In 1988, Dave Durbano, a Utah native, entrepreneur, owner of several shortline railroads and Western Railroad Builders, first saw what the route had to offer. Clark died in 1925, and when the mines shuttered and the smelter closed in the 1950s, the rail line continued in a diminished capacity, still carrying freight to the ATSF (now BNSF) line at Drake, AZ. William Andrews Clark, a ballyhooed tycoon who lent his name to both the United Verde Copper Company town of Clarkdale, Arizona, as well as Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada, was the original visionary who saw the need for a rail line to transport copper from his booming mining operations in Jerome to the world. Since 1990, this successful excursion train has carried nearly three million passengers deep into the heart of Arizona, traveling through stunning, red rock scenery accessible only by train along a legendary line completed in 1912. One of the visionaries behind the Verde Canyon Railroad and the woman behind the man, author Linda Durbano shares the incredible and inspiring history of this scenic rail line beginning with its storied past dating back to territorial times before the 48 th state even existed. This is the Verde Canyon Railroad story, captured in an illuminating new book Tracking Down the Past. One would leave a manmade ruin like the Colosseum the other, a rail adventure to praise. The two men would only meet in history books, linked together over tracks through time by a vintage rail line. Even though a century separated each arrival, the serial entrepreneurs came to the southwestern state for the same reason: Money. A hundred years later, the magnetic David Louis Durbano landed in Clarkâs same footsteps. ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1888, the Montana copper magnate William Andrews Clark arrived in Arizona.
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