Congress, Arizona, began as a gold mining camp in the Date Creek Mountains, where prospector Dennis May was said to have discovered gold in 1870, though that claim remains disputed. In 1887, May sold the Date Creek gold claim to Joseph “Diamond Jo” Reynolds for $65,000, and Reynolds, with Frank Murphy, established the Congress Gold Company. Ore was hauled 70 miles to Prescott for processing at a cost of $17.00 a ton, leading Reynolds to push for a rail line from Prescott through Congress to Phoenix to reduce shipping costs. After Reynolds died in his tent at the mine on February 21, 1891, Murphy idled the mining operation in 1892 and began work on the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix railroad, using miners to carve out the arduous 197-mile route through the canyons over four years. Because of its torturous path from Prescott to Congress Junction, Murphy’s line became known as the Peavine. Congress Junction received its first train depot in 1894 and was connected to Phoenix in 1895, fulfilling Reynolds’s vision. The Peavine ran one passenger train and two freight trains daily until the mine closed in 1911. In 1984, the AT and SF Railroad built the New Peavine Bypass, eliminating the worst grades and curves of Murphy’s line and bypassing Prescott, while the old route remained tied to the perseverance and history of Congress, Arizona Territory.