Arizona Copper Company's Locomotive #2

This is a very small locomotive with a very steep job. The Arizona Copper Company bought five of these H. K. Porter engines in the early 1880s to haul ore on the Coronado railroad at Morenci, running on tracks just twenty inches apart, far narrower than standard gauge. Locomotive Number 2 is barely seventeen feet long and weighs eleven tons, a toy beside a mainline engine. It was abandoned in 1923 at the top of the 1,200-foot Coronado Incline and later brought to Phoenix, a relic of Arizona's copper mountains.

What the plaque says

The Arizona Copper Company of Morenci, Arizona purchased five of these locomotives between 1882 and 1886 to haul ore on the Coronado railroad. The H. K. Porter Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania manufactured them in 1882., Locomotive #2 ran on twenty-inch tracks, much narrower than standard gauge. The small locomotive measures only 17 feet long by 5 feet 5 inches wide and weighs just 11 tons., Locomotive #2 was abandoned in 1923 at the top of the steep 1,200 foot Coronado Incline.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Phoenix — 1.0 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one
• Heard Museum — 2.0 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 18 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on

More markers nearby

• Boras Headframe — steps away
• Jacob Waltz — steps away
• Arizona's Pioneer Women — steps away
• Eusebio Francisco Kino — steps away