Nellie Bly
New York World/January 23, 1890
The Young Lady’s Own Story of Her Thrilling Ride Over the Mountains
Readers of THE EVENING WORLD will recognize in the following dispatch, written by the fair tourist herself to the rhythm of a swaying coach, the indomitable spirit and surpassing pluck of THE WORLD’s chosen standard-bearer in the four quarters of the earth. Here is her own story:
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Jan. 22.—We are doing pretty well, I think. Thirty-six hours in America and I have travelled over fifteen hundred miles in that time. There is only one place this can be done and it’s just here in America. If the success of my trip from the Golden Gate depended on the “English train,” I would doubtless be able to still have a bird’s-eye view of San Francisco wrapped in a rug and my feet on a foot-warmer. If my round-the-world tour could have been made at the same speed I am now making, it would have taken me less than twenty-four days to girdle the earth. I hope to be in New York early Saturday night. How glad I shall be to see the grand old city again, and the sooner I reach there the happier I will be. It is strange, but time has never passed slower to me than it has since I set foot upon American soil—I am so anxious to be home again. We travel so fast that it is almost impossible to write in the car. The Pullman drawing-room car San Lorenzo is coupled to the engine, and this constitutes our train. I have every confidence in American railroads. They are a thousand percent ahead of the European roads. They are cleaner, better managed and run with greater speed. Why on this very road, Atlantic and Pacific, on which I am now journeying, some surprisingly quick time has been made. Supt. Andrew Smith, who is on the train with us, told me that a special train was run from Albuquerque, N.M. to Holbrook, Ari., 253 miles, in 289 minutes for E.J. Simpson, of the Aztec Land and Coal Company, whose child was sick. The father brought a doctor that distance at a cost of $300 to save the little one, but unfortunately the child died.
When we stop at stations a crowd is gathered who call for me, and will not be satisfied until I appear on the rear platform to receive their greetings, and sometimes the ladies come into the car and ask me questions and say all kinds of pretty things—mostly undeserved—about myself and my trip. I feel a little like a presidential candidate. I am surprised at the large number of my own sex out in these almost desert places who know my name and have heard something of my newspaper doing. My first greeting upon getting up this morning was the following telegram:
“WILLIAMS, Ari., Jan. 22.—TO MISS NELLIE BLY: Brave young American, rough but honest Arizona greets you with a rousing Western cheer. ARIZONIAN
The ladles who come into the car take a look at its contents, and seem speoially interested In a red and brass temple chair, presented to me in China. It is a large, awkward contrivance, in which nothing but a broken-backed Joss could sit with any comfort. The monkey which I got in Singapore also interested them. He is an intelligent monkey, but very bad tempered. He bit several persons on the steamer Oceanic. I keep him caged, with his face bare towards the window, so he can see the country as we skim along.
My visitors ask one question very earnestly. “Miss Bly,” they say. “Will you win? Will you make it in seventy-five days?” When I tell them I expect to be in New York in seventy-three days from the time I left there, they seem pleased. They manifestly rejoice in the fact that a woman is going to best the record of an imaginary man who in M. Jules Verne’s mind once made the tour of the world in eighty days. The discomfiture of Phileas Fogg delights them. Such is woman’s love for woman. I entered Arizona about daylight this morning. We were at “The Needles” at 4.30 A.M. Arizona is not thickly settled. There are few communities of more than two or three hundred souls. Most of the stations are section houses. The ride through the San Francisco range has been quite exciting. I sat in the engine coming over the Arizona divide and Engineer Charles Wood rashly gave me charge of the lever. Every now and then I pulled the throttle wide open, and you should see us spin along. When we had a straight piece of track I let the great machine go for all it was worth, and I am sure nothing ever went over the Atlantic and Pacific track in quicker time. Master Mechanic John Puller was on the engine and he says that he never saw quicker running. We were up 8,000 feet above sea level. I got on the engine at Williams and rode to Flagstaff Mountain, one of the highest of the San Francisco range. We could see Flagstaff’s snow-covered peak for thirty miles. It has snow on it eleven months in the year, I am told. First it was on one side of the engine and then on the other, the windings of the track making it appear to change its position. I kept one eye on the track and the other on Flagstaff Peak and watched myself approach it. When Engineer Wood wasn’t looking I’d give the lever a little pull, get on a little more steam and revel in the greedy manner in which engine 93, a splendid eight-wheeler, swallowed up the track.
