San Pete Valley Railroads

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This page was last updated on August 14, 2026.

(Note: Two spellings are used here: San Pete and Sanpete. San Pete is the name of the railroad and the valley. Sanpete is the name of the county and the general region. see below)

(This narrative does not cover the D&RGW Marysvale Branch, from Thistle, south to Marysvale, which was completed in stages between 1890 and 1900. The two lines paralleled each other between Ephraim and Manti, a distance of seven miles.)

Overview

The San Pete Valley Railway was a narrow-gauge railroad organized in 1874, but not put into operation until May 1882. The delays were mostly due to limited funds. It was built as three-foot narrow gauge, but was converted to standard gauge in 1896. The railroad was owned by a group of English investors, who also owned the nearby coal mines and stone quarries.

In 1907, the road's owners sold their interests the Rio Grande Western Railway, and in 1908, San Pete Valley Railway was included in the consolidation of companies in Utah and Colorado that, along with RGW, created the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. The line became D&RG's San Pete Valley Branch, and remained in operation until the portion in Salt Creek Canyon, between Nephi and Moroni, was abandoned and removed in 1947-1948. The portion in and near Moroni remained in place as part of D&RGW's Marysvale Branch, until the Marysvale Branch was abandoned due to the Thistle Flood in 1983.

The San Pete Valley Railway was organized in June 1874 by the owners of the San Pete Coal and Coke Company. The railroad was chartered specifically to furnish low cost transportation for the company's coal by building a rail line from the settlement of Manti to Nephi, where the railroad was to connect with the trains of the Utah Southern Railroad. The story of how the San Pete Valley Railway was built, who built it, and why begins with the discovery of coal in San Pete Valley.

The following comes from "The History of Sanpete and Emery Counties," published in 1898.

The Sanpete Valley railway, the pioneer road of this county, length fifty-one miles, connects with the Oregon Short Line at Nephi and extends through Juab and Sanpete counties to Morrison. This road was surveyed and partly graded in the 70's by residents of Salt Lake City, then sold to an English syndicate, who constructed the line to Wales in 1881 to tap the first coal beds opened in the Territory. The coal not possessing sufficient commercial value to pay high prices for mining and expense of long freight hauls, the mines were abandoned, and in 1884 the track from Draper to Wales was taken up, a new grade made to Moroni, thence to Chester, which was the terminus till 1893. Theodore Bruback, the president, succeeded in reorganizing the company and placing it on a sound financial basis, after which the road was extended to Manti, reaching that city on Thanksgiving day, 1893.

In 1894 the road was extended to Morrison, its present terminus, and in 1896 the gauge was changed from narrow to standard. The general offices of the company are in the McCornick Block, Salt Lake City, Theodore Bruback president and general manager, S. T. Pearson, secretary and treasurer. Local headquarters, Manti; H. S. Kerr, general superintendent and general freight and passenger agent. The policy of the company is to employ local men to the exclusion of transients. The good service, courteous treatment and satisfactory management gives this road its share of the local and through freight and passenger traffic. A direct connection with the Oregon Short Line at Nephi makes a through line from Salt Lake City to Manti, and business from and to Eastern points is interchanged with the Union Pacific at Ogden. At Morrison terminus are located time extensive coal mines of the Sterling Coal and Coke company.

San Pete Coal

During the pioneer era, from 1847 to 1869, most of the coal mining in Utah had been done on an individual basis for local use, with some coal being freighted in small quantities to Salt Lake City by wagon. Until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, wood was the only readily available fuel. Coal was only available on a very limited basis. (USGS: 1883-84 Mineral Report, p.89)

The coal mine at Wales in the San Pete Valley in central Utah was the first commercial venture involving coal mining in Utah. The location of coal at what was called Coalbed, and later Wales, was first discovered in 1854 by John Rees and John Price. Rees and others developed the coal mine to furnish coal that was used mostly within the local surrounding areas. Some of the coal was purchased at the mine for $4.00 per ton and hauled by wagon to Salt Lake City where it was sold for $30.00 to $35.00 per ton. The coal from Wales soon gained a reputation as being good for the making of coke, which is coal after it has been "distilled" with heat in the absence of air, producing a high quality source of fuel. In the west, coke was used mostly for blacksmithing. In fact, Wales' coal was known as the best blacksmithing coal in Utah.

During the 1860's the demand for coke grew rapidly along with the mining industry throughout the western states and territories. In Utah's growing mining industry, which didn't begin serious development until 1869 with the coming of the railroad, the major use of coke was in the smelting process. The Superintendent of the Germania Works smelter in Salt Lake City stated in December 1874 that the "coking properties of San Pete coal is equal to the St. Louis product", which had previously been used there. During 1873, Utah imported over 7,000 tons of coke for use in its new smelting industry. This new coke product came from the San Pete coal field, located four miles from the town of Moroni, which had coal seams of from three to five feet thick. (Engineering and Mining Journal, December 5, 1874, p.353)

Prior to the availability of coke from the Winter Quarter's Mine in 1878, the Wales mine was the best source for coking coal in the region and many attempts were made to develop the resource.

The smelter industry in Utah began with the earliest silver smelters of the early 1860s, and the new industry needed coal and coke as fuel for their steam boilers, the source for their mechanical power. Smelting of gold, silver, lead and copper requires coke, a fuel made by burning the combustibles and impurities out of the coal and leaving a very high carbon-content fuel that makes for the very hot fires needed by the industry's smelting fires. There was great pressure to locate a source of coal that could be made into coke. During 1875, coke was being imported to Utah's, and Nevada's, silver smelters from Pennsylvania. The 2,000-mile transportation of the much needed commodity forced the price per ton of coke up to a dizzying figure of $35 to $40. (Engineering and Mining Journal, September 18, 1875, p.288)

Early Railroads for San Pete

Because of this coal resource waiting to be developed, the region of the San Pete Valley was one of the destinations for the five railroads organized in September 1872 as part of an anti-Mormon land grab, designed in part to wrest control of Utah's economy from Brigham Young and the Mormons. The particular railroad that was proposed for the Sanpete region was the Salt Lake City and Manti Railroad. The organizers were able to gain the support of Congressman Negley of Pennsylvania, a supporter of strong anti-Mormon legislation, and one of the members of Congress who encouraged then-President Ulysses S. Grant to launch a crusade against the Mormons. Negley introduced legislation in December 1872 to allow a right-of-way and a land grant to the Little Cottonwood Railroad, one of the five railroads organized in September. Utah's non-voting Territorial delegate William H. Hooper was able to gain enough support in Congress to defeat the measure and kill the proposed law before it reached the House floor for consideration. The entire scheme came to light in February 1873 and the various pieces of legislation allowing each of the proposed railroads huge, unusual land grants were all defeated in congressional committee. The potential fraud, encompassing five companies and over five hundred miles of railroad lines, all in Utah Territory, would have surely had the desired effect of non-Mormon control of the local economies.

During late 1872 and early 1873, in response to the sudden interest in Utah railroading by "outsiders", the Mormon church organized several railroads with similar routes and destinations as the five "land fraud" railroads. These new railroads were likely proposed more to occupy the territory, for political reasons, than for either the benefit of the community (as was the case for the other Mormon Roads) or the actual potential railroad traffic.

These railroads included the Juab, San Pete and Sevier Railroad Company which was organized on October 3, 1872, with Brigham Young as the principle shareholder. The newly chartered company was to build a narrow gauge railroad from Nephi, through Salt Creek Canyon into San Pete Valley. It would then proceed south to Marysvale for a total distance of about 120 miles, with a twelve mile branch to the coal beds near Fairview, a six mile branch to the coal beds near Wales, and a seven mile branch to Bullion, further south in Piute County. With the three branches the projected length of the railroad totaled about 140 miles.

