In the early autumn of 1870 Kingman was transferred to eastern Missouri,
where he located two lines, from Franklin and from Kirkwood respectively,
to St. Louis. Later that year he went on the A. & P. survey through
Indian Territory. This party was in charge of an engineer named F.
S. Hodges. Kingman again acted as transitman. Subsequently
Hodges was taken with malaria and forced to leave the country for a time,
and in his absence Kingman carried on the work, running the line from Seneca
Mo., to the mouth of the Red Fork and then down to Fort Gibson, across
northwestern Arkansas and into the territory. They were then ordered
to Neosho, Mo., where they were rejoined by Hodges. Outfitting afresh,
they were sent once more to the front; this time it was planned to run
a line straight through to Albuquerque.
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The Lord evidently had
intended him for an engineer and not a captain of industry.
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Mr. Kingman did not help complete this survey but he stayed with the party
during the winter of 1870 and 1871. Some hardships were endured.
Heavy snows rotted the grass so they were forced to cut cottonwood trees
for their mules to browse on. In many places the ground became so
soft that the camp outfit could be moved only as corduroy road was built.
Fortunately for the men wild game was plentiful and they did not duffer
for the want of food
Arriving near Fort Reno (near the present city of El Reno, Okla.), they
met a couple of freighters loaded with supplies, and Kingman was sent back
to Seneca in charge of these wagons. From Seneca he journeyed to
St. Louis, where he received orders to join a new party for field work
on the west end of the division in New Mexico. This outfit, under
the command of Jacob Blickensderfer, went by rail to Kit Carson, Colo.,
and then by Barlow & Sanderson's stage via Trinidad and Las Vegas to
Santa Fe, where they arrived on July 4, 1871. Procuring tents and
camp supplies from the government at Fort Union, they proceeded to Albuquerque,
whence the surveys were started. Kingman then was assigned to an
eastbound party under a Mr. McCabe. They ran their lines through
Tejares Canyon, Canyon Blanco, Gallinas Spring and Fort Bascom to Adobe
Wells, Indian Territory. There they seem to have met the westbound
party and this section of the work was for the time at least completed.
Returning to Las Vegas, the men were disbanded in October, 1871.
Within a few days Kingman had resigned from the Atlantic & Pacific
to take a position as surveyor for the Maxwell Land Grant Company of New
Mexico. And from the autumn of 1871 to the summer of 1873 he was
busy on surveys in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In
the winter of 1871 he became acquainted with W. R. Morley, who, like himself,
was destined later to acquire fame as a Santa Fe engineer.
On July 1, 1873, Kingman took a contract from the government through
the surveyor-general of New Mexico. This work busied him most of
the time for three years, during most of which interval his headquarters
were at Cimarron, N. M.
In the autumn of 1875 Kingman moved to Santa Fe at the request of the
surveyor-general. There he soon concluded his government contracts,
and in the winter of 1876 he invested $6,000 in a mercantile business with
a partner named Trauer. About a year later Kingman, having bought
off his partner, closed out the business $1,100 "in the hole." The Lord
evidently had intended him for an engineer and not a captain of industry.
This was in June, 1877.
It was through Morley that Kingman then engaged his services to A. A.
Robinson, chief engineer of the Santa Fe. And it was to the everlasting
good luck of the Santa Fe that Kingman had gone broke in business and was
looking for a job.
Reporting at Pueblo on July 3, 1877, Kingman was asigned to Morley's
party. Going to Canyon City over the D. & R. G. narrow-,gage
road, they took stage to Leadville and struck out to the westward.* An
engineering party under H. R. Holbrook already had run a line through the
Arkansas Valley, and it was from this valley that Kingman and Morley started
their line. Surveying through Poncho Pass, the St. Louis Valley and
Cochetopa Pass, they were in the Gunnison Valley by September. Then
they followed the Gunnison River to its confluence with the Fimiche, and
by the eighteenth had reached Alpine Pass, where observations were taken
at an altitude of 13,000 feet. From Alpine they went to South Park,
examined the Platt Canyon as a possible railroad route and journeyed through
Ute Pass to Colorado Springs.
There Morley was summoned back to New Mexico, leaving Kingman in charge.
The latter then made a preliminary survey through Ute Pass down to Colorado
Springs, and, when this was done, he also was ordered South, where he was
to start surveys out of Trinidad. The present route of the Santa
Fe from Trinidad over the mountains to Raton follows the line established
by Lewis Kingman in the fall of 1877.
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*The present line of the D & G R west from Pueblo
was laid out and partially built by the Santa Fe; and this property was
turned over to the D. & R. G. following the "war" and subsequent Supreme
Court decision in 1879.
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