Background
Death Valley Scotty (born September 20, 1872, as Walter Edward Scott) had used some ore samples he collected near Cripple Creek, Colorado, as a ruse to convince some bankers in 1902 that he had a claim on a high-grade ore mine in Death Valley, California. By 1905 he had conned the banks out of nearly $10,000. Another con he ran in 1905 earned Scott an additional $4,000. It was then that he met E. Burdon Gaylord, the owner of the Big Bell mine. Gaylord needed a flashy way to promote his mine and Scott sought the money behind the mine; the two formed a partnership in which Gaylord would finance Scott and Scott would promote the mine like no other.
After a few high-priced and newsworthy train trips around the southwest, Scott met with the Santa Fe's General Passenger Agent, J. J. Byrne, at the railroad's office in Los Angeles on July 8, 1905. Once Scott (who had already travelled cross-country on the Santa Fe some thirty-two times) got in to talk to Byrne, the arrangements were made, thanks to a deposit from Scott of $5,500 in cash. The two agreed on a 46-hour schedule from Los Angeles to Chicago that would begin the following day.
The passenger list for the train was a mere four people: Scott himself, his wife, F. N. Holman, and Charles E. Van Loan, a writer for the Los Angeles Examiner(and one who was adept at helping Scotty create his "miner" persona, inflating the amounts Scotty really spent while "promoting" his "mine"). The schedule involved operating a three car train across the system, led by no less than 19 different locomotives (and the train was double-headed through some of the mountain passes). The engineers of these locomotives came to be known as the "Nervy Nineteen".
Read more about this topic: Scott Special
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