Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Depot, Crested Butte Colorado
- Categories:
- Colorado
- Railroad Facility
- Passenger Station
The Crested Butte branch line was a part of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's Third Division. The narrow gauge railroad was organized in 1870. The D&RG was originally projected as a north-south line linking Denver with El Paso, Texas, and points in Mexico. As new mining discoveries were made in the Colorado mountains, the D&RG's focus turned westward toward new sources of mineral wealth, building to Leadville, Gunnison, Aspen, Durango, and, eventually, Salt Lake City, Utah. The D&RG arrived in Gunnison in early August 1881, nearly thirteen months before the arrival of its competitor, the Denver, South Park, and Pacific Railway. The DSP&P built a branch line northward to Baldwin, but did not compete in completing track to Crested Butte.
Three months after reaching Gunnison, the D&RG narrow gauge tracks were extended 28.2 miles northward to tap the rich coal resources of the Crested Butte region. Regular service on the branch began in November 1881. The branch was extended beyond the end of the tracks at Crested Butte to access more remote coal mining areas: in December 1882, tracks reached Anthracite, some 5.2 miles to the north, and in September 1893, a 10.7-mile branch was constructed west over Kebler Pass to Floresta. Crested Butte was originally established as a supply center for the precious metal mining areas in the nearby mountains, and a townsite was platted in 1880. Efforts to exploit the coal deposits in the vicinity of Crested Butte began in the late 1870s, but large-scale development came when the Colorado Coal and Iron Company (later the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company) acquired large amounts of coal-bearing properties in 1881. The company operated the Jokerville Mine and later the Big Mine immediately south of the townsite. According to historian Duane Smith, Crested Butte had emerged as the leading mountain coal mining community in the state by 1882.
The Crested Butte Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Depot was built in 1883. The $3,000 building was a combination depot, including a passenger waiting room, a freight warehouse, a Railway Express Agency, and office space. The building also included living quarters on the upper floor for the station agent. The plans for the building are dated February 1883, and the same design was used for the D&RG depot at Wagon Wheel Gap, Mineral County, Colorado. The depot was the hub for D&RG activities in the area, but there were a number of other facilities at other locations in Crested Butte: an engine house, a bunk house, a section house, privies, track scales, stock pens, a wooden water tank, and several smaller structures. A wye south of the station provided access to the Big Mine coal tipple and coke ovens.
The Crested Butte branch line mainly carried freight rather than passengers. The principal items transported were coal and coke from Colorado Fuel and Iron Company mines. Between 1880 and 1952, Crested Butte mined 10.2 million tons of coal; nearly, 1.4 million tons of coke were produced between 1881 and 1918. The mostly bituminous coal was shipped for use as railroad locomotive fuel, in industry, and as domestic fuel in Colorado and adjoining states. An 1891 newspaper article emphasized the importance of the railroad to Crested Butte, reporting that the town was "the supply and shipping point for a number of surrounding mining camps which do not enjoy the privileges of a railroad, such as Irwin, Pittsburg, Gothic, Crystal, Yule Creek, Brush Creek and Cement Creek. In order to reach any of these points it is necessary to come to Crested Butte." Crested Butte historian George Sibley noted that "the railroad represented the only significant and generally reliable contact with the rest of the world. Without the railroad, the town would not have had its mines, and without the mines there would have been no town after the shortlived silver boom." During the railroad era, the highway was not kept open in winter north of Jack's Cabin (a point about halfway to Gunnison).
During the twentieth century, the D&RG began to curtail service to the Crested Butte coal mining region. In 1929, the Floresta branch was closed; in 1947, the line to Anthracite was abandoned. After peaking during World War II, coal production dropped quickly in the postwar period. In 1952, CF&I announced the closure of the Big Mine in Crested Butte. In 1953, the D&RG requested permission to abandon the narrow gauge line from Poncha Junction to Cimarron west of Gunnison. A railroad officer noted that this segment of the railroad had lost money in recent years, with two-thirds of the revenue it generated coming from coal shipments from the Big Mine. With the closure of the CF&I facility, operation of the line was no longer financially feasible. The line was abandoned in 1954 and the tracks removed the following year. Writing on the removal of the railroad, local historian Denis B. Hall observed that "the trains were more than mere transportation, they were a symbol of prosperity and affluence. They were a physical link with the world outside the mountains."
