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SP de México Collection: Finding Aid
mssSPdeMéxicocollection
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Title: SP de México Collection
Dates (inclusive): 1885-1954
Collection Number: mssSPdeMéxicocollection
Creator:
Ferrocarril Sud Pacífico de
México.
Extent:
160 bound items in 23 boxes, and one large bound minute book.
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2129
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection consists primarily of correspondence, as well as
maps, news clippings, photographs, and blueprints, of the Southern Pacific of Mexico
railroad line (SP de México), dating from 1885 to 1954.
Language: English and Spanish.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department.
For more information, contact Reader Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. SP de México Collection, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
Acquired from the corporate headquarters of the Southern Pacific in San Francisco,
between November 1987 and August 1989.
The Ferrocarril Sud Pacífico de México (SP de México) line began as the Sonora Railway in
1882, first owned and operated by the Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe. It ran from Nogales,
Arizona down to the port of Guaymas, 423 kilometers southeast of Nogales. The Southern
Pacific acquired the line through a reciprocal trade with the AT&SF in 1898, and
incorporated the line as a separate corporate entity, the SP de México, in June 1909. The
line was gradually extended south from Nogales and north from Guadalajara. When the Mexican
Revolution erupted late in 1910, construction of the line was essentially halted until 1923.
In 1927 the line was finally connected from Guadalajara to the U.S./Mexican border. It
operated in Mexico until 1951, when the Mexican government purchased the line from the
Southern Pacific.
For textual information about the railroad, see the following items in the Library: the
dissertation by Dan Lewis entitled "The Empire Strikes Out: Mexican Nationbuilding and the
Ferrocarril Sud-Pacífico de México, 1880-1951" (University of California,
Riverside, 1997), and the work by John Kirchner and John Signor,
The West Coast Route: The Southern Pacific of Mexico (Golden West Books,
1986).
These materials, consisting primarily of correspondence but also including maps, news
clippings, photographs, and blueprints of the SP de México railroad line. There are 160
individual bound items in these 23 boxes. Each grouping is in reverse chronological order as
it was originally filed by SP de México administrators. Collection has material in English
and Spanish. There are 160 individual bound items in these 23 boxes.
Arrangement
Arranged and bound by topic according to the Southern Pacific's internal organizational
schema. Each grouping is in reverse chronological order as it was originally filed by SP de
México administrators
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Ferrocarril Sud Pacífico de
México -- Archives.
Southern Pacific Railroad
Company -- History -- Sources.
Railroads -- Mexico -- History --
Sources.
Corporation records -- Mexico -- 19th
century.
Corporation records -- Mexico -- 20th
century.