The following article about George Long was published in the Trinidad, Colorado newspaper, the Chronicle-News, on 25 October 1931. I typed it word-for-word from the hard copy I have in my family history file. It tells about his remarkable 50-year career as a railroad engineer, but also has good information about his father, wife and two sons, and his early years in Fairfield, Iowa. His youngest son, William Clifton Long, was my grandfather. (His middle name is erroneously stated as " Clifford" in the article.)
Jon Long
Lawton, Oklahoma
3 Feb 2011
GEORGE LONG—50 YEARS A RAILROAD ENGINEER
The veteran of all veterans in the railroad service of Colorado is engineer George S. Long of Trinidad, 74 years old next January.
For fifty years Long has been piloting engines over steel rails in Colorado, and is still at it. For half a century, the span of time from 1881 to the present day, George Long has been climbing in and out of engine cabs. Daily his hand has been at the throttle. This pioneer of railroading is the senior No. 1 engineer of the C. & S. system. His name tops all others in that little blue covered seniority book that enginemen carry.
From 1889 up to now George Long has piloted an engine on the south division run to Texline. He has traveled a couple of million miles up and down the line. And in half a century of railroading he has been in wrecks often, has lived thru all the obvious hazards of the service. He has escaped death several times by a hair's breadth. He has hauled millions of tons of freight and uncounted multitudes of passengers. An engine cab has been his home, more or less, for the life time of the average man.
Railroad telegraph operator, brakeman, fireman, engineer. These are the headlines of the railroad career of the Trinidad man. It is something to look back for half a century in any useful occupation. And George Long can look back not from retirement but from active service, for Long is not retired, and expects to keep on with railroading for some time yet if the good fortune of the last fifty years continues to abide with him.
Way back in the 80's George Long drove an engine on the old South Park narrow gauge line between Denver and Leadville, Gunnison and Como. Back in the 90's he piloted an engine on the old Union Pacific out of Trinidad, and for many years on the C. & S., or Burlington - C. & S. as it is now known. George Long has been with his engine three times when it plunged through weakened bridges, and three times in collisions when there were casualties, but he has come out without a scratch. And today, going on 74 years old, he passes the rigid test of physical examination without a questionable mark anywhere on the sheet.
No trainman in the entire Burlington system has a service record of the length of Engineer George Long. His senior was only the late Tom O'Neil, and he has passed away. Of the survivors of railroading in Trinidad the nearest one to George Long is W.G. Thompson, member of the city council from the fourth ward. And Long recalls that practically every engineer in service on the C. & S. road today has at some time fired for him.
So one night last week we visited this veteran engineer at his apartment down town and heard his story of half a century as a railroad engineer and were interested and thrilled. At his side sat his good wife who has been his constant companion since 1886, when George was a young engineer instead of an old engineer. And good Mrs. Long, one of the old-fashioned, motherly women who have been the inspiration of men thru all history, was recovering nicely from her experience last August when her engineer husband turned her over in an auto beyond Las Animas, Colo., en-route to Kansas. Mrs. Long sustained a fractured collarbone at that time, but nobody would know it now from the way she feels.
Mrs. Long checked the dates and details of her husband's long railroad career, breaking in occasionally with little anecdotes of her own, and this historian and biographer spent a pleasant evening.
* * * *
George S. Long was born January20, 1858 at Fairfield, Iowa, that renowned corn state of the union. His father was William Long, pioneer business man and who became a running mate with Abraham Lincoln in 1860 on the local Republican ticket. In a small frame Engineer Long has preserved the original Fairfield, Iowa ballot which shows at the top the names of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, for president and vice president, and William Long, candidate for clerk of the district court.
William Long was elected four times, serving eight consecutive years in this court office, was elected a fifth but did not serve, but retired to become general agent of the King Iron Bridge interests at Cleveland, Ohio. William Long passed away at Fairfield, Iowa, in 1873, and his widow, the mother of Engineer George Long, passed away in 1904, at 76 years of age. George Long was the third child of six children of this union, and today is one of two survivors, the other being Dr. C.S. Long, physician of Denver. Another brother, William Lincoln Long, named after his father and President Lincoln, served three terms in the state legislature of Iowa and died two years ago.
George Long was a healthy, robust lad who did not do much of the farming that so many Iowa boys know at an early age. He learned telegraphy as a youth and worked a key for the old Burlington road in his home locality for about two years. But he gave up the key to go into the store business at home. Fairfield is a community of mixed farming and manufacturers, being one of the two largest centers for malleable iron in the United States. He gave up the store and came west to Colorado in 1880.
Long turned his hand to railroading then. At Buena Vista, Colo., he signed up as a brakeman on the South Park narrow gauge division of what is now the C. and S. railroad. He lived at Buena Vista and ran between Denver and Leadville and Gunnison and Como, later on making his home at Como. He became a fireman on this run and worked up to engineer in 1881.
For the period of years up to 1889 when he was transferred to Trinidad, he continued on this run, and on August 23, 1886, was married in Denver to the lady who has so long been his companion. They went back to Como to live, but they missed the big nuptials dance arranged for them there because of a blizzard.
Pueblo and Trinidad to Texline has been his run on both freight and passenger engines since he came here. He has been continuously in passenger service since 1892.
