A Railroad Town

A Railroad Town. . , Before the 1860s the Upper Arkansas Valley was crisscrossed by native peoples moving from summer to winter camps and by European and American explorers. The discovery of gold and other minerals in the Colorado Territory brought rapid change. Settlements sprouted as dreams of riches brought miners and business entrepreneurs. , Entrepreneur and rancher William Bales named Cleora, a settlement just a mile downriver, after his youngest daughter. In 1878, Bales built overnight accommodations for travelers making the 2-day stagecoach trip from Cañon City to Leadville. , Rumors of an expansion of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to serve the mining districts meant Cleora's future looked bright. But the AT&SF wasn't the only railroad with an eye on the area's riches. After a fierce legal battle the Denver and Rio Grande, not the AT&SF, laid tracks through the Royal Gorge near Cañon City enroute to Leadville. The D&RG bypassed Cleora, the townsite favored by its rival, and platted a new town upriver at the base of a cone-shaped hill. , Rails reached South Arkansas, as it was first called, on May 1, 1880. By May 20 a makeshift depot was operating out of an old boxcar, and on June 5 the first newspaper, The Mountain Mail, appeared. Most Cleora residents decamped to the new town, some moving entire buildings. , South Arkansas was also the original name of nearby Poncha Springs. To avoid confusion the wife of former Colorado Territorial Governor Alexander Hunt suggested that “Salida,” Spanish for “outlet,” was a good name for a town at the opening of a resource-rich valley. Town officials tried for months to convince locals to use the Spanish pronunciation, “Sa-LEE-da,” but it was the anglicized pronunciation, “Sa-LIE-da,” that stuck. , [photo captions] , . Bales Station was once a busy outpost. , . Salida’s original D&RG Roundhouse serviced both standard-gauge and narrow-gauge trains. Completed in 1882, the 27-track roundhouse had a 62-foot turntable. , . The Rio Grande logo evolved through the years. , . D&RG locomotive 106 in the Salida railyards pre-1915. In the foreground are dual-gauge 3-rail tracks that served both standard and narrow gauge trains. , . D&RG routes in Colorado, c1942 , . After world war two, the Rio Grande bought diesel locomotives like this classic F9 Electro Motive built in 1955, now at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden. , . The last passenger train passed through Browns Canyon on a commemorative run in 1988. That year the Rio Grande was rebranded as the Southern Pacific. In 1996 the Union Pacific acquired the line and suspended freight traffic in the Upper Arkansas Valley the next year., You’re traveling the Collegiate Peaks Scenic and Historic Byway , For visitor information: , www.colorado.com/byways/collegiate-peaks , Heart of the Rockies Chamber of Commerce , Buena Vista Area Chamber of Commerce