Flagstaff Lumber Company - Anderson Mesa Incline

Exactly a century ago the Flagstaff Lumber Company decided to harvest the ponderosa pine on the northern end of Anderson Mesa. The mesa rises roughly 300 feet above Lower Lake Mary.  It was determined that an incline railroad line would be the most efficient way to access the mesa top. A steam engine, or donkey, was at the top of the incline and was used to winch up the rail cars.

Inclines were used on logging railroads throughout the West to reach inaccessible areas without the necessity of having to construct longer, more expensive lines that would switchback up. Adams (1961) stated that logging companies saved an average of $1/thousand board feet through the use of an inclne. There were many very impressive inclines across the West. The Yosemite Lumber Company, which was later renamed the Sugar Pine Lumber Company, operated an incline in northern California that was 8300' feet long and had a maximum slope of 78 percent (Adams 1961).

I've walked this line three times over the past dozen years.  My last two visits were earlier this week. The line is easily found just a bit south of the first large pull-off at the northern end of Lake Mary Road.  It can also be accessed from the top. The Coconino National Forest Timber atlas shows that the mesa top was logged in 1917 and 1918 and Trennert (1967-8) says the incline was used for about a year. He suggests that a runaway locomotive that ended up in Lake Mary may have led to it's abandonment.  At some point a line was built that switch backed up the side of the mesa.  The paved road that currently access the mesa top was constructed on top of the old line.

Both Stein (1993) and Trennert (1967-8) describe the incline as being one mile in length.  I'm not sure where this figure comes from as the distance of the line up the side of the mesa is 0.2 miles in length. The maximum slope is 39% with an average slope of 23%.  A slope of four percent would be considered steep on a traditional rail line. The entire length of the GPS'd segment shown on the above map is 1.1 miles. Existing maps show this line going further than I was able to follow it through the snow. In the past I've walked several grades on Anderson Mesa. They all appear to start at the forest road shown on the above map.  This road closely follows a grade that eventually switchbacks down the from mesa down to the line that ran along the east edge of Lake Mary.

Because some segments of the grade at the foot of the mesa were obliterated when the highway was constructed, it is difficult to know the exact layout of the lines.  It appears that there was a spur off the mainline that was used to access the incline.  The photo below shows this short spur, roughly 200' in length, just past the bottom end of the incline. Four rail cars could have easily been backed onto this spur.My guess is that the railcars were backed up the spur and past the end of the incline, a switch was thrown and the cars were then pulled up to the top where a small Shay locomotive (Trennert 1967-8) was used.

Rock work along the downhill side of the grade.

This is the bottom end of the incline.

This is a bit past the midway point up the slope.  The snow on the grade makes it really stand out. Lower Lake Mary is visible in the background.

Top of the incline.

Huge timber on the flat above the top of the incline. I'm assuming this is the general area where the steam donkey would have been located.

Two inch wire cable at the top.

Angle brace still attached to timbers.

Scattered timbers and ties at the top.  There is a evidence of a lot of activity up here but it is difficult, after a century, to determine exactly what was going on.

The late 1880's Arizona Mineral Belt grade is visible just sticking out of the water in the center of the photo.  A spur, shown on the map at the top of this page, is also visible .  This is taken from the midpoint of the incline.