By Marjory J. Sente
In February 1902, Nelly Peery Price and her seven-month-old son Peery traveled by train from Elkader, Iowa, to Phoenix. They, along with Nelly’s mother and a sister who traveled from California, visited the Valley of the Sun until spring.
The April 15, 1902 Arizona Republic announced, “Mrs. Nelly Peery Price, Dr. Bessie Peery and their mother Mrs. Emma H. Peery left for the Grand Canyon this morning.”
Nelly had consulted her husband, V.T. Price, who stayed in Elkader to attend to his law practice, about visiting the Grand Canyon. In a letter mailed from Phoenix on April 3 she noted, “You have never said what you think of my going to the Grand Canyon. It will cost me $25.00 and we will have to divide up staying with Peery.” In today’s dollars, the $25 would have a purchasing power of $943.
V.T. 's response isn’t known, but Nelly’s letter, written and mailed at Ash Fork on April 15, related they were enroute to the Grand Canyon. “We left Phoenix a little earlier than we intended because we could not get the drawing room the day we wanted to go. . . Having the stateroom has been a great convenience, tho[sic] of course it is more crowded—but on the car we’re on, if we had not had the drawing room we would have had to take an upper berth—and had a stranger in the section with us.”
The family traveled in a Palace or private railroad car where they did not have to interact with other passengers. They would have had the luxury of private sleeping compartments. A drawing room is a luxuriously furnished railroad car and a stateroom is a private sleeping room. Some passengers slept in Tourist sleeper cars with shared accommodations, and many sat in cars with free reclining seats.
Nelly’s letter continued, “If I mail this here [Ash Fork], to go on the same train I take, it will reach you in the same time as if I had mailed it in Phoenix yesterday.” Mail from Phoenix destined for the Midwest and East would have been transported under contract by the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway and put on an eastbound train at Ash Fork.
“We took the sleeper last night and the train pulled out a little before five this morning. We reached here at 2:30 and leave at 5:30 for Williams, the next station. There we take an accommodation train for Bright Angel reaching there a little before midnight.”
According to the Santa Fe’s time table published in the March 6, 1902 Arizona Republic, they would have taken the No. 2 train on the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway. Scheduled to leave Phoenix at 5:45 A.M., with stops in Glendale, Hot Springs Junction, Wickenburg, Congress Junction and Kirkland, it was to arrive in Prescott at 11:40 for a seven-minute stay, then go on to Jerome Junction, arriving in Ash Fork at 2 P.M.
After a three-hour layover, they would have taken the No 2 train on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line at 5:25 P.M. from Ash Fork to Williams, arriving at 6:50 P.M., then transferred to the Grand Canyon Railway for the final three-hour ride to the South Rim. The roundtrip from Williams cost $6.50.
It was a long day, but the family arrived at the South Rim less than 20 hours after leaving Phoenix.
They spent three days at the Canyon, then returned to Williams on April 18th, took the train to Los Angeles and arrived the next morning. After visiting family in California, Nelly and Peery traveled by train to Elkader, arriving home in early August.
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.