On the old South Park run Long piled up twice in freight wrecks when his engine plunged thru weak bridges, but he escaped each time without a scratch. One more in August of 1890 he was wrecked at Trinchers in this county. Three collisions were recorded in his experience also, one at Beshoar in 1902 when his train sideswiped a freight and the fireman of the freight was killed. His engine crashed into the depot, and the freight engine into a section house. Long escaped without injury.
* * * *
Except for five years since 1889 Engineer Long has made his home in Trinidad, his youngest son, William Clifford Long, was born here. During the above mentioned five year period Long lived at Texline, made his regular run on the road and he and his wife conducted a store business there. This period was from 1917 to 1922. Long gave up the store business at Texline and returned to Trinidad.
During all these years on the south division Engineer Long has been in the cab about every day, going south one day and returning the next.
Looking back at fifty years of railroading Engineer Long recalls also hazardous experiences in storms. Particularly on the old South Park line in the days before the rotary snowplow. On the high mountain passes, narrow gauge, there were times when several engines were hooked up together. Once he recalls 14 engines on one train bucking snow, and going 13 miles in nine days between Breckenridge and Boreas, Colo.
* * * *
Engineer Long knew the late President Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt knew him. Once he had piloted the train of President Roosevelt from Texline to Colorado Springs. This was several years after Roosevelt as Vice President had attended a reunion of Rough Riders of the Spanish American war at Las Vegas, N.M., as recited below. Long had been at Las Vegas and had seen and talked with Roosevelt.
Long recounts the remarkable memory for faces possessed by Roosevelt and cites an incident. The day following the reunion at Las Vegas, when Roosevelt had met Long at a hotel, Long was at Raton when the Roosevelt train stopped there headed east. On the Santa Fe depot platform Roosevelt spied Long. Roosevelt called to him – "Didn't I see you at Las Vegas last night?" Long told Roosevelt that he had seen him. Roosevelt then invited Long to come into his private car, and in this car with Roosevelt Long rode to Trinidad.
He remembers another incident of the Roosevelt memory in Trinidad. Long is not certain of the year or the occasion, but the Roosevelt train stopped at the C. & S. depot. There was a crowd gathered to see the famous Colonel of the Rough Riders, ex-governor of New York, Vice President and President. There were shouts of "Teddy! Teddy!" Roosevelt came out on the rear platform of his car and looking into the crowd spied Bill Jones, a local saloonkeeper but a former rough rider. Roosevelt remembered in a flash. The train was about to pull out. Roosevelt shouted, "Is that you Bill Jones?" and when Bill trotted along to greet Roosevelt, the Colonel reached out his hands over the train platform rail and helped Jones up. Roosevelt never forgot a face he had seen, and seldom the name of the man to whom the face belonged.
* * * *
Engineer George Long is a veteran member of the engineer order of the B. of L. E. and on November 18, 1926, at a local banquet of that order was presented with the badge of 40 years membership, a token that he treasures as much or more than anything he owns. Moreover Long is a veteran member of the Knights of Pythias, having joined in Fairfield, Iowa, when he was 21 years old, which is close to 53 years also, for he is coming 74. He is also a member of the Elks.
George Long married a lady from Missouri. Her father had been a recruiting officer for the Confederacy, as Long's father had been a recruiting officer in Iowa for the Union forces. As hitherto stated they were married in Denver, August 23, 1886. They have two sons, George S. Long Jr., born at Como, Colo., when his father was engineer there, and William C. Long, born in Trinidad. These two sons are also in the railroad business. George Jr., is a railroad machinist and William is a coppersmith, and both have been employed by the C. & S. Mrs. Long reared in St. Louis County, Missouri, came to Colorado in 1884, so is a pioneer Colorado citizen herself.
Engineer Long admits of no particular hobby, unless collecting pipes is one. He has many old gift pipes, one a fine meerschaum, the gift of his wife many years ago, which remains his favorite. The veteran engineer puffed at this pipe, taking long, fragrant whiffs, while he told the story of his life one evening last week.
The same luck which has remained with Long in the several mishaps of his engineering experience has been with him in a motor car. Twice it has turned over. Once about two years ago he was driving to Trinidad alone from Ojo Caliente, N.M., and was at Eagle Nest dam. His car turned over twice and landed in a wreck on top of him. Long crawled out from under the wreckage without a scratch – yes, he did lose a bit of gray hair covering a spot the size of a dime.
Lying under the wreck, a trifle dazed, but otherwise unhurt, Long saw a lone cowboy approaching. The cowboy had seen the car flop and came galloping over.
"How many are dead?" the cowboy asked.
"Nobody," shouted Long from under the wrecked car.
"Then how many are hurt?" queried the lone rider.
"Nobody," answered Long.
Engineer Long crawled out from under the wreck and showed the cowboy that there had been no occupants but himself, and the cowboy was mystified and incredulous.
"You can't tell me that car turned over twice and smashed up like it is and nobody get hurt," remarked the cowpuncher.
But George did so convince him. The wrecked car Long left where it lay and at Therma, N.M., bought a new car and drove it to Trinidad arriving at midnight as though nothing had happened.
When he met Mrs. Long at the door he said "Here I am but there's a new car down below." And he told his anxious wife about the wreck and his escape.
Then two months ago – last August, George Long and his wife were on their way to Kansas. About six miles east of Las Animas Long, who was driving, turned his car over in a sand pocket and both were violently spilled. Mrs. Long was injured, but the veteran engineer who had years ago gone thru bridges with his train and experienced other narrow escapes emerged without a scratch.
