RGS Story, The Rio Grande Southern Vol II 2 Telluride Pandora & the Mines Above

Description: RailroadTreasures offers the following item: RGS Story, The Rio Grande Southern Vol II 2 Telluride Pandora & the Mines Above The RGS Story Vol 2 Telluride, Pandora and the Mines Above by Russ Collman & Dell A McCoy Hard Cover w/Plastic Protective Cover Reflections from the lights on some photos. 496 pages Copyright 1991 CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments 7 List of Detailed Maps 9 Otto Mears, Pathfinder of the San Juans 11 The Mining Town of Telluride 23 The Rio Grande Southern Arrives in Telluride 35 The Continuing Chronicles of Telluride 107 Telluride to Pandora on the Telluride Branch 241 The Upper San Miguel Mining District 289 MAP LIST The Mears System of Toll Roads 14 Kibbe's Geographical Map (Very Early Period) 22 Telluride in 1886 28 Rio Grande Southern Telluride Branch Profile Chart 65 Rio Grande Southern Railroad Yard in Telluride 66 Telluride Street Map 108 Telluride to Pandora 244 Mining Camp of Pandora 257 Pandora - Smuggler-Union Railroad Yard 281 USGS Telluride Quadrangle in 1894 296 Sanborn - Sheridan Mine in 1893 300 Sanborn - Pioneer Leasing Company Stamp Mill 303 Sanborn - Sheridan Crosscut Tunnel House 304 Sheridan Incline 306 Sanborn - Sheridan & Mendota Mill in 1893 314 Sanborn - Sheridan & Mendota Mill in 1904 325 Sheridan & Mendota Mill in the 1890's 327 Sanborn - Bullion Tunnel of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in 1922 341 Upper San Miguel Mining District (Color) 351 Sanborn - Cimarron Mill of the Revenue Tunnel Mining Company in 1908 359 Sanborn - John M. Wagner Mine and Cimarron Mill in 1922 360 Concentrating Mills and Cyaniding Plant of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in Pandora 361 Sanborn - Red Mill of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in 1908 368 Sanborn - Pennsylvania Tunnel of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in 1922 375 Sanborn - Upper Mine Area of the Tomboy Mine in 1904 381 USGS Telluride Quadrangle 382 Sanborn - Tomboy Concentrating Mill in Savage Basin in 1904 383 Sanborn - Tomboy Mine Pumping Station in Savage Basin in 1922 387 Sanborn - Tomboy Stamp Mill in Savage Basin in 1908 388 Sanborn - Concentrating Mill of the lona Gold Mining Company in 1908 391 Tomboy Milling and Flotation Plant in 1922 402 Sanborn - Concentrating Mill of the Japan Mines Company in 1908 406 Sanborn - Tomboy Milling and Flotation Plant in 1922 407 Sanborn - Tomboy Upper Tramway Terminal and Ophir Tunnel in 1922 424 Sanborn - Tomboy Lower Tramway Terminal in Pandora in 1922 425 Concentrating Mill and Flotation Plant of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in 1922 437 The Upper San Miguel Mining District 441 Sanborn - Black Bear Mining Company in 1908 448 USGS Bridal Veil and Ingram Basin 450 Sanborn - Black Bear Mining Company in 1908 454 Sanborn - Bridal Veil Falls Powerstation of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in 1922 461 Stamp Mill of the Mayflower Gold Mining & Reduction Company in 1908 468 Sanborn - Shaft House of the Mayflower Gold Mining & Reduction Company in 1908 468 USGS Lewis Mill in Bridal Veil Basin 471 USGS Liberty Bell Mine and Mill 472 Processing Mill of the Liberty Bell Mine 485 USGS Bear Creek Drainage 488 Sanborn - Stamp Mill of the Nellie Mine in 1908 490 Sanborn - Bear Creek Mill of the San Miguel Consolidated Gold Mining Company 493 PREFACE TELLURIDE... a magical, alluring name from out of the Old West... and one of the primary goals of the plucky Rio Grande Southern Railroad... along the picturesque San Miguel River... VOLUME II OF THE R G S STORY covers the chronicals of the Telluride Branch of the diminutive narrow-gauge Rio Grande Southern Railroad, the captivating mining town of Telluride and the fantastic, enthralling Upper San Miguel Mining District. Nowhere else in all the American West is there another mining region that equals the Telluride district, the little narrow-gauge railroad that served it or the historic mining town of Telluride itself. Silver and gold had the rather disconcerting habit of depositing themselves in areas which challenge the climbing expertise of Colorado's wild Rocky Mountain sheep. To say the least, this created problems that were especially trying in the lofty rock-ribbed country of southwestern Colorado, where some of the richest gold and silver strikes of the 19th century were made in mountain basins nearly two miles high, in rugged gulches and canyons which are narrow, deep chasms in the Earth, as well as on the dangerous talus-covered slopes of the high San Juan peaks. All of this greatly increased the already difficult technological problems involved in extracting and converting hard-rock ores into wealth - sometimes spectacular amounts of wealth. Once the ore was blasted and hacked out of the mountains, and after it was reduced and refined in processing mills, it somehow had to be transported out of the lofty cordilleran heights in which the rich lode mines had been discovered. Furthermore, mining machinery, fuel, lumber, foodstuffs, medicine and other supplies had to be hauled up to the remote mining camps, meaning that trails, wagon roads, aerial tramways and railroads had to be constructed and maintained. Reliable