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.