Engineer Long recently came off the passenger run south on which he has been so many years and lately has been on the short Aguilar coal run. "I'm still in service," he said, "and I'm going to run an engine as long as they will let me."
Jon Long
Lawton, Oklahoma
3 Feb 2011
GEORGE LONG—50 YEARS A RAILROAD ENGINEER
The veteran of all veterans in the railroad service of Colorado is engineer George S. Long of Trinidad, 74 years old next January.
For fifty years Long has been piloting engines over steel rails in Colorado, and is still at it. For half a century, the span of time from 1881 to the present day, George Long has been climbing in and out of engine cabs. Daily his hand has been at the throttle. This pioneer of railroading is the senior No. 1 engineer of the C. & S. system. His name tops all others in that little blue covered seniority book that enginemen carry.
From 1889 up to now George Long has piloted an engine on the south division run to Texline. He has traveled a couple of million miles up and down the line. And in half a century of railroading he has been in wrecks often, has lived thru all the obvious hazards of the service. He has escaped death several times by a hair's breadth. He has hauled millions of tons of freight and uncounted multitudes of passengers. An engine cab has been his home, more or less, for the life time of the average man.
Railroad telegraph operator, brakeman, fireman, engineer. These are the headlines of the railroad career of the Trinidad man. It is something to look back for half a century in any useful occupation. And George Long can look back not from retirement but from active service, for Long is not retired, and expects to keep on with railroading for some time yet if the good fortune of the last fifty years continues to abide with him.
Way back in the 80's George Long drove an engine on the old South Park narrow gauge line between Denver and Leadville, Gunnison and Como. Back in the 90's he piloted an engine on the old Union Pacific out of Trinidad, and for many years on the C. & S., or Burlington - C. & S. as it is now known. George Long has been with his engine three times when it plunged through weakened bridges, and three times in collisions when there were casualties, but he has come out without a scratch. And today, going on 74 years old, he passes the rigid test of physical examination without a questionable mark anywhere on the sheet.
No trainman in the entire Burlington system has a service record of the length of Engineer George Long. His senior was only the late Tom O'Neil, and he has passed away. Of the survivors of railroading in Trinidad the nearest one to George Long is W.G. Thompson, member of the city council from the fourth ward. And Long recalls that practically every engineer in service on the C. & S. road today has at some time fired for him.
So one night last week we visited this veteran engineer at his apartment down town and heard his story of half a century as a railroad engineer and were interested and thrilled. At his side sat his good wife who has been his constant companion since 1886, when George was a young engineer instead of an old engineer. And good Mrs. Long, one of the old-fashioned, motherly women who have been the inspiration of men thru all history, was recovering nicely from her experience last August when her engineer husband turned her over in an auto beyond Las Animas, Colo., en-route to Kansas. Mrs. Long sustained a fractured collarbone at that time, but nobody would know it now from the way she feels.
Mrs. Long checked the dates and details of her husband's long railroad career, breaking in occasionally with little anecdotes of her own, and this historian and biographer spent a pleasant evening.
* * * *
George S. Long was born January20, 1858 at Fairfield, Iowa, that renowned corn state of the union. His father was William Long, pioneer business man and who became a running mate with Abraham Lincoln in 1860 on the local Republican ticket. In a small frame Engineer Long has preserved the original Fairfield, Iowa ballot which shows at the top the names of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, for president and vice president, and William Long, candidate for clerk of the district court.
William Long was elected four times, serving eight consecutive years in this court office, was elected a fifth but did not serve, but retired to become general agent of the King Iron Bridge interests at Cleveland, Ohio. William Long passed away at Fairfield, Iowa, in 1873, and his widow, the mother of Engineer George Long, passed away in 1904, at 76 years of age. George Long was the third child of six children of this union, and today is one of two survivors, the other being Dr. C.S. Long, physician of Denver. Another brother, William Lincoln Long, named after his father and President Lincoln, served three terms in the state legislature of Iowa and died two years ago.
George Long was a healthy, robust lad who did not do much of the farming that so many Iowa boys know at an early age. He learned telegraphy as a youth and worked a key for the old Burlington road in his home locality for about two years. But he gave up the key to go into the store business at home. Fairfield is a community of mixed farming and manufacturers, being one of the two largest centers for malleable iron in the United States. He gave up the store and came west to Colorado in 1880.
Long turned his hand to railroading then. At Buena Vista, Colo., he signed up as a brakeman on the South Park narrow gauge division of what is now the C. and S. railroad. He lived at Buena Vista and ran between Denver and Leadville and Gunnison and Como, later on making his home at Como. He became a fireman on this run and worked up to engineer in 1881.
For the period of years up to 1889 when he was transferred to Trinidad, he continued on this run, and on August 23, 1886, was married in Denver to the lady who has so long been his companion. They went back to Como to live, but they missed the big nuptials dance arranged for them there because of a blizzard.
Pueblo and Trinidad to Texline has been his run on both freight and passenger engines since he came here. He has been continuously in passenger service since 1892.
On the old South Park run Long piled up twice in freight wrecks when his engine plunged thru weak bridges, but he escaped each time without a scratch. One more in August of 1890 he was wrecked at Trinchers in this county. Three collisions were recorded in his experience also, one at Beshoar in 1902 when his train sideswiped a freight and the fireman of the freight was killed. His engine crashed into the depot, and the freight engine into a section house. Long escaped without injury.
