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.