road, at the site of Littleton, and which was the immediate cause of the
founding of that town, in June, 1872. The road-bed for this line, whieli
had been located in 1873, and was some sixteen miles in length, was graded
in the spring of 1873, but no track ever was laid upon it. The financial
disturbances of that year caused the Colorado Central Company to suspend
construction, whicli was not resumed until the spring of 1877. The Golden-
Littleton grade, and the route of the Golden-Julesburg line beyond Long-
mont, now were abandoned. The main stem of the Central was extended
northward from Longmont, through Fort Collins, and on to a junction with
the Union Pacific, at a point about four miles west of Cheyenne, to which
it was finished in Xovember, of that year. One of the purposes in building
this line was further to star\'e the Denver Pacific by diverting Colorado
trafiic from it to the new road, which practically was a division of the
Union Pacific. The Clear Creek mountain-road was completed from Floyd
Hill to Georgetown in August, 1877; and its branch up the North Fork
of that stream to Central City was made ready for business in May, 1878.
The Kansas Pacific and the Denver Pacific had passed into the hands
of Eeceivers in 1874, in consequence of the discriminations of the Union
Pacific and effects of the panic of the previous 3-ear. In 1875, Jay Gould
and his associates, who had acquired control of the Union Pacific in 1873,
attempted to effect a consolidation of Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, Denver
Pacific, and Colorado Central interests, but were def€'ated by stockholders
of the Central — mainly by the commissioners of Colorado counties that held
Central stock received in exchange for bonds issued to aid in the construc-
tion of that road.
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 517
In the first half of the j'ear 1879, Gould and his clique obtained full
control of the Colorado Central, Denver Pacific, and Kansas Pacific lines.
For a year or two before, there had been a vigorous rate-war between the
Union Pacific and the Kansas and Denver Pacifies, and in which the last-
named two, previously weakened by their antagonist's persistent diversion
of through business from them to the limit of its ability to do so, had been
severely worsted. President Loveland withdrew from the Colorado Central
Company in Xovember, 1879, at whicli time it possessed 173 miles of com-
pleted railway. In that month, the Union Pacific Company leased the
Colorado Central's roads, and thereafter operated them as a part of its
sj'stem until the spring of 1890; and in January, 1880, the Union Pacific
Company absorbed the Denver Pacific and Kansas Pacific, the three becom-
ing one great system. In the years 1881-83, the expanded Union Pacific
Company, as lessee of the Central, built the "cut-off," from Julesburg to
La Salle, upon Loveland's old survey, and which was made to figure as a
division of the Central's system, although it had no rail connection of its
own with the other Central roads. The "Loop" line, an extension of the
Colorado Central from Georgetown to Graymont, and having a rail-distance
of eight and one-half miles, but which now terminates at Silver Plume,
was completed in June, 1884. It was the only achievement of the George-
town, Breckenridge & Leadville Eailway Company, a Union Pacific subor-
dinate corporation that had been formed to build a railway upon the route
indicated by its name.
All the mileage of the historic Colorado Central was merged into the
aggregation of roads that constituted the system of the Union Pacific,
Denver & Gulf Eailway Company, a dependency of the Union Pacific Com-
pany, and which was organized early in 1890. In that year this company
abandoned the Central's division from Fort Collins to Cheyenne and the
greater part — the Golden end — of the section between Golden and Boulder,
removing the rails from both. The new organization had f)rovided for a
direct entrance into Denver from Boulder by the acquisition of a road that
had been built Isetween those cities in 1886 by the Denver, Marshall &
Boulder Eailway Company.
Conspicuous among Colorado's successful early railway enterprises
was that of the Denver & Eio Grande Eailroad Company, incorporated and
organized in October, 1870, under the leadership of General William J.
Palmer, with provisions for $14,000,000 of capital stock. The plans of the
company anticipated a main line which, should extend southward from
Denver to El Paso, Texas, and there subsequently to connect with an allied
railway which its projectors contemplated building on to the City of Mexico
in later years. The Denver-El Paso line was to have lateral branches wher-
ever the development of the coimtry should require them.