* * * *
Except for five years since 1889 Engineer Long has made his home in Trinidad, his youngest son, William Clifford Long, was born here. During the above mentioned five year period Long lived at Texline, made his regular run on the road and he and his wife conducted a store business there. This period was from 1917 to 1922. Long gave up the store business at Texline and returned to Trinidad.
During all these years on the south division Engineer Long has been in the cab about every day, going south one day and returning the next.
Looking back at fifty years of railroading Engineer Long recalls also hazardous experiences in storms. Particularly on the old South Park line in the days before the rotary snowplow. On the high mountain passes, narrow gauge, there were times when several engines were hooked up together. Once he recalls 14 engines on one train bucking snow, and going 13 miles in nine days between Breckenridge and Boreas, Colo.
* * * *
Engineer Long knew the late President Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt knew him. Once he had piloted the train of President Roosevelt from Texline to Colorado Springs. This was several years after Roosevelt as Vice President had attended a reunion of Rough Riders of the Spanish American war at Las Vegas, N.M., as recited below. Long had been at Las Vegas and had seen and talked with Roosevelt.
Long recounts the remarkable memory for faces possessed by Roosevelt and cites an incident. The day following the reunion at Las Vegas, when Roosevelt had met Long at a hotel, Long was at Raton when the Roosevelt train stopped there headed east. On the Santa Fe depot platform Roosevelt spied Long. Roosevelt called to him – "Didn't I see you at Las Vegas last night?" Long told Roosevelt that he had seen him. Roosevelt then invited Long to come into his private car, and in this car with Roosevelt Long rode to Trinidad.
He remembers another incident of the Roosevelt memory in Trinidad. Long is not certain of the year or the occasion, but the Roosevelt train stopped at the C. & S. depot. There was a crowd gathered to see the famous Colonel of the Rough Riders, ex-governor of New York, Vice President and President. There were shouts of "Teddy! Teddy!" Roosevelt came out on the rear platform of his car and looking into the crowd spied Bill Jones, a local saloonkeeper but a former rough rider. Roosevelt remembered in a flash. The train was about to pull out. Roosevelt shouted, "Is that you Bill Jones?" and when Bill trotted along to greet Roosevelt, the Colonel reached out his hands over the train platform rail and helped Jones up. Roosevelt never forgot a face he had seen, and seldom the name of the man to whom the face belonged.
* * * *
Engineer George Long is a veteran member of the engineer order of the B. of L. E. and on November 18, 1926, at a local banquet of that order was presented with the badge of 40 years membership, a token that he treasures as much or more than anything he owns. Moreover Long is a veteran member of the Knights of Pythias, having joined in Fairfield, Iowa, when he was 21 years old, which is close to 53 years also, for he is coming 74. He is also a member of the Elks.
George Long married a lady from Missouri. Her father had been a recruiting officer for the Confederacy, as Long's father had been a recruiting officer in Iowa for the Union forces. As hitherto stated they were married in Denver, August 23, 1886. They have two sons, George S. Long Jr., born at Como, Colo., when his father was engineer there, and William C. Long, born in Trinidad. These two sons are also in the railroad business. George Jr., is a railroad machinist and William is a coppersmith, and both have been employed by the C. & S. Mrs. Long reared in St. Louis County, Missouri, came to Colorado in 1884, so is a pioneer Colorado citizen herself.
Engineer Long admits of no particular hobby, unless collecting pipes is one. He has many old gift pipes, one a fine meerschaum, the gift of his wife many years ago, which remains his favorite. The veteran engineer puffed at this pipe, taking long, fragrant whiffs, while he told the story of his life one evening last week.
The same luck which has remained with Long in the several mishaps of his engineering experience has been with him in a motor car. Twice it has turned over. Once about two years ago he was driving to Trinidad alone from Ojo Caliente, N.M., and was at Eagle Nest dam. His car turned over twice and landed in a wreck on top of him. Long crawled out from under the wreckage without a scratch – yes, he did lose a bit of gray hair covering a spot the size of a dime.
Lying under the wreck, a trifle dazed, but otherwise unhurt, Long saw a lone cowboy approaching. The cowboy had seen the car flop and came galloping over.
"How many are dead?" the cowboy asked.
"Nobody," shouted Long from under the wrecked car.
"Then how many are hurt?" queried the lone rider.
"Nobody," answered Long.
Engineer Long crawled out from under the wreck and showed the cowboy that there had been no occupants but himself, and the cowboy was mystified and incredulous.
"You can't tell me that car turned over twice and smashed up like it is and nobody get hurt," remarked the cowpuncher.
But George did so convince him. The wrecked car Long left where it lay and at Therma, N.M., bought a new car and drove it to Trinidad arriving at midnight as though nothing had happened.
When he met Mrs. Long at the door he said "Here I am but there's a new car down below." And he told his anxious wife about the wreck and his escape.
Then two months ago – last August, George Long and his wife were on their way to Kansas. About six miles east of Las Animas Long, who was driving, turned his car over in a sand pocket and both were violently spilled. Mrs. Long was injured, but the veteran engineer who had years ago gone thru bridges with his train and experienced other narrow escapes emerged without a scratch.
Engineer Long recently came off the passenger run south on which he has been so many years and lately has been on the short Aguilar coal run. "I'm still in service," he said, "and I'm going to run an engine as long as they will let me."
