As has already been noted Engine 100 was purchased and put into service as soon as the railroad started operating.
The Rio Grande Southern Railroad bought a number of engines in both 1890 and ’91 and, as it was not yet in operation and did not need so many, it kept its sister railroad in supply. A record of those it loaned to the S. R. in 1892 is as follows:
No. 8—January 1 to April 12No. 5—July 7 to November 19No. 7—August 14 to September 2No. 6—September 2 to October 10No. 34—November 27 to December 31
No. 8—January 1 to April 12
No. 5—July 7 to November 19
No. 7—August 14 to September 2
No. 6—September 2 to October 10
No. 34—November 27 to December 31
A picture of No. 5 with a train at Summit may be found herein.
It has always been supposed that the Shay engine belonged originally to the Silverton Railroad but the Lima Locomotive Works’ records reveal that Mears bought it under his own name in the spring of 1890. It, as No. 269, was used on construction of the Rio Grande Southern throughout that year and the next.
It isn’t known how or when it got into the possession of the S. R. but it was with that company in the summer of 1892 and a picture of it on the lower leg of the turntable track exists. It seems to have been called both “Ironton” and “Guston” during this period. It was traded to the R. G. S. for the latter’s Engine 34 on November 27, 1892. (Note that the table above shows the 34 merely on loan. The trade date, however, is correct.)
Locomotive 34 was a Baldwin of the 56 class which had, before going to the R. G. S., belonged to both the D. & R. G. and the R. G. W. The S. R. numbered it “101” but several years later changed it to a mere “1”.
Red Mountain and Ironton became two flourishing towns with plenty of stores and all the appurtenances of civilization. In the eighties and early nineties Red Mountain had three newspapers. In 1890 it had a population of 598 while Ironton had 322. Even Chattanooga had a mill, some stores and 51 people. The locality was a beehive of activity as mines and mills were workingevery place. The hills were liberally sprinkled with houses, stores, mills, boarding houses, barns and mine buildings. An incendiary fire at Red Mountain on August 20, 1892 destroyed practically the whole town causing property damage estimated at $259,000. But nothing daunted these optimists. They immediately went about rebuilding it.
The transportation of supplies to the district—machinery, timbers for mines, lumber, living necessities, coal and feed for animals—must have been terrific for such little trains to handle. Return trains carried ore bound for the smelters at Silverton and Durango. A company in which Mears was interested built a smelter, the Standard, at Durango in 1889, to handle copper ore from the Red Mountain area but it did not prove a success. Eventually, in 1897, the property was sold and rased. The slag pile may still be seen just south of town.
Operation, not counting sharp curves and steep grades, was complicated. Turning facilities were numerous for such a short piece of railroad—Silverton, Sheridan Junction, Red Mountain, Corkscrew Gulch, Ironton and Albany. The Operation of the turntable has already been exhibited. It, very soon after completion, began having trouble with snow, and a long entrance shed was built to alleviate the condition. Each leg of the wye at Red Mountain would accommodate only two cars, and so the engine and baggage car went around it and hooked onto the other end of the coaches.
Four regular freights and probably an extra one or two operated. The company did not have enough engines or anything else for such traffic and so must have borrowed from the R. G. S. and the D. & R. G. Passenger business was only a sideline but Mears maintained the dignity of his little railroad by running daily, each way, two passenger trains, each with two or three coaches and baggage car. He charged 20c per mile straight and had all the riders he could handle.
Business had been very good, so good, in fact, that the Silverton Railroad had the reputation of being the best-paying for its size in the state. Mears even used profit from it to assist the R. G. S. which was not doing as well as had been expected.
An extension of the Silverton Railroad up the Animas River Valley had been considered for several years. It became a reality in 1893 when the two miles from Silverton to the Silver Lake mill at Waldheim were built. It was considered a part of the S. R. system, not a separate line.
The San Juan’s most common precious metal was silver. Others were gold, lead, zinc and copper. Trouble had been brewing for some time but when the government repealed the Sherman Silver Purchasing Act in 1893 a panic descended not only on the San Juan but on all of the United States.
All mining towns had, of course, boomed and were replete with hordes of promoters, prospectors, miners and hangers-on. Saloons, gambling joints and brothels flourished. Now, mines closed by the dozens and the populace departed. Many towns, especially the small ones, were practically deserted. Train operation came down to a mixed freight and passenger.
As some of Mears’ letters indicate, he was, after the panic, having a most difficult time in making ends meet. He gave up the Rio Grande Southern almost immediately and allowed it to go into receivership on the 2nd of August, 1893. He tried, however, to hang on to the Silverton Railroad but, as some of the letters reveal, he had to do a good deal of juggling with bonds, stocks and notes to stave off creditors.
