Yesterday’s Phoenix Democrat contains the following:
Late this afternoon it was learned that the Southern Pacific railroad has purchased from General Moses H. Sherman, of Los Angeles, the entire holdings of the Phoenix City Railroad company.
The belief is entertained in inner circles that the purpose of the Southern Pacific is to give Phoenix a first-class trolley system like that which was begun in Los Angeles by H. E. Huntington twenty years ago, and which was lately taken over by the Espee.
The move of Southern Pacific is also regarded as a recogniztion of the future tremendous possibilites of Phoenix, not only as a great distributing center of the Southwest, but as a rival transcontinental winter resort to Los Angeles.
The movement is deeply significant, following so closely as it does the announcement of the Rock Island to push its road immediately to Tucson and then in all probability to Phoenix.
The holdings of the company include franchises for a hundred miles of lines in and adjacent to Phoenix.
— The Bisbee daily review, 1911-08-04, p. 4