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The Denver Pacific Railway was a historic railroad that operated in the western
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during the late 19th century. Formed in 1867 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 ...
, the company operated lines in
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and present-day southeastern
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in the 1870s until merging with 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 ...
and
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 ...
railroads in 1880. The railroad was formed primarily to create a link between
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 ...
and 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 ...
at
Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
, an achievement that was widely credited at the time with making Denver the dominant metropolis of the region. __TOC__


History

The construction of the rail line linking Cheyenne and Denver was widely credited at the time for reviving the city of Denver, which had been founded at the time of the
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and incorporated on November 7, 1861. The decision to build the transcontinental railroad to the north had left the fledgling city stranded from the major transportation routes. Many at the time expected that Cheyenne would blossom into the major population center of the region. As a result, Thomas Durant, vice president of the Union Pacific, pronounced Denver "too dead to bury." Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans declared that "Colorado without railroads is comparatively worthless."


Race To Cheyenne

As a result, Evans, together with other local business leaders, including
David Moffat David Halliday Moffat (July 22, 1839 – March 18, 1911) was an American financier and industrialist. Moffat was one of Denver's most important financiers and industrialists in late 19th and early 20th century Colorado, and he was responsible fo ...
,
William Byers William Newton Byers (February 22, 1831 in Madison County, OhioByers, William Ne ...
(founder of the ''
Rocky Mountain News The ''Rocky Mountain News'' (nicknamed the ''Rocky'') was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As ...
''),
Joseph E. Bates Joseph E. Bates (May 5, 1837 – September 22, 1900) was an American politician who served on the city council and as mayor. Bates was born in Chautauqua County, New York and raised in Muskegon County, Michigan. He moved to Denver, Colorado in ...
,
Bela M. Hughes Bela Metcalfe Hughes (April 6, 1817 – October 3, 1902) was an American lawyer, businessman and politician. Hughes played an important role in connecting the American West to the rest of the country with stagecoach lines, as well as in the early ...
,
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 ...
and
Luther Kountze Luther Kountze (October 29, 1841 – April 17, 1918) was an American banker, responsible for helping the city of Denver, Colorado in a time of need and leaving a philanthropic legacy in Morristown, New Jersey. He founded a late-19th century na ...
partnered with East Coast investors to form a railroad company that would link the Denver City and to a lesser degree the Territory of Colorado with the national rail network. The company was incorporated in the Territory of Colorado on November 19, 1867 as the "Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company." A sense of urgency existed for this Denver based corporation, due to the formation of a rival, the Colorado, Clear Creek and Pacific Railway (later the Colorado Central), by W.A.H. Loveland and citizens of nearby
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, with the intention of linking that city directly with Cheyenne and making Golden the natural hub of the territory. To promote the new company and attract investors, Governor Evans orchestrated a large publicity campaign throughout Arapahoe County, including Denver City. Some of his partners lobbied wealthy locals to invest, while others persuaded middle and lower class citizens of Arapahoe County to contribute in the form of small pledges and even donations of their own time and labor to work to construct the line. Within several days, the company sold $300,000 in stock, but were unable to raise further funds to begin construction. The company was turned back in its efforts to solicit funds from the
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, as well as from the Union Pacific, which had previously pledged funds to construct the line. The efforts seemed to be on the brink of failure when Evans was able to persuade Congress to grant "the company" 900,000 acres (3,600 km²) of land on the condition that the company build a line connecting the Union Pacific line with the existing Kansas Pacific line, which then extended only as far west as central
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. Subsequently, money was raised for construction of the line both by selling portions of the land and also by borrowing against portions of it. The fortunes of the company were further enhanced by the decision of the Kansas Pacific Railway to extend its line westward to Denver after receiving $6 million from
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investors. Racing to beat the Golden investors, the company broke ground on its Cheyenne line on May 18, 1868, at a spot near where the
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now stands. The event was cheered by a crowd of nearly 1,000 local citizens. The line took approximately two years to complete. It followed the
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through present-day Greeley. The first railroad station in Denver was constructed at Wazee and Wynkoop streets in present-day Lower Downtown.


Completion and National Significance

The first train from Cheyenne arrived in Denver on June 24, 1870. Two months later, in August 1870, the Kansas Pacific completed its line to Denver and the first train arrived from Kansas. The Denver Pacific line intersected the Kansas Pacific at "Jersey Junction", three miles north of downtown Denver. With the completion of the Kansas Pacific line to Denver (completed at Strasburg on the
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), the Denver Pacific became integral to the first transcontinental rail link between the east and west coasts of America. While the Union Pacific line had been declared finished in 1869 with the
Golden spike The golden spike (also known as The Last Spike) is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad ...
event in Utah, linking it with the
Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...
, passengers were required to disembark the train and cross the Missouri River at
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by boat. With the completion, it was finally possible to embark a train on the east coast and disembark on the west coast. The Denver Pacific's rival, the Colorado Central line from Golden, was not completed until 1877. By this time, Denver had established its supremacy over its rival as the population center and capital city of the newly admitted
State of 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 the ...
. In the 1870s, investors of the Kansas Pacific eventually acquired control of the railroad. On January 24, 1880, the railroad merged with the Kansas Pacific and Union Pacific, with the resulting company retaining the Union Pacific name.


See also

*
Kansas Pacific Railway 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 transcontine ...
*
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 ...


References


External links


Trainweb: Denver Pacific historyRocky Mountain News: The Bold Move that Saved DenverMap of Denver Pacific lines
(PDF) {{DEFAULTSORT:Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company Defunct Colorado railroads Defunct Wyoming railroads Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad Economy of Denver Rail lines receiving land grants Railway companies established in 1867 Railway companies disestablished in 1880 American companies established in 1867 American companies disestablished in 1870