However, the incorporators of the Denver & Eio Grande Company
were not the first projectors of a railway southward from Denver along
the eastern base of the mountains to the Mexican border, and thence to the
capital of Mexico. Such a road, as well as some local lines from Denver
into the southern parts of the Territory, had been proposed late in the
'60s. In January, 1868, the United States & Mexico Telegraph Company,
consisting of eight or ten citizens of Denver and two of towns in New
Mexico, and which had been organized about a year before, was reincor-
porated as the "Denver & Santa Fe Eailway & Telegraph Company," to
•518 HISTORY OF COLORADO
build a railway and a telegraph line from Denver to Santa Fe. The
telegraph line was completed in July of that year, but the organization
built no railway mileage. In the autumn of 1868, the members of this
company, together with some new associates who were citizens of Denver,
incorporated and organized the "United States & Mexico Railway Company"
for the ambitious purpose of building a railway from Denver to the City
of Mexico, and to extend the telegraph line from Santa Fe to the Mexican
capital. Negotiations with the Mexican Government in behalf of the under-
taking were opened ; but, as Mexico was not in a condition to give it any
aid, nothing was accomplished toward concluding a treaty of alliance.
The company had laid claim to a right of way out of Denver, upon which
some rather nominal work was done before the organization of the Denver
& Rio Grande Company. While John Evans and his associates were
striving to put the Denver Pacific Company's enterprise squarely upon its
feet, they were also planning the construction of other railways in Colorado.
Among these was the ]:irojiosed "Denver & Santa Fe Railroad," which was
to reach its southern terminus by way of Colorado City, Pueblo, and the
Raton Pass. Another was the projected "Denver, South Park & Rio Graude
Railroad," which was to cross the mountain valley of the Arkansas River
and enter the Eio Grande Valley by a route that is implied by the road's
name, and perhaps be extended into A'ew Mexico.
Aside from General Palmer, who had become a citizen of Colorado,
and A. C. Hunt, recently Governor of the Territory, the Denver & Rio
Grande's incorporators and directors were eastern men, by whom the bulk
of its capital was provided. The company adopted the narrow-gauge type
of railway, which at that time was coming into favor in many of the
eastern States. Beyond the grant of a right of way through public lands
along its line the organization received no Federal assistance, as the Con-
gressional policy of aiding railway companies then was beginning to go out
of fashion. The work of grading the Denver & Rio Grande began at Denver
in March, 1871; and track-laying was started on July 37th, following.
The rails reached the locality of Colorado City, seventy-five miles distant,
on October 21st, when regular trains were put upon the line. The road
was finished to Pueblo, 119 miles from Denver, at the end of June, 1872;
the citizens of Pueblo County having in the meantime voted in favor of
trading their county's bonds to the sum of $200,000 for a like amount of
the company's stock. Before the close of that year, a branch was built from
Pueblo into the coal-field adjacent to the site of the present town of Flor-
ence. Excepting the extension of this branch on to Canon City, eight
miles farther west, in 1875, and for which Fremont County exchanged
bonds in the sum of $50,000 for an equal sum of Rio Grande stock, the
Company's construction-work rested until 1876, in which year the line
southward from Pueblo was built to the town of El Moro, near Trinidad,
a distance of eighty-seven miles; and to this was added a branch, about
twenty-two miles in length, from Cuchara to La Veta.
Nearly all the trackage that constitutes the present net-work system
of the Denver & Rio Grande in Colorado was constructed within fifteen
years thereafter, in which period the main line became a transmontane
instead of the north-and-south trunk railway to the border of Mexico that
was contemplated by the original design. As the mineral and agricultural
resources of the parts of the State now covered by its system were revealed.
