"A Look Back"

The Stories presented here are about people and events during the early days when this corner of Colorado was first settled.

Moffat County’s railroad legacy
By Shannan Koucherk for the Museum of NW Colo

On a snowy November day in 1913, the citizens of Craig heard the first whistle of a railroad locomotive as it pulled into the new stop. The Denver and Salt Lake Railroad had finally arrived.

It had taken decades to get the train from Denver and the rest of the country to the track in Moffat County. They had been years of promises made and broken and setbacks that would have sent many people packing to look for another endeavor.

Fortunately for the northwestern corner of Colorado and her growing population, there was a man who had a vision to help expand the economy of the Yampa Valley and bring her riches to the world markets.

Colorado businessman David Moffat wanted to see his city of Denver on a main railroad line. He knew that in order for that to happen, a line had to be profitable. The rich minerals and livestock production of Northwest Colorado could provide that profit – if a way could be found to get the trains from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other without climbing over the tops of the very high mountains.

Moffat set about surveying and planning a route that would become one of technology’s greatest feats of the day and would change the face of the Yampa Valley forever. He would not live long enough to see his dream come to fruition, but it bears his name as a tribute to his foresight.

His amazing six-mile long tunnel cut through the heart of the Rockies, and while it didn’t entirely eliminate the problems of bringing trains through a mountain winter, it was definitely a step in the right direction. The tunnel – completed in 1927 – also provided a way to get western slope water to the growing population on the eastern plains.

The earliest newspapers in Craig boasted of the possibilities that abounded in the area and always included a promise that train service would soon be available for both passengers and freight. As often happens with grand plans and wishful thinking, the railroad, although it would eventually reach Craig, would never be more than a spur off the main transcontinental line.

After the drill team performances, football game and speeches that accompanied the first train’s arrival, the real business of keeping a railway running year round in the Colorado high country began in earnest. The first “depot” was nothing more than three boxcars pulled onto a siding.

In 1917, Craig finally saw the construction of a proper depot. On March 24, Station master Alex Anderson and his wife hosted a dedication celebration in the new $8,000 building, constructed as an identical twin to the depot in Hayden. Craigites danced, sang and ate heartily in the new building.

The first railroad fares seem extremely cheap by today’s standards. One could ride round-trip from Craig to Hayden for $1.55, or make the overnight trip to Denver for $23 round-trip. The trains were mixed passenger and freight cars with a “dinette” car available for travelers who didn’t pack their own lunches.

It wasn’t unusual for the train to be delayed by rock slides and snowdrifts and there are plenty of accounts of passengers being stranded in the high country for one or more days. The locomotives pulled special cars that carried equipment and crew necessary to slide the train back onto the tracks.

Ranchers and farmers took advantage of the new railroad to ship their cattle, sheep and produce to the eastern slope. Livestock buyers of the day soon learned to look for sooty faced cattle in the pens as that told them that the cattle had been raised in the lush pastures of the Northwest. The cowboys who tended the cattle would also be sooty faced as they rode with the cattle through the long tunnel.

New homesteaders began to flood into the valley, packing their possessions in to “immigrant cars” that were divided to hold livestock at one end and household goods and farm implements at the other. When the cars arrived, the owners of the goods were given only a short time to remove their property from the train. It was a common sight to see piles of goods stacked alongside the tracks waiting to be loaded into horse-drawn wagons for the final leg of their journey.

David Moffat’s Denver & Salt Lake Railroad was bought out in a not-so-friendly takeover by the Denver & Rio Grande. As happened so often in the railroad industry across the country, the larger companies swallowed up the smaller ones and soon monopolized the tracks.

As he predicted, mines began to open up near the railroad. The Mt. Harris mine opened in 1914 and was just one of several that depended on the railroad to get their product to market. In 2008, three large coal mines still depend on the railroad to take their coal to customers.

By 1961, The D&RG gave notice that it intended to stop passenger service to Craig. The company had discovered that it was much more cost effective to haul only freight over the mountains. After years of debate and challenges, the Public Utilities Commission finally granted the request to suspend passenger service to the Yampa Valley.

On a snowy April afternoon, the last passenger train into Craig stopped at the depot. “At 4.40 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, 1968, Al Johnson, a 44-year veteran of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad brought the last passenger train into Craig, 20 minutes behind schedule.

“The train, made up of four coaches, was left standing in front of the depot by the crew, who returned to Denver immediately in a station wagon.

“Johnson…had little to say as he climbed down from Engine 5571 at the conclusion of his final run to Craig…With deliberate concern he removed his uniform – a pair of oft-washed coveralls – and silently draped them over the draw bar of the engine, then climbed into an automobile for a long ride back to Denver.” (Empire-Courier April 10, 1968)

In the 21st century, with fuel prices skyrocketing and continued concern about environmental issues, the idea of passenger service throughout Colorado is getting new breath.

Perhaps the great-grandchildren of Moffat County pioneers will some day board a train in Craig and ride through the Moffat Tunnel to other parts of the United States. They too, may come to love the feel, smell and sense of the railroad.