Immediately upon his return to Seattle in September, he journeyed to New York. In a few days, newspapers devoted columns to the sale of the Rosene interests in the railway, also a large fleet of first-class steamers, and wharves, to the Copper River and Northwestern Railway Company.
The contract for the immediate building of the road had been secured by Mr. Heney, who had returned to his original surveys. The terminus at once travelled back to Cordova; and the itinerant bank may yet thank its guiding star which prevented it from getting itself landed at Katalla.
Important "strikes" are made constantly in the Tanana country, in the Sushitna, and in the Koyukuk, where pay is found surpassing the best of the Klondike.
The trail from Valdez to Fairbanks may yet be as thickly strewn with eager-eyed stampeders as were the Dyea and Skagway trails a decade ago. Never again, however, in any part of Alaska, can the awful conditions of that time prevail. Steamer, rail, and stage transportation have made travelling in the North luxurious, compared to the horrors endured in the old days.
The Guggenheims have been compelled to carry on a fantastic fight for right of way for the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. In the summer of 1907, they attempted to lay track at Katalla over the disputed Bruner right of way. The Bruner Company had constructed an immense "go-devil" of railway rails, which, operated by powerful machinery, could be swung back and forth over the disputed point. It was operated by armed men behind fortifications.
The Bruner concern was known as the Alaska-Pacific Transportation and Terminal Company, financed by Pittsburg capital, and proposed building a road to the coal regions, thence to the Copper River. They sought right of way by condemnation proceedings.
The town site of Katalla is owned by the Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company, which had deeded a right of way to the Guggenheims; also, a large tract of land for smelter purposes. At one point it was necessary for the latter to cross the right of way of the Bruner road.
The trouble began in May, when the Bruner workmen dynamited a pile-driver and trestle belonging to the Guggenheims, who had then approached within one hundred feet of the Bruner right of way.
On July 3 a party of Guggenheim laborers, under the protection of a fire from detachments of armed men, succeeded in laying track over the disputed right of way.
Tony de Pascal daringly led the construction party and received the reward of a thousand dollars offered by the Guggenheims to the man who would successfully lead the attacking forces. Soon afterward, he was shot dead by one of his own men who mistook him for a member of the opposing force. Ten other men were seriously injured by bullets from the Bruner block-houses.