HISTORY OF COLORADO 519
raihvay-bnilclins; into them followed immediately. Among the more impor-
tant construction in that period was the extension of the Pueblo-Cafion City
branch to Leadville, which was completed in August, 1880. The mountain
line westward from Salida, by way of Gunnison, Montrose, and Grand Junc-
tion, reached the Colorado-Utah boundary on December 19, 1883. An allied
corporation, the Rio Grande Western Railway Company, formed a few
years before, and which had acquired control of a narrow-gauge road in
operation from Salt Lake City southeastward to Clear Creek, Utah, in the
meantime had extended that road to the Colorado boundary, where it was
connected with the Denver & Rio Grande's track. This junction completed
a narrow-gauge route from Denver, by way of Pueblo, to Salt Lake City;
and in 1883 it was extended to Ogden. The Denver & Rio Grande Company
operated it until the autumn of 1884, when the Rio Grande Western Com-
pany, having leased the Denver & Rio Grande's track west of Grand
Junction, took active charge of its road together with the rented mileage
in connection with the Denver & Rio Grande, at Grand Junction. This
arrangement was continued until several years ago, when the lines of the
Rio Grande Western were merged into the Denver & Rio Grande's system
and the former corporation ceased to exist. About that time, the Denver &
Rio Grande Company and all its properties became controlled by the
Missouri Pacific interests, which continue in command of the system, and
have built the "Western Pacific Railway," between Salt Lake City and San
Francisco. In connection with this new road the main line of the Denver
& Rio Grande forms a part of another transcontinental steel highway.
The Santa Fc division of the Denver & Rio Grande was finished from
Antonito, Colorado, to Espanola, New Mexico, in December, 1880 ; and was
opened to Santa Fe in 1886 by a subordinate organization. The more im-
portant of the company's recent extensions is a road of standard gauge
from our city of Durango to the town of Farmington^in northwestern New
Mexico. Until 1881, all of the Denver & Rio Grande's tracks were of the
narrow gauge. The addition of the standard gauge by means of a third
rail was begun in that year, and which was first made upon the division
between Denver and Pueblo. Since that time the work has been continued
at intervals, and at present the standard gauge extends over about three-
fourths of the system's mileage. The narrow gauge now has been eliminated
from these parts, leaving it only upon minor lines in the mountains.
The Union Pacific Company's adverse policy in relation to the Denver
Pacific and Kansas Pacific companies had become so harrassing by the
close of the year 1871 that the latter were driven to consideration of means
by which they might be placed in a stronger position. For this purpose,
they concluded that they should build a railway of standard gauge west-
ward from Denver into Utah and thence to' a connection with the Central
Pacific. In order that executive authority over the two worried roads
should be lodged in one management, President John Evans and most of
the other Denver officers of the Denver Pacific resigned at the beginning
of March, 1872. Evans was succeeded by Robert E. Carr, who was also
President of the Kansas Pacific, which now took full control of the Denver
Pacific and operated it. About a week later, the "Denver, Georgetown and
Utah Railway Company" was incorporated and organized by the interests
now in command of the allied roads, with Carr as President. This com-
pany's line was to be built from Denver, by way of Mount Vernon Canon,
5-20 HISTORY OF COLORADO
to Idaho and Georgetown, and thence into Utah upon the wagon-route that
E. L. Berthoud had surveyed some ten j'ears before. It was also to have
a branch from Idaho to Central City, and a division extending northwesterly
from Denver, through the Boulder County coal-field, and on, by way of
Boulder Cit}', into the Middle and North parks. In April, of that year.
Clear Creek Count}-, having lo.«t faith in the ability of the Colorado Central
Company to construct its Clear Creek road to Georgetown, voted bonds to
the amount of $200,000 to aid the new enterprise; and Arapahoe County
voted $100,000 in bonds for the same purpose in the following Xovember.
However, these bonds were not issued, as the Denver, Georgetovni & Utah
proposition collapsed under the financial pressure of 1873 and was blown
away by the monetary gale of that year.
In the meantime, the group of Denver men who had been the leaders
in the work of promoting and constructing the Denver Pacific road, but
now had parted largely, if not wholly, from their financial interests in it,
had organized an independent company to build a railway westward from
their city. In consequence of the active operations of the Denver & Rio
Grande Company, they had now abandoned their earlier purpose to con-
stnict railways from Denver into the southern parts of the Territory, but
still had nursed the project for a road westward, in the interests of Denver,
as had been projjosed in their contract with Durant and Dillon, of the
Union Pacific, made in the spring of 1868 and cancelled about a year
later. But now they had even a greater undertaking in view. On Septem->
ber 30th (1873), they , incorporated the "Denver & South Park Railway
Company,'" with a capital stock of $2,000,000, and of which John Evans
was elected President, David H. Mott'at Vice President, George W. Kassler
Secretary, and Charles B. Kountze Treasurer. As the Colorado Central now
had occupied a part of the gorge of Clear Creek, the South Park Company^s
road, which was to b^of narrow gauge, was to enter the mountains by way
of the Bear Creek depression. It was to be built into the South Park
immediately, and ultimately to be extended across the Continental Divide
and thence west or southwest to the Pacific Coast — a most ambitious propo-
sition. The plan also anticipated that the construction of the Denver,
Georgetown & Utah Companj-'s road might begin on the South Park line
at a point near the head of Bear Creek, that company to use the South Park
road-bed from Denver to the junction. The relations of the Kansas Pacific
interests with those of the Union Pacific had moved from bad to worse,
and the former's need for a connection of its own with the Central Pacific
was becoming more acute month by month.