In 1896 the company claimed 18.25 miles of track from Silverton to Albany, 3.75 miles of branches and .48 miles of spurs. In the same year it listed two locomotives, three combination cars, 36 box cars, one caboose and one “other”.
Even with the hard times Mears managed by borrowing to extend the railroad in 1896 from Waldheim to the Sunnyside mine at Eureka, another 6½ miles. This entire piece, Silverton to Eureka, he incorporated as the Silverton Northern. This railroad was justified as both the Silver Lake and Sunnyside mines carried a good deal of gold.
At the turn of the century the most talked of and anticipated event in the mining country was the Meldrum Tunnel which was to bore through the range west of Red Mountain town and connect with mines at Pandora near Telluride on the other side.
The tunnel was to be large enough to contain a railroad which was to connect the Silverton Railroad with the Rio Grande Southern at Pandora. This would have saved much mileage and would, except at the ends, have been free from snow.
Andrew Meldrum, a Scotchman, the originator of the project, raised money and started work in 1898. He left a point on the west side one and a half miles south of Pandora and drilled eastward until he had reached a depth of 1400 feet. Except for one joggle it was quite straight. At the same time he ran another tunnel westward from a point about one-half of a mile north of Joker Tunnel to a depth of 600 feet or more. Altogether he drilled about 1.6 miles on the west side and .6 mile on the east side. Finally, in 1900, with 3.4 miles yet to go, he ran out of money and had to abandon the project.
However, Meldrum’s dream did materialize in 1946 during World War II when the government loaned the Idarado Mining Company, which had bought the old Treasury Tunnel workings at Red Mountain, the money to complete a tunnel through the mountain to the Pandora side. It takes several drops and rises and goes in various directions in order to contact the ore veins, so that the total length is 7½ miles. This amount does not include some tail tunnels.
The Idarado property is now considered one of the richest in the world for hardrock ores—silver, gold, lead, zinc, copper and manganese.
Meldrum lived out his life in Ouray and died in a cabin there all alone, a few years too soon to see his dream come true.
Everybody hoped and expected that mining would soon revive but the time dragged on and it did not. William Jennings Bryan ran for president of the United States in 1896 on a “free coinage of silver” platform and the “Silver San Juan”, Mears especially, ardently campaigned for him. When Bryan was defeated, Mears gave up on a mining revival and early in 1897 moved to the East. There he took up several business enterprises and stayed for ten years. However, he retained a general supervision over his railroads and made numberless trips back to the San Juan.
Revenues had decreased so greatly that the railroad was finally, in 1898,forced into receivership. Alex Anderson, a Scotchman and a former auditor, was made the receiver.
The Crawford interests who were promoting the Joker Tunnel (a drainage operation) got control of the railroad in a foreclosure sale in 1904. On November 3 of that year it was incorporated by Otto Mears, Alex Anderson, John Ewing, George Crawford and Harry Riddell as the Silverton Railway, with Mears as president. The new company replaced the old 30-lb. steel with 45-lb. Mr. Ridgway, as superintendent at this time, 1904 and 1905, had to keep three sets of books—one for the S. R., one for the S. Ry. and one for the S.N.
Just before and after the reorganization, business revived until it was nearly as good as in the beginning though only one passenger train ever ran again and then only as far as Joker Tunnel. The train consisted of two coaches and a baggage car to Red Mountain where one coach was set out and the rest went on to Joker. In 1912 a daily passenger was running only as far as Red Mountain. In 1919 and ’20 a passenger was still going to the same destination. During this period about two freights operated though the number depended on the amount of business. A little engine could haul three loads up to Red Mountain and a big one could haul five. Both handled ten loads down. In the winter operation was suspended either for short periods or for the season because of snow blockades.
The turntable was still standing in early 1906 for John Crum who that spring drove a logging team from Albany Gulch to the Gold Lion mine, at night turned his horses loose on a flat nearby and in the morning had to play tag with them around the table to catch them.
Mears, who was expecting great things of the Cold Prince mine and mill at Animas Forks on the Silverton Northern, decided he needed a turntable worse there than at Corkscrew. So, in the summer of 1906, Edward Meyer, an engineer, took a train to the gulch to retrieve all essential and removable parts along with other appurtenances. These were then transported to and installed at Animas Forks.
Joe Dresbach, the general manager of the time, has also stated that essential and removable parts of the turntable at Corkscrew were retrievedand installed at Animas Forks.
Charles Decker, an engineer, says that the housing and operating parts of the turntable at Corkscrew were gone when he went there for the first time in 1907. The train merely ran over the stationary table onto a switchback that had been extended to hold several cars, and then backed out.
