Background: The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad laid track through the upper part of Black Canyon of
the Gunnison in 1881-82. The town of Cimarron was created in 1882, and the railroad pushed the line
over Cerro Summit, to Montrose, Grand Junction and Salt Lake City. The company operated the narrow
gauge line in Black Canyon from 1882 until 1949 (almost 70 years) and Cimarron boasted a depot, hotel,
restaurant, round house for helper engines, water tower, and especially loading pens and docks for
livestock.
The displays at Cimarron provide encounters with rolling stock (box, and stock cars, caboose, etc), a
locomotive and tender, reproduction livestock pens, and artifacts from the town.
It seems like change is a possible universal concept.
I.
INSTRUCTIONAL OUTCOMES
Knowledge:
a. Outline several duties that laborers needed to be able to do and items that they needed
to keep with them in order to initially build and maintain the railroad in Black Canyon.
b. Explain two significant impacts railroads, including the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad,
had on individual people in western Colorado.
Comprehension:
c. Describe what life was like for an immigrant, often far from home, and what the
benefits and drawbacks were for taking such a job.
d. Evaluate differences in transportation technology, how society embraced and let go
different modes, and why.
II.
Anticipatory set
(By Visitor Center)
Show a reproduction railroad spike. Say that this item and millions like it were used to transform a
society.
Outline the history of the railroad; the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was incorporated in the 1870s
with the original goal of laying rails from Colorado Springs north to Denver and south to Santa Fe. The
prominent motivator for the company was William Jackson Palmer who was successful reaching Denver,
but his company was thwarted in the effort to reach Santa Fe.
The first rail line to reach Santa Fe from the east was the Santa Fe Railroad (later the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe R.R.). The D&RG eventually runs to Alamosa, Chama (New Mexico), and Durango.
Palmer turns his company’s attention to the west in laying track to Salida, eventually Gunnison, and
other towns. He determines that narrow gauge trains will negotiate the tight mountain and upland
terrain better than standard gauge. Describe the differences in width and the advantages and
disadvantages of both. Show the lines of track laid at the visitor center. Palmer was seeking wealth for
the company by transporting the mineral riches that were being mined in the mountain towns of the
Sawatch and San Juan Mountain Ranges.
III.
Teaching Procedure/Methodology
(Drive into canyon, by truss bridge)
Ask “How do communities arrange to build airports in America today?” Compare their answers to how
communities got train stations in the 1800s & 1900s, especially in the west. Speed was important in the
effort to win the race to specific towns. There were consequences, though. Describe how and why
railroads selected station locations – and that speed to reach towns meant sloppy work, unsafe and
dismal working conditions and rebuilding expenses later.
Develop ideas of how train travel revolutionized transportation in the country, and was a product of the
Industrial Revolution. Today we have many ways to travel, but there were fewer in 1882 when the
D&RG line came to the Cimarron River.
Ask, “Could workers be forgotten in the effort to realize company profits?” So who were these workers?
Build a list, accept all answers. Focus down to immigrants, usually single, male. Describe the conditions
for working (pay, hours, living quarters, food, days off, skills). Ask, “If you were a laborer here, do you
think your life meant very much to the company?” Compare to other lines of work for immigrants, at
the time.
Put on your engineer cap. Ask, “Why would you build a railroad next to a natural river in a steep walled
canyon, like this?” (the grade was much easier, and you didn’t have dreadfully mountainous terrain to
move around in). How would you build a railroad here? Build a list, accept all answers. Focus to drilling
and black powder/nitro glycerin.
Activity:
Show them the drill bit anchored in the dirt, demonstrate how to swing a sledge hammer to hit the drill.
Give them a chance to swing a sledge hammer on the drill bit. Provide safety tips. This may take some
time, but give anyone who wants to take a swing a chance. Demonstrate how a hand-turned drill
worked. [Drilling holes to place the dynamite]
Ask, how much do you think your life was worth to the company?
Describe what the uses of black powder were during this time period. Demonstrate how the drill holes
were filled with black powder. Describe the relative instability of this product, and the consequences.
Compare to fire crackers, show some samples. Provide safety tips, and then light them. Compare to
nitroglycerin and its stability. [Setting dynamite]
Show the adz tool (rhymes with fads) for sculpting rail ties and describe how it works. Point out the
safety hazards and risks of using the tool, and how injuries could occur. Recap the descriptions of
working conditions, hours, pay, etc. Read the quote from Duane Vandenbusche’s book (Gunnison
Country, p. 96-97). [Preparing ties for the rails and spikes]
Consider the comparing some of these activities with the AMC television show, Hell on Wheels.
