Mescal's Historic Coaling Tower

Mescal was home to one of the Southern Pacific Coaling Towers.

A railroad coaling tower is a large structure used to store and dispense coal for steam locomotives. Typically made of concrete or wood, these towers were built above the tracks, allowing gravity to efficiently transfer coal from storage bins into a locomotive’s tender. Coaling towers were common in rail yards and along major rail lines during the steam era, ensuring a steady supply of fuel for trains. With the transition to diesel locomotives, most coaling towers became obsolete, though some remain as historic remnants of railroading’s past.

Mescal's coaling tower stood until approximately 1998.  According to trainorders.com.  Here is one author's description:

"Southern Pacific's Sunset Route between Tucson and Dragoon was and still is today, a very exciting place to watch trains. Known as the Stormy, this route boasts several major grades, grade separations, great scenery, and until a few years ago, semaphore signals.

Mescal, the first summit east from Tucson, is the location where track #1, the old EP&SW RR line, and track # 2 come back together (just west) and was the location of one of SP's huge concrete coaling towers. The others being in Tucson, Lordsburg, and Deming. There were others but they were gone when I came on the scene. The tower here at Mescal stood as a sentinal until 1998 and could be seen from the east side of the San Pedro River."

-- user kdrtrains

Here is a picture of the tower taken by David Sheppard in 1998 and posted on flickr.  Click on the link to see his original photograph on flickr and description: