In 1918, the war to end all wars was raging in Europe. Americans, for the first time, were chewing pencils trying to wade through their first income tax return. Then, John Sexton, manager of the Eureka-Nevada Railway, dumped a problem into the collective laps of Eureka County Liquor Board members.
     Eureka, just a hoot and a holler and then some south of Elko, was a typical Nevada town with its share of saloons and, to put it nicely for mixed company, bawdy houses. Sexton's crews were working in town on railroad repairs and, by golly, he wasn't going to allow his men to spend their hard-earned wages on booze and soiled doves. Always tight-fisted with railroad money, he wanted his men, shall we say, to work their butts off for their pay and not spend it on sinful pursuits.
     Never one to wallflower-it-out, he rolled up his sleeves and snorted into Eureka with steam pouring from both ears. He bluntly told the Liquor Board that he would cease railroad services to the town if they did not close the bars and those other unmentionable places of corruption.
     Standing, ramrod-straight, he advised them, "I will make no effort to run any trains until the people of Eureka stand in with us and clean up. If the saloons are left running we will have nothing but turmoil. Let the saloons lay off six months or a year and then, by petition, if they promise to be halfway decent, they may be permitted, if you see fit, to pollute the laboring man further." Available records do not tell what Eureka officials did. Usually, fiery John got his way but it is doubtful that the did in this instance.
     The Elko Independent editor voiced a different point of view saying that it was time Eureka and Sexton parted company and added that half a dozen motor trucks could make the trip faster than what he (Sexton) sees fit to call a "train."
     Continuing, the Independent scribe accused John of doing great harm to Eureka by his "willy-nilly, fly-by-night operation of his four coffeepots and eight or ten baby express wagons."
     Not yet finished with Sexton, the Independent chief recalled that the narrow gauge magnate once refused, in 1917, to operate the road because he felt the government didn't pay enough for hauling mail. Only an order from the Nevada Railroad Commission persuaded him to agree to run at least one train daily.
     The little railroad had a rocky beginning. Started in 1873 and constructed in fits and spurts, the 84-mile narrow gauge (three feet wide) road began at Palisade and terminated in Eureka, the booming lead capital of the world, in 1875. At Palisade the Eureka and Palisade Railroad connected with the Central Pacific Railroad (later the Southern Pacific and today, Union Pacific).
     When Eureka mines began to peter out, so did business for the little railroad. Combined with too many floods which washed out miles of track, the E&P went steadily downhill.
     By the time Sexton took over as manager, the company had changed hands several times and was renamed the Eureka-Nevada Railway Company.
     Rain or shine, washouts or not, the railroad had an exceptional talent for not being able to run trains, even in good weather. Although the company made at least a small profit during most of the Sexton years, declining revenue, more washouts, and paved highways spelled doom for the tenacious upstart of a railroad. On July 1, 1938, Eurekans celebrated the last run.
     Today, more than sixty years after the tracks and ties were removed, obvious traces of the roadbed can still be seen next to the highway in Pine Valley between Carlin and Eureka. 
     Oldtimers claim they can still remember Sexton snorting like one of his engines, chugging over people and towns. You have to admire the old guy for turning a profit, no matter how small, on a railroad that lasted longer than it should have with obstacles that bankrupted and closed many other railroads in Nevada.

Howard Hickson
June 18, 2001

©Copyright 2001 by Howard Hickson. Permission to use is given but, if any portion or all of this article is quoted, proper credit must be given.