During the famous Big Snow Winter of 1898, when flakes began to fall in November and fell steadily to mid-February, people used snow tunnels to get around Breckenridge. Those snowshoeing on the surface above found their heads level with the tops of two-story buildings!
What a year for the surly storm-king Boreas. He buried the station atop the Pass, inundated the track, and managed to blockade Breckenridge for 79 days. All the efforts of men and machines proved futile — the train could not get through.
Starved for fresh food, mail and supplies, the men of Breckenridge volunteered about March 1 to shovel out the wagon road over Boreas Pass to Como. The task took ten days of backbreaking labor, but succeeded. Supplies and mail came by sled until rail service resumed April 24. Rail crews had labored for six weeks, using a rotary plow pushed by as many as twelve straining engines, to open the Pass by late April. The dauntless Denver, South Park & Pacific met and mastered all these challenges, going on to create its own colorful history.
When P. T. Barnum brought his much-heralded circus to Breckenridge, the circus train struggled, then finally stopped, unable to prevail over Boreas’ steep grades. But the train’s heftiest passengers saved the day. The elephants were unloaded and used to push the circus train up three miles of the steepest track!
A mining era celebrity, nicknamed Tom’s Baby, numbers among the railroad’s most mysterious passengers. Discovered July 23, 1887, Tom’s Baby, reputedly Colorado’s largest gold nugget, weighed in at a remarkable 13 pounds. The nugget left Breckenridge on the D. S. P. & P. enroute to its owner, Colonel M. B. Carpenter of Denver. Although its receipt was documented, the nugget soon after disappeared.
For years, no one knew where the record-breaking “baby” had gone. Decades later, after a tireless search by Rev. Mark Fiester, a long-forgotten locked box in the United Bank of Denver was opened in 1972 — and there among specimens of Breckenridge’s famous wire gold lay the long lost 13-pound whopper, Tom’s Baby.
Another colorful facet in the history of the South Park line was its impact on the town of Breckenridge and Summit County. When tracks came to Breckenridge, there came, inevitably, the “other side of the tracks.” A train station, erected in west Breckenridge at Main and Watson, marked the boundary of a red light district.
Throughout its 55-year history, the railroad acted as a vital conduit to Summit County. In mining days it carried ores to market. With the demise of those dynamic days, the railroad helped keep sleepy Summit County from lapsing into rest eternal. Ranchers shipped cattle, sheep and hay to Denver by rail. The rail helped to keep the Keystone sawmill alive. It provided the residents with a needed link to Denver and Leadville, where goods and services unavailable in Summit County could be procured.
Imaginary Journey
Standing today on the Boreas Pass road, with aspen trees creating an arch of fresh greenery over the old railbed, one can picture the vivid days of the early railroad.
Imagine, perhaps, a journey from Denver to one of the Montezuma Canyon towns, Sts. John, for example. You, the traveler, have ridden the D. S. P. & P. from Denver to Como and are ready to change trains for the High Line route.
(Perhaps you engaged a berth in the sleeping car, the first narrow-gauge Pullman ever built. You relaxed in the elaborate trappings of mahogany, crimson plush upholstery, silk curtains and silverplated lamps.)
The proud little locomotive “Dillon” stands ready on the turntable outside the 19-stall Como roundhouse. After hooking up with its maximum one-engine load — one coal car and one passenger car — the pompous engine begins to parade its might before an appreciative audience. With a salvo of steam, throbbing machinery, a noisy build-up of chugging and the finishing fillip of a surprise “tooooot,” the little locomotive is ready to roll. Each engineer had his signature whistle so locals knew who drove the train.
Passengers scramble aboard. The train chugs across South Park toward the nearby mountains. You travel higher and higher, and soon will have passed Hamilton, Tarryall, Peabody’s and Halfway, at Halfway Gulch, where a water tank, section house and bunkhouse once stood. Later, a lone cabin used as a wait station stood available to shelter miners who wished to wave down the passing train. Today’s road, constructed in 1952 on the old rail grade, circumvents treacherous Windy Pass on the old rail route.
Behind, you view the vast and sleepy spread of South Park, rimmed by mountain walls. Ahead is the steep climb to the summit. The narrow-gauge locomotive now sweats and struggles to conquer the incline. Majestic mountain views appear. You enjoy the intimate contact with nature as you travel slowly upward. Wild roses flourish in the sunshine. Aspen leaves brush against the cars. There in a glade flutters a patch of fragile blue columbine. Ground squirrels, birds and other wildlife rush to escape the noisy locomotive.
You pass Selkirk Spur, and finally . . . the summit. You disembark in the pitch-blackness of a 600-foot long snowshed covering the track to the depot. Passengers stretch their legs as the mail is unloaded and received at the only U.S. postoffice straddling the Continental Divide. The postal station, established January 2, 1896, closed January 4, 1905. A five-room, one and one-half story log section house (the structure has been restored), a large, impressive 1884-built stone engine house with turntable, the station, a huge coal bin, 9,156-gallon water tank and an engine house snowshed plus 190-foot snow fence comprised the station facility.
