Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net






    _FRONT COVER_—“The covered turntable at Corkscrew Gulch. It served
    as part of the main line.” (_C. W. Gibbs_) See discussion and
    diagram pages 12, 13 and 14.




                           THREE LITTLE LINES


                          By Josie Moore Crum


                           SILVERTON RAILROAD
                    SILVERTON, GLADSTONE & NORTHERLY
                           SILVERTON NORTHERN


The originals of these articles appeared in Bulletin 74 of the Railway
and Locomotive Historical Society in October 1948. A second edition was
published by Bert Baker in the fall of 1956. The present volume contains
additional information and pictures gathered since the appearance of the
earlier publications.
                                                                  J.M.C.

                             Copyright 1960
                          by Josie Moore Crum

   All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
           form without written permission of the publishers.

                             Reprint Rights
                         L.A. “Johnny” Johnson
                                Box 348
                         Ouray, Colorado 81427


                              Published by
                          DURANGO HERALD-NEWS
                           Durango, Colorado




                              INTRODUCTION


The Southwest has had a most romantic history. It is the oldest portion,
both in the way of interior exploration and in the way of settlement, in
the United States.

The Coronado Expedition of several hundred Spaniards left Mexico in 1540
and journeyed up into what is now central New Mexico. The convoy
consisted of soldier aristocrats on their caparisoned horses and in
their picturesque regalia, and of common soldiers, fortune seekers and
servants. Accompanying the train were hundreds of horses packed with
supplies and hundreds of cattle, sheep and hogs for food purposes.

They established themselves at Tiguex, New Mexico and spent two years,
1540-42, conquering the Indians and searching for treasure. One party
went west and discovered the Grand Canon and another went east as far as
Kansas. They found no riches but explored, mapped and named the country
and took possession of it for Spain.

New Mexico was settled in 1595, permanently, except for a short period
when the populace fled because of an Indian uprising. The first capital
was San Juan though it was soon moved to nearby Santa Fe. It should be
noticed that this settlement preceded colonization on our eastern coast.

No one knows when the Spanish first entered Colorado but the country
seemed well-known and named when Juan Rivera made his first trip into it
in 1765. He led a party across the southwestern part of the state to the
Utah border and back to the Gunnison River near Hotchkiss. Within the
next ten years he made three more trips of the same kind.

The Escalante expedition of 1776 wanted to find a northern route from
Santa Fe to Los Angeles. They followed the same trail as had Rivera to
Hotchkiss but from there went north and then west to Utah Lake. Because
of a shortage of food they started home, crossing Utah, the Colorado
River and Arizona and arriving at Zuni, New Mexico. This party very
thoroughly mapped and named everything in the course of the journey.

The most commonly traveled route across Colorado was the “Old Spanish
Trail”, used in the 1830’s and 40’s by trade caravans operating between
Santa Fe and Los Angeles, woolen goods going to the west and horses and
mules to the east. It traversed Colorado, Utah and southern Nevada. All
of these caravans, incidentally, crossed the Animas River and Ridges
Basin Pass just at the south edge of Durango. This last part was later
used by the American pioneers.

Meanwhile, trappers were thoroughly working every stream in southwestern
Colorado and selling their furs at Taos or Santa Fe.

After the war with Mexico and due to the treaty of 1848 the United
States acquired all of the southwestern part of the country.

Gold was discovered on Cherry Creek, the Denver area, in 1859 and a rush
to that place began. The same year Captain Baker led a prospecting group
into what was later Silverton and named the spot “Baker’s Park”.

Two years later he, with another party, made his way up the Animas River
and established the little town of Animas City, fifteen miles north of
present Durango. There the settlers panned the river for gold and built
the first bridge in all of southwestern Colorado, “Baker’s Bridge”. The
panning Operation was not successful and, on news of the outbreak of the
Civil War, the whole citizenry precipitately departed.

After the Civil War a young man by the name of Otto Mears moved into the
Saguache country and went into the wheat raising and merchandising
businesses. To get his wheat to market he had to start building roads.
He ended up with about 450 miles of roads which laced together all of
the mountain towns in the extremely rugged San Juan Mountains.

Mears served as Indian Commissioner for a number of years and, as such,
negotiated several treaties with the Utes. The first one in 1868 forced
them out of central Colorado, the second one in 1873 forced them out of
the San Juan Mountains and the third one in 1881 forced them out of
Colorado entirely.

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad arrived in Durango in 1881 and in
Silverton the next year. Meanwhile it was building another line from
Salida to Grand Junction and arrived there in 1883. Four years later a
branch was run from Montrose to Ouray.

The same year, 1887, the Silverton Railroad, one of the subjects of this
booklet, started out of Silverton and was completed in 1889. The next
one, also a Mears creation, was the Rio Grande Southern, built in ’90
and ’91, which ran from Ridgway via Telluride and Rico to Durango.




                                GLOSSARY


  C. & S.—Colorado and Southern
  D. & R. G.—Denver and Rio Grande
  R. G. S.—Rio Grande Southern
  R. G. W.—Rio Grande Western
  S. G. & N.—Silverton, Gladstone and Northerly
  S. N.—Silverton Northern
  S. R.—Silverton Railroad (Railway)
  W. P. & Y. R.—White Pass and Yukon Railway




                         THE SILVERTON RAILROAD


The Silverton Railroad! The most intriguing piece of narrow gauge in the
world! The railroad of the steepest grades, the sharpest curves, the
crookedest loops, the highest altitude and the oddest switchbacks, on
one of which sat a wye with a depot inside and on the other a
housed-over turntable! And the railroad of the famous Otto Mears passes!

Otto Mears and Fred Walsen, after the Opening up of the rich Yankee Girl
mine made it feasible, in 1882 and ’83 built a toll road they called the
“Rainbow Route” from Ouray to Silverton. This was the most famous and
the most difficult piece of road engineering of the day. The line crept
along the precipitous mountains of the Uncompahgre River and Red
Mountain Creek canons and in places was cut out of sheer granite walls.
It was so narrow and crooked in places that only by the expedient of
backing up or unhitching a buggy and setting it on a sidehill could
another conveyance get by. The grades were so steep, often 19%, that
most of the early cars could not climb them. It was the road of the
famous Bear Creek toll bridge where a driver stopped and parted with his
cash, $2 for a saddle horse or $5 for a buggy and team.

While Mears and Walsen were constructing their road from Ouray to Red
Mountain in the summer of 1882, the Denver and Rio Grande was completing
its railroad from Durango to Silverton. The next year while Mears and
Walsen were extending their road from Red Mountain to Silverton, the D.
& R. G., through its construction engineer, Thomas Wigglesworth, was
making a survey from Silverton to Red Mountain and Ironton Park. Nothing
came of it but one wonders if it did not give Mears the idea of building
a railroad himself.

The Silverton Railroad was incorporated on July 5, 1887 and chartered on
July 8. Mears was the president of the company and John L. McNeil was
the treasurer. Though we have no evidence to the effect, Walsen was,
without doubt, an incorporator and official. Since much of the Rainbow
Route toll road grade was to be used the railroad adopted the name.
Incidentally a new wagon road had to be built.

The first part from Silverton to Chattanooga would not be too difficult
but Red Mountain would have to be ascended on a steep grade and by many
curves to the summit, Sheridan Pass. Then the line would have to go
around a succession of curves to Red Mountain town and over more curves,
grades and switchbacks from there down to Ironton. The greatest of
engineering skill was necessary to accomplish such an undertaking.

The first necessity, of course, was a locomotive. So the company
purchased the D. & R. G.’s No. 42, a Baldwin of 30 tons, called 60
class. It was overhauled and given the number “100” and the name
“Ouray”. The number may be seen on the old-fashioned kerosene headlight
in a picture herein.

The 5.3 miles of railroad from Silverton to Burro Bridge must have been
constructed in the summer of 1887 for it is known to have been in
operation by the first of June of the next year. In 1888 Charles W.
Gibbs, who had served under Mr. Wigglesworth on a number of projects,
became the locating and construction engineer. He started late in May at
Burro Bridge and in early November had completed 11.2 miles through Red
Mountain and to Ironton. Only 11.2 miles in over five months! But anyone
acquainted with the country is not surprised.

Spurs then or later were laid to the Yankee Girl, Vanderbilt, North
Star, Silver Bell, Guston and Treasury Tunnel. The map here included was
made by Mr. Gibbs and appeared in a September 1890 Bulletin of the
American Society of Civil Engineers. Mr. Gibbs built the 1.5 miles from
Ironton to Albany in 1889.[1] Albany was the Saratoga mill which stood
against the east hill of Ironton Park. His report notes 5% grades, 30°
curves, 3-foot gauge and 30-lb. rail. No reliable figures for the cost
of construction are available but ordinarily a railroad of that kind at
that time ate up about $25,000 to the mile.

In 1888 Mr. Gibbs was writing love letters to Miss Adeline Hammon of
Colorado Springs and the next year they were married. She has kept his
letters all these years from which these excerpts, dealing with the
construction of the railroad from Burro Bridge to Ironton, are taken.

“Chattanooga, June 10, 1888. Arrived here bag and baggage about three
weeks ago and have my headquarters 10,200 feet above sea level and my
next camp will be still higher, about 11,000 feet. More than 100 Mexican
workers camped nearby.”

“Gustine Mine, July 22, 1888. I am occupying the house of a former mine
superintendent and have many conveniences not found in a railroad camp.
Went to Silverton on the passenger train last night and returned this
morning. Regular trains are running to where my first camp was
(Chattanooga) and in a month’s time will be here and maybe they will get
track laid before that as the grading will be done in two weeks time.
About 400 Mexicans working.”

“Gustine Mine, August 11, 1888. Work is getting along splendidly and
during this week I will get surveys made to Ironton which is as far as
the line will be built this year. By the middle of next week the work
will be only two miles from here and in a very short time at my door.”

“Gustine Mine, September 16, 1888. Construction work will be done in
about five weeks; then I shall go to Telluride to make a short survey
for a three foot gauge road.” (This became the Rio Grande Southern.)

“Ironton, October 3, 1888. Since writing you I have moved from the
Gustine Mine to Ironton and we are living in a large vacant hotel, lots
of room but not the conveniences we had at the mine.”

“Ironton, October 29, 1888. Since my last letter to you I discharged all
my men but one and moved to Silverton but was put in charge of the work
train and the track laying outfit so am back in the grader’s camp but
will be done here in about a week.”

Wyes were placed at Sheridan Junction, Red Mountain and Ironton in 1888
and at Albany the next year. That of the D. & R. G. was used at
Silverton. Very little room was available at Red Mountain and so only
the smallest kind of wye could be made—one just big enough to
accommodate an engine and a car and the depot had to be set inside of
it.