The following article about George Long was published in the Trinidad, Colorado newspaper, the Chronicle-News, on 25 October 1931. I typed it word-for-word from the hard copy I have in my family history file. It tells about his remarkable 50-year career as a railroad engineer, but also has good information about his father, wife and two sons, and his early years in Fairfield, Iowa. His youngest son, William Clifton Long, was my grandfather. (His middle name is erroneously stated as " Clifford" in the article.)
Jon Long
Lawton, Oklahoma
3 Feb 2011
GEORGE LONG—50 YEARS A RAILROAD ENGINEER
The veteran of all veterans in the railroad service of Colorado is engineer George S. Long of Trinidad, 74 years old next January.
For fifty years Long has been piloting engines over steel rails in Colorado, and is still at it. For half a century, the span of time from 1881 to the present day, George Long has been climbing in and out of engine cabs. Daily his hand has been at the throttle. This pioneer of railroading is the senior No. 1 engineer of the C. & S. system. His name tops all others in that little blue covered seniority book that enginemen carry.
From 1889 up to now George Long has piloted an engine on the south division run to Texline. He has traveled a couple of million miles up and down the line. And in half a century of railroading he has been in wrecks often, has lived thru all the obvious hazards of the service. He has escaped death several times by a hair's breadth. He has hauled millions of tons of freight and uncounted multitudes of passengers. An engine cab has been his home, more or less, for the life time of the average man.
Railroad telegraph operator, brakeman, fireman, engineer. These are the headlines of the railroad career of the Trinidad man. It is something to look back for half a century in any useful occupation. And George Long can look back not from retirement but from active service, for Long is not retired, and expects to keep on with railroading for some time yet if the good fortune of the last fifty years continues to abide with him.
Way back in the 80's George Long drove an engine on the old South Park narrow gauge line between Denver and Leadville, Gunnison and Como. Back in the 90's he piloted an engine on the old Union Pacific out of Trinidad, and for many years on the C. & S., or Burlington - C. & S. as it is now known. George Long has been with his engine three times when it plunged through weakened bridges, and three times in collisions when there were casualties, but he has come out without a scratch. And today, going on 74 years old, he passes the rigid test of physical examination without a questionable mark anywhere on the sheet.
No trainman in the entire Burlington system has a service record of the length of Engineer George Long. His senior was only the late Tom O'Neil, and he has passed away. Of the survivors of railroading in Trinidad the nearest one to George Long is W.G. Thompson, member of the city council from the fourth ward. And Long recalls that practically every engineer in service on the C. & S. road today has at some time fired for him.
So one night last week we visited this veteran engineer at his apartment down town and heard his story of half a century as a railroad engineer and were interested and thrilled. At his side sat his good wife who has been his constant companion since 1886, when George was a young engineer instead of an old engineer. And good Mrs. Long, one of the old-fashioned, motherly women who have been the inspiration of men thru all history, was recovering nicely from her experience last August when her engineer husband turned her over in an auto beyond Las Animas, Colo., en-route to Kansas. Mrs. Long sustained a fractured collarbone at that time, but nobody would know it now from the way she feels.
Mrs. Long checked the dates and details of her husband's long railroad career, breaking in occasionally with little anecdotes of her own, and this historian and biographer spent a pleasant evening.
* * * *
George S. Long was born January20, 1858 at Fairfield, Iowa, that renowned corn state of the union. His father was William Long, pioneer business man and who became a running mate with Abraham Lincoln in 1860 on the local Republican ticket. In a small frame Engineer Long has preserved the original Fairfield, Iowa ballot which shows at the top the names of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, for president and vice president, and William Long, candidate for clerk of the district court.
William Long was elected four times, serving eight consecutive years in this court office, was elected a fifth but did not serve, but retired to become general agent of the King Iron Bridge interests at Cleveland, Ohio. William Long passed away at Fairfield, Iowa, in 1873, and his widow, the mother of Engineer George Long, passed away in 1904, at 76 years of age. George Long was the third child of six children of this union, and today is one of two survivors, the other being Dr. C.S. Long, physician of Denver. Another brother, William Lincoln Long, named after his father and President Lincoln, served three terms in the state legislature of Iowa and died two years ago.
George Long was a healthy, robust lad who did not do much of the farming that so many Iowa boys know at an early age. He learned telegraphy as a youth and worked a key for the old Burlington road in his home locality for about two years. But he gave up the key to go into the store business at home. Fairfield is a community of mixed farming and manufacturers, being one of the two largest centers for malleable iron in the United States. He gave up the store and came west to Colorado in 1880.
Long turned his hand to railroading then. At Buena Vista, Colo., he signed up as a brakeman on the South Park narrow gauge division of what is now the C. and S. railroad. He lived at Buena Vista and ran between Denver and Leadville and Gunnison and Como, later on making his home at Como. He became a fireman on this run and worked up to engineer in 1881.
For the period of years up to 1889 when he was transferred to Trinidad, he continued on this run, and on August 23, 1886, was married in Denver to the lady who has so long been his companion. They went back to Como to live, but they missed the big nuptials dance arranged for them there because of a blizzard.
Pueblo and Trinidad to Texline has been his run on both freight and passenger engines since he came here. He has been continuously in passenger service since 1892.