President Young's plan was to begin grading the road and have it ready for rails by the time the Utah Southern Railroad had pushed its way south to Nephi, which was expected to be in 1873. His son, Joseph A. Young, joined him in the enterprise along with another son, LeGrand Young. Also in the enterprise was James Jack, Hiram B. Clawson, W. W. Riter, George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, George Q. Cannon, all of Salt Lake City, along with prominent church leaders in Sanpete county, Orson Hyde of Spring City, and George Peacock and A. J. Moffat, both of Manti.

In 1872 the rights to the coal mine at Wales were purchased by John T. Lynnch and C. C. Perkins, who were also officials of the Land Office in the federal territorial government in Salt Lake City. However, they were unable to develop the property by themselves and the venture failed. Two years later, in 1874, Lynnch and Perkins, along with others in Salt Lake City, and G. W. Clark and James A. Williamson of Des Moines, Iowa, reorganized the property as the San Pete Coal and Coke Company. The mine's new owners asked if the Utah Southern planned to continue its road south. They received assurances that the Utah Southern would be completed at least as far as Nephi by 1875. In response to this information the coal company also organized the San Pete Valley Railway Company on June 29, 1874 to transport their coal from the Wales mine to the Utah Southern Railroad at Nephi.

Work began immediately on expanding the operations of the coal mine, along with beginning the grading of the railroad's line between the new mine and the projected Utah Southern terminal at Nephi, by way of Salt Creek canyon. The coal from the Wales mine was quite "dirty", with thin layers of dirt and shale contained in the coal seams, and required the construction of a crushing and washing works at the mine to remove foreign material in the coal that would prevent it from becoming quality coke. The expansion work at the mine also included the needed beehive coking ovens to produce coke. Construction on the railroad grade was begun in early February 1875, but was halted later in the same year after it became known that the Utah Southern would not be extending its line south from its terminus of York. York (today's Juab siding) was about 2-1/2 miles south of the low ridge that separated Utah County from Juab County, and was only about 13 miles north of Nephi. The Utah Southern had been completed to that point on February 16, 1875 and the terminus remained there for another four years. Work had stopped at York because that was where the supply of rails had run out and finances were not available for the Utah Southern to purchase sufficient rails to allow completion of the line into Nephi. The southern terminal of the Utah Southern remained at York until January 1879 when Union Pacific interests assumed control of the road and organized the Utah Southern Railroad Extension to build south to the Horn Silver Mine at Frisco.

A second Mormon railroad for Sanpete, the Southeastern Railroad Company of Utah, was chartered on December 3, 1872. This road was to be built from a connection with Utah Southern at or near Springville, proceed up Spanish Fork Canyon, cross into San Pete Valley and follow the San Pitch River to the Sevier Valley, ending at on a point on the Sevier River about 100 miles from Springville. Prominent Mormons from Salt Lake City, Provo, Springville, and Payson organized this enterprise. They included William Jennings, Horace S. Eldredge, William H. Hooper, James T. Little, all of Salt Lake City, along with Hiram B. Clawson, also of Salt Lake City, who had also been involved in the earlier Juab, San Pete, and Sevier Railroad. Also involved, among others, was A. O. Smoot from Provo and William Bringhurst from Springville. After the "Negley Land Grab" came to light, the interest in the Salt Lake City and Manti Railroad faded, as did the interest in the two Mormon railroads proposed to counteract the venture.

San Pete Valley Railway

Clarence Reeder wrote the following in his 1970 dissertation, "The History Of Utah's Railroads, 1869 - 1883".

In 1874 the Sanpete Coal and Coke Company purchased the extensive coal fields around Wales and began development work. The mines were extended, roadways graded and otherwise improved, a large mill for crushing coal was built, and extensive coke works were erected. This company was headed by General G. W. Clark and J. A. Williamson of Des Moines, Iowa, and John H. Moore, John T. Lynch, C. C. Perkins and C. C. Clements of Salt Lake City. Realizing that extensive development of the mines depended on rail transportation to the Salt Lake City markets, they sought affirmation from the Utah Southern Railroad Company that it planned to continue its road south. They received assurances that the road would be extended, at least to Nephi, by 1875. (Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1878).

With this assurance they incorporated the Sanpete Valley Railroad Company on June 29, 1874, to build a narrow gauge railroad from Nephi into Sanpete Valley and then to Manti.

