66, he was chosen to lead the survey of a proposed line from Durango to Clifton, Arizona, for the shipment of local coal to the standard gauge train terminal in the Arizona town. This photograph shows the survey crew that summer cooling off in the Animas River at Twin Crossing, just north of the Colorado-New Mexico border. David Day’s son Vest is third from the left and Ray Goodman is also in the picture. Although the line to Arizona never materialized, the line to Farmington was realized in 1905, probably using much of the work accomplished by this crew a few years earlier. – Ed Horvat for Animas Museum, edhorvat@animasmuseum.org (Catalog Number: 13.01.5 from the La Plata County Historical Society Photo Collections)