On the old South Park run Long piled up twice in freight wrecks when his engine plunged thru weak bridges, but he escaped each time without a scratch. One more in August of 1890 he was wrecked at Trinchers in this county. Three collisions were recorded in his experience also, one at Beshoar in 1902 when his train sideswiped a freight and the fireman of the freight was killed. His engine crashed into the depot, and the freight engine into a section house. Long escaped without injury.
* * * *
Except for five years since 1889 Engineer Long has made his home in Trinidad, his youngest son, William Clifford Long, was born here. During the above mentioned five year period Long lived at Texline, made his regular run on the road and he and his wife conducted a store business there. This period was from 1917 to 1922. Long gave up the store business at Texline and returned to Trinidad.
During all these years on the south division Engineer Long has been in the cab about every day, going south one day and returning the next.
Looking back at fifty years of railroading Engineer Long recalls also hazardous experiences in storms. Particularly on the old South Park line in the days before the rotary snowplow. On the high mountain passes, narrow gauge, there were times when several engines were hooked up together. Once he recalls 14 engines on one train bucking snow, and going 13 miles in nine days between Breckenridge and Boreas, Colo.
* * * *
Engineer Long knew the late President Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt knew him. Once he had piloted the train of President Roosevelt from Texline to Colorado Springs. This was several years after Roosevelt as Vice President had attended a reunion of Rough Riders of the Spanish American war at Las Vegas, N.M., as recited below. Long had been at Las Vegas and had seen and talked with Roosevelt.
Long recounts the remarkable memory for faces possessed by Roosevelt and cites an incident. The day following the reunion at Las Vegas, when Roosevelt had met Long at a hotel, Long was at Raton when the Roosevelt train stopped there headed east. On the Santa Fe depot platform Roosevelt spied Long. Roosevelt called to him – "Didn't I see you at Las Vegas last night?" Long told Roosevelt that he had seen him. Roosevelt then invited Long to come into his private car, and in this car with Roosevelt Long rode to Trinidad.
He remembers another incident of the Roosevelt memory in Trinidad. Long is not certain of the year or the occasion, but the Roosevelt train stopped at the C. & S. depot. There was a crowd gathered to see the famous Colonel of the Rough Riders, ex-governor of New York, Vice President and President. There were shouts of "Teddy! Teddy!" Roosevelt came out on the rear platform of his car and looking into the crowd spied Bill Jones, a local saloonkeeper but a former rough rider. Roosevelt remembered in a flash. The train was about to pull out. Roosevelt shouted, "Is that you Bill Jones?" and when Bill trotted along to greet Roosevelt, the Colonel reached out his hands over the train platform rail and helped Jones up. Roosevelt never forgot a face he had seen, and seldom the name of the man to whom the face belonged.
* * * *
Engineer George Long is a veteran member of the engineer order of the B. of L. E. and on November 18, 1926, at a local banquet of that order was presented with the badge of 40 years membership, a token that he treasures as much or more than anything he owns. Moreover Long is a veteran member of the Knights of Pythias, having joined in Fairfield, Iowa, when he was 21 years old, which is close to 53 years also, for he is coming 74. He is also a member of the Elks.
George Long married a lady from Missouri. Her father had been a recruiting officer for the Confederacy, as Long's father had been a recruiting officer in Iowa for the Union forces. As hitherto stated they were married in Denver, August 23, 1886. They have two sons, George S. Long Jr., born at Como, Colo., when his father was engineer there, and William C. Long, born in Trinidad. These two sons are also in the railroad business. George Jr., is a railroad machinist and William is a coppersmith, and both have been employed by the C. & S. Mrs. Long reared in St. Louis County, Missouri, came to Colorado in 1884, so is a pioneer Colorado citizen herself.
Engineer Long admits of no particular hobby, unless collecting pipes is one. He has many old gift pipes, one a fine meerschaum, the gift of his wife many years ago, which remains his favorite. The veteran engineer puffed at this pipe, taking long, fragrant whiffs, while he told the story of his life one evening last week.
The same luck which has remained with Long in the several mishaps of his engineering experience has been with him in a motor car. Twice it has turned over. Once about two years ago he was driving to Trinidad alone from Ojo Caliente, N.M., and was at Eagle Nest dam. His car turned over twice and landed in a wreck on top of him. Long crawled out from under the wreckage without a scratch – yes, he did lose a bit of gray hair covering a spot the size of a dime.
Lying under the wreck, a trifle dazed, but otherwise unhurt, Long saw a lone cowboy approaching. The cowboy had seen the car flop and came galloping over.
"How many are dead?" the cowboy asked.
"Nobody," shouted Long from under the wrecked car.
"Then how many are hurt?" queried the lone rider.
"Nobody," answered Long.
Engineer Long crawled out from under the wreck and showed the cowboy that there had been no occupants but himself, and the cowboy was mystified and incredulous.
"You can't tell me that car turned over twice and smashed up like it is and nobody get hurt," remarked the cowpuncher.
But George did so convince him. The wrecked car Long left where it lay and at Therma, N.M., bought a new car and drove it to Trinidad arriving at midnight as though nothing had happened.
When he met Mrs. Long at the door he said "Here I am but there's a new car down below." And he told his anxious wife about the wreck and his escape.
Then two months ago – last August, George Long and his wife were on their way to Kansas. About six miles east of Las Animas Long, who was driving, turned his car over in a sand pocket and both were violently spilled. Mrs. Long was injured, but the veteran engineer who had years ago gone thru bridges with his train and experienced other narrow escapes emerged without a scratch.