After the turntable was abandoned a train leaving Red Mountain headed into Corkscrew Gulch, backed down to Joker Tunnel, headed into Corkscrew again and finally backed to Red Mountain. Or the operation was reversed by backing out of Red Mountain to begin with. As trains will not back through much snow downhill and practically none uphill this railroad got into trouble in the winter no matter how it started out or what it did.
Mears was employed by the D. & R. G. to reconstruct the railroad in the Animas canyon after the disastrous flood of October 5, 1911. He used S. Ry., S. G. & N. and S. N. engines and crews to work from the north end. Trains went to Joker Tunnel to pick up rails that had been brought that far by freight teams from Ouray. Silverton ran out of coal, and some that had already been hauled to the Treasury Tunnel at Red Mountain was brought back to town. In about 60 days the line was open and the first two freight cars to arrive in Silverton were one of caskets and one of beer.
Many derailments and minor accidents occurred but in its 39 years of operation only one fatality. In 1902 or ’03 an engine ran off a short rail at Sheridan Junction causing it to overturn. The engineer, Bally Thompson, was caught and crushed under the boiler. The whole top of his head and jaw were torn off and his skin was cooked like that of a roasted turkey.
The year ending June 30, 1911 showed a cash balance of $9 while the year ending December 31, 1917 turned up with a deficit of $25,241. Regular operation ceased in 1921 and abandonment proceedings were held in the early fall of 1922. All rolling stock, including Engines 100 and 101 (1) were turned over to the S. N.
Below is the last station list ever published:
As the track was not immediately removed an occasional train was run to Red Mountain or even to the mines beyond. With the salvaging of the rails in 1926 the Silverton Railroad made its last run.
The original Red Mountain Town was on the east side of the small hill called the Knob. The place began declining about 1907 and the time came when it was deserted and all structures were in a state of near or complete collapse. The Idarado, the old Treasury Tunnel, to the north side of the Knob, with all its prosperous looking mine and mill buildings and its nice dwellings, most of which were moved there from Eureka, now constitutes the town of Red Mountain.ThisTunnel is a World War II development and is famous because it bores through the mountain to the mines on the Telluride side.
The new highway has almost obliterated the old railroad grade. It may be seen crawling along on the sidehill up to Burro Bridge, and again at Chattanooga Loop and overhead as it climbs to the summit. It also may be seen curving around the Knob to old Red Mountain town, crawling along the mountain to Corkscrew Gulch and dropping down to Joker Tunnel. Then all traces of it are gone except some old grade at Albany. First a road, then a railroad and again a road!
The Gold King Mining Company, under President W. Z. Kinney, promoted a railroad for the purpose of hauling concentrates from mills along Cement Creek to the smelters at Silverton. According to the Manual the railroad was chartered April 6, 1899 and completed in July. James Dyson located the route and the Rocky Mountain Construction Co., incorporated in Maine, constructed the 7.5 miles of line and the one-half mile of sidings from Silverton to Gladstone. Forty-five-pound rail was used. Track left the main line of the D. & R. G. at the north end of Silverton and there a roundhouse was built. San Juan County records show that the property was conveyed from the construction company to the railroad company July 21, 1899. Two figures, $247,838 and $252,979, have been given as the cost of the job. The difference may have covered equipment.
The S. G. & N. bought Engine 32 from the Rio Grande Southern through the D. & R. G. purchasing agent, C. M. Hobbs, for $3252. Mr. Hobbs instructed Mr. Lee, general superintendent of the R. G. S., to letter it properly, deliver it to W. Z. Kinney at Silverton on August 1, 1899 and collect the money. Two very nice made-to-order coaches, that had seats for passengers in one end and baggage compartments in the other, were obtained. Two trains ran daily consisting, generally, of an engine, two loads and a passenger coach. The first year of operation showed a surplus of $35,366.21.
The company, evidently, did not have enough power and in October 1900 it was asking the R. G. S. for another locomotive like the one it already had, but none was available. Meanwhile, a company in Palestine, Texas had bought R. C. S. 33 (exactly like 32) but on finding it unsatisfactory, had shipped it back. The R. G. S. placed it in the Burnham Shops at Denver where, in 1902, it underwent extensive repairs. Then it was sold to the S. G. & N.
The two locomotives mentioned above were sisters to the Silverton Railroad’s No. 101 (1), formerly R. G. S. 34. All three were of the same makeand the same class and had the same owners at the same time and in the same order—the D. & R. G., the R. G. W. and the R. G. S. All of these engines ended up with the S. N. (So did S. R. No. 100.) All had five owners. The 33 had six owners if one would count the company in Texas but, as far as is known, no money changed hands.