Further than some preliminary surveys, the original South Park Com-
pany accomplished nothing. It was reorganized in June, 1873, as the
"Denver, South Park & Pacific Railway Company," with authority for a
capital of $.5,000,000, by the same interests and under the same ofiBcers,
but without regard to the now uncertain project of the Denver, George-
town & Utah Company. In the next month the citizens of Arapahoe
County elected to exchange their county's bonds for $300,000 for a like
amount of the new company's stock, upon condition that its road be com-
pleted within nine months to the town of Morrison, which had been laid
out in October, of the previous year, at a railway distance of seventeen
miles from Denver. Through the agency of a construction company, which
was an inner wheel, the line was finished to Morrison on July 1, 1874 —
HISTORY OF COLORADO 531
a little later than the requirement specified. In the meantime the road's
course into the mountains had been changed. A route from what is now
Sheridan Junction, near the present southwestern limits of Denver, had
been located up the Soutli Platte River, and through its canon into the South
Park; and some grading had been done between Sheridan and the canon.
But the etfects of the financial panic in the previous autumn now compelled
the company to suspend construction.
It was not until two years had elapsed that preparations were made to
resume the construction of the South Park line. Financial conditions
having become easier, another inner-wheel construction-company was organ-
ized for that purpose in July, 1876. This corporation completed the road
from Sheridan Junction to Bailey's Ranch, on the Xorth Fork of the
South Platte, early in the summer of 1878. A third subordinate construc-
tion-company now took up the task of building it from Bailey's Ranch
into and through the South Park. Inspired by the developments in silver-
mining at Leadville, work was pushed with great vigor in the autumn of
1878 and in 1879 in a race to enter that district in advance of the Denver
& Rio Grande Company's extension of its Caiion City branch up the
mountain valley of the Arkansas, and which then was under construction.
In November, 1879, Jay Gould and his associates, who were now in com-
mand of the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, Denver Pacific, and the Colo-
rado Central, and had purchased a large interest in the South Park Com-
pany, bought at par practically all the rest of the latter's stock and took
possession of the corporation. The South Park road lost the race to
Leadville. In the autumn of 1880, it obtained an entrance into the great
"Carbonate Camp" by trackage privileges upon the Denver & Rio Grande
road, from Buena Vista. In 1883, Jay Gould and his party retired from
control of the group of western railways over which they had dominated
since the spring of 1879, leaving them bearing a huge burden of obligations.
In later years, the South Park line was connected with Leadville,
from Como, by way of Breckenridge ; the older division was extended from
Buena Vista into the Gunnison country, and some short branches were
built. In the hey-day of the Leadville "boom" the road did a heavy busi-
ness, but its later history is a story of disaster. Having been overburdened
by the Gould method of "financing," which was nothing more than legalized
piracy, it was sold under foreclosure, in July, 1889, and purchased by the
liolders of its bonds. These interests organized the "Denver, Leadville &
Gunnison Railway Company," transferred the property to this organization,
and shortly afterward made the road an appendage to the Union Pacific,
Denver & Gulf System, which, as I have mentioned heretofore, was formed
early in 1890, and which was collapsed by the panic of 1893. The South
Park lines, having some three hundred miles of track, and at present a
part of the Colorado & Southern System, still retains the narrow gauge.