Work on this narrow gauge began early in 1875 in Salt Creek Canyon shortly after the Utah Southern started grading south from Provo. The Sanpeters were jubilant to see actual railroad grading underway; and the Nephites, looking forward to serving as the junction between the Utah Southern and Sanpete Valley railroads, bragged about the prospects of outgrowing Provo when the roads were joined. The lines were not finished, however, as the Utah Southern brought construction to a halt at York--fourteen miles north of Nephi, and all that the Sanpete Valley road was able to accomplish, under the direction of General Clark, was about twenty-five miles of grading. (Salt Lake Herald, February 7, 14, August 26, 1875; Salt Lake Tribune, September 10, 1875)

This failure brought bankruptcy to the Sanpete Coal and Coke Company and to the railroad it had sponsored; both were purchased by C. W. Bennett of Salt Lake City who engaged Simon Bamberger to operate the coal mines. He allowed the railroad to lie dormant; but Bamberger managed the mining concern successfully, and on discovering large beds of suitable clay on the company's property, added the manufacturing of fire brick to the thriving coal business. (Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1878)

When it seemed certain that the Utah Southern Railroad would be completed as far as Nephi by 1878, Mr. Bamberger began negotiations with several English gentlemen representing the Central Pacific Coal and Coke Company; and they agreed to provide finances to resurrect the Sanpete Valley Railroad. (Salt Lake Herald, November 25, 1877)

This company also purchased the Wales mines from Mr. Bennett and retained Simon Bamberger as manager of both the coal company and the renewed railroad. (Salt Lake Herald, May 29, June 15, 1880)

Grading of the roadbed began in the spring of 1880 but was still incomplete at the end of the year. The economy of Sanpete County was aided, however, by the regular pay received by the local grading crews. (Salt Lake Herald, May 17, June 15, July 2, September 2, 1880)

The roadbed was readied in 1881, however, and the first few miles of track was laid. The company ordered twenty freight cars from the Utah Central Railway Company in Salt Lake City, and a locomotive purchased from an eastern concern would soon "puff defiance at old Nebo." (Salt Lake Herald, May 21, August 23, 1881)

The Sanpete Valley Railroad was finally completed to Wales in early April of 1882, just in time for the Saints of Sanpete Valley to ride all the way to the L.D.S. General Conference in Salt Lake City on Gentile rails. Simon Bamberger continued to manage the road that became a feeder line for the Union Pacific controlled Utah Central Railway Company. A considerable quantity of coal was carried during the next two years until the mines played out and were abandoned in 1884. The road was extended to Moroni in 1884 and to Manti in 1893, and it served the economy of the Sanpete and Sevier valleys by carrying grain and other farm products to market.

The low cost transportation of the mine's products over the San Pete Valley Railway included the assumed completion of the Utah Southern Railroad at Nephi, providing the San Pete company with the rail connection to the outside world. Utah Southern reached the southern end of Utah County in 1875, but was delayed until 1879 from completing its line further south, finally reaching Nephi on May 9, 1879. The costs of the San Pete Coal and Coke Company running the Wales mine soon exceeded the revenues that the company was able to obtain by freighting the coal to local markets and the hundred mile distance to Salt Lake City.

The failure of the Utah Southern to reach Nephi in 1875 brought about the bankruptcy of the San Pete Coal and Coke Company, along with the San Pete Valley Railway that it had sponsored. The bankruptcy for both companies ended when they were purchased by Charles W. Bennett, a successful Salt Lake City lawyer. Bennett hired Simon Bamberger, who forty years later would be elected as the Governor of the State of Utah, to manage the operations of both the railroad and the coal mine. Bamberger let the railroad lie dormant but was able keep the coal mine as a successful operation. A supply of clay was discovered on the mining company's property and Bamberger added the manufacture of fire brick to the company's thriving wagon-hauled coal and coke business. (Reeder, pp.356-358)

In 1878, with the renewed prospects of the completion of the Utah Southern to Nephi, the original San Pete Coal and Coke Company, which owned and controlled the San Pete Valley Railway, was reorganized as the Central Pacific Coal and Coke Company, Ltd., a British corporation organized and promoted in London. Charles Bennett had many contacts in London, from being an attorney for some of the silver mines in Utah that were owned by London citizens, and had journeyed to Britain in search of capital to expand the operations of the old San Pete Coal and Coke Company. The President of the Central Pacific Coal and Coke Company was Sir Henry Tyler, a prominent railroad and business man in London who was also President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.