A new locomotive, No. 34, a Baldwin of the 100 class, was purchased in 1904. The Manual of 1905 lists three engines, two coaches, and twenty freight cars; the one of 1909 says two locomotives, two coaches, ten box cars and twenty-one gondolas. Engine 32 was the one out of service at this time. Eventually its boiler went to a sawmill at Cascade. No. 33 lasted a few years longer.
Except for Mr. Kinney of Silverton, the board of ten directors elected in 1904 were all from Maine, Massachusetts or New Brunswick and the trustee under the mortgage was the Newtonville Trust Co. of Newtonville, Mass. In 1905 the funded debt was $100,000 and the outstanding stock, $121,000. In the year ending June 30, 1909, the railroad had carried 16,667 tons of freight and 3,916 passengers.
It was not uncommon for service to be discontinued for short or long periods in any winter on account of snow blockades but the suspension in the fall of 1911 was due to the extensive washouts on the D. & R. G. in the Animas Canon. S. G. & N. men and equipment were sent to assist in the reconstruction.
Excursions were often run to Gladstone for picnics or to gather columbines either to send out of town for some special doings or for any kind of local celebration.
According to the Official Guides of 1913, 1914 and 1915 mixed trains ran thrice weekly—Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In 1913 trains left Silverton at 1:00 P.M. and arrived at Gladstone at 1:45 P.M.; left Gladstone at 2:15 P.M. and arrived at Silverton at 3:00 P.M. This was a considerable decline from the original two trains per day.
About the first of January 1910, Mears, Slattery and Pitcher leased the Gold King mine. On January 15 of the same year the Silverton Northern Railroad leased the S. G. & N. and five years later, on June 10, 1915, boughtit at auction. San Juan County records show that the deed was made July 23. Mears then owned all three railroads. Only one S. G. & N. engine, the 34, was in service. The partners gave up the lease on the mine in 1917 and Mears, then 77 years old, left for California, never to return.
Mrs. Percy Airy has a little story to tell of this period. In 1911 her husband was working at the Gold King mill at Gladstone and they were living in a little cabin with almost no furniture and conveniences. One morning while she was washing, Percy came rushing in, saying he was bringing his uncle Jack Slattery, Otto Mears, James Pitcher and Louis Quarnstrom in for dinner. Flustered and dismayed were no words for it! At such a camp no fresh stuff was available but she managed a dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes, a canned vegetable, biscuits with butter and jam, fresh canned mountain raspberries, cake and coffee. She had only two stool chairs and one of them was occupied by the washtub which Mears urged her not to move. She put one man on the other stool chair, two on the bed and two in rockers. Being very young, only nineteen, she was so embarrassed she wouldn’t sit down at the table. Everybody praised her dinner and she felt better. When Mears left he presented her with a very rich piece of gold ore, about the size of a large orange, and told here if she’d always keep that she’d never be poor. Later she engaged a jeweler to make a watch charm from it for her husband. A small cracked charm and two small pieces of ore were all that was returned to her. The fellow claimed he had had to break the big chunk all to pieces to get the charm and had thrown the scraps away. Of course every small grain of that ore was valuable.
Business kept dwindling until only an occasional train was run. The following table indicates that the track was still lying in 1923.
No exact date can be found for the tearing up of the rails but it probably was in 1926, the same year the S. R. was dismantled. All equipment went to the S. N. as it already belonged to it anyway.
The government, during our war with Japan, established military posts in Alaska. The railroad up there, the White Pass and Yukon, needed more locomotives and in 1942 it purchased all that were left on the S.N.—the 3, 4 and 34. (The S. N. had ceased operation three years previously.) The 34, as should be remembered, had belonged to the S. G. & N. When the Alaskan railroad received the 34 it numbered it “24”. After Diesel power was obtained there the 24 (nee 34), then about forty years old, was retired to the boneyard.
One of the original S. G. & N. coaches was bought from the S. N., moved to Durango and set up on Main Avenue as the “Pioneer Diner”. Later, after changes and additions, it became the “Chief Diner”. It is still operating and may be seen in Durango.
Mears hoped to run a railroad from Silverton to Mineral Point and possibly on to Lake City, following practically the same route as the wagon road he had built twelve years previously. C. W. Gibbs, chief engineer, made surveys from Silverton to Eureka in both 1889 and ’90 but nothing was immediately attempted, probably because of all effort and money going toward the construction of the Rio Grande Southern. However, two miles from Silverton to Waldheim were built in 1893 as an extension of the Silverton Railroad.
According to San Juan County records the Silverton Northern was incorporated on September 20, 1895. Fred Walsen was the president, Otto Mears the vice-president and Alex Anderson the secretary-treasurer.
