Turbulent history of railroad lives on in structures, memories

Turbulent history of railroad lives on in structures, memories

May 17, 2001

A WATER TOWER used by the Rio Grande Southern Railroad to help supply fuel to locomotives still stands in East Mancos. Other artifacts such as rusted railroad ties and trestles are also common in the area.

By Kevin Denke
Journal Intern

May is Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month in Colorado. The Journal is publishing weekly articles about the area’s past.

The roar of the locomotive rumbling through Mancos disappeared long ago. But an empty water tower still stands, a rusted metal railroad tie pops up occasionally and, if you look closely enough, you might see an old wooden structure hidden in the trees. They are the fading links to a different time when rails, not roads, ruled.

The Rio Grande Southern Railroad Line was built by Otto Mears in the1880s to reach booming mining towns like Telluride and Rico. Mears had started out making money by building toll roads.

The first train began operation in October 1890 from Ridgway to Placerville. The line from Durango reached East Mancos in April 1891.

The railroad was running full steam in the early 1890s but was hurt in 1893 when overproduction of silver caused prices to plummet. Panic ensued when the United States shifted from silver to the gold standard and hundreds of silver mines shut down overnight.

Traffic levels dropped and employees of the Rio Grande Southern saw pay cuts.

According to Bob Heyder, president of the Mancos Historical Society, Mears lost control of the Rio Grande Southern in the silver crash. By the mid 1890s, things were again looking up for RGS and a new depot was even built in Mancos in 1895.

Snow slides always seemed to hamper the lines. Trains were often stuck in the snow and would have to wait for other locomotives to come and help plow them out. If it wasn’t snow, it was floods and if it wasn’t floods, it was rock slides.

Fire was also a danger to the bridges of the RGS. Large sections of the line had to be rebuilt on various occasions.

Engineers accepted the risks associated with their journey through Southwest Colorado. Numerous fatalities occurred on the RGS lines over the years. In September 1919, a trestle gave way at Lightner Creek, outside of Durango, sending D&RG No. 217 into the creek and killing engineer Ralph Peake.

A telling sign of the inherent danger of travel over the Southern is evident in fireman Bob Parmenter’s account of a trip over the Ophir Loop in 1920.

"We went over Ophir Loop in the small hours of the morning. I will always remember that trip as it was my first run over the line. I knew that there had not been a bridge gang on the Southern for four or five years. No one knew for sure just how safe those bridges were," Parmenter recounted, as quoted in Sunset on the Rio Grande Southern, Volume I, by James Ehemberger.

"The bridges on the side of the cliff creaked and popped as only a wooden trestle can do in cold weather. I looked down 1000 feet into the valley and hoped the bridges lasted one more trip."

Still, the trains chugged on from Ridgway to Telluride, over Lizard Head Pass, on to Dolores through Mancos all the way to Durango. For over 60 years, through snowstorms, floods and bankruptcies, locomotives made the arduous 162-mile trip.

Changing times and money began to catch up with the railroad line in the mid 1900s. The last freight train made its way from Durango through Mancos in December 1951.

"Narrow-gauge wasn’t very fast," explains Heyder. "Trucks took a lot of traffic and the mines had pretty much shut down."

The remains of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad still dot the Southwestern landscape. Water towers, like the one still standing in East Mancos, helped provide the steam fuel that the locomotives needed to run. Many trestles still stand and old depots, like the one in Dolores, serve in other capacities such as houses and museums.

Some old bunkhouses that housed the railroad crews who serviced the tracks and locomotives are still around. The crews worked tirelessly to keep the railroad functioning.

"They were constantly tightening bolts and replacing rotted railroad ties," said Heyder. "Any railroad operation is pretty remarkable."

The pieces of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad are still there, sometimes hidden, serving as a quiet reminder to the rich railroad past of Southwest Colorado.