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway entered the eastern border
of Colorado in the summer of 1873. The system of this corporation is the
outgrowth of one of the pioneer railway enterprises west of the Missouri
Ri\er — the "Atchison & Topeka Railroad Company," organized in Feb-
ruary, 1859, to build a road between the two Kansas towus signified in its
corporate name. This company, which had received a small land-grant,
was reorganized in JIarch, 1863, as the "Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railroad Company," with intentions to build a railway from Atchison to
523 HISTOBY OF COLORADO
Santa Fe. Congress increased its land-grant to about 3,000,000 acres,
hut the beginning of work upon the line was delayed for several years, when
control of the company passed to interests centered in the city of Boston.
These interests, having successfully opposed the Kansas Pacific Company's
southwestern project, and having received from Congress an additional
land-grant, of the usual dimensions, but which did not include any land
in Colorado, began active work in 1869. The road was completed to a
point on the Arkansas Biver, some thirteen miles west of the eastern boun-
dary of our State, and where the village of Granada now stands, early in
July, 1873. In consequence of the financial panic in the following autumn,
construction rested here for about two years, in which period Granada be-
came a lively cattle-shipping town.
Before resuming work, the Santa Fe Company asked for local assist-
ance in extending its road farther into Colorado, pleading its lack of a
land-grant in the Territory as one of the reasons why it should be so aided.
In response to this appeal, the people of Bent County, which then embraced
a much larger area than it does at the present time, gave the company $150,-
000 in county bonds for an equal sum of its stock ; and those of Pueblo
County made a like trade to the amount of $350,000, upon condition that
the road should be built to Pueblo City without undue delay. The proceeds
of these bonds were nearly equivalent to the cost of grading the road-bed to
Pueblo. The track reached La Jiinta in December, 1875, and was finished
to Pueblo and opened for traffic on March 1, 1876.
Construction of the Santa Fe's division that traverses southeastern
Colorado, from La Junta to Trinidad, and enters New Mexico by way of
the Raton Pass, was completed at the end of November, 1878. For several
years thereafter, and until the present tunnel was bored, the summit of the
Eaton Mountains was crossed by the "switch-back" method. The company
extended its Pueblo line to Canon City in 1878; and its division between
Pueblo and Denver was made ready for operation in October, 1887.
The Kansas Pacific Company was an intrvider in a part of the Santa
Fe's domain in Colorado for a few years. In 1873, it built a branch from
its main line, from the town of Kit Carson, in our present Cheyenne
Count}', to West Las Animas, which in one sense was the predecessor of the
modern Las Animas, the county seat of Bent County. This branch, which
was the beginning of what was intended to be an extension of the Kansas
Pacific to the Pacific Coast, was completed to West Las Animas in October
of that year; and in tlie autumn of 1875 it was extended to La Junta. As
the Kansas Pacific Company became unable to proceed farther with the con-
struction of the road, and was forced forever to put aside its ambition to
build on to the Western Ocean, the entire line from Kit Carson to La
Junta was abandoned in the summer of 1878, its serviceable materials be-
ing reinoved for use elsewhere.
The Colorado division of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy System
was built early in the ''80s. The "Burlington & Missouri River Railroad
in Nebraska" had been completed from Plattsmouth to Kearny Junction
in September, 1873, by a Burlington corporation organized in May, 1869,
and which had a land-grant that terminated at the western end of that
section of road. An extension of this line through the southern part of
Nebraska reached the eastern boundary of Colorado in March, 1881. In
tht meantime, the "Burlington & Colorado Railroad Company" had been
HISTOKY OF COLORADO 523
formed by Burlington interests to continue the Nebraska road to Denver,
a work that was accomplished by the end of May, 1882. The Burlington
line from Holdredge, Nebraska, through northeastern Colorado and on to
Cheyenne, Wyoming, was built in 1885-87. In 1892, the Burlington Com-
pany bought the Denver, Utah & Pacific Railroad, of narrow gauge, extend-
ing northwesterly from Denver, by way of Longmont, to Lyons, Colorado,
and changed its gauge to the standard. It was believed at that time and
for some years afterward that the Lyons road was to be made a part of a
Burlington extension across northwestern Colorado to Salt Lake City;
but it still remains a local branch. Late in the decade of the '80s, the
Burlington Company expended a large sum of money in grading and
tunnelling in the depression drained by South Boulder Creek for a trans-
montane extension of its main line to Denver, but after working upon it