The Royal Gorge

The Royal Gorge. . Royal Gorge Railroad War . Racing to lay the first tracks into the Colorado Rockies in April 1878, the Denver & Rio Grande and its rival, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, reached the Royal Gorge in a dead heat. Competing construction crews stared each other down at the mouth of the crucial portal while judges struggled to end the right-of-way dispute. D&RG owner William Jackson Palmer, leaving nothing to chance, armed his workers and had them sabotage the enemy's operations. The AT&SF responded in kind, sparking two years of non-lethal but costly combat. An 1880 settlement finally ended the "war,” with Palmer taking possession of the coveted gorge and all that lay beyond. Victory in hand, he set out to claim the spoils. The D&RG spent its remaining years steaming from lode to lode, a railroad in search of the next mining bonanza.. Royal Gorge Bridge . Plans to span the Royal Gorge began circulating in 1906, when Congress ceded the site to Cañon City as a public park. Local boosters conceived of the bridge strictly as a tourist attraction, not a practical means of transport. One early blueprint (quickly rejected) even called for a plate-glass surface enabling visitors to peer straight down into the abyss. It took more than twenty years to work out a feasible, cost-effective design, but the wait was worth it. When the 1,260-foot-long structure opened in 1929, it immediately became one of Colorado's most visited sites. For all its elegance and ingenuity, the Royal Gorge Bridge remains a road to nowhere, dead-ending at the canyon's southern rim. But this dramatic span is a destination unto itself , a highway into mid-air, 1,053 dizzying feet above the Arkansas River.. Captions . Top left: Although the Royal Gorge "war” played out mostly in court, blockades and other strong-arm tactics stymied the effort of both sides to build through the canyon. Here armed workers pose for a photographer, 1878. Colorado Historical Society . Middle right: The Denver & Rio Grande promoted itself as the "Scenic Line of the World,” taking tourists (here at Hanging Bridge in 1905) through the natural beauty and engineering marvel of the Royal Gorge Canyon. Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Collection . Center: [No caption} Colorado Historical Society . Bottom: Below: Dedication of the Royal Gorge Bridge, December 1929 Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Collection . This historical marker was erected in 2001 by Colorado Department of Transportation; Colorado Historical Society. It is Near Penrose in Fremont County Colorado