Let’s say you’re going away from home for a year (yes you – going far away). Show them a typical
suitcase that a working person of that time period might be able to use for packing their stuff. Say “If
you were that person, here is the space you have. What would you put into the suitcase? Build a list.
Here is the space that you have available to carry whatever in life you wish to bring to America (possible
link here to Ellis Island National Monument). Remember, you’re probably not going home. What will
you bring? So you’re far from home, possibly left your family in the old world of Europe. What do you
think you would want or need. Pull out the items packed away. List of typical materials for these
laborers is in the packet.
Ask, “Why would you come to America to take this job?” “Why would you move so far away from
home for this job?”Would you stay on the job long? Your life doesn’t mean much to the company.
Possible answers that are important to highlight: means of income, uncomplicated life, maybe a better
life for self and family, escape trouble in Europe, some international laborers may have romanticized life
in America, escape a downtrodden system in Europe, good physical work, work outside, satisfaction of
making money the old fashioned way.
Show the spike – we’re linking a nation together.
Teaching Procedure/methodology continued:
(Drive to Engine 278)
Give all participants a chance to be up close and personal with Engine 278. Allow for informal dialogue,
and question answer. Listen to the questions, with the possibility that they will be raised a little later.
Ask, “How does your car work?” “What mechanical parts make it go?”
Activity:
Show diagram of automobile engine. Compare those parts to Engine 278. Let participants touch it, look
under it. Ask, “Does everyone know how this works?” If possible, set up a Coleman stove with tea
kettle. Boil water to demonstrate the power of steam.
Ask, “How did people travel in 1882 when the railroad was built?” Accept all possible answers, but a
few might/should include: foot, horse, horse/wagon, canoe, boat (several types), ships, and trains. Have
audience members read Rudyard Kipling quote of his 1889 trip through the Black Canyon. This was
state-of-the-art transportation for its day.
What have we added since? Airplanes, automobiles, bicycles, trucks, space shuttle. Ask, “Which are
most important, today?” This is tricky. Answers might reflect participant bias, but that’s o.k.
Eventually the group will come to the conclusion that time is an essential piece of travel/transportation.
Compare travel times between Montrose and Denver on the railroad, at that time, and traveling by
plane and car today.
Teaching Procedure/methodology continued:
There were several impacts that the D&RG railroad had in the 70 years of operations that the company
ran the line. Ask, “What might they be?” Accept all answers, but come back to a couple that are
especially important.
A) The railroad made it possible for people to first see Black Canyon. In fact many national parks
were introduced by the railroads.
B) It ratcheted up the speed of travel for many people in Colorado. The D&RG R.R. networked the
state, and through tie-ins out of state, the nation.
C) The railroad companies, combined, were the largest employer in the United States for decades.
D) It made possible the transition from subsistence farming, to cow/calf, sheep farming and
grain/orchard farming by opening up markets for the products.
E) It sped up the pace of western settlement.
F) Coupled together, the stories of the Gunnison Tunnel and the D & RG Railroad are a seamless
look at how people made change in their world very quickly after settlement.
What uses do trains have today?
IV.
Closure
What uses do trains have today? Build a list. Primarily focus on shipping of large/heavy quantities
of goods. Are trains important today? Give people a chance to think this out, ask how? Develop
any kind of list they might want to build.
Hold up the railroad spike. In the other hand, hold up an ipod or cell phone. Ask, “How are these
different (one revolutionized transportation, the other revolutionized communication)?”
After 150 years, the railroad spike has fallen into disuse. For all of the contributions made by
railroads for such a long time, it seems that they disappeared pretty quickly (from 1950 to 1970
most rail transportation vanished. Ask, “How are these the same?” They both represent
monumental change in the world. For the railroads that change pointed towards events that people
could not foresee.
Perhaps the decline of the railroads is due more to a quest for faster speed and shorter travel time,
(“When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight”), or independent travel (in the U.S.), than
for efficiency or community (people hate flying coach, and would rather drive).
The stories of the Gunnison Tunnel and Denver & Rio Grande Railroad are very similar in the
changes that they brought to western Colorado and our world as a whole. They can give us an
opportunity to reflect not only on where we have been, but where we are going. In a time when we
have been asking ourselves, as a nation, where do we go from here, these stories help us see who
we have been, and perhaps who we might become, as the people of the United States.
V.
References Sited
Montrose Press, 1896-1906
“Gunnison Country,” Duane Vandenbushe
“Narrow Gauge Transcontinental – Through Gunnison Country, Black Canyon Revisited,” Gordon
Chappell, Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation
Uncompaghre Water Users Association – Engineering Records 1903-1906