The Utah Southern was finally completed to Nephi on May 9, 1879. The following November construction was resumed on the San Pete Valley Railway. Work on the line was shut down for the winter and began again the following spring of 1880, with the grading work being completed to Nephi in July 1880. (Salt Lake Herald, November 4, 1879; July 2, 1880)

The grading and roadbed preparation for the San Pete Valley Railway was completed by May 1881 and the first rails were laid in August. That same August company officials stated that the difficulty in procuring locomotives in the east was the chief obstacle to the completion of the line, which they expected by October 15, 1881. At the same time they said that the company was having twenty narrow gauge freight cars made in the Utah Central shops in Salt Lake City. The line was completed and the rails laid to the Wales mine in April 1882, just in time for the Latter Day Saints in San Pete Valley to use their new railroad as the first leg of their journey to the church's General Conference in Salt Lake City. The San Pete Valley Railway received its first locomotive, No. 1, a Baldwin 2-6-0, in December 1881. The second locomotive, the No. 2, also a Baldwin 2-6-0, purchased second-hand from a road in Illinois, came in January 1882. It is also interesting to note that because of the British connection, the rails that were laid had come from the other Wales, in England, by ship to San Francisco and then by railroad flatcar to Utah. At the time they may have been some of the last iron rails in the west, all the others having been replaced by steel rails.

Almost immediately it became apparent that the coal production from the Wales mine would not be able to support the demand produced by the low cost transportation provided by the railroad. By 1884, the coal in the Wales mine played out and the mine was closed. During the years that it was in production, beginning in 1878, the mine produced only about 4,000 tons per year. With the prospects of the coal traffic for the little San Pete Valley railroad coming to an end, Bamberger soon began making plans to build another railroad line to serve the agricultural region south of the Wales mine and to the surrounding towns of Moroni, Ephraim, and Manti.

With the failure of the California Short Line as anything other than being a "paper" railroad, Bamberger set about extending the San Pete Valley. The methods used by Bamberger to extend the road are unclear. While the California Short Line is not mentioned, H. S. Kerr later wrote that Bamberger instructed him in 1885 to pull up the track to the Wales mine and relay it as far along the route beyond Moroni as possible. (Manti Home Sentinel, May 8, 1885)

The San Pete Valley's rails between Draper Junction and the Wales mine were being taken up during June and used for the extension of the road beyond Moroni. (Manti Home Sentinel, June 15, 1885)

By mid June 1885 the San Pete Valley's line had been extended one and a half miles south of the California Short Line's terminal at Moroni, and was completed almost two miles farther to Chester in August 1885. A new timetable was issued, being in effect by August 17, 1885, adding thirty-five minutes to the schedule to allow for the extra distance between Moroni and Chester. Potential shippers were also cautioned that only car load lots would be accepted for Chester, pending completion of the station house. (Manti Home Sentinel, August 21, 1885)

In September 1885 Bamberger said that the road was "scarcely paying expenses", and that it would be extended to Manti if the people in the county would grade the route. At this time the trains of the San Pete Valley Railway would have been operating over their own tracks from Nephi to Draper Junction, then over the California Short Line between Draper Junction and Moroni, and again over their own tracks from Moroni to Chester. Bamberger must have set up an agreement between the two roads permitting such an operation, possibly the San Pete Valley was leasing the other road for operation, a common practice on some lines even today.

