Construction had just begun in the fall of 1929 when the stock market crashed. In a matter of weeks America sank into a national depression. Murchison watched in dismay as his cash flow sputtered, coughed, then finally stopped altogether. He couldn’t pay his workers, endangering the entire pipeline project. One week he made payroll only by borrowing forty thousand dollars from one of his father’s friends. When the pipeline reached a point seven miles outside Albuquerque, they ran out of money once more. Only when Wofford Cain appealed to the mayor to return a portion of their cash bond was the
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