Perhaps the engine didn’t roll! Fireman Sid Armstrong had all he could do to keep his feet and once or twice seemed trying to follow his shovel and coal into the furnace. A man away ahead on the track would one moment look the size of a pin. I’d blow the whistle and he would no sooner step to one side than we would be whizzing past him. I saw one man hold his hat on as we went by. The telegraph poles came and went like flashes of lightning. For a new engineer, the Master Mechanic said I was a rushing success. We crossed the divide a little after noon, and then, pushing the lever and closing the throttle, I was given charge of the air brake, which I managed under Mr. Wood’s direction. There is an incline from the summit to the town of Flagstaff of 3,000 feet, and no steam is used in going down. At Chalender, before reaching the summit, I saw the former battlefield of the Supai and Navajo Indians. It is a large opening in the timber, smooth and level, and was today covered with several inches of snow. In fact, we have snow all through these mountains. Near the summit I saw the great sheep-shearing ranch of the Daggs Brothers, who have, I am told, three million sheep.
At Flagstaff I left the engine and resumed my place in the coach. We crossed the famous Canyon Diablo, which yawned 300 feet beneath, at the speed of forty miles an hour. It was here, years ago, four cowboys robbed and Atlantic and Pacific train and got the contents of the Wells Fargo strong box. Mr. C. F. Holton, one of the posse who followed the robbers 500 miles on horseback, and after three battles with them captured the quartet, is now a special officer of the Atlantic and Pacific Company, and forms part of my escort from Mojave to Albuquerque.
We crossed the line into New Mexico at 4 P.M. exactly. From the car windows I have seen many Navajo Indians jogging along on their ponies. Their reservation is about twenty miles north of the Atlantic and Pacific track. In a cottonwood grove which we passed, near Holbrook, Gen. Crook has one of his famous battles with the Navajos.
I have a buffet car and we therefore do not stop for meals. Our only stops are occasional stations where we change engines. We had a warm dinner, ordered by Nr. Donaldson, of the Southern Pacific, which was sent in at Winslow. It was a fine dinner, but we were obliged to give so much attention to keeping it on the table, owing to the speed of the train, that our appetites hadn’t exactly affair chance. At Winslow Mr. R.M. Bachellor, Assistant General Freight and Passenger Agent of the Atlantic and Pacific, and Dr. Jeremiah Sullivan, the road surgeon, joined us on the train. Supt. Smith, of the Atlantic and Pacific, leaves us at Albuquerque and Mr. Bachellor will form part of my escort to Chicago. Mr. Donaldson also remains with us to Chicago.
We came from Winslow to Coolidge, N.M., this afternoon, 150 miles, in exactly three hours. A little while later we crossed the continental Divide, this highest point of the Rocky Mountains. The elevation where the Atlantic and Pacific road crosses is 7,200 feet above the sea level.
At Coolidge I received the following telegram:
“WINSLOW, Ari., Jan. 22.—To NELLIE BLY: It is pardonable in us as Americans to say that your indomitable will and pluck are but characteristic of model young America. Get there, Nellie Bly, and God bless you.
“Winslow, Arizona.”
At 7:15 P.M. we passed Laguna, an Indian village in which the houses are doorless and windowless and the tenants go in and out through the roof. It is 400 years old, and has two bells brought from Spain that bear date of 1520. There are 1,200 Indians, and three white men who have married Indian girls and who have been each in turn elected governor of the village. It was growing dark when we passed Laguna and I didn’t see much of it. I wish I could have seen the place in daylight; it would have been so interesting, I think. At Albuquerque, which we reached at 9.35 P.M., there was a great surprise for me. It is the largest town we passed today. It is merged into the old or Spanish town and the modern settlement. There are about 10,000 inhabitants. When we pulled into the depot there was a great crowd. A large delegation of citizens and Councilmen with ladies, headed by Mayor G.W. Meylert, came into the car and greeted me. They wanted to hear my story and said all kinds of complimentary things about my trip. The ladies and gentlemen spent some time in the car, and when we parted they wished me all kinds of good luck. They were glad to hear that I would be in New York within seventy-three days of my departure from here. I have just heard of McGinty. Isn’t it sad?
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