Car 211

Car 211. . , This unique passenger and freight combine car operated on the Lake City Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) Railroad in the first several decades of the 20th century. After the car sat idle, the Hinsdale County Historical Society acquired it in 2017 and transported it to the museum in 2018. It has been identified as a rolling stock artifact of historical significance by the Hinsdale County Board of County Commissioners. , Car 211 was originally constructed as a narrow-gauge passenger coach #74 by Jackson and Sharp in 1881 and contained 44 passenger seats. It initially ran throughout the D&RGW rail network. In 1889, the D&RGW railroad completed the 36-mile Lake City Branch up the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River from Sapinero to Lake City. The railroad line transported U.S. Mail, ore, freight and passengers in early years but ore movements diminished following the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 which devalued the price of silver. With this, fewer people and freight came to Lake City, and it was necessary for the railroad to optimize cars. In 1900, this passenger car was converted to a combine passenger/freight car and renumbered as Car 211. It was sent to service the Lake City Branch. , In the early 1900's, Lake City began promoting tourism , fishing, photography and hunting , which, together with limited freight hauling, made Car 211 ideal for this branch. Car 211's creative repurposing shows how local people resisted and reacted to the transition from older extractive industries to tourism, transforming existing infrastructure like Car 211 to ensure the community's survival. The local environment shaped and was shaped by each phase of Car 211's history: the decline of mining, Lake City's flood of 1921, and the rise of outdoor tourism. Faced with threatened closure of the local railroad line in the 1920's, local residents urged their out-of-town relations to increase the railroad's freight revenues by packing and sending bricks to Lake City. Car 211's freight section transported portions of their reactionary cargo. , Car 211 continued operating on the Lake City Branch of the D&RGW Railroad until service on the line was decommissioned in 1933. It is the only known remaining car that operated on the branch. , Restoration of Car 211 represents a major step in restoring an aspect of local history that otherwise vanished from the landscape.