Brigadier General John M. Wilson (classmate).
(Text, 245.)
Faithfully your friend
Charles W. Fairbanks
To Genl Mills
(Text, 233.)
Consolidation of the El Paso and Juarez Street Railways
When the Santa Fe, Mexican Central, Texas & Pacific, and Sunset Routes were completed to El Paso, about 1880, the five thousand people of El Paso, and eight thousand of Juarez, organized four street railways, two in El Paso (one on El Paso Street and one on Santa Fe Street), connecting with the two similar Mexican roads on the Juarez side at the middle of the Stanton and Juarez Street bridges. Stock in these roads was subscribed in the East, but each road had a president, four directors and other officers, all of whom, to be popular with the public, made deadheads of the officials of the two cities, policemen, collectors of customs, revenue officers, and so forth. There was, therefore, great maintenance expense and little revenue for the stockholders, and the equipment soon degenerated into a most impoverished condition. When it became necessary to assess stockholders or go into bankruptcy, Senator Bate, from Tennessee, a personal friend, complained to me that he and his wife had twenty-five thousand dollars in stock of the El Paso street road. He was unable to pay his assessments and, as El Paso was said to be my town, he thought I ought to do something to relieve him. We went to El Paso and he had some stormy interviews with the managers of his road. Suggesting the possibility of a consolidation of the four roads, I told him that as I had the confidence of the Mexicans as well as the Americans of the two cities, if he was willing to come with me, we might encourage the stockholders in New York to give proxies for a majority of the stock.
We saw the principal stockholders in New York, one of them a cousin of J. P. Morgan, obtained proxies for a majority of the stock and power of attorney to represent the stockholders in the consolidation of the four roads.