Construction began at the North Star bridge, the end of the first piece of railroad, in late April of 1896 and the 6½ miles were completed to Eureka in late June. The transfer of the property from the construction company to the railroad company was made on July 1st. Silverton Northern books gave the cost of construction as $272,400. Meanwhile the first two miles had been transferred from the Silverton Railroad to the Silverton Northern. A big celebration took place at Eureka on the completion of the line and Mrs. Edward G. Stoiber drove the golden spike. A picture is extant which shows the crowd there.
S. R. Engine 101 was transferred to the S. N. but henceforth was to go by the number of 1. Of course, the company could borrow a locomotive or other equipment from the S. R. or the D. & R. G. as needed.
Ever since the panic of 1893 with its demonetization of silver, mining in the San Juan had been seriously crippled but, since the Sunnyside mine near Eureka and the Silver Lake mine near Waldheim produced good values in gold, the S. N. could make a profit.
Mining men, Mears among them, had great hopes that mining would revive as of old if William Jennings Bryan could be elected as president.Bryan, it should be remembered, was running in 1896 on a platform of silver coinage at 16 to 1 with gold. When he was defeated Mears lost hope for any improvement in mining and moved to the East where he took up several projects. One was the building of the Chesapeake Beach railroad from Washington to the beach. Another was the promotion of the Mack Truck Co. with himself as the first president. He, at that early date, saw the possibilities of automobile transportation.
Though Mears stayed in the east until 1907 he exercised a strong supervision over his San Juan railroads and made a number of trips back to the country to oversee them.
In 1901 the company owned one locomotive, one passenger coach, ten box cars and one service car. For the year ending June 30, 1901 it had operated 3376 miles of mixed and 1310 miles of passenger service. In 1902 it paid a dividend of 10%.
The Gold Prince mine, four miles up the Animas River canon from Eureka, was then flourishing so Mears decided to build a railroad to the place. He hired Thomas Wigglesworth as surveyor and constructor. Construction from Silverton to Eureka had been easy—no hard grading and only two small bridges—but from Eureka to Animas Forks, the little town near the Gold Prince, it was to be very difficult—up a rough canon and over 7% to 7½% grade, the very maximum for a steam railroad.
Mr. Vest Day gives an account of its building:
“Mr. Thomas Wigglesworth, for whom I had worked several times before, hired me to get stuff together and go up to Animas Forks to establish a camp. Late in May of 1904 I loaded on the train at Durango about a carload of surveyor’s equipment and camp supplies, among which was a 350-lb. cook stove, all to be taken by rail to Eureka. There the two Peck brothers packed it on burros and, since the snow was deep and soft, they often had to spread gunny sacks out for the burros to step on, especially for the one with the stove, to keep them from sinking in too deeply. Everything arrived at Animas Forks in good order.
“The snow was six feet deep around the cabins we were to occupy so Ihad to shovel paths and dig down to get the doors open. Then I had to gather wood out of the tree tops but had the stove up and a good supper ready when Mr. Wigglesworth arrived with three other young fellows.
“We first did some preliminary surveying, running a line from Animas Forks to the divide in case Mr. Mears should decide on a railroad to Lake City. The snow was so deep we could not drive the stakes so we cut turning points in the hard crust with a hatchet.
“Then we started to work in the canon which was a hard problem and had labored a month trying to get a line up the east side when Mr. Wigglesworth remarked to Mr. Mears that he’d like to build the railroad on the other side where the road was. Mears told him to go ahead and take it as it was his road anyway. Even though we used the road grade, still a lot of work had to be done and R. T. F. Simpson, who was to run the commissary, brought with him from New Mexico, 100 Navajo Indians to do the rough labor. About 25 whites were employed but they acted as powder men, clerks or other such things. We were all finished in the fall.
“While we were there Mr. Wigglesworth procured for Roy Goodman and me a railroad bicycle that Mears had had made for Mrs. Stoiber. She was not at that time using it. This contraption had a framework to which was fastened four light-weight flanged wheels with rubber on them, that ran on the track. Above was a platform on which were two stationary bicycles side by side. The riders treadled the bicycles and the two chains that pulled the two rear wheels and were connected with two small wheels on the axle of the car, drove the car, so it ran nicely on the track. We had a grand time going back and forth to Silverton on it.”
Marion A. Speer, a lad from Texas, went to work in the spring of 1904 as a nipper on the railroad which was building from Eureka to Animas Forks. His job was to carry heavy tools such as drills and picks from the blacksmith shop to the drilling and blasting crews, and the dull ones back. The work was very hard but he had to have the money if he expected to go to the Colorado School of Mines, which was his intention. One day Wigglesworth, his boss, came to him and told him he’d have to let him go as the work wastoo heavy for him. Marion, then, proceeded to “bawl his eyes out”. When Wigglesworth found out the reason he not only took him back but hired a Mexican boy to help him.