In April 1888 the railroad's, and the parent coal company's, Board of Directors in London became dissatisfied with Bamberger's methods of operations and replaced him as Manager of the coal mine and Superintendent of the San Pete Valley Railway in April 1888, two and a half years after the line had been extended to Chester. The English owners named Theodore Bruback as the new Manager of the coal mine, and Halbert S. Kerr (known as H. S.), previously the Construction Engineer, was named as the Superintendent of the railroad. Bruback had previously been the road's secretary. (Salt Lake Daily Tribune, April 4, 1888)

H. S. Kerr

H. S. Kerr came to Utah in 1881 with the engineering crew of the D&RGW railroad, and remained with that company until 1884. At that time, at age 19, he felt he knew the engineering trade and took a position as location engineer for Simon Bamberger to build the San Pete Valley Railway. He remained with the San Pete Valley company and soon became the railroad's general superintendent, a position he held until late July 1904, five months after the death of Theodore Bruback, with whom Kerr had worked closely in managing the affairs of the small narrow gauge railroad. Kerr left Utah in 1904 to serve as manager of a railroad in Peru, owned by A. W. McCune of Salt Lake City, who also owned the silver mine served by the railroad. Kerr returned to Utah in 1910 and took various engineering consulting work. In 1913 he was working as the location engineer for Utah Railway when that railroad decided on Provo as its terminal. He continued consulting for various projects, working from his base in Manti, until July 1918 when he took a position as the local highway engineer at Richfield working for the Utah State Road Department. Kerr remained with the state road department, eventually being promoted to become the department's Chief Engineer in Salt Lake City. His career as a highway engineer lasted over 30 years, coming to an end with a fall in November 1949 that resulted in a fractured hip. Kerr passed away in October 1950 at age 85.

(Read H. S. Kerr's first-person account and history of San Pete Valley Railway; published in 1940. The account includes his obituary following his death in 1950.)

In September 1888 Bamberger began a $70,000 litigation suit against the owners of the San Pete Valley Railway, to recover unpaid lease fees that Bamberger said were owed him by the San Pete Valley company for its operation of Bamberger's California Short Line. Bruback, as general manager of the San Pete Valley company, counter sued, saying that Bamberger had "embezzled" the funds and that the California Short Line had used rails and materials owned by the San Pete Valley company. After being named as the new Manager, Bruback had set about on a reorganization of the San Pete Valley but was delayed by the litigation with Bamberger. The legal problems were settled in late July and early August 1889, with the San Pete Valley company taking ownership of the "extension" between Draper and Moroni as part of the settlement.

By the time that the litigation was settled the road was in receivership and Bruback, while on a trip to London, learned that Charles Morrison was one of the principle bondholders. Bruback was successful in persuading Morrison to undertake a reorganization and buy out the others that were interested in both the coal company and the railroad. After the reorganization was completed Morrison became the sole owner of the San Pete Valley Railway, with the exception of a small minority being owned by Bruback, who remained as the president of the road.

There was still the need for railroad service further south in the San Pete Valley. To secure financial backing for the extension of the San Pete Valley Railway from Chester to Manti, on January 24, 1889 Bruback and Kerr organized the Utah and Arizona Railway. The stated purpose of the new railroad was to complete seventeen miles of railroad between Manti and the San Pete Valley Railway at Chester. This road came to nothing because Bruback was able to reorganize the San Pete Valley line with the help of Charles Morrison in Great Britain.

(Read the Utah & Arizona Railway corporate information)

In Kerr's later brief history of the railroad he stated that the intention of the Utah and Arizona Railway was to extend the line to a connection with the Santa Fe in Arizona. Theodore Bruback died in an accident at the Daly-Judge mine in Park City in February 1904, and H. S. Kerr left the San Pete Valley Railway at the same time, after twenty years of service. Kerr later wrote that six years later, in 1910 while on a business trip to London, he learned that Charles Morrison was then over ninety years of age and was one of the wealthiest men in Great Britain. Coincidentally, Morrison died while Kerr was still in London and Kerr regretted that Morrison could not have been persuaded to give the constantly struggling San Pete Valley Railway the support that it had needed to become a first class transportation system.

