Part 4

The engine _pushed_ the 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 down _pulling_ the 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 what became 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 cars were 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.

SILVERTON NORTHERN Official Roster, 1923

0. Silverton 9,300 1. Power 2. Waldheim 3. Robin 3.2 Collins 4.7 Howardsville 0. Howardsville 1.1 Old Hundred 1.3 Green Mountain 6.2 Hamlet 7.4 Minnie Gulch 8.5 Eureka 10,000 Astor Lion Tunnel 12.5 Animas Forks 11,200

The branch to Green Mountain operated only a short time because the mines up that way turned out to be poor producers. The part from Eureka to Animas Forks is claimed never to have paid expenses and soon quit regular operation though occasional trains ran up there until sometime in the twenties. Mears offered the right-of-way to the county if it would take up the track, which it did, and Mr. Meyer hauled the junk down in 1936.[4] Like the S. R., it was a road to begin with and ended up by being one again.

The section from Silverton to Eureka revived and lasted the longest of any of the three little railroads. Ore was shipped over it from the Sunnyside mine and mill until 1939 when the mine closed down because of a miner’s strike.

In the summer of 1942 the property was advertised for sale for $17,000 in delinquent taxes. Mrs. Cora Pitcher, Mears’s daughter, sold it to the Dullen Steel Products Company and paid the taxes. This company shipped the shop equipment, rails and rolling stock out in October.

The United States had, after it became involved in war with Japan, established military bases in Alaska. The railroad there, the White Pass and Yukon, needed more motive power and the government requisitioned the three locomotives, the 3, 4, and 34. There, so R. E. Cooper states, they were re-numbered to 22, 23 and 24, respectively. In 1947 word was received from the War Surplus Board and the W. P. & Y. Ry. that twelve engines—7 D. & R. G., 2 C. & S. and 3 S. N.—had been received by the Alaska Railroad but when Diesel power was obtained there, all except No. 34 (24) were returned to Seattle to M. Block & Co., a junking outfit. The last known of the 34, it was sitting in the railroad yards at Skagway, Alaska, in a state of dismantlement.

In 55 years, 1887 to 1942, the three little Silverton railroads started, prospered, declined and perished and nothing, unless one considers still discernible roadbeds and rotting ties, remains to attest their existence. No equipment except one coach, which is scarcely recognizable as such, has survived. A few little relics such as small amounts of paper material, a goodly number of pictures and S. R. buckskin, silver and gold passes have survived and they are scattered from one end of the United States to the other. Pathetic mementos they are, for agents that played such a large part in the life and prosperity of their community.

THE FOLLOWING PAGES.... Views and Documents of Narrow Gauge Railroading in the San Juan Mountains.

STATE OF COLORADO United States of America. FIRST MORTGAGE SIX PER CENT GOLD BOND The Silverton, Gladstone _and_ Northerly Railroad Company.

Bill of Fare SILVERTON NORTHERN R. R. CO _Car_: Animas Forks Dolls. Cts. SOUPS

◯Chicken 25c ◯Vegetable 25c ◯Oxtail 25c ◯Clam Chowder 25c ◯Clam Juice 25c ◯Tomato 25c ◯Mock Turtle 25c ◯Mulligatawny 25c ◯Chicken Gumbo 25c ◯Julienne 25c ◯Consomme 25c

FISH

◯Norway Mackerel 50c ◯Russian Caviar 50c ◯Smoked Sardines 35c ◯Kippered Herring 50c ◯Bismark Herring 50c ◯Boneless Sardines 50c

BEEF

◯Chili Concarne 50c ◯Roast Beef 50c ◯Vienna Sausage 50c ◯Lunch Tongue 50c ◯Boochout Bacon 25c ◯Yacht Club Beef 50c ◯Boned Chicken 50c ◯Chicken Tamales 50c ◯Liebig Beef 50c ◯2 Boiled Eggs 25c

BREAKFAST FOOD

◯Quaker Oats 25c ◯Egg O’See 25c ◯Shredded Wheat 25c

VEGETABLES

◯Baked Beans 35c ◯Corn on Cob 25c ◯Peas 25c ◯Asparagus Tips 25c ◯Hominy 25c ◯Banquet Corn 25c ◯Macaroni and Cheese 25c

PUDDINGS _and_ FRUITS

◯Plum Pudding 25c ◯Stuffed Olives 25c ◯Plain Olives 25c ◯Apricots 25c ◯Peaches 25c ◯Apricot Preserves 25c ◯Marrach. Cherries 25c ◯Currant Jelly 25c ◯Marmalade 25c ◯Pear Preserves 25c ◯Raspberry Preserves 25c

RELISHES

◯Tomatoes 25c ◯Mushrooms 25c

CHEESE _and_ BENT WATER CRACKERS

◯McClaren Cheese 25c ◯Roquefort Cheese 25c ◯Chow Chow 15c ◯Shelled Pecans 25c

SANDWICHES

◯Caviar 25c ◯Sardines 25c ◯Tongue 25c ◯Tea 15c ◯Coffee 15c ◯Milk 15c ◯Cream 25c ◯Biscuits and Butter 10c extra Bread and Butter supplied with all meals ◯Wines and Cigars A separate check must be issued to each passenger. No check issued for less than twenty-five cents to each person. _No._ 1982 _Total_ NOTE: Parties are requested when ordering to make a cross at each individual item ordered, thus Ⓧ ¶Please report any complaints to the office

Wine List SILVERTON NORTHERN RAILROAD CO Car: Animas Forks Dolls. Cts. LIQUORS

Private Stock Whiskey per drink $ .20 Greenbrier Bourbon Whiskey per drink .20 Scotch Whiskey per drink .20 Holland Gin per drink .20 Burke’s Ale per pint .40 Burke’s Stout per pint .40 Benedictine per drink .25 Green Chartreuse per drink .25

WATERS

Manitou Water per quart $ .35 Ginger Ale per quart .50 Red Raven Splits per half-pint .20

WINES

Mumm’s Extra Dry per pint $2.50 White Seal Champagne per pint 2.50 Chateau Blanc Wine per pint .75 LaRose Wine per pint 1.25 Grave’s Wine per pint .75 Imported Sherry per quart 2.50 Imported Port per quart 2.50 Saarbuch Steinwein Wine per pint 1.25 Liebfraumilch Wine per pint 1.50 Sparkling Burgundy per pint 1.50 California Port per pint 1.25 Cigars and Cigarettes _Total_

The course of the traveler on the Denver & Rio Grande’s great “Around the Circle” tour is indicated by arrows. Start may be made from Denver, Colorado Springs or Manitou, or Pueblo. At Ridgway, on the western turn, the course divides. The traveler may follow the arrows by the outer, “All Rail,” route; or he may take the inner, “Rail and Stage,” denoted by the arrows and dots. When purchasing his ticket he has his choice, the “Circle” round-trip fare being the same in either case. The various side trips marked should not be neglected. For them special low rates are granted; the “Circle” ticket permits stop-overs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS