The Key West Citizen

Surveyor
On
Old Rail Line
Testifies Here
James E. Cotton
Lived Here In
Railroad Days

James E. Cotton, 75, who helped survey the railroad from the mainland to Key West, today testified in Circuit Court as to the location of that line.

Cotton, who now is an engineer with the H. C. Nutting Testing Laboratory, Miami, was a witness in the state-county suit against five Stock Island property owners and lessees who, the state contends, have buildings on the right-of-way of U. S. 1.

4-Laning of U. S. 1
The suit, which resulted in a hung jury and mistrial last July, is a preliminary to widening U. S. 1 to four lanes from Key West to Boca Chica.

Defendants in the suit are Alton G. Parks, Lawrence Dion, The Sinclair Refining Co., Aiolfo Bozo, Charles L. Moody.

Hearing the case are Judge Ayluino Lopez, Jr., and a six-man jury - G. W. Drummond, Jose S. Ponce, Cecil C. Russell, Felipe Marrero, Wilson Jolly, and George Garcia.

Cotton worked on the railroad from the beginning of the survey in 1904 until 1922.

Old Key West
He said he lived in several houses in Key West while with the Florida East Coast Railroad.
One place, he said, was the old Maloney house near Harris School.
Cotton also said he lived in a house on Truman Avenue (then Division Street) near the Catholic Church.
"That was just about the time they were building the church," he added. "Father Flynn was the pastor. As I remember, he did just about everything. He was the contractor and the straw-boss, too. Father Flynn was a fine man."

Cotton was born at Oakfield in Audubon County, Iowa.
"It was a little town on the stage line to Council Bluffs," he said.