Not counting the wyes there was only one switchback, that at Corkscrew
Gulch, the most famous in the world as it contained a housed-over
turntable.

Curvature was almost continuous. Four curves were particularly
sharp—those at Chattanooga, Red Mountain, Joker Tunnel and Ironton.
Steep grades were also almost continuous, some as much as 5%. Some maps
have shown the grade at Chattanooga as 7%. This is an error. Mr. Gibbs,
the builder, stated it was 5% and a recent survey has substantiated his
figure.

Bridges, as compared to those on the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, were
very small, there being, outside of water boxes and culverts, only
three. Two were on the main line, one where the railroad crossed Mineral
Creek at Chattanooga and the other where the railroad crossed Red
Mountain Creek at Joker Tunnel. The other one was on the Treasury Tunnel
Branch.

The name of Burro Bridge for the station at milepost 5.3 is very
misleading since the railroad sported no span at all at that point. The
supposition is that the word applied to the wagon-road bridge across
Mineral Creek somewhat below and away from the railroad. This road
branched off from the main Silverton-Red Mountain highway about five and
one-half miles north of Silverton, crossed Mineral Creek and made its
way up Middle Fork Gulch and across Ophir Pass to Ophir. This, first a
burro trail and later a very rugged wagon road, was in use for perhaps
fifteen years before the advent of the rail line. Since the Silverton
Railroad unloaded freight for Ophir in the neighborhood of Burro Bridge
it is assumed that this was the reason for the adoption of the name for
the station.

The town of Chattanooga eventually grew up to the left of the location
shown on the map in order to avoid Mineral Creek floods.

No account of the arrival of the first train in Red Mountain has been
found but it is known to have occurred on September 17, 1888. A picture
herein shows the train with Engine 100 and Mears standing beside the
pilot. It can be assumed that it was a gala occasion, especially for the
mines, for here was an efficacious way of getting supplies and of
shipping ore.

The unloading of freight on the Silverton Railroad was quite informal.
Outside of Red Mountain the line maintained no bona fide stations or
agents. Therefore, materials were dropped off, especially for the mines,
at the most convenient points.

So far the railroad owned only one locomotive, Number 100, and so had to
rent from the D. & R. G. The same was true of cars and coaches.

The railroad had been projected to Ouray, 26.6 miles in all. Mears might
have used his toll road but that was, in some places, 19 per cent grade,
out of the question for a railroad. The steepest ever attempted in
Colorado was 7.6%. Construction from Ironton to the foot of Ironton Park
would have been easy but there the canon began where the greater part of
six miles would have had to be blasted out of solid rock, where slide
rock could have been quite bothersome, where snow blockades would have
been continuous for a long winter and where snowslides, two in
particular, the Riverside and the Mother Cline, that ran every year,
would have been almost impossible to conquer. The Riverside slide that
came from two sides, filling the canon and burying the wagon road, often
had to be tunnelled to accommodate the summer traffic. The writer, with
her parents, was through one in the summer of 1903 or ’04.

At the same time surveys were made for another branch of the system, one
that was to go up the Animas River from Silverton to Mineral Point, 19
miles, and possibly across the divide to Lake City.

Through operation to Ironton began in June 1889. The claim that two
daily passenger trains ran there has generally been disbelieved but the
following table for 1889, copied from the Official Railway Guide of May
1891, proves the point.

                           SILVERTON RAILROAD
                         Otto Mears, President
    S. K. Hooper, General Passenger and Ticket Agent, Denver, Colo.
   Moses Liverman, General Manager and Ticket Agent, Silverton, Colo.
                            October 23, 1889

      []Mixed       []Pass’r  Miles                     []Pass’r       []Mixed

 Lv. 7:00 A.M.  Lv. 1:10 P.M.    .0  Silverton     Ar. 11:10 A.M. Ar. 5:20 P.M.
     7:34 A.M.      1:44 P.M.   5.0  Burro Bridge      10:36 A.M.     4:46 P.M.
     7:49 A.M.      1:59 P.M.   7.5  Chattanooga       10:21 A.M.     4:31 P.M.
     8:11 A.M.      2:21 P.M.  12.5  Summit            9:58 A.M.      4:09 P.M.
     8:25 A.M.      2:35 P.M.  15.0  Red Mountain      9:50 A.M.      4:00 P.M.
     8:26 A.M.      2:36 P.M.  15.5  Vanderbilt        9:44 A.M.      3:54 P.M.
     8:27 A.M.      2:37 P.M.  16.0  Yankee Girl       9:43 A.M.      3:53 P.M.
     8:45 A.M.      2:55 P.M.  17.0  Paymaster         9:25 A.M.      3:35 P.M.
 Ar. 9:00 A.M.  Ar. 3:10 P.M.  20.0  Ironton       Lv. 9:10 A.M.  Lv. 3:20 P.M.


[a]Daily except Sunday.


Everything was finished and working properly. Mr. Gibbs must have had
the feeling of “well done” and that he deserved a reward. Mrs. Gibbs
tells the following story:

“Late in September of 1889, Mr. Gibbs and I were married at Colorado
Springs and started for Silverton, going by the way of Montrose and
through Ouray where we stayed overnight at the beautiful Beaumont Hotel.
The next morning we rode the stage to Ironton and there transferred to
the little Silverton Railroad train. As we climbed the grade toward the
summit the conductor came through the coach where I was the only
passenger and asked me if I were cold. I couldn’t deny it so he stopped
the train, picked up some wood along the track and built a fire in the
little pot-bellied stove.

“In November and December Mr. Gibbs made a preliminary survey from the
town of Dallas to Telluride, which was to be the route for the Rio
Grande Southern Railroad, and finished the day before Christmas. We
stayed overnight in Ouray and left the next morning in a snow-storm.
When we reached Ironton my husband heard the line was blocked by snow so
he left me with the Strayers while he went on to Silverton.

“He made arrangements for me to meet him in Red Mountain on New Year’s
day, which I did. Two men besides us were going to Silverton. A shallow
trail had been beaten in the deep snow between the rails. The two men
held the ends of a ski pole while I hung to the middle of it and we
plodded down the track. We came to a sharp hairpin curve and cut it out
by sliding downhill from the track above to the one below. A few miles
farther on we reached an engine with a snowplow, which was a great
relief. When we reached Silverton and got to our room a nice warm dinner
was sent up to us by Moses Liverman, superintendent of the S. R.

“A few days latter we left for my husband’s old home in Maine. This is
what we had planned for our wedding trip but my daughters have always
maintained that the others to Silverton by stage and train with all
their difficulties were really the wedding journey.”[2]

The table below was furnished by Mr. Ridgway. Joker Tunnel (water
drainage) did not exist at the time the map was made but was projected
or started by 1892. The second column of figures was taken from the 1892
survey of the locating engineer, R. L. Kelly.

          Station         Mears Timetable of 1889  Actual Mileage, 1892

  Silverton                         0.                      0.
  Burro Bridge                      5.                      5.
  Chattanooga                       7.5                     7.3
  Summit (Sheridan Pass)           12.5                    10.7
  Red Mountain                     15.                     11.9
  Vanderbilt                       15.5                    12.5
  Yankee Girl                      16.                     12.7
  Paymaster                        17.                     13.7
  Corkscrew Gulch                                          14.1
  Joker Tunnel                                              15.
  Ironton (Depot)                  20.                     16.5
  Albany                                                    18.

The exaggerated mileages of the 1889 timetable would have added
considerably to the freight charges, in the case of Ironton over 21%. It
will be noticed beginning with Red Mountain that each Mears figure is 3
to 3½ miles more than the Kelly figure. Mr. Kelly was one of the ablest
engineers of his day and his mileages cannot be questioned.

The table below was copied from an Official Railway Guide of October
1893 but no date is given for the time it was in effect. It is
interesting because the mileages are different and because, at the time,
only one passenger train was running.

      1       M              Stations                  2

  7:30 A. M.   0  Lv.        Silverton        Ar. 11:50 A. M.
  8:00         6           Burro Bridge           11:40
  8:10         9            Chattanooga           11:30
  8:30        13              Summit              11:10
  8:40        14           Red Mountain           10:50
              15            Vanderbilt
  8:55        15            Yankee Girl           10:45
              16       Paymaster coal track
  9:10        17          Corkscrew Gulch         10:25
              18        Paymaster ore track
  9:20 A. M.  20  Ar.         Ironton         Lv. 10:00

All carrier lines issued paper passes but Mears wanted to do something
special for _his_ railroad. Outside of the paper ones his passes fell
into four categories—buckskin, plate, medallion and filigree. The first
three were for the Silverton Railroad alone while the fourth, though
made especially for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, was usable on the
S. R.

There were two designs of the silver plate pass. It is supposed that the
first die broke and a substitute had to be made. The medallion passes,
ordinarily silver, have the date 1890, the number and the name of the
recipient on the back. Two extra-special ones have come to light. Each
is made of two _gold_ medallions set back to back and hinged to form a
locket and each has a little diamond in the face. An odd silver pass, a
spoon with a plate pass hanging from underneath, has been discovered.
The filigrees, silver and gold, have been extensively treated in the
book, _Rio Grande Southern Story_.

According to an item in a Rico _Sun_ of November 28, 1891, copied from a
Denver _Sun_, a company called “Ouray and Ironton Electric Railway,
Light and Power,” consisting of Mears, Walsen, Charles Munn, James H.
Cassanova and William H. Wallace, with capital of $800,000, filed
articles of incorporation with the Secretary of State on November 20.
Its purpose was to build a cog road from Ouray to Ironton, with a branch
up Poughkeepsie Gulch (Uncompahgre River) to the head of Cement Creek.

The following quotation is from Mr. Arthur Ridgway:

“The assumption that Mr. Mears contemplated extending the S. R. from
Ironton to Ouray is correct but he was deterred because of its being so
formidable an undertaking. He may have considered Albany as the possible
point for the origin of the extension at first but later Ironton proved
the more feasible. Anyway, he had a preliminary location for an
_electric_ railway, Ouray to Ironton, made in 1892 by the then noted
locating engineer, R. L. Kelly. No doubt the impracticability if not the
utter impossibility, of operating steam locomotives over the heavy
grades and severe curvature known to be necessary dissuaded him from the
purpose until the recognized practicability of electric railway
operation became apparent in 1892. Whatever the delay (a long one for
Mr. Mears) it was not until 1892 that a survey was made and even then,
as stated before, for electric operation. The map I have of the
completed location shows a line starting from a connection with the
Denver & Rio Grande at the Ouray depot, eight miles in length, to a
connection near the Ironton depot, incorporating 7% maximum gradients
and 35° maximum rate of curvature. With even these severe physical
characteristics considerable tunnelling was necessary. I do not have the
estimated cost of the project but it must have been staggering. It is
small wonder that with the difficulty of financing so costly a scheme
and the great financial panic a year later in 1893, together with the
contemporary decadence of silver mining, the project was permanently
shelved by even the visionary Mr. Mears.”