The construction outfit used Engine 3 which was brand new that year, was very powerful and a beauty and was called “Gold Prince” after the mine at Animas Forks. That piece of railroad was completed in the fall except for sidings which were laid the next year.
Young Speer worked at the Silver Lake mill for several summers and often got to ride in Engine 100; he also went to Gladstone in the 34 and was on the S. N. coach, the Animas Forks, when it turned over the first time. The track still lay to Albany in 1907 for a train took a bunch of picnickers, of which he was one, down that way and let them off.
The railroad workers, among whom was Speer, ate at the Silver Wing (Condit) boarding house, and they were lolling around outside one evening in June of 1904 when a terrific explosion took place at the Toltec blacksmith shop, directly across the river, about 200 feet away. Debris of all descriptions peppered the boarding house.
The SilvertonStandardreported the event thus:
An Awful Explosion—“Three men, Percy Kemper, Edward Crane and L. W. Lofgren, were killed last Sunday night about ten o’clock by a powder explosion at the Toltec Tunnel of the Sioux Mining Company, located above Eureka near the mouth of Picayune Gulch.
“Kemper and Crane were literally blown to pieces, parts of their bodies being found in different places, 300 and 400 yards from the scene of the explosion. The blacksmith shop was, of course, demolished. When the sound of the explosion brought others to the scene, Lofgren was still alive, but he died on the way to Silverton. The remains of the other two unfortunate men were brought to this city Monday afternoon.
“Lofgren, it seems, had been working behind a metal mine car which absorbed much of the force of the explosion. This accounts for the fact that Lofgren was not killed outright.
“At the coroner’s inquest held Monday a verdict was returned that thethree men came to their deaths by and through carelessness in heating powder.
“The largely attended triple funeral was held Wednesday afternoon under the auspices of the Miner’s Union of which all three of the deceased were members in good standing, the local Odd Fellows, however, turning out in honor of their deceased brother, Lofgren. Reverend Shindler preached the funeral sermon.”
Vest Day reports that his survey crew helped pick up the pieces of the bodies the next morning and put them into nail kegs.
Mr. Meyer, the locomotive engineer on the construction crew, claimed the Indians would stop work on almost any pretext but especially to chase ground hogs. Mears decided to put a stop to such foolishness and hired 25 white kids and supplied them with rifles to kill the animals. It didn’t help much because when they were out of the way the Indians could find plenty of other excuses to dawdle.
Mr. Arthur Ridgway stated that when he came to the S. N. in October of 1904 work was still going on under the supervision of Marshall B. Smith, Mears’s son-in-law, with Navajo labor. Operation of the line began the next Spring after the snow went off.
In 1905 Mr. Ridgway surveyed and built a branch from Howardsville up Cunningham Gulch to the Green Mountain and Old Hundred mines, which added 1.3 miles of railroad to the system. The S. N. must have been in financial straits at this time for Mears had to raise money in New York to pay interest on the bonds.
This railroad went north from Silverton as did the other two. The termini of the S. R. and S. N. were not much more than six air miles apart with the S. G. & N. in between. Animas Forks is at the foot of Mineral Point. One may ride out on the top of Mineral Point, as this writer has done and see the waters divide, the Uncompahgre going to the north and the Animas to the south. Mears never got the courage to build a railroad up there as first projected nor on to Lake City.
During the year ending June 30, 1905 the railroad carried 31,433 passengers and 43,349 tons of freight. The Manual or Guide lists for 1905,two engines, for 1909, three and for 1911, two. One or two passenger cars, one or two baggage and several freight cars were claimed. It should be remembered that equipment was interchanged between these little lines and was also borrowed from the D. & R. G.
The S. N. used or acquired S. R. Engines 100 and 1. Then it bought an old one from the D. & R. G, which it numbered 2, but it was of such little good it was soon scrapped. Mears bought the 3 new in 1904 and the 4 new in 1906, both Baldwins of the 76 class. In 1910 the S. N. leased and in 1915 bought the S. G. & N. and got its engines, the 32, 33 and 34. Numbers 100, 32 and 33 were scrapped between 1909 and 1912 but 1 was still in use in 1916 for it is shown in the picture of the zinc train that was running at that time. All four of those just noted sat for a number of years in the boneyard at Silverton. Numbers 3 and 4 were used on the snow bucking because 34 was too large for the plow.