passenger service had to be established, so people could travel to and from the mining center of Telluride. Side-by-side with transportation, communication had to be established between the mining camps and the financial and supply centers to the east of the high mountains. The roads providing access to the mines in the Telluride district were hastily pushed up the canyons and mountain slopes. And such roads they were... some of the most heart-stopping roads in all the history of America, crudely carved into the rocky sides of mountains... as graphically illustrated in many of the photographs featured in this volume. The railroad was slow in coming to Telluride. The mining country in the Telluride area was so formidable that it taxed the genius of Otto Mears, the remarkable "Pathfinder of the San Juans." As a result, the end-of-track on the Telluride Branch of the RGS was in the mining camp of Pandora, at an elevation of 9,007 feet. Here, the RGS ran solidly up against the rocky slopes of the San Miguel Range, at the eastern end of a scenic box canyon. FOR MANY YEARS, a steady stream of prospectors, miners and their families, as well as mine managers, engineers, bartenders, gamblers, prostitutes, merchants, bankers, lawyers and the proverbial "drummers" braved the ride on "the steam cars" of the Rio Grande Southern, in order to ride up and over Dallas Divide... and then, after going downgrade to Placerville, to once again go upgrade along the sparkling San Miguel River to reach Telluride. Amazingly, most of passengers survived their rides over the rather primitive track and spidery trestles of the RGS! In time, agonizing labor troubles came to the Upper San Miguel Mining District. The hard-rock miners often performed their difficult-and-dangerous tasks far underground, usually for 10 hours a day, six days a week and for only $2.80 per working day, with no fringe benefits whatsoever. Near the end of the 19th century, the working men of Telluride's mines and mills gathered together to form a trade union stubbornly determined to force the mine owners to increase their daily wage to $3.00 a day, for a work day of eight hours. Shortly thereafter, the local union became part of the militant Western Federation of Miners, and the battle lines were drawn. In 1901, the president of the WFM, Charles H. Moyer, proclaimed that the union "...will not pause in the determined effort to bring about...change in our social and economic conditions as will result in a complete revolution of the present system...." The opposite was expressed in the formation of the Colorado Mine Owners Association in 1902, whose openly stated objective was the suppression of all labor unions in the state (from the book "Gold and Silver in the West" by T. H. Watkins, American West Publishing Co. 1976). Equally inflexible was Colorado's conservative governor, James H. Peabody, who wrote the following letter to the publisher of The Los Angeles Times: "I cannot convince myself to believe in the idea that a laboring man who has several little bodies to clothe and hungry mouths to feed, may be compelled to labor no more than eight hours. I disclaim the right of any individual or organization to compel him to cease when the clock strikes the eighth hour, and I will not permit it if it requires the entire power of the state...to prevent it." The resulting strikes of 1903-1904 at both Cripple Creek and Telluride caused historian Melvyn Dubofsky to declare that this was "...one of thw most brutal class conflicts in American history." In the end, the powerful mine owners and polititians of the period forced their will upon the mining men, and the union movement was temporarily crushed. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, neither side in this bloody conflict "won" - and big-time mining in the Telluride district slowly faded into the palest reflection of its former glory. In the end, all of the mines were closed, abandoned to the icy elements of the unforgiving high country. Telluride's "boom-and-bust" gold-and-silver-mining era lasted for less than two generations. It was a time when men were filled with a virulent fever of a maddening nature, and those men infected by it were given the raw courage to assault the rugged mountain peaks above Telluride - against all logic - blindly driven by the lust for gold and silver. Incredible financial empires were built in a matter of only a few years. And just as quickly, the empires crumbled into dust. The mining camps were thrust upon the slopes above Telluride willy-nilly, only to be abandoned within a few short years. Today, hardly a trace of the narrow-gauge Rio Grande Southern can be found in the hauntingly beautiful San Miguel Park, where Telluride is located. And only a few rustic remains of the mining camps are in evidence in the remote high country above the once-fabulous mining town of Telluride. Russ Collman Denver Colorado, 1991 All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us. Shipping charges Postage rates quoted are for shipments to the US only. Ebay Global shipping charges are shown. 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Price: 200 USD

Location: Talbott, Tennessee

End Time: 2024-08-12T21:06:56.000Z

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