D. & R. G. track already lay between Ouray and Ridgway and between
Silverton and Durango. Mr. Mears, by the end of 1891, had completed the
Rio Grande Southern from Ridgway to Durango. Only eight miles from
Ironton to Ouray were needed to make a complete 243 mile circle. If only
that eight miles could have been constructed! Then a sightseer could
have started at Ridgway, taken a side trip to Telluride (14.6 miles),
proceeded to Durango, to Silverton and back to starting point. He should
not have attempted it in the winter or spring because of snow blockades
or snowslides but in the summer or fall he could have had the thrill of
a lifetime.

He would have looked upon or wended his way among snowcapped peaks,
hundreds over 12,000 or 13,000 feet high and some over 14,000 feet, many
so sharp as to be termed “needles”; would have crossed several passes,
one over 10,000 feet and another over 11,000 feet in altitude; would
have gone up one canyon and down another, often beside rushing, tumbling
rivers. He would have passed over breathtakingly high bridges, over
trestles set against bare cliffs, around U-curves innumerable, over
switchbacks, over a turntable, through rock tunnels and even through
snow tunnels.

But the thrills and scenery would have been tempered with trouble, that
trouble-trouble-boil-and-bubble kind, such as delays because of engines
having to blow up, hot boxes, trees across the track, boulders and lots
of them on the track, mudslides, washouts, a derailed engine or car or a
couple of each and a missing bridge or two.

If his luck were still holding he would have ridden the last lap on the
electric railway, down the awesome Red Mountain Creek and Uncompahgre
River canyons where sheer rock walls would have risen hundreds of feet
above him and dropped hundreds of feet below him and, as he turned a
last curve, he would have beheld the never-to-be-forgotten sight of the
little town of Ouray, the gem of all mountain towns, nestled in a deep
pocket surrounded by towering peaks.


                     THE SILVERTON RAILROAD COMPANY

                                                        Denver, Colorado
                                                       March 28th, 1892.

Dear Sir:

I beg to hand you herewith a report from the auditor of the earnings of
the Silverton Railroad for the years 1889, 1890 and 1891, showing also
the mileage and bonded debt.

I may add for your information that this road is built through the
famous Red Mountain district of the San Juan Country, in which are
located the well-known Yankee Girl and Guston mines, besides many other
producing properties.

This is the only road that can be built through this district because of
lack of room. The mines mentioned are large producers, and there are
many more which are being developed rapidly. This is one of the best
known mining districts in Colorado. From Ironton to the town of Ouray,
which is reached by another branch of the Denver & Rio Grande, the
distance is seven miles over very precipitous country.

The reason the road has not been extended to Ouray is because of the
excessive cost, but capitalists are now engaged in making estimates and
plans for an electric road to cover this distance to follow the line of
the Mears toll road as indicated on the map. (No map accompanies this
material.) A line of this kind can be built to operate much more cheaply
than a railway line, and we have good reason to expect that this gap may
be so filled during this year. At the present time stages make daily
trips each way over the toll road, and the trip from Silverton to Ouray
is a favorite one with the tourists on account of the beauty and
grandeur of the scenery on the toll road.

There is every reason to expect that the earnings for the year 1892 will
increase in the same proportion as in the past, and will continue for a
great many years. The Silverton Railroad is also authorized to build up
the Animas River. We would like very much this year to extend the road
in that direction some 12 or 15 miles in order to reach a very rich and
valuable mining district. There are a great many very extensive mines of
low grade material lying between Silverton and the summit of the range
towards the northeast, and our object in offering to you the bonds of
the present line of the railroad is to obtain funds to extend the line
up the Animas River.

We can offer you at the present time $400,000 out of a total of
$425,000. These bonds are issued in denominations of $1,000 each. The
interest is payable semi-annually on the first of April and the first of
October at the rate of six per cent per annum in U. S. gold coin.

                           Yours very truly,
                                           John L. McNeil,[3] Treasurer.


                  AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.
                            INSTITUTED 1852.


                             TRANSACTIONS.
  NOTE.—This Society is not responsible, as a body, for the facts and
             opinions advanced in any of its publications.


                                  450.
                      Vol. XXIII.—September, 1890.


     THE TURN-TABLE ON THE MAIN TRACK OF THE SILVERTON RAILROAD IN
                               COLORADO.


                   By C. W. Gibbs, M. Am. Soc. C. E.


                            WITH DISCUSSION.

The Silverton Railroad is a short line but 17.5 miles long, and has the
reputation of being the steepest (5 per cent. grade), the crookedest (30
degree curves) and the best paying road in Colorado; and is owned by one
man, Otto Mears. It also has a turn-table on its main track, and it is
the purpose of this paper to describe it and explain why it was so
placed.

This road leaves the Denver and Rio Grande at Silverton, and runs over a
divide 11 113 feet above sea level, then down into the rich mining
country beyond. The country is very rough and rugged, and in order to
reach the town of Red Mountain it was necessary to run up on a
switchback, as no room for a loop could be found. A wye was, therefore,
built, and the engine could be turned while the train stood on the main
track. The engine was thus placed ahead of the train, only the train is
pulled out of the station rear end ahead. It runs thus till the
turn-table is reached. The train is stopped at a point marked A, Plate
XXII; the engine uncoupled, run on to the table, is turned and pulled up
to a point near B, where it is stopped. The train is then allowed to
drop down to the turn-table and the engine backed on to it. In coming up
from Albany the train is stopped on the down grade between the summit at
B and the table; the engine is taken off, turned on the table and run up
to about A; the train is then allowed to drop to the table as before and
the engine backed up and coupled on, taking not over five minutes in
going either way.

The reason of putting the table in was that there were no mines to the
east of Ironton as shown on Plate XXI, but between the turn-table and
the loop there were several that it was very desireable to reach, and
the side hill is so steep that it is impossible to make a loop on it.

This table is the source of a great deal of comment from tourists, of
whom there are many during the summer months, as it is on the line known
as the “circle,” so extensively advertised by the Denver and Rio Grande
Railroad.

The road is used both for a freight and passenger road, and as before
mentioned, is the best paying road in Colorado, two engines being kept
busy hauling ore to Silverton from the Red Mountain district.

The object of writing this paper was to describe what the author thinks
is quite a novelty, being the only turn-table that he has ever heard of
which is used upon a switchback in this manner, and where the grades are
adjusted as they are to let the train run by gravity on the table from
both ways.

Plate XXI is a print from a photograph of the map filed in Washington,
and is about 9 000 feet to the inch.

Plate XXII is an enlarged sketch of the line near the turn-table.


                              DISCUSSION.

J. Foster Cromwell, M. Am. Soc. C. E.—It occurs to me that the use of
this turn-table being simply to turn the engine during transit, while
the train waits, and, moreover, as the service is a special one on a
spur line, it would have been better to obtain an engine capable of
running in either direction and not requiring to be turned, rather than
resort to a turn-table in the main track which contains an element of
danger as well as of delay to the traffic. The device, however, is an
ingenious one to meet the peculiar conditions of line; and if experience
with it proves satisfactory, there are other problems on a larger scale
relating to change of direction in mountain location that it may help to
solve.

C. W. Gibbs, M. Am. Soc. C. E.—If a special engine had been procured, as
Mr. Crowell suggests, it would have been at an extra expense, owing to
the limited number wanted; and even with a special design, it might have
been difficult for any engine to have backed its load over so steep a
grade and such sharp curves without more danger than was suggested there
might be at the turn-table. The delay to traffic amounts to nothing, for
there are no competing lines, nor do I expect there ever will be. The
turn-table has now been in actual operation every day since June, 1889,
and no accident has ever occurred.

    [Illustration: PLATE XXII.
    TRANS. AM. SOC. CIV. ENG’RS.
    VOL. XXIII. N^o. 450.
    GIBBS ON
    SILVERTON RAILROAD.
    SKETCH
    SHOWING ALIGNMENT
    OF
    SILVERTON RAILROAD,
    AT
    CORKSCREW.
    C.W. GIBBS, Chief Engineer.]




                          AUDITOR’S STATEMENT
               EARNINGS AND EXPENSES, SILVERTON RAILROAD
                       YEARS 1889, 1890 AND 1891


                                 1889

  Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc.              $ 80,881.66
  Operating and all other expenses                         34,285.04
                                                           46,596.62
  Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year                  25,500.00
                                                           21,096.62

                                 1890

  Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc.              $105,673.39
  Operating and all other expenses                         51,127.22
                                                           54,546.17
  Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year                  25,500.00
                                                           29,046.17

                                 1891

  Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc.              $121,611.38
  Operating and all other expenses                         57,548.37
                                                           64,063.01
  Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year                  25,500.00
                                                           38,563.01

            Length of line                        17 miles
            Length of side tracks                  8 miles
                                                  25 miles
            Floating debt                              Nil
            Bonded debt                        $425,000.00

                                                  Alex Anderson, Auditor

At the time the foregoing statement was made, the Company owned the
following equipment:

  3 locomotives
  2 coaches
  1 baggage and express car

In addition to the above, the company now owns 50 freight cars, which it
has since purchased, and it also has a floating debt of $32,502.76.

                                                  Alex Anderson, Auditor

As has already been noted Engine 100 was purchased and put into service
as soon as the railroad started operating.

The Rio Grande Southern Railroad bought a number of engines in both 1890
and ’91 and, as it was not yet in operation and did not need so many, it
kept its sister railroad in supply. A record of those it loaned to the
S. R. in 1892 is as follows:

  No. 8—January 1 to April 12
  No. 5—July 7 to November 19
  No. 7—August 14 to September 2
  No. 6—September 2 to October 10
  No. 34—November 27 to December 31

A picture of No. 5 with a train at Summit may be found herein.

It has always been supposed that the Shay engine belonged originally to
the Silverton Railroad but the Lima Locomotive Works’ records reveal
that Mears bought it under his own name in the spring of 1890. It, as
No. 269, was used on construction of the Rio Grande Southern throughout
that year and the next.

It isn’t known how or when it got into the possession of the S. R. but
it was with that company in the summer of 1892 and a picture of it on
the lower leg of the turntable track exists. It seems to have been
called both “Ironton” and “Guston” during this period. It was traded to
the R. G. S. for the latter’s Engine 34 on November 27, 1892. (Note that
the table above shows the 34 merely on loan. The trade date, however, is
correct.)

Locomotive 34 was a Baldwin of the 56 class which had, before going to
the R. G. S., belonged to both the D. & R. G. and the R. G. W. The S. R.
numbered it “101” but several years later changed it to a mere “1”.

Red Mountain and Ironton became two flourishing towns with plenty of
stores and all the appurtenances of civilization. In the eighties and
early nineties Red Mountain had three newspapers. In 1890 it had a
population of 598 while Ironton had 322. Even Chattanooga had a mill,
some stores and 51 people. The locality was a beehive of activity as
mines and mills were working every place. The hills were liberally
sprinkled with houses, stores, mills, boarding houses, barns and mine
buildings. An incendiary fire at Red Mountain on August 20, 1892
destroyed practically the whole town causing property damage estimated
at $259,000. But nothing daunted these optimists. They immediately went
about rebuilding it.

The transportation of supplies to the district—machinery, timbers for
mines, lumber, living necessities, coal and feed for animals—must have
been terrific for such little trains to handle. Return trains carried
ore bound for the smelters at Silverton and Durango. A company in which
Mears was interested built a smelter, the Standard, at Durango in 1889,
to handle copper ore from the Red Mountain area but it did not prove a
success. Eventually, in 1897, the property was sold and rased. The slag
pile may still be seen just south of town.

Operation, not counting sharp curves and steep grades, was complicated.
Turning facilities were numerous for such a short piece of
railroad—Silverton, Sheridan Junction, Red Mountain, Corkscrew Gulch,
Ironton and Albany. The Operation of the turntable has already been
exhibited. It, very soon after completion, began having trouble with
snow, and a long entrance shed was built to alleviate the condition.
Each leg of the wye at Red Mountain would accommodate only two cars, and
so the engine and baggage car went around it and hooked onto the other
end of the coaches.

Four regular freights and probably an extra one or two operated. The
company did not have enough engines or anything else for such traffic
and so must have borrowed from the R. G. S. and the D. & R. G. Passenger
business was only a sideline but Mears maintained the dignity of his
little railroad by running daily, each way, two passenger trains, each
with two or three coaches and baggage car. He charged 20c per mile
straight and had all the riders he could handle.

Business had been very good, so good, in fact, that the Silverton
Railroad had the reputation of being the best-paying for its size in the
state. Mears even used profit from it to assist the R. G. S. which was
not doing as well as had been expected.

An extension of the Silverton Railroad up the Animas River Valley had
been considered for several years. It became a reality in 1893 when the
two miles from Silverton to the Silver Lake mill at Waldheim were built.
It was considered a part of the S. R. system, not a separate line.

The San Juan’s most common precious metal was silver. Others were gold,
lead, zinc and copper. Trouble had been brewing for some time but when
the government repealed the Sherman Silver Purchasing Act in 1893 a
panic descended not only on the San Juan but on all of the United
States.

All mining towns had, of course, boomed and were replete with hordes of
promoters, prospectors, miners and hangers-on. Saloons, gambling joints
and brothels flourished. Now, mines closed by the dozens and the
populace departed. Many towns, especially the small ones, were
practically deserted. Train operation came down to a mixed freight and
passenger.

As some of Mears’ letters indicate, he was, after the panic, having a
most difficult time in making ends meet. He gave up the Rio Grande
Southern almost immediately and allowed it to go into receivership on
the 2nd of August, 1893. He tried, however, to hang on to the Silverton
Railroad but, as some of the letters reveal, he had to do a good deal of
juggling with bonds, stocks and notes to stave off creditors.

In 1896 the company claimed 18.25 miles of track from Silverton to
Albany, 3.75 miles of branches and .48 miles of spurs. In the same year
it listed two locomotives, three combination cars, 36 box cars, one
caboose and one “other”.

Even with the hard times Mears managed by borrowing to extend the
railroad in 1896 from Waldheim to the Sunnyside mine at Eureka, another
6½ miles. This entire piece, Silverton to Eureka, he incorporated as the
Silverton Northern. This railroad was justified as both the Silver Lake
and Sunnyside mines carried a good deal of gold.

At the turn of the century the most talked of and anticipated event in
the mining country was the Meldrum Tunnel which was to bore through the
range west of Red Mountain town and connect with mines at Pandora near
Telluride on the other side.

The tunnel was to be large enough to contain a railroad which was to
connect the Silverton Railroad with the Rio Grande Southern at Pandora.
This would have saved much mileage and would, except at the ends, have
been free from snow.

Andrew Meldrum, a Scotchman, the originator of the project, raised money
and started work in 1898. He left a point on the west side one and a
half miles south of Pandora and drilled eastward until he had reached a
depth of 1400 feet. Except for one joggle it was quite straight. At the
same time he ran another tunnel westward from a point about one-half of
a mile north of Joker Tunnel to a depth of 600 feet or more. Altogether
he drilled about 1.6 miles on the west side and .6 mile on the east
side. Finally, in 1900, with 3.4 miles yet to go, he ran out of money
and had to abandon the project.

However, Meldrum’s dream did materialize in 1946 during World War II
when the government loaned the Idarado Mining Company, which had bought
the old Treasury Tunnel workings at Red Mountain, the money to complete
a tunnel through the mountain to the Pandora side. It takes several
drops and rises and goes in various directions in order to contact the
ore veins, so that the total length is 7½ miles. This amount does not
include some tail tunnels.

The Idarado property is now considered one of the richest in the world
for hardrock ores—silver, gold, lead, zinc, copper and manganese.

Meldrum lived out his life in Ouray and died in a cabin there all alone,
a few years too soon to see his dream come true.

Everybody hoped and expected that mining would soon revive but the time
dragged on and it did not. William Jennings Bryan ran for president of
the United States in 1896 on a “free coinage of silver” platform and the
“Silver San Juan”, Mears especially, ardently campaigned for him. When
Bryan was defeated, Mears gave up on a mining revival and early in 1897
moved to the East. There he took up several business enterprises and
stayed for ten years. However, he retained a general supervision over
his railroads and made numberless trips back to the San Juan.

Revenues had decreased so greatly that the railroad was finally, in
1898, forced into receivership. Alex Anderson, a Scotchman and a former
auditor, was made the receiver.

The Crawford interests who were promoting the Joker Tunnel (a drainage
operation) got control of the railroad in a foreclosure sale in 1904. On
November 3 of that year it was incorporated by Otto Mears, Alex
Anderson, John Ewing, George Crawford and Harry Riddell as the Silverton
Railway, with Mears as president. The new company replaced the old
30-lb. steel with 45-lb. Mr. Ridgway, as superintendent at this time,
1904 and 1905, had to keep three sets of books—one for the S. R., one
for the S. Ry. and one for the S.N.

Just before and after the reorganization, business revived until it was
nearly as good as in the beginning though only one passenger train ever
ran again and then only as far as Joker Tunnel. The train consisted of
two coaches and a baggage car to Red Mountain where one coach was set
out and the rest went on to Joker. In 1912 a daily passenger was running
only as far as Red Mountain. In 1919 and ’20 a passenger was still going
to the same destination. During this period about two freights operated
though the number depended on the amount of business. A little engine
could haul three loads up to Red Mountain and a big one could haul five.
Both handled ten loads down. In the winter operation was suspended
either for short periods or for the season because of snow blockades.

The turntable was still standing in early 1906 for John Crum who that
spring drove a logging team from Albany Gulch to the Gold Lion mine, at
night turned his horses loose on a flat nearby and in the morning had to
play tag with them around the table to catch them.

Mears, who was expecting great things of the Cold Prince mine and mill
at Animas Forks on the Silverton Northern, decided he needed a turntable
worse there than at Corkscrew. So, in the summer of 1906, Edward Meyer,
an engineer, took a train to the gulch to retrieve all essential and
removable parts along with other appurtenances. These were then
transported to and installed at Animas Forks.

Joe Dresbach, the general manager of the time, has also stated that
essential and removable parts of the turntable at Corkscrew were
retrieved and installed at Animas Forks.

Charles Decker, an engineer, says that the housing and operating parts
of the turntable at Corkscrew were gone when he went there for the first
time in 1907. The train merely ran over the stationary table onto a
switchback that had been extended to hold several cars, and then backed
out.

After the turntable was abandoned a train leaving Red Mountain headed
into Corkscrew Gulch, backed down to Joker Tunnel, headed into Corkscrew
again and finally backed to Red Mountain. Or the operation was reversed
by backing out of Red Mountain to begin with. As trains will not back
through much snow downhill and practically none uphill this railroad got
into trouble in the winter no matter how it started out or what it did.

Mears was employed by the D. & R. G. to reconstruct the railroad in the
Animas canyon after the disastrous flood of October 5, 1911. He used S.
Ry., S. G. & N. and S. N. engines and crews to work from the north end.
Trains went to Joker Tunnel to pick up rails that had been brought that
far by freight teams from Ouray. Silverton ran out of coal, and some
that had already been hauled to the Treasury Tunnel at Red Mountain was
brought back to town. In about 60 days the line was open and the first
two freight cars to arrive in Silverton were one of caskets and one of
beer.

Many derailments and minor accidents occurred but in its 39 years of
operation only one fatality. In 1902 or ’03 an engine ran off a short
rail at Sheridan Junction causing it to overturn. The engineer, Bally
Thompson, was caught and crushed under the boiler. The whole top of his
head and jaw were torn off and his skin was cooked like that of a
roasted turkey.

The year ending June 30, 1911 showed a cash balance of $9 while the year
ending December 31, 1917 turned up with a deficit of $25,241. Regular
operation ceased in 1921 and abandonment proceedings were held in the
early fall of 1922. All rolling stock, including Engines 100 and 101 (1)
were turned over to the S. N.

Below is the last station list ever published:

     .00          Silverton             9,300
    5.30        Burro Bridge           10,236
    7.23         Chattanooga           10,400
   10.64           Summit              11,235
   11.97        Red Mountain           11,025
   12.66         Vanderbilt
   12.85         Yankee Girl
   13.26          Robinson
   13.46           Guston
   13.93    Paymaster Coal Track
   14.38       Corkscrew Gulch
   14.81     Paymaster Ore Track
   15.03        Silver Belle
   16.06            Joker

As the track was not immediately removed an occasional train was run to
Red Mountain or even to the mines beyond. With the salvaging of the
rails in 1926 the Silverton Railroad made its last run.