Mears could always think up something novel and smart. He had already put out the silver and gold passes and had devised the railroad bicycle but now he wanted to do something special in the way of a passenger coach for this run. He bought an old narrow gauge sleeper from the D. & R. G., that had been used on the run from Pueblo via Salida to Alamosa after 1890 and is thought to have been one of those that came to Durango and Silverton From ’81 to ’83. He had it painted a bright green, put the words in gold, “Silverton Northern Railroad” over the windows and named it the “Animas Forks”. It had four upper and four lower berths on each side, half as many as a modern sleeper has. It was different also in that the berths had wooden slat bottoms instead of solid metal as we know them. Ten feet or less at one end was walled off for a kitchen while 20 feet or more was equipped with seats and tables. There was a menu card, lengthy and beautifully printed, and a liquor list to delight a connoisseur. Of course a porter was present to administer the drinks.
The enginepushedthe cars from Eureka to Animas Forks. It would not have done to have had them behind for, if a coupling had broken, the brakes would not have been able to hold them on such a steep grade and a runaway and wreck would have resulted. As, at first, there was no way of turning at Animas Forks the engine had to back downpullingthe cars, a decidedly risky business. A turntable was desperately needed and so, in 1906 or ’07, Mears used certain parts of the one at Corkscrew Gulch to complete the one he was building at Animas Forks. Then the engine could turn and, by setting the cars on a spur, could get ahead and keep them from running away. Before starting they tested the brakes most thoroughly; then the brakeman stayed on top of the cars clubbing them all the way down. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when they got stopped at Eureka.
They generally hauled a car of coal and an empty or a coach up and three cars of ore down. The biggest load ever taken up was a car of coal and a car of cement. Speed from Silverton to Eureka was ten miles per hour but from Eureka to Animas Forks, four miles, and the same on the return trips.
The Stoiber brothers had developed the Silver Lake mine in Arastra Gulch and built the mill at the mouth of the gulch; later Ed took over the mine and Gus the mill. Mr. and Mrs. Ed built a home they called Waldheim which, because of its size—ball room, game rooms, etc.—and its fine construction and expensive furnishings, became known as the “Mansion”. There they entertained most lavishly, often passing out expensive party or dinner favors. (The author acquired one of them—a beautifully engraved solid silver dinner spoon.)
The madam undertook a good part of the management of the mine herself, sometimes all of it, and was capable of subduing the most obstreperous miner who ever landed there. She was the lady who, to spite her neighbors, built the tall fence around her place in Silverton.
They left Silverton about 1904 and, after Stoiber died, the madam erected a fine home in Denver, surrounding it with a fence. She had one husband before Stoiber and two others afterwards but no one knows for sure whatbecame of them. Her last home was a villa in Italy where she died. A large fortune was left behind which is still being handed down to heirs of heirs.
Mears signed a contract with the Gold Prince mine at Animas Forks, to haul its ore to Silverton over the winter of 1906-07. Therefore, it was necessary to prepare against the vicious snow slides between Eureka and Animas Forks. He decided to build several heavily timbered snow sheds and anchor them in rock in the hillsides. The first, 500 feet long, at a bad place near the Silver Wing boarding house, not far from Eureka, was completed in October. A slide that winter smashed it and dumped it into the Animas River Canon. Mears gave up on snow sheds.
On March 24, 1906 concussion, which is the rush of air at the edges of a slide, did great damage to the Green Mountain mill in Cunningham Gulch and killed the mine foreman. It also destroyed several S. N. cars. At the same time a slide demolished the boarding house at the Shenandoah mine and killed twelve men.
Near Animas Forks two men were asleep in the same bed. One was thrown toward the center of the room and carried away while the other was thrown toward the wall and was saved. In the same season two men were killed at the Robert Bonner mine near Burro Bridge on the S. R.
These are only samples of slides that happened nearly every winter. Often bodies, frozen stiff, were recovered from slides and stood against the handiest wall.
One summer a request came to Silverton for a great quantity of columbines for some national convention that was to be held in Denver. A “Columbine Special” train was run from Silverton to Animas Forks for the purpose of procuring them. Mears donated the use of the train, railroad men donated their services and townspeople donated their time. They gathered what they estimated to be 25,000. A hardware man supplied washtubs in which the flowers were packed and shipped. They went out of Silverton on flat cars but were transferred to box cars at Alamosa. The columbines reached Denver and were displayed in front of the Denver Post building.
The Pullman was in a couple of wrecks, the first in the summer of 1908.New rail was being laid and hadn’t, in one place, been spiked. Meyer was the engineer and was pulling a train of three coaches going south when the accident happened near Silver Lake, two miles out of Silverton. The engine and one coach went over the rail all right but the next coach caught on it, turned over and took the Pullman with it. When Conductor Hudson came along getting people out he found one woman with her head and shoulders completely through a window on the under side. The car had lit on a couple of ties, which held it up, preventing her from being crushed. Only her hat was knocked off. When settlements were made the worst casualty was found to be a box of peaches for which the owner asked and received 75 cents.