Engineer Long recently came off the passenger run south on which he has been so many years and lately has been on the short Aguilar coal run. "I'm still in service," he said, "and I'm going to run an engine as long as they will let me."
Jon Long
Lawton, Oklahoma
3 Feb 2011
GEORGE LONG—50 YEARS A RAILROAD ENGINEER
The veteran of all veterans in the railroad service of Colorado is engineer George S. Long of Trinidad, 74 years old next January.
For fifty years Long has been piloting engines over steel rails in Colorado, and is still at it. For half a century, the span of time from 1881 to the present day, George Long has been climbing in and out of engine cabs. Daily his hand has been at the throttle. This pioneer of railroading is the senior No. 1 engineer of the C. & S. system. His name tops all others in that little blue covered seniority book that enginemen carry.
From 1889 up to now George Long has piloted an engine on the south division run to Texline. He has traveled a couple of million miles up and down the line. And in half a century of railroading he has been in wrecks often, has lived thru all the obvious hazards of the service. He has escaped death several times by a hair's breadth. He has hauled millions of tons of freight and uncounted multitudes of passengers. An engine cab has been his home, more or less, for the life time of the average man.
Railroad telegraph operator, brakeman, fireman, engineer. These are the headlines of the railroad career of the Trinidad man. It is something to look back for half a century in any useful occupation. And George Long can look back not from retirement but from active service, for Long is not retired, and expects to keep on with railroading for some time yet if the good fortune of the last fifty years continues to abide with him.
Way back in the 80's George Long drove an engine on the old South Park narrow gauge line between Denver and Leadville, Gunnison and Como. Back in the 90's he piloted an engine on the old Union Pacific out of Trinidad, and for many years on the C. & S., or Burlington - C. & S. as it is now known. George Long has been with his engine three times when it plunged through weakened bridges, and three times in collisions when there were casualties, but he has come out without a scratch. And today, going on 74 years old, he passes the rigid test of physical examination without a questionable mark anywhere on the sheet.
No trainman in the entire Burlington system has a service record of the length of Engineer George Long. His senior was only the late Tom O'Neil, and he has passed away. Of the survivors of railroading in Trinidad the nearest one to George Long is W.G. Thompson, member of the city council from the fourth ward. And Long recalls that practically every engineer in service on the C. & S. road today has at some time fired for him.
So one night last week we visited this veteran engineer at his apartment down town and heard his story of half a century as a railroad engineer and were interested and thrilled. At his side sat his good wife who has been his constant companion since 1886, when George was a young engineer instead of an old engineer. And good Mrs. Long, one of the old-fashioned, motherly women who have been the inspiration of men thru all history, was recovering nicely from her experience last August when her engineer husband turned her over in an auto beyond Las Animas, Colo., en-route to Kansas. Mrs. Long sustained a fractured collarbone at that time, but nobody would know it now from the way she feels.
Mrs. Long checked the dates and details of her husband's long railroad career, breaking in occasionally with little anecdotes of her own, and this historian and biographer spent a pleasant evening.
* * * *
George S. Long was born January20, 1858 at Fairfield, Iowa, that renowned corn state of the union. His father was William Long, pioneer business man and who became a running mate with Abraham Lincoln in 1860 on the local Republican ticket. In a small frame Engineer Long has preserved the original Fairfield, Iowa ballot which shows at the top the names of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, for president and vice president, and William Long, candidate for clerk of the district court.
William Long was elected four times, serving eight consecutive years in this court office, was elected a fifth but did not serve, but retired to become general agent of the King Iron Bridge interests at Cleveland, Ohio. William Long passed away at Fairfield, Iowa, in 1873, and his widow, the mother of Engineer George Long, passed away in 1904, at 76 years of age. George Long was the third child of six children of this union, and today is one of two survivors, the other being Dr. C.S. Long, physician of Denver. Another brother, William Lincoln Long, named after his father and President Lincoln, served three terms in the state legislature of Iowa and died two years ago.
George Long was a healthy, robust lad who did not do much of the farming that so many Iowa boys know at an early age. He learned telegraphy as a youth and worked a key for the old Burlington road in his home locality for about two years. But he gave up the key to go into the store business at home. Fairfield is a community of mixed farming and manufacturers, being one of the two largest centers for malleable iron in the United States. He gave up the store and came west to Colorado in 1880.
Long turned his hand to railroading then. At Buena Vista, Colo., he signed up as a brakeman on the South Park narrow gauge division of what is now the C. and S. railroad. He lived at Buena Vista and ran between Denver and Leadville and Gunnison and Como, later on making his home at Como. He became a fireman on this run and worked up to engineer in 1881.
For the period of years up to 1889 when he was transferred to Trinidad, he continued on this run, and on August 23, 1886, was married in Denver to the lady who has so long been his companion. They went back to Como to live, but they missed the big nuptials dance arranged for them there because of a blizzard.
Pueblo and Trinidad to Texline has been his run on both freight and passenger engines since he came here. He has been continuously in passenger service since 1892.
On the old South Park run Long piled up twice in freight wrecks when his engine plunged thru weak bridges, but he escaped each time without a scratch. One more in August of 1890 he was wrecked at Trinchers in this county. Three collisions were recorded in his experience also, one at Beshoar in 1902 when his train sideswiped a freight and the fireman of the freight was killed. His engine crashed into the depot, and the freight engine into a section house. Long escaped without injury.