The original Red Mountain Town was on the east side of the small hill
called the Knob. The place began declining about 1907 and the time came
when it was deserted and all structures were in a state of near or
complete collapse. The Idarado, the old Treasury Tunnel, to the north
side of the Knob, with all its prosperous looking mine and mill
buildings and its nice dwellings, most of which were moved there from
Eureka, now constitutes the town of Red Mountain. _This_ Tunnel is a
World War II development and is famous because it bores through the
mountain to the mines on the Telluride side.

The new highway has almost obliterated the old railroad grade. It may be
seen crawling along on the sidehill up to Burro Bridge, and again at
Chattanooga Loop and overhead as it climbs to the summit. It also may be
seen curving around the Knob to old Red Mountain town, crawling along
the mountain to Corkscrew Gulch and dropping down to Joker Tunnel. Then
all traces of it are gone except some old grade at Albany. First a road,
then a railroad and again a road!




                    SILVERTON, GLADSTONE & NORTHERLY


The Gold King Mining Company, under President W. Z. Kinney, promoted a
railroad for the purpose of hauling concentrates from mills along Cement
Creek to the smelters at Silverton. According to the Manual the railroad
was chartered April 6, 1899 and completed in July. James Dyson located
the route and the Rocky Mountain Construction Co., incorporated in
Maine, constructed the 7.5 miles of line and the one-half mile of
sidings from Silverton to Gladstone. Forty-five-pound rail was used.
Track left the main line of the D. & R. G. at the north end of Silverton
and there a roundhouse was built. San Juan County records show that the
property was conveyed from the construction company to the railroad
company July 21, 1899. Two figures, $247,838 and $252,979, have been
given as the cost of the job. The difference may have covered equipment.

The S. G. & N. bought Engine 32 from the Rio Grande Southern through the
D. & R. G. purchasing agent, C. M. Hobbs, for $3252. Mr. Hobbs
instructed Mr. Lee, general superintendent of the R. G. S., to letter it
properly, deliver it to W. Z. Kinney at Silverton on August 1, 1899 and
collect the money. Two very nice made-to-order coaches, that had seats
for passengers in one end and baggage compartments in the other, were
obtained. Two trains ran daily consisting, generally, of an engine, two
loads and a passenger coach. The first year of operation showed a
surplus of $35,366.21.

The company, evidently, did not have enough power and in October 1900 it
was asking the R. G. S. for another locomotive like the one it already
had, but none was available. Meanwhile, a company in Palestine, Texas
had bought R. C. S. 33 (exactly like 32) but on finding it
unsatisfactory, had shipped it back. The R. G. S. placed it in the
Burnham Shops at Denver where, in 1902, it underwent extensive repairs.
Then it was sold to the S. G. & N.

The two locomotives mentioned above were sisters to the Silverton
Railroad’s No. 101 (1), formerly R. G. S. 34. All three were of the same
make and the same class and had the same owners at the same time and in
the same order—the D. & R. G., the R. G. W. and the R. G. S. All of
these engines ended up with the S. N. (So did S. R. No. 100.) All had
five owners. The 33 had six owners if one would count the company in
Texas but, as far as is known, no money changed hands.

A new locomotive, No. 34, a Baldwin of the 100 class, was purchased in
1904. The Manual of 1905 lists three engines, two coaches, and twenty
freight cars; the one of 1909 says two locomotives, two coaches, ten box
cars and twenty-one gondolas. Engine 32 was the one out of service at
this time. Eventually its boiler went to a sawmill at Cascade. No. 33
lasted a few years longer.

Except for Mr. Kinney of Silverton, the board of ten directors elected
in 1904 were all from Maine, Massachusetts or New Brunswick and the
trustee under the mortgage was the Newtonville Trust Co. of Newtonville,
Mass. In 1905 the funded debt was $100,000 and the outstanding stock,
$121,000. In the year ending June 30, 1909, the railroad had carried
16,667 tons of freight and 3,916 passengers.

It was not uncommon for service to be discontinued for short or long
periods in any winter on account of snow blockades but the suspension in
the fall of 1911 was due to the extensive washouts on the D. & R. G. in
the Animas Canon. S. G. & N. men and equipment were sent to assist in
the reconstruction.

Excursions were often run to Gladstone for picnics or to gather
columbines either to send out of town for some special doings or for any
kind of local celebration.

According to the Official Guides of 1913, 1914 and 1915 mixed trains ran
thrice weekly—Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In 1913 trains left
Silverton at 1:00 P.M. and arrived at Gladstone at 1:45 P.M.; left
Gladstone at 2:15 P.M. and arrived at Silverton at 3:00 P.M. This was a
considerable decline from the original two trains per day.

About the first of January 1910, Mears, Slattery and Pitcher leased the
Gold King mine. On January 15 of the same year the Silverton Northern
Railroad leased the S. G. & N. and five years later, on June 10, 1915,
bought it at auction. San Juan County records show that the deed was
made July 23. Mears then owned all three railroads. Only one S. G. & N.
engine, the 34, was in service. The partners gave up the lease on the
mine in 1917 and Mears, then 77 years old, left for California, never to
return.

Mrs. Percy Airy has a little story to tell of this period. In 1911 her
husband was working at the Gold King mill at Gladstone and they were
living in a little cabin with almost no furniture and conveniences. One
morning while she was washing, Percy came rushing in, saying he was
bringing his uncle Jack Slattery, Otto Mears, James Pitcher and Louis
Quarnstrom in for dinner. Flustered and dismayed were no words for it!
At such a camp no fresh stuff was available but she managed a dinner of
ham, scalloped potatoes, a canned vegetable, biscuits with butter and
jam, fresh canned mountain raspberries, cake and coffee. She had only
two stool chairs and one of them was occupied by the washtub which Mears
urged her not to move. She put one man on the other stool chair, two on
the bed and two in rockers. Being very young, only nineteen, she was so
embarrassed she wouldn’t sit down at the table. Everybody praised her
dinner and she felt better. When Mears left he presented her with a very
rich piece of gold ore, about the size of a large orange, and told here
if she’d always keep that she’d never be poor. Later she engaged a
jeweler to make a watch charm from it for her husband. A small cracked
charm and two small pieces of ore were all that was returned to her. The
fellow claimed he had had to break the big chunk all to pieces to get
the charm and had thrown the scraps away. Of course every small grain of
that ore was valuable.

Business kept dwindling until only an occasional train was run. The
following table indicates that the track was still lying in 1923.

       SILVERTON, GLADSTONE & NORTHERLY
             Official Roster 1923

      0  Silverton                     9,300
    3.2  Yukon Mills
    5.0  Porcupine Gulch
    7.0  Fishers Mill
    7.5  Gladstone                    10,600

No exact date can be found for the tearing up of the rails but it
probably was in 1926, the same year the S. R. was dismantled. All
equipment went to the S. N. as it already belonged to it anyway.

The government, during our war with Japan, established military posts in
Alaska. The railroad up there, the White Pass and Yukon, needed more
locomotives and in 1942 it purchased all that were left on the S.N.—the
3, 4 and 34. (The S. N. had ceased operation three years previously.)
The 34, as should be remembered, had belonged to the S. G. & N. When the
Alaskan railroad received the 34 it numbered it “24”. After Diesel power
was obtained there the 24 (nee 34), then about forty years old, was
retired to the boneyard.

One of the original S. G. & N. coaches was bought from the S. N., moved
to Durango and set up on Main Avenue as the “Pioneer Diner”. Later,
after changes and additions, it became the “Chief Diner”. It is still
operating and may be seen in Durango.




                           SILVERTON NORTHERN


Mears hoped to run a railroad from Silverton to Mineral Point and
possibly on to Lake City, following practically the same route as the
wagon road he had built twelve years previously. C. W. Gibbs, chief
engineer, made surveys from Silverton to Eureka in both 1889 and ’90 but
nothing was immediately attempted, probably because of all effort and
money going toward the construction of the Rio Grande Southern. However,
two miles from Silverton to Waldheim were built in 1893 as an extension
of the Silverton Railroad.

According to San Juan County records the Silverton Northern was
incorporated on September 20, 1895. Fred Walsen was the president, Otto
Mears the vice-president and Alex Anderson the secretary-treasurer.

Construction began at the North Star bridge, the end of the first piece
of railroad, in late April of 1896 and the 6½ miles were completed to
Eureka in late June. The transfer of the property from the construction
company to the railroad company was made on July 1st. Silverton Northern
books gave the cost of construction as $272,400. Meanwhile the first two
miles had been transferred from the Silverton Railroad to the Silverton
Northern. A big celebration took place at Eureka on the completion of
the line and Mrs. Edward G. Stoiber drove the golden spike. A picture is
extant which shows the crowd there.

S. R. Engine 101 was transferred to the S. N. but henceforth was to go
by the number of 1. Of course, the company could borrow a locomotive or
other equipment from the S. R. or the D. & R. G. as needed.

Ever since the panic of 1893 with its demonetization of silver, mining
in the San Juan had been seriously crippled but, since the Sunnyside
mine near Eureka and the Silver Lake mine near Waldheim produced good
values in gold, the S. N. could make a profit.

Mining men, Mears among them, had great hopes that mining would revive
as of old if William Jennings Bryan could be elected as president.
Bryan, it should be remembered, was running in 1896 on a platform of
silver coinage at 16 to 1 with gold. When he was defeated Mears lost
hope for any improvement in mining and moved to the East where he took
up several projects. One was the building of the Chesapeake Beach
railroad from Washington to the beach. Another was the promotion of the
Mack Truck Co. with himself as the first president. He, at that early
date, saw the possibilities of automobile transportation.

Though Mears stayed in the east until 1907 he exercised a strong
supervision over his San Juan railroads and made a number of trips back
to the country to oversee them.

In 1901 the company owned one locomotive, one passenger coach, ten box
cars and one service car. For the year ending June 30, 1901 it had
operated 3376 miles of mixed and 1310 miles of passenger service. In
1902 it paid a dividend of 10%.

The Gold Prince mine, four miles up the Animas River canon from Eureka,
was then flourishing so Mears decided to build a railroad to the place.
He hired Thomas Wigglesworth as surveyor and constructor. Construction
from Silverton to Eureka had been easy—no hard grading and only two
small bridges—but from Eureka to Animas Forks, the little town near the
Gold Prince, it was to be very difficult—up a rough canon and over 7% to
7½% grade, the very maximum for a steam railroad.

Mr. Vest Day gives an account of its building:

“Mr. Thomas Wigglesworth, for whom I had worked several times before,
hired me to get stuff together and go up to Animas Forks to establish a
camp. Late in May of 1904 I loaded on the train at Durango about a
carload of surveyor’s equipment and camp supplies, among which was a
350-lb. cook stove, all to be taken by rail to Eureka. There the two
Peck brothers packed it on burros and, since the snow was deep and soft,
they often had to spread gunny sacks out for the burros to step on,
especially for the one with the stove, to keep them from sinking in too
deeply. Everything arrived at Animas Forks in good order.

“The snow was six feet deep around the cabins we were to occupy so I had
to shovel paths and dig down to get the doors open. Then I had to gather
wood out of the tree tops but had the stove up and a good supper ready
when Mr. Wigglesworth arrived with three other young fellows.

“We first did some preliminary surveying, running a line from Animas
Forks to the divide in case Mr. Mears should decide on a railroad to
Lake City. The snow was so deep we could not drive the stakes so we cut
turning points in the hard crust with a hatchet.

“Then we started to work in the canon which was a hard problem and had
labored a month trying to get a line up the east side when Mr.
Wigglesworth remarked to Mr. Mears that he’d like to build the railroad
on the other side where the road was. Mears told him to go ahead and
take it as it was his road anyway. Even though we used the road grade,
still a lot of work had to be done and R. T. F. Simpson, who was to run
the commissary, brought with him from New Mexico, 100 Navajo Indians to
do the rough labor. About 25 whites were employed but they acted as
powder men, clerks or other such things. We were all finished in the
fall.

“While we were there Mr. Wigglesworth procured for Roy Goodman and me a
railroad bicycle that Mears had had made for Mrs. Stoiber. She was not
at that time using it. This contraption had a framework to which was
fastened four light-weight flanged wheels with rubber on them, that ran
on the track. Above was a platform on which were two stationary bicycles
side by side. The riders treadled the bicycles and the two chains that
pulled the two rear wheels and were connected with two small wheels on
the axle of the car, drove the car, so it ran nicely on the track. We
had a grand time going back and forth to Silverton on it.”

Marion A. Speer, a lad from Texas, went to work in the spring of 1904 as
a nipper on the railroad which was building from Eureka to Animas Forks.
His job was to carry heavy tools such as drills and picks from the
blacksmith shop to the drilling and blasting crews, and the dull ones
back. The work was very hard but he had to have the money if he expected
to go to the Colorado School of Mines, which was his intention. One day
Wigglesworth, his boss, came to him and told him he’d have to let him go
as the work was too heavy for him. Marion, then, proceeded to “bawl his
eyes out”. When Wigglesworth found out the reason he not only took him
back but hired a Mexican boy to help him.

The construction outfit used Engine 3 which was brand new that year, was
very powerful and a beauty and was called “Gold Prince” after the mine
at Animas Forks. That piece of railroad was completed in the fall except
for sidings which were laid the next year.

Young Speer worked at the Silver Lake mill for several summers and often
got to ride in Engine 100; he also went to Gladstone in the 34 and was
on the S. N. coach, the Animas Forks, when it turned over the first
time. The track still lay to Albany in 1907 for a train took a bunch of
picnickers, of which he was one, down that way and let them off.

The railroad workers, among whom was Speer, ate at the Silver Wing
(Condit) boarding house, and they were lolling around outside one
evening in June of 1904 when a terrific explosion took place at the
Toltec blacksmith shop, directly across the river, about 200 feet away.
Debris of all descriptions peppered the boarding house.

The Silverton _Standard_ reported the event thus:

_An Awful Explosion_—“Three men, Percy Kemper, Edward Crane and L. W.
Lofgren, were killed last Sunday night about ten o’clock by a powder
explosion at the Toltec Tunnel of the Sioux Mining Company, located
above Eureka near the mouth of Picayune Gulch.

“Kemper and Crane were literally blown to pieces, parts of their bodies
being found in different places, 300 and 400 yards from the scene of the
explosion. The blacksmith shop was, of course, demolished. When the
sound of the explosion brought others to the scene, Lofgren was still
alive, but he died on the way to Silverton. The remains of the other two
unfortunate men were brought to this city Monday afternoon.

“Lofgren, it seems, had been working behind a metal mine car which
absorbed much of the force of the explosion. This accounts for the fact
that Lofgren was not killed outright.

“At the coroner’s inquest held Monday a verdict was returned that the
three men came to their deaths by and through carelessness in heating
powder.

“The largely attended triple funeral was held Wednesday afternoon under
the auspices of the Miner’s Union of which all three of the deceased
were members in good standing, the local Odd Fellows, however, turning
out in honor of their deceased brother, Lofgren. Reverend Shindler
preached the funeral sermon.”

Vest Day reports that his survey crew helped pick up the pieces of the
bodies the next morning and put them into nail kegs.

Mr. Meyer, the locomotive engineer on the construction crew, claimed the
Indians would stop work on almost any pretext but especially to chase
ground hogs. Mears decided to put a stop to such foolishness and hired
25 white kids and supplied them with rifles to kill the animals. It
didn’t help much because when they were out of the way the Indians could
find plenty of other excuses to dawdle.

Mr. Arthur Ridgway stated that when he came to the S. N. in October of
1904 work was still going on under the supervision of Marshall B. Smith,
Mears’s son-in-law, with Navajo labor. Operation of the line began the
next Spring after the snow went off.

In 1905 Mr. Ridgway surveyed and built a branch from Howardsville up
Cunningham Gulch to the Green Mountain and Old Hundred mines, which
added 1.3 miles of railroad to the system. The S. N. must have been in
financial straits at this time for Mears had to raise money in New York
to pay interest on the bonds.

This railroad went north from Silverton as did the other two. The
termini of the S. R. and S. N. were not much more than six air miles
apart with the S. G. & N. in between. Animas Forks is at the foot of
Mineral Point. One may ride out on the top of Mineral Point, as this
writer has done and see the waters divide, the Uncompahgre going to the
north and the Animas to the south. Mears never got the courage to build
a railroad up there as first projected nor on to Lake City.

During the year ending June 30, 1905 the railroad carried 31,433
passengers and 43,349 tons of freight. The Manual or Guide lists for
1905, two engines, for 1909, three and for 1911, two. One or two
passenger cars, one or two baggage and several freight cars were
claimed. It should be remembered that equipment was interchanged between
these little lines and was also borrowed from the D. & R. G.

The S. N. used or acquired S. R. Engines 100 and 1. Then it bought an
old one from the D. & R. G, which it numbered 2, but it was of such
little good it was soon scrapped. Mears bought the 3 new in 1904 and the
4 new in 1906, both Baldwins of the 76 class. In 1910 the S. N. leased
and in 1915 bought the S. G. & N. and got its engines, the 32, 33 and
34. Numbers 100, 32 and 33 were scrapped between 1909 and 1912 but 1 was
still in use in 1916 for it is shown in the picture of the zinc train
that was running at that time. All four of those just noted sat for a
number of years in the boneyard at Silverton. Numbers 3 and 4 were used
on the snow bucking because 34 was too large for the plow.

Mears could always think up something novel and smart. He had already
put out the silver and gold passes and had devised the railroad bicycle
but now he wanted to do something special in the way of a passenger
coach for this run. He bought an old narrow gauge sleeper from the D. &
R. G., that had been used on the run from Pueblo via Salida to Alamosa
after 1890 and is thought to have been one of those that came to Durango
and Silverton From ’81 to ’83. He had it painted a bright green, put the
words in gold, “Silverton Northern Railroad” over the windows and named
it the “Animas Forks”. It had four upper and four lower berths on each
side, half as many as a modern sleeper has. It was different also in
that the berths had wooden slat bottoms instead of solid metal as we
know them. Ten feet or less at one end was walled off for a kitchen
while 20 feet or more was equipped with seats and tables. There was a
menu card, lengthy and beautifully printed, and a liquor list to delight
a connoisseur. Of course a porter was present to administer the drinks.

The engine _pushed_ the cars from Eureka to Animas Forks. It would not
have done to have had them behind for, if a coupling had broken, the
brakes would not have been able to hold them on such a steep grade and a
runaway and wreck would have resulted. As, at first, there was no way of
turning at Animas Forks the engine had to back down _pulling_ the cars,
a decidedly risky business. A turntable was desperately needed and so,
in 1906 or ’07, Mears used certain parts of the one at Corkscrew Gulch
to complete the one he was building at Animas Forks. Then the engine
could turn and, by setting the cars on a spur, could get ahead and keep
them from running away. Before starting they tested the brakes most
thoroughly; then the brakeman stayed on top of the cars clubbing them
all the way down. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when they got
stopped at Eureka.

They generally hauled a car of coal and an empty or a coach up and three
cars of ore down. The biggest load ever taken up was a car of coal and a
car of cement. Speed from Silverton to Eureka was ten miles per hour but
from Eureka to Animas Forks, four miles, and the same on the return
trips.

The Stoiber brothers had developed the Silver Lake mine in Arastra Gulch
and built the mill at the mouth of the gulch; later Ed took over the
mine and Gus the mill. Mr. and Mrs. Ed built a home they called Waldheim
which, because of its size—ball room, game rooms, etc.—and its fine
construction and expensive furnishings, became known as the “Mansion”.
There they entertained most lavishly, often passing out expensive party
or dinner favors. (The author acquired one of them—a beautifully
engraved solid silver dinner spoon.)

The madam undertook a good part of the management of the mine herself,
sometimes all of it, and was capable of subduing the most obstreperous
miner who ever landed there. She was the lady who, to spite her
neighbors, built the tall fence around her place in Silverton.

They left Silverton about 1904 and, after Stoiber died, the madam
erected a fine home in Denver, surrounding it with a fence. She had one
husband before Stoiber and two others afterwards but no one knows for
sure what became of them. Her last home was a villa in Italy where she
died. A large fortune was left behind which is still being handed down
to heirs of heirs.

Mears signed a contract with the Gold Prince mine at Animas Forks, to
haul its ore to Silverton over the winter of 1906-07. Therefore, it was
necessary to prepare against the vicious snow slides between Eureka and
Animas Forks. He decided to build several heavily timbered snow sheds
and anchor them in rock in the hillsides. The first, 500 feet long, at a
bad place near the Silver Wing boarding house, not far from Eureka, was
completed in October. A slide that winter smashed it and dumped it into
the Animas River Canon. Mears gave up on snow sheds.

On March 24, 1906 concussion, which is the rush of air at the edges of a
slide, did great damage to the Green Mountain mill in Cunningham Gulch
and killed the mine foreman. It also destroyed several S. N. cars. At
the same time a slide demolished the boarding house at the Shenandoah
mine and killed twelve men.