Another time, about 1911, a train was going north when, near Waldheim, the Pullman, which had too long a wheelbase for curves, gave a swing and the top part left the trucks, flopping over and taking a coach with it. Booker was the engineer this time, Hudson, the conductor and Ruble, the fireman. When they arrived they found the dust so thick they could scarcely see or breathe. Ruble and Hudson walked along on the sides of the coaches pulling people out of the windows. They came to Mrs. William Terry securely fastened and soon found the trouble—her skirt was caught between a rock and the side of the coach. Ruble used his pocket knife to cut a piece out of the back. The poor fellow, easily embarrassed anyway, never heard the end of cutting off the lady’s skirt.
How Mrs. Terry remembers it:
“It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer time and the train was full of people going home from Silverton. In the Pullman everybody was talking and joking and having a good time. Suddenly the car gave a flop over on one side and everything was confusion. I was thrown against the slats of the berth and got several bumps on the head. I grabbed a handful of willows out the window which pulled through my hand leaving green streaks that lasted for days. My skirt was caught at the back and someone cut a chunk out of it. It had been jerked loose from the waist anyway so it came off. But those were the days when women wore petticoats and I had a nice one of iridescent taffeta, that rustled and had reams of ruffles.
“Broken glass had flown in every direction and many people had cuts. One woman who had on a white dress came up to me and asked me if her hat was on straight. I told her it was but that she had better look at her dress. The whole front of it was covered with other people’s blood. Passengers sat on the hill waiting for a train to come for them. Everybody was very excited and upset. The porter went around offering drinks to help settle our nerves but I didn’t take any. Cuts and bruises were the worst damages. The injured were loaded in a box car and taken to the hospital.
“My garb was a towel around my head, the coat of my just-past beautiful new plaid suit and the rustling ruffled petticoat. The suit, of course, was ruined as a skirt to match could not be obtained. I never got any damages, either, because I was riding on a pass. I lost two combs, too, that had real gold trimming.”
The Pullman had made its last trip. It was pulled into the D. & R. G. yards at Silverton where it sat for a while, was gradually dismantled and finally burned. W. L. Bruce of Durango, about 1920, took some parts of the doors and door casings and some of the slats of the berths—all beautiful cherry wood—and made a porch swing.
A picture of the front part of the zinc or “Zinc Special” train of World War I years is shown herein. A newspaper called the first shipment of ten cars “the largest ever made in Colorado.” Zinc with copper made the brass that was used in shells. A train of ten carloads of rich concentrates was shipped about once a week from the Sunnyside mill at Eureka, was picked up by the D. & R. G. at Silverton and transported to a smelter at Pueblo in 48 hours.
The Terry family, owners of the famous Sunnyside mine, the biggest shipper on the D. & R. G., was dickering with the U. S. Smelting and Refining Company regarding the sale of the mine and chartered a train for the use of those coming to investigate. A group of eastern capitalists—seven of them millionaires—accompanied by mining engineers, clerks, servants etc., made the trip in January or 1917. The train was the D. & R. G. president’s narrow gauge special, thought to be the only one of its kind in existence. The carswere beautifully finished and furnished. It was so outstanding and unique as to have been exhibited at the World’s Fair at San Francisco in 1915.
Snow was pretty deep. Much good stuff was on the train and the crew got slightly befuddled. Just at the north end of Silverton the coupling back of the engine came loose and the engineer went several miles before he noticed he had lost the train. He did some quick thinking and plowed the track on to Eureka. When he came back he told everybody that the snow was so deep he thought it better to go ahead and clear the line and then come back and get the train.
The outfit parked at Eureka for about a week while officials and engineers made a thorough investigation of the Sunnyside which, a few months later, resulted in the sale of the mine. On the way back to Durango the train, called the “Million Dollar Special”, was wrecked about a mile south of Rockwood. The engine and the three coaches turned over. Nobody was seriously hurt but two of the cars caught fire from the cookstove and completely burned.
In February 1906, three passenger trains on week days and two on Sundays ran between Silverton and Eureka. In 1913 a train, running six days per week, left Silverton at 8:30 A.M. and arrived at Eureka at 9:15, left Eureka at 10:15 and arrived in Silverton at 11:00. In 1919 and ’20 a schedule as follows was in operation: leave Silverton at 8:00 A.M. for Eureka, back at 10:00, leave for Joker Tunnel on the S. R. at 10:00, back at 2:00; leave for Eureka at 3:00, back at 5:00;—two trips to Eureka and one to Joker Tunnel seven days per week.
Though there seems to have been no scheduled service in 1923, at least the track was still lying and trains must have been run as needed. This period, it should be remembered, was one of hard times following World War I.