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.