Near Animas Forks two men were asleep in the same bed. One was thrown
toward the center of the room and carried away while the other was
thrown toward the wall and was saved. In the same season two men were
killed at the Robert Bonner mine near Burro Bridge on the S. R.

These are only samples of slides that happened nearly every winter.
Often bodies, frozen stiff, were recovered from slides and stood against
the handiest wall.

One summer a request came to Silverton for a great quantity of
columbines for some national convention that was to be held in Denver. A
“Columbine Special” train was run from Silverton to Animas Forks for the
purpose of procuring them. Mears donated the use of the train, railroad
men donated their services and townspeople donated their time. They
gathered what they estimated to be 25,000. A hardware man supplied
washtubs in which the flowers were packed and shipped. They went out of
Silverton on flat cars but were transferred to box cars at Alamosa. The
columbines reached Denver and were displayed in front of the Denver Post
building.

The Pullman was in a couple of wrecks, the first in the summer of 1908.
New rail was being laid and hadn’t, in one place, been spiked. Meyer was
the engineer and was pulling a train of three coaches going south when
the accident happened near Silver Lake, two miles out of Silverton. The
engine and one coach went over the rail all right but the next coach
caught on it, turned over and took the Pullman with it. When Conductor
Hudson came along getting people out he found one woman with her head
and shoulders completely through a window on the under side. The car had
lit on a couple of ties, which held it up, preventing her from being
crushed. Only her hat was knocked off. When settlements were made the
worst casualty was found to be a box of peaches for which the owner
asked and received 75 cents.

Another time, about 1911, a train was going north when, near Waldheim,
the Pullman, which had too long a wheelbase for curves, gave a swing and
the top part left the trucks, flopping over and taking a coach with it.
Booker was the engineer this time, Hudson, the conductor and Ruble, the
fireman. When they arrived they found the dust so thick they could
scarcely see or breathe. Ruble and Hudson walked along on the sides of
the coaches pulling people out of the windows. They came to Mrs. William
Terry securely fastened and soon found the trouble—her skirt was caught
between a rock and the side of the coach. Ruble used his pocket knife to
cut a piece out of the back. The poor fellow, easily embarrassed anyway,
never heard the end of cutting off the lady’s skirt.

How Mrs. Terry remembers it:

“It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer time and the train was full
of people going home from Silverton. In the Pullman everybody was
talking and joking and having a good time. Suddenly the car gave a flop
over on one side and everything was confusion. I was thrown against the
slats of the berth and got several bumps on the head. I grabbed a
handful of willows out the window which pulled through my hand leaving
green streaks that lasted for days. My skirt was caught at the back and
someone cut a chunk out of it. It had been jerked loose from the waist
anyway so it came off. But those were the days when women wore
petticoats and I had a nice one of iridescent taffeta, that rustled and
had reams of ruffles.

“Broken glass had flown in every direction and many people had cuts. One
woman who had on a white dress came up to me and asked me if her hat was
on straight. I told her it was but that she had better look at her
dress. The whole front of it was covered with other people’s blood.
Passengers sat on the hill waiting for a train to come for them.
Everybody was very excited and upset. The porter went around offering
drinks to help settle our nerves but I didn’t take any. Cuts and bruises
were the worst damages. The injured were loaded in a box car and taken
to the hospital.

“My garb was a towel around my head, the coat of my just-past beautiful
new plaid suit and the rustling ruffled petticoat. The suit, of course,
was ruined as a skirt to match could not be obtained. I never got any
damages, either, because I was riding on a pass. I lost two combs, too,
that had real gold trimming.”

The Pullman had made its last trip. It was pulled into the D. & R. G.
yards at Silverton where it sat for a while, was gradually dismantled
and finally burned. W. L. Bruce of Durango, about 1920, took some parts
of the doors and door casings and some of the slats of the berths—all
beautiful cherry wood—and made a porch swing.

A picture of the front part of the zinc or “Zinc Special” train of World
War I years is shown herein. A newspaper called the first shipment of
ten cars “the largest ever made in Colorado.” Zinc with copper made the
brass that was used in shells. A train of ten carloads of rich
concentrates was shipped about once a week from the Sunnyside mill at
Eureka, was picked up by the D. & R. G. at Silverton and transported to
a smelter at Pueblo in 48 hours.

The Terry family, owners of the famous Sunnyside mine, the biggest
shipper on the D. & R. G., was dickering with the U. S. Smelting and
Refining Company regarding the sale of the mine and chartered a train
for the use of those coming to investigate. A group of eastern
capitalists—seven of them millionaires—accompanied by mining engineers,
clerks, servants etc., made the trip in January or 1917. The train was
the D. & R. G. president’s narrow gauge special, thought to be the only
one of its kind in existence. The cars were beautifully finished and
furnished. It was so outstanding and unique as to have been exhibited at
the World’s Fair at San Francisco in 1915.

Snow was pretty deep. Much good stuff was on the train and the crew got
slightly befuddled. Just at the north end of Silverton the coupling back
of the engine came loose and the engineer went several miles before he
noticed he had lost the train. He did some quick thinking and plowed the
track on to Eureka. When he came back he told everybody that the snow
was so deep he thought it better to go ahead and clear the line and then
come back and get the train.

The outfit parked at Eureka for about a week while officials and
engineers made a thorough investigation of the Sunnyside which, a few
months later, resulted in the sale of the mine. On the way back to
Durango the train, called the “Million Dollar Special”, was wrecked
about a mile south of Rockwood. The engine and the three coaches turned
over. Nobody was seriously hurt but two of the cars caught fire from the
cookstove and completely burned.

In February 1906, three passenger trains on week days and two on Sundays
ran between Silverton and Eureka. In 1913 a train, running six days per
week, left Silverton at 8:30 A.M. and arrived at Eureka at 9:15, left
Eureka at 10:15 and arrived in Silverton at 11:00. In 1919 and ’20 a
schedule as follows was in operation: leave Silverton at 8:00 A.M. for
Eureka, back at 10:00, leave for Joker Tunnel on the S. R. at 10:00,
back at 2:00; leave for Eureka at 3:00, back at 5:00;—two trips to
Eureka and one to Joker Tunnel seven days per week.

Though there seems to have been no scheduled service in 1923, at least
the track was still lying and trains must have been run as needed. This
period, it should be remembered, was one of hard times following World
War I.

              SILVERTON NORTHERN
            Official Roster, 1923

    0.   Silverton                     9,300
    1.   Power
    2.   Waldheim
    3.   Robin
    3.2  Collins
    4.7  Howardsville
    0.   Howardsville
    1.1  Old Hundred
    1.3  Green Mountain
    6.2  Hamlet
    7.4  Minnie Gulch
    8.5  Eureka                       10,000
         Astor
         Lion Tunnel
   12.5  Animas Forks                 11,200

The branch to Green Mountain operated only a short time because the
mines up that way turned out to be poor producers. The part from Eureka
to Animas Forks is claimed never to have paid expenses and soon quit
regular operation though occasional trains ran up there until sometime
in the twenties. Mears offered the right-of-way to the county if it
would take up the track, which it did, and Mr. Meyer hauled the junk
down in 1936.[4] Like the S. R., it was a road to begin with and ended
up by being one again.

The section from Silverton to Eureka revived and lasted the longest of
any of the three little railroads. Ore was shipped over it from the
Sunnyside mine and mill until 1939 when the mine closed down because of
a miner’s strike.

In the summer of 1942 the property was advertised for sale for $17,000
in delinquent taxes. Mrs. Cora Pitcher, Mears’s daughter, sold it to the
Dullen Steel Products Company and paid the taxes. This company shipped
the shop equipment, rails and rolling stock out in October.

The United States had, after it became involved in war with Japan,
established military bases in Alaska. The railroad there, the White Pass
and Yukon, needed more motive power and the government requisitioned the
three locomotives, the 3, 4, and 34. There, so R. E. Cooper states, they
were re-numbered to 22, 23 and 24, respectively. In 1947 word was
received from the War Surplus Board and the W. P. & Y. Ry. that twelve
engines—7 D. & R. G., 2 C. & S. and 3 S. N.—had been received by the
Alaska Railroad but when Diesel power was obtained there, all except No.
34 (24) were returned to Seattle to M. Block & Co., a junking outfit.
The last known of the 34, it was sitting in the railroad yards at
Skagway, Alaska, in a state of dismantlement.

In 55 years, 1887 to 1942, the three little Silverton railroads started,
prospered, declined and perished and nothing, unless one considers still
discernible roadbeds and rotting ties, remains to attest their
existence. No equipment except one coach, which is scarcely recognizable
as such, has survived. A few little relics such as small amounts of
paper material, a goodly number of pictures and S. R. buckskin, silver
and gold passes have survived and they are scattered from one end of the
United States to the other. Pathetic mementos they are, for agents that
played such a large part in the life and prosperity of their community.




                        THE FOLLOWING PAGES....
    Views and Documents of Narrow Gauge Railroading in the San Juan
                               Mountains.


    [Illustration: PLATE XXI.
    TRANS.AM.SOC.CIV.ENGRS.
    VOL. XXIII. N^o. 450
    GIBBS ON
    SILVERTON RAILROAD.
    Silverton
    RAILROAD
    1888]

    [Illustration: The two levels of track at Chattanooga Loop.
                                                (_Violight Productions_)]

    [Illustration: The first train to Red Mountain with Mears beside the
    engine pilot.
                                               (_Denver Public Library_)]

    [Illustration: The Chattanooga Loop.
                                                         (_C. W. Gibbs_)]

    [Illustration: Passengers transferring from the train to the stage
    at Red Mountain.
                                                        (_R. A. Ronzio_)]

    [Illustration: The two levels of track approaching Corkscrew Gulch.
                                                         (C. W. _Gibbs_)]

    [Illustration: Ironton and the turntable
                                             (_U. S. Geological Survey_)]

    [Illustration: The Yankee Girl mine buildings.
                                         (_Colo. State Historical Soc._)]

    [Illustration: The track to Albany in the foreground.
                                             (_U. S. Geological Survey_)]

    [Illustration: Red Mountain—The small round hill was called “The
    Knob.”
                                         (_Colo. State Historical Soc._)]

    [Illustration: Red Mountain—Depot at right. National Belle mine on
    the hillside. Jail over the heads of the men.
                                                          (_Ray Cooper_)]

    [Illustration: A snow-bucking train and the Red Mountain depot.
                                               (_Denver Public Library_)]

    [Illustration: Rio Grande Southern Engine 5 on lease to the S. R.,
    at Summit.
                                               (_Denver Public Library_)]

    [Illustration: The Corkscrew turntable.]