* * * *
Except for five years since 1889 Engineer Long has made his home in Trinidad, his youngest son, William Clifford Long, was born here. During the above mentioned five year period Long lived at Texline, made his regular run on the road and he and his wife conducted a store business there. This period was from 1917 to 1922. Long gave up the store business at Texline and returned to Trinidad.
During all these years on the south division Engineer Long has been in the cab about every day, going south one day and returning the next.
Looking back at fifty years of railroading Engineer Long recalls also hazardous experiences in storms. Particularly on the old South Park line in the days before the rotary snowplow. On the high mountain passes, narrow gauge, there were times when several engines were hooked up together. Once he recalls 14 engines on one train bucking snow, and going 13 miles in nine days between Breckenridge and Boreas, Colo.
* * * *
Engineer Long knew the late President Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt knew him. Once he had piloted the train of President Roosevelt from Texline to Colorado Springs. This was several years after Roosevelt as Vice President had attended a reunion of Rough Riders of the Spanish American war at Las Vegas, N.M., as recited below. Long had been at Las Vegas and had seen and talked with Roosevelt.
Long recounts the remarkable memory for faces possessed by Roosevelt and cites an incident. The day following the reunion at Las Vegas, when Roosevelt had met Long at a hotel, Long was at Raton when the Roosevelt train stopped there headed east. On the Santa Fe depot platform Roosevelt spied Long. Roosevelt called to him – "Didn't I see you at Las Vegas last night?" Long told Roosevelt that he had seen him. Roosevelt then invited Long to come into his private car, and in this car with Roosevelt Long rode to Trinidad.
He remembers another incident of the Roosevelt memory in Trinidad. Long is not certain of the year or the occasion, but the Roosevelt train stopped at the C. & S. depot. There was a crowd gathered to see the famous Colonel of the Rough Riders, ex-governor of New York, Vice President and President. There were shouts of "Teddy! Teddy!" Roosevelt came out on the rear platform of his car and looking into the crowd spied Bill Jones, a local saloonkeeper but a former rough rider. Roosevelt remembered in a flash. The train was about to pull out. Roosevelt shouted, "Is that you Bill Jones?" and when Bill trotted along to greet Roosevelt, the Colonel reached out his hands over the train platform rail and helped Jones up. Roosevelt never forgot a face he had seen, and seldom the name of the man to whom the face belonged.
* * * *
Engineer George Long is a veteran member of the engineer order of the B. of L. E. and on November 18, 1926, at a local banquet of that order was presented with the badge of 40 years membership, a token that he treasures as much or more than anything he owns. Moreover Long is a veteran member of the Knights of Pythias, having joined in Fairfield, Iowa, when he was 21 years old, which is close to 53 years also, for he is coming 74. He is also a member of the Elks.
George Long married a lady from Missouri. Her father had been a recruiting officer for the Confederacy, as Long's father had been a recruiting officer in Iowa for the Union forces. As hitherto stated they were married in Denver, August 23, 1886. They have two sons, George S. Long Jr., born at Como, Colo., when his father was engineer there, and William C. Long, born in Trinidad. These two sons are also in the railroad business. George Jr., is a railroad machinist and William is a coppersmith, and both have been employed by the C. & S. Mrs. Long reared in St. Louis County, Missouri, came to Colorado in 1884, so is a pioneer Colorado citizen herself.
Engineer Long admits of no particular hobby, unless collecting pipes is one. He has many old gift pipes, one a fine meerschaum, the gift of his wife many years ago, which remains his favorite. The veteran engineer puffed at this pipe, taking long, fragrant whiffs, while he told the story of his life one evening last week.
The same luck which has remained with Long in the several mishaps of his engineering experience has been with him in a motor car. Twice it has turned over. Once about two years ago he was driving to Trinidad alone from Ojo Caliente, N.M., and was at Eagle Nest dam. His car turned over twice and landed in a wreck on top of him. Long crawled out from under the wreckage without a scratch – yes, he did lose a bit of gray hair covering a spot the size of a dime.
Lying under the wreck, a trifle dazed, but otherwise unhurt, Long saw a lone cowboy approaching. The cowboy had seen the car flop and came galloping over.
"How many are dead?" the cowboy asked.
"Nobody," shouted Long from under the wrecked car.
"Then how many are hurt?" queried the lone rider.
"Nobody," answered Long.
Engineer Long crawled out from under the wreck and showed the cowboy that there had been no occupants but himself, and the cowboy was mystified and incredulous.
"You can't tell me that car turned over twice and smashed up like it is and nobody get hurt," remarked the cowpuncher.
But George did so convince him. The wrecked car Long left where it lay and at Therma, N.M., bought a new car and drove it to Trinidad arriving at midnight as though nothing had happened.
When he met Mrs. Long at the door he said "Here I am but there's a new car down below." And he told his anxious wife about the wreck and his escape.
Then two months ago – last August, George Long and his wife were on their way to Kansas. About six miles east of Las Animas Long, who was driving, turned his car over in a sand pocket and both were violently spilled. Mrs. Long was injured, but the veteran engineer who had years ago gone thru bridges with his train and experienced other narrow escapes emerged without a scratch.
Engineer Long recently came off the passenger run south on which he has been so many years and lately has been on the short Aguilar coal run. "I'm still in service," he said, "and I'm going to run an engine as long as they will let me."
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