San Pete Valley Railway Milestones

San Pete Valley Railway Company was incorporated June 29, 1874
Grading started at Nephi in early February 1875, but stopped until late 1879
May 1879 - Utah Southern Railroad Extension completed to Nephi
November 1879 - Work resumed on construction up Salt Creek Canyon, east of Nephi
July 1880 - The grade of the San Pete Valley railroad has been completed from Nephi to Wales.
September 1880 - Rail begins arriving
July 1881 - Two engines and some cars about to arrive
September 1881 - Iron is arriving daily; Two engines and a number of flats arrive
October 1881 - San Pete Valley equipment has not yet arrived; three miles of rail laid
November 1881 - Track has been laid for a distance of six miles. The engines and cars ordered in the East some time ago have not arrived.
December 1881 - Flat and box cars for construction, about thirty coal cars and a new Baldwin 2-6-0 delivered; another locomotive, and passenger and mail coaches, and additional box and flat cars, is expected daily.
May 1882 - In service Nephi to Wales
January 1883 - Railroad to be extended north of Nephi and south of Wales by a new company called California Short Line
August 1884 - Construction underway south of Wales, about half way to Fountain Green
September 1884 - Finished to Moroni, started toward Manti
October 1884 - Grading reached Chester, 28 miles
November 1884 - Wales Branch (Freedom to Wales) had been removed
December 1884 - In service Nephi to Moroni, 22 miles
June 1885 - Completed one mile south of Moroni; the old Wales branch taken up and relaid beyond Moroni
August 1885 - In service Nephi to Chester, 28 miles
April 1888 - Iron is piling up at Nephi for the extension to Manti
August 1888 - Received a former Utah & Northern locomotive
April 1890 - San Pete Valley railroad reported as sold to Union Pacific; UP to take possession in July 1890; SPV owners unable to obtain full control of SPV stock to sell to UP, and UP backed out by July 1891
December 1890 - Rio Grande Western completed from Thistle to Ephraim
May 1891 - RGW completed to Manti; Sevier Railway organized to extend RGW south from Manti to Parowan
July 1891 - RGW completed to Salina; RGW Thistle to Salina converted to standard gauge
March 1893 - San Pete Valley restarted for the season; the San Pete Valley road shut down every year from December to April
May 1893 - San Pete Valley and Wales coal mine sold to English investors
August 1893 - Construction started south from Chester, to Manti
September 1893 - In service Nephi to Ephraim
November 1893 - In service Nephi to Manti
January 1894 - San Pete Valley received a new engine, a new passenger coach, ten new freight cars and a number of cattle cars
August 1894 - Construction started, Manti to Morrison
November 1894 - In service Nephi to Morrison
February 1896 - Conversion to standard gauge started
July 1896 - New standard gauge engines arrive; actual conversion to standard gauge started and completed on July 9, 1896
June 1899 - Six-mile branch completed to stone quarries in Salt Creek Canyon
September 1907 - San Pete Valley railway was sold to Rio Grande Western
January 1910 - San Pete Valley Railway was dissolved as a corporation

(Read the timeline of the San Pete Valley Railway in the period 1874 to 1890)

(Read the timeline of the San Pete Valley Railway in the period 1890 to 1908)

Failed Attempts To Renovate Line

Following the abandonment of operations of the Marysvale Branch by Rio Grande in April 1983, the branch stood empty. The 20 shippers on the line were forced to use trucks, at a higher cost of transportation. In late 1985, several investors put together a plan for the State of Utah to purchase the line, then lease it to their organization for operation. They would build a new connection between the old Marysvale line and the Union Pacific at Nephi. The projected cost of the plan to establish a new railroad in the area was put at $30 to $33 million, but the group felt that the potential revenue would pay for the start up costs.

Locomotives

San Pete Valley Railway Locomotives -- A roster listing of San Pete Valley Railway locomotives.

To be researched...

Operation by Rio Grande
Livestock Operations (cattle and sheep)
Turkey and turkey feed industries
The gypsum mines and plasterboard plants at Nephi and Sigurd
Purchase of Nephi portion by UP

San Pete or Sanpete?

