Interview with Leland E. "Bill" Thurston for the Grand Canyon Railway Oral History Project [constructed title], April 25, 1984, 1984 April 25, 2005 July 7

Richmond interviews Thurston about his exposure to and utilization of the Grand Canyon Railroad in varying degrees, starting in 1935. Thurston discusses his experience as a cattle rancher and their use of the railway in transporting livestock (last time they trasported cattle by train was in 1948). He goes into depth about mining and blacksmithing along the Railway and in the Canyon as well as the sidings of the railroad at Apex, Hopi, Valley, 11 mile, 18 mile and many others in detail. He accounts humorously about laying track as well as selling railroad ties for money as well as the acquisition of two helicopter by himself and his father, Robert Thurston. He also discusses the Ford Motor Company (the Ford garage in the Canyon was built be his father), the types of locomotive engines that were used along the railroad and many other anecdotes about the characters that he had dealings with in that period.