    [Illustration: The dismantled turntable in 1958.
                                                      (_F. S. Cummings_)]

    [Illustration: S. G. & N. bond
                                                      (_David Lavender_)]

                           STATE OF COLORADO
                       United States of America.
                 FIRST MORTGAGE SIX PER CENT GOLD BOND
       The Silverton, Gladstone _and_ Northerly Railroad Company.

    [Illustration: Silver Lake mill at Waldheim
                                                   (_Silverton Variety_)]

    [Illustration: Mogul mill at Gladstone
                                                    (_John B. Marshall_)]

    [Illustration: Old Hundred mill on the S. N.
                                                    (_John B. Marshall_)]

    [Illustration: Eureka and the Sunnyside mill
                                                   (_Silverton Variety_)]

    [Illustration: Pushing cars up to Animas Forks.
                                                    (_Morris W. Abbott_)]

    [Illustration: Gold Prince mill at Animas Forks
                                                   (_Silverton Variety_)]

    [Illustration: The Gold King mill at Gladstone.
                                                    (_Morris W. Abbott_)]

    [Illustration: A passenger train on the S. G. & N.]

    [Illustration: Silverton Smelter on Cement Creek.
                                                    (_Morris W. Abbott_)]

    [Illustration: Green Mountain mill on the S. N.
                                                    (_John B. Marshall)_]

    [Illustration: Silverton
                                                 (_Colo. State Highway_)]

    [Illustration: Columbine day at Silverton.
                                                     (_Mrs. Louis Puls_)]

    [Illustration: The Silver Lake mill and cables to the Shenandoah
    mill.
                                                    (_John B. Marshall_)]

    [Illustration: S. G. & N. coach No. 2
                                                         (_John Keller_)]

    [Illustration: The zinc train.
                                                      (_Mrs. Wm. Terry_)]

    [Illustration: Engine 34 at Silverton.
                                                        (_Lad G. Arend_)]

    [Illustration: Engines 3 and 4 at Silverton.
                                                        (_R. H. Kindig_)]

    [Illustration: Train entering a snow cut in the S. N.
                                                        (_Joe Dresbach_)]

    [Illustration: Bucking snow with Engine 4 on S. N.
                                                        (_Edward Meyer_)]

    [Illustration: Engine 4 turned over into the Animas River.
                                                        (_Edward Meyer_)]

    [Illustration: Silver filigree, 2.7 by 1.5 inches
                                                         (_C. W. Gibbs_)]

    [Illustration: Silver Plate, 3.65 by 2.2 inches.
                                                    (_Morris W. Abbott_)]

    [Illustration: Gold filigree, 2.5 by 1.4 inches
                                                       (_F. C. Krauser_)]

    [Illustration: Buckskin, 4.05 by 2.6 inches.
                                                    (_Morris W. Abbott_)]

    [Illustration: Fob or medallion, silver or gold, for 1890, 1.5 by
    1.2 inches
                                                       (_Josie M. Crum_)]

    [Illustration: Commutation coupons on the S. N. These came in
    booklets and one was torn out for each trip.]

    [Illustration: Bill of Fare]

                             Bill of Fare
                      SILVERTON NORTHERN R. R. CO
                          _Car_: Animas Forks
                                                         Dolls. Cts.
                                SOUPS

 ◯Chicken 25c           ◯Vegetable 25c        ◯Oxtail 25c
 ◯Clam Chowder 25c      ◯Clam Juice 25c       ◯Tomato 25c
 ◯Mock Turtle 25c       ◯Mulligatawny 25c     ◯Chicken Gumbo 25c
 ◯Julienne 25c          ◯Consomme 25c

                                FISH

 ◯Norway Mackerel 50c   ◯Russian Caviar 50c   ◯Smoked Sardines 35c
 ◯Kippered Herring 50c  ◯Bismark Herring 50c  ◯Boneless Sardines 50c

                                BEEF

 ◯Chili Concarne 50c    ◯Roast Beef 50c       ◯Vienna Sausage 50c
 ◯Lunch Tongue 50c      ◯Boochout Bacon 25c   ◯Yacht Club Beef 50c
 ◯Boned Chicken 50c     ◯Chicken Tamales 50c  ◯Liebig Beef 50c
 ◯2 Boiled Eggs 25c

                           BREAKFAST FOOD

 ◯Quaker Oats 25c       ◯Egg O’See 25c        ◯Shredded Wheat 25c

                             VEGETABLES

 ◯Baked Beans 35c       ◯Corn on Cob 25c      ◯Peas 25c
 ◯Asparagus Tips 25c    ◯Hominy 25c           ◯Banquet Corn 25c
 ◯Macaroni and Cheese 25c

                        PUDDINGS _and_ FRUITS

 ◯Plum Pudding 25c      ◯Stuffed Olives 25c   ◯Plain Olives 25c
 ◯Apricots 25c          ◯Peaches 25c          ◯Apricot Preserves 25c
 ◯Marrach. Cherries 25c ◯Currant Jelly 25c    ◯Marmalade 25c
 ◯Pear Preserves 25c    ◯Raspberry Preserves 25c

                              RELISHES

 ◯Tomatoes 25c          ◯Mushrooms 25c

                  CHEESE _and_ BENT WATER CRACKERS

 ◯McClaren Cheese 25c   ◯Roquefort Cheese 25c ◯Chow Chow 15c
 ◯Shelled Pecans 25c

                             SANDWICHES

 ◯Caviar 25c            ◯Sardines 25c         ◯Tongue 25c
 ◯Tea 15c               ◯Coffee 15c           ◯Milk 15c
 ◯Cream 25c             ◯Biscuits and Butter 10c extra
 Bread and Butter supplied with all meals
 ◯Wines and Cigars
 A separate check must be issued to each passenger.
 No check issued for less than twenty-five cents to each person.
 _No._ 1982                                                  _Total_
 NOTE: Parties are requested when ordering to make a cross at each
 individual item ordered, thus Ⓧ
 ¶Please report any complaints to the office

    [Illustration: Wine List]

                        Wine List
              SILVERTON NORTHERN RAILROAD CO
                    Car: Animas Forks
                                             Dolls. Cts.
                         LIQUORS

  Private Stock Whiskey           per drink        $ .20
  Greenbrier Bourbon Whiskey      per drink          .20
  Scotch Whiskey                  per drink          .20
  Holland Gin                     per drink          .20
  Burke’s Ale                     per pint           .40
  Burke’s Stout                   per pint           .40
  Benedictine                     per drink          .25
  Green Chartreuse                per drink          .25

                          WATERS

  Manitou Water                   per quart        $ .35
  Ginger Ale                      per quart          .50
  Red Raven Splits                per half-pint      .20

                          WINES

  Mumm’s Extra Dry                per pint         $2.50
  White Seal Champagne            per pint          2.50
  Chateau Blanc Wine              per pint           .75
  LaRose Wine                     per pint          1.25
  Grave’s Wine                    per pint           .75
  Imported Sherry                 per quart         2.50
  Imported Port                   per quart         2.50
  Saarbuch Steinwein Wine         per pint          1.25
  Liebfraumilch Wine              per pint          1.50
  Sparkling Burgundy              per pint          1.50
  California Port                 per pint          1.25
  Cigars and Cigarettes
                                                 _Total_

    [Illustration: MAP OF “AROUND THE CIRCLE” TOUR]

  The course of the traveler on the Denver & Rio Grande’s great “Around
  the Circle” tour is indicated by arrows. Start may be made from
  Denver, Colorado Springs or Manitou, or Pueblo. At Ridgway, on the
  western turn, the course divides. The traveler may follow the arrows
  by the outer, “All Rail,” route; or he may take the inner, “Rail and
  Stage,” denoted by the arrows and dots. When purchasing his ticket he
  has his choice, the “Circle” round-trip fare being the same in either
  case. The various side trips marked should not be neglected. For them
  special low rates are granted; the “Circle” ticket permits stop-overs.




                            ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


  Abbot, Morris W.—Contributor of reports and “Transactions” from the
          Yale Library
  Airy, Mrs. Percy—The story of entertaining Mears
  Baker, Bert—Data on the snowshed, the explosion and the snowslides
  Beaber, Ross—Publisher of the Silverton Standard—much assistance
  Camp, A. M.—A nephew of John L. McNeil who was an incorporator and
          secretary-treasurer of the S. R. and the R. G. S.—data
  Cooper, Ray—Silverton and S. R. history
  Cooper, R. E.—Data on engines
  Day, Vest—A member of the survey crew on the S. N.—data and stories
  Dresbach, Joe—An auditor and general superintendent of the S. N.—data
          and assistance
  Fischer, Robert A—Work on the S. R. map
  Ferguson, John—Information on the Meldrum and Treasury Tunnels
  Gibbs, Mr. and Mrs. Charles W.—Mr. Gibbs was Chief Engineer and
          builder of the S. R., part of the S. N. and most of the R. G.
          S.—data.
  Henry, Myron—Data concerning the S. R.
  Keenan, John—Information on the Meldrum and Treasury Tunnels
  Keller, John—Data on the Shay engine and a S. G. & N. coach
  Marshall, John—Data on the mines and history of the region and
          contributor of reports from the Los Angeles Library
  Meyer, Edward—A locomotive engineer on all three railroads and a
          superintendent of the S. N.—much information
  Railway and Locomotive Historical Society—Loan of the copyright of
          most of the material herein
  Ridgway, Arthur—General Superintendent of the Silverton Railway and
          the S. N. in 1904 and ’05. He was also Engineer and Chief
          Engineer for the D. & R. G. for about fifty years.
  Speer, Marion A.—A member of the construction crew on the S. N.—data
  Terry, John—His father and uncle were owners of the Sunnyside
          mine—data
  Terry, Mrs. William—Her husband was half-owner of the
          Sunnyside—stories
  Wampler, Harold—Loan of Mears letters
  Wigglesworth, William—Constructor of the Boston Coal and Fuel Co.
          line—data concerning his father, Thomas Wigglesworth




                               Footnotes


[1]The mileages used are from the R. L. Kelly survey of 1892.

[2]Mr. Gibbs died at 89½ years of age as a result of a fall. His wife,
    nearing 94 years old, is still alive.

[3]Mr. McNeil established most of the pioneer banks in Southwestern
    Colorado.

[4]The little turntable sat for some years in the yards of the county
    garage in Durango.


    [Illustration: Map]




                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Transcribed some text within images.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.







End of Project Gutenberg's Three Little Lines, by Josie Mary Moore Crum