The two-word version, San Pete, generally comes from older sources such as Post Office Guides, gazetteers and U. S. Geologic Survey books and maps. Newspapers of the period before World War I use the two-word version in their title. Most sources from the 1920s to modern times use the one word version. The articles of incorporation for the railroad specifically show the two-word version, and sources from the 1800s, too numerous to list, also use the two-word version.

It should be noted that the Deseret News newspaper, and the later Deseret Evening News, used the two-word version from the 1850s to about 1863, then the one-word version as early as 1865, and throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Whenever the newspaper referred to the railroad, it was always the two-word version.

Charles Morrison

May 25, 1909
Charles Morrison died on May 25, 1909, at age 92. He never married and never had children. His estate went to his sister and brother, nephews and nieces. (The Guardian, London, June 5, 1909)

January 21, 1910
London millionaires who die after living quietly and unknown. "Such a one was Charles Morrison, who spent his life in a dingy city office and died leaving one of the greatest fortunes in England." (Vancouver [British Columbia] Province, January 21, 1910)

Theodore Bruback

From "A History Of Utah, In Four Volumes," by Orson F. Whitney. 1904, pages 515-516...

Thomas Bruback became President and General Manager of the Sanpete Valley Railway in 1887, when it was a poorly constructed, badly equipped, narrow gauge "streak of rust," which had been unprofitable from its construction until that time. Bruback took over this property (only twenty miles in length), broadened the gauge, reconstructed it entirely and extended it, until at the present it has become a standard gauge, well constructed and finely equipped railway, some sixty miles in length, doing a profitable business, which bids fair to increase as the years go by.

Bruback developed a coal mine at Morrison, the terminus of the Sanpete Valley Railway. He developed the Nebo Brown Stone Quarry, of which he is the chief owner, and placed upon the market the finest brown stone found west of the Rocky mountains; the stone was used in the construction of Deseret News building, one of the finest buildings west of the Mississippi river.

Bruback created the Gold Belt Water Company, which supplies the mines, mills and town of Mercur with water, making it possible to live there and operate mines in the most economical manner.

Bruback was born in Pittsburg. Pennsylvania, March 7, 1851. He came west in 1877 and engaged in the mining and stock business in Wyoming Territory, where he was one of the pioneers for many years. He settled at Salt Lake City in 1886. During that year he married Jessie White McLane, daughter of Colonel John W. McLane, one of the heroes of the Civil War. Colonel Bruback has two children, Theodore McLane and Jessie Elizabeth.

February 18, 1904
Theodore Bruback passed away, after falling while climbing a ladder at the Daly-Judge mine in Park City. He fell 15 feet, landing on his head and broke his neck. He was only 45 years of age at the time of his death. In accordance with his will, all of Bruback's interest in San Pete Valley Railway, Sterling Coal and Coke Company, and Mt. Nebo Brown Stone Company passed to Charles Morrison of London. (Salt Lake Herald, February 7, 1905, Probate)

Bruback's accidental death was carried in all Utah-area newspapers, and across the nation in numerous other newspapers, including the New York Times.

Map

San Pete Valley Railroads -- A Google Map of San Pete Valley Railroads; San Pete Valley Railway (in red); shown with D&RGW Marysvale Branch (in blue).

More Information

San Pete Valley Railway, Kerr -- First person account of the history of San Pete Valley Railway, by H. S. Kerr, the road's superintendent, published in 1940; includes his obituary.

San Pete Valley Railway Corporate Information

Reeder Manuscript -- Information about San Pete Valley Railway in Clarence Reeder's PhD dissertation.

Golden Spike on SPV -- Comments by Garrie Tufford, concerning the non-event driving of the golden spike for San Pete Valley Railway.

San Pete Valley entry from George W. Hilton's American Narrow Gauge Railroads (Stanford University Press, 1990)

D&RGW Utah Branchlines, San Pete Valley Branch -- Station names and mile posts along the D&RGW San Pete Valley Branch

"Rather A Curious One: Remembering Utah's Sanpete Valley Railway" by Richard Francaviglia, in Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 71, Number 1, Winter 2003, page 52

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