The Colorado Central Railroad was a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

company that operated in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

and southeastern

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

in the late 19th century. It was founded in the

Colorado Territory The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado. The territory was organized in the w ...

in the wake of the

Colorado Gold Rush The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado Gold Rush) was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 a ...

to ship

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

from the mountains. It expanded from its

Golden Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall * Golden Cap, Dorset *Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershi ...

–

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

line to form a crucial link connecting Colorado with the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

and the national rail network. The history of the railroad throughout the 1870s was driven at times by a fierce struggle between local interests, led by W.A.H. Loveland, and outside investors of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

led at times by

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made hi ...

. The early struggle of the company to build its lines was a major part of the early competition between Denver and Golden for supremacy as the principal metropolis of Colorado. The company built the first rail lines up connecting historic Colorado mining communities such as Black Hawk,

Central City In urban planning, a core city, principal city metropolitan core, or central city, is the largest or most important city or cities of a metropolitan area. A core city is surrounded by smaller satellite cities, towns, and suburbs. A central city ...

, and

Idaho Springs The City of Idaho Springs is the Statutory City that is the most populous municipality in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Idaho Springs is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 ...

. Through a series of reorganizations and acquisitions, it eventually became part of the

Colorado and Southern Railway The Colorado and Southern Railway was an American Class I railroad in the western United States that operated independently from 1898 to 1908, then as part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until it was absorbed into the Burli ...

. Although its historic

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

mountain lines were dismantled by the mid 20th century, a portion of its connecting lines paralleling the

Front Range The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountere ...

survive as active lines of

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

History

The railroad was chartered as the Colorado and Clear Creek Railroad Company on February 9, 1865, by Loveland and other entrepreneurs in the town of Golden, then the capital of the Colorado Territory. Loveland and his partners desired to build a railroad up

Clear Creek Canyon Clear Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 25, 2011 in north central Colorado in the United States. Th ...

and other mining centers, and to connect to nearby Denver and

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

. During the three years before construction on the line began the company underwent several reorganizations. On January 20, 1866, the name of the railroad was changed to the Colorado Central & Pacific Railroad. The following year, in June 1867, the company was reorganized;

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

investors were in control, but provided no funds for construction. That year, the seat of territorial government for Colorado was relocated from Golden to Denver. Snowy Range Colorado Central RR

On January 1, 1868, construction began on the first line connecting Denver and Golden. On January 14, the company changed its name to Colorado Central Railroad. Construction of the first line was slow. By the end of the year, only the small portion (less than 12 miles) between Denver and Golden had been graded. In the meantime, former Territorial Governor John Evans (co-conspirator of the Sand Creek Massacre) and other business leaders from Denver City, including David Moffat, William Byers (''Rocky Mountain News''), Joseph E. Bates, Bela Hughes,

Walter Cheesman Walter Cheesman (1838–1907) was an American businessman who was involved in railroad, finance, real estate, and water industries. After beginning his career in New York and Chicago, he lived in Denver, where Cheesman Dam, Cheesman Reservoir, an ...

(Denver Water) and Luther Kountze (Colorado National Bank), formed the Denver Pacific Railway on November 19, 1867, with the intention of building a rail line from Denver to Cheyenne. The formation of the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company set off an intense struggle over the next two years between the two companies to complete their lines connecting to Union Pacific. By the following year, the success of the Denver Pacific investors in persuading the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

to grant them land allowing them to construct a line throughout the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwestern United States, Midwest and the American Sout ...

valley to Cheyenne made it evident that Denver would prevail over Golden. The Denver Pacific line was complete in June 1870 and the first train arrived in Denver from Cheyenne, bypassing Golden. Two months later, the

Kansas Pacific The Kansas Pacific Railway (KP) was a historic railroad company that operated in the western United States in the late 19th century. It was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land grants. At a time when the first transcontin ...

completed its line to Denver, linking up with the Denver Pacific, and cementing the central role of Denver in Colorado. As a consequence, the Colorado Central turned its attention towards linking up with the Denver Pacific and Kansas Pacific lines. On September 24, 1870, the company achieved its first success with the completion of the standard gauge line from Golden to "Jersey Junction", the junction of the Kansas Pacific and Denver Pacific lines located approximately 3 miles north of Denver. In May 1871 local interests regained control of the railroad from Union Pacific investors. By the following September, 150 men were at work in the mountains west of Golden to extend the line to the mining communities. In the spring of 1872 the company acquired critical right-of-way along Clear Creek to extend its line. West of Golden, the line built as narrow gauge. In late August, the company took delivery of its first two

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s (both ), the ''General Sherman, No. 2'', followed a week later by ''General Sheridan, No. 1.'' On September 1, the track was completed 13.3 miles to Forks Creek. By mid-December, the line had been extended 7.7 miles further to Black Hawk. By February 24, 1873, a second line from Forks Creek had been extended 3.3 miles to Floyd Hill. In September, the company's shop in Golden produced the first passenger car in Colorado. On May 11, 1874, the company took delivery of an 18-ton Mogul locomotive from Dawson & Baily. The new locomotive replaces the "Sheridan" as the #1 locomotive. The see-saw battle for control of the company between local and outside interests continued during the expansion of its lines into the mountains. By the spring of 1873,

and other Union Pacific investors had contributed a large financial stake in the railroad, but the company was still controlled by Loveland. The nationwide financial collapse that began later that year practically halted new construction on the company lines, instigating a period of legal struggles for control of the near-bankrupt enterprise. In 1875, in the midst of the depression, the Union Pacific controlled three-fourths of the company stock. In April, at a company board meeting, Union Pacific proxies voted to lease the company to the Kansas Pacific. The following month, the company board of directors repudiated the agreement by voiding the votes of the Union Pacific proxies on a technicality. The board re-established Loveland as president. On May 21, 1876, Loveland's forces seized physical control of assets of the Kansas Pacific. In retaliation, the Union Pacific sued the company, forcing it into receivership, during which time Loveland fought to keep control of the company through numerous court proceedings. In February 1877, the Union Pacific relinquished control to Loveland once again. In 1877, with Loveland once again in control, and with the national Depression receding, the company began expanding its lines once again.

References

External links

History of the Colorado Central RailroadGuide to Views Along Colorado Railroad Lines, circa 1875
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colorado Central Railroad Rail transportation in Colorado Defunct Colorado railroads Defunct Wyoming railroads Narrow gauge railroads in Colorado Narrow gauge railroads in Wyoming Transportation in Jefferson County, Colorado Golden, Colorado Predecessors of the Colorado and Southern Railway Railway companies established in 1869 Railway companies disestablished in 1890 3 ft gauge railways in the United States 1866 establishments in Colorado Territory

History

See also

References

External links