After the withdrawal of the railroad, the depot's last station agent, C.T. "Ralph" McCandless and his wife Adele, acquired the depot and "converted the rest of the big building into a home so cozy and cheery that its size was not overwhelming." The McCandlesses lived in the depot until 1972, and the addition on the south was added during their tenure. In 1972, Ralph and Biilie Clark purchased the depot and undertook renovations, consulting original plans for the depot obtained from the D&RG in Denver. Clark built the connecting section between the original depot and the building to the south. The Clarks donated the property to the Crested Butte Society in 1973. The building was used for a variety of community and cultural events, including lectures, art exhibitions, theater workshops, and private receptions. A portion of the building served as a public library for the town for several years. The building is still owned by the Crested Butte Society and provides office space for community groups.
h2>Building Description
The Crested Butte Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Depot is a frame building which consists of three connected rectangular components: a one-and-a-half-story station house, a one-story freight room to the south, and a one-story frame addition south of the freight room. The depot remains at its original site on the eastern edge of Crested Butte, a historic coal mining community in central Colorado, twenty-eight miles north of Gunnison. The building, located about two blocks east of the original business and residential sections of the town, sits on an open, level site which provides commanding views of surrounding peaks, including 12,162' Crested Butte Mountain.
The one-and-a-half-story northernmost section of the depot, which contained the passenger waiting room, administrative office, express room, and hallway on the first story and the residence of the station agent, with parlor, kitchen, and two bedrooms above, has a steeply pitched, cross-gable roof, with flared, widely overhanging eaves supported by oversize decorative brackets with slats and arched undersides on the east and west. The wide overhangs, typical of depot design, provided shelter for freight and passengers. There is a central red brick chimney with a corbelled cap, and the roof has wood shingle roofing. At the apex of each of the four gable faces is a pediment ornamented with a sunburst motif decoration in the tympanum; there are louvered vents on the north and south gables. Paired two-over-two-light double-hung sash windows are placed immediately beneath the thick horizontal molding at the base of the sunburst on the north, east, and west gables, while two small, two-light windows are on the south gable. The north gable face beneath the molding is ornamented with fishscale shingles, while the east, west, and south faces have coursed square shingles. The gable face flares outward above the first story on the north gable end, and a course of molding divides the upper and lower stories. The first story has horizontal siding on the upper walls to sill level, and vertical board siding on the lower walls from sill level to the foundation. There is a sill course dividing the two types of siding and wood skirt boards are along the foundation.
The first story of the west wall of the one-and-a-half-story section of the depot has paneled doors with divided transoms at the north and south ends. There is one two-over-two-light double-hung sash window and paired windows between the doors. The doors face wood exterior steps. The north wall has one set of central, paired, two-over-two-light double-hung sash windows. The east wall, originally the trackside of the building, has a rectangular projecting bay window with central paired windows. South of the bay are double paneled doors surmounted by a divided transom. North of the bay is a paneled door with a divided transom. North of the door is a double-hung sash window. There is a slightly raised, wood board deck along the east.
The one-story freight room wing on the south has a gable roof with wood shingle roofing and widely overhanging eaves. The rectangular wing has horizontal board siding on the upper walls and vertical board siding on the lower walls. There is a horizontal trimboard between the two types of siding. The west wall of the wing has central double doors ornamented with cross-bracing and vertical trim and is surmounted by a divided transom. The stone foundation is visible on this section of the building. There is a raised wood dock in front of the doors. The east wall of the wing (trackside) also has double doors with a divided transom which face a raised wood deck. There is a metal frame with a canvas awning sheltering the doors.
The one-story, side gable roof addition on the south has a roughly L shape, with a lower projecting wing extending a short distance to the east. The addition has board and batten siding, widely overhanging eaves with diagonal braces, and corrugated metal roofing. There is a center brick chimney clad with metal. The west wall of the addition has two paneled doors facing wood steps, with paired and single two-over-two-light windows between the doors. The south wall of the addition has a single double-hung sash window. The east wall has a paneled door toward the south and a gabled projection toward its north end, which has central double hinged doors facing a concrete step. Connecting the addition to the freight room is a bay with slightly lower gable roof, board and batten siding, and no window or door openings.
The interior of the first story of the building has been divided into offices. The upper story houses an apartment. The interior of the depot retains hardwood floors, wood wainscot, molding around doors, cornice molding, paneled wood doors, and a staircase with balustrade.
The station house chimney appears to have been altered and perhaps rebuilt after 1954, and a chimney on the freight room roof is gone. Railroad tracks which originally paralleled the building on the east were removed in 1955. A one-story building was relocated south of the original depot after October 1955 and, in 1973, was attached to the original depot with a short connecting section.
The southern one-story section appears to be historic, and longtime residents indicated that it was a former railroad section house moved to this site from a location two blocks to the south, where historic maps of Crested Butte railroad facilities do show a section house. The southern section was not in its current location in August 1955, according to historic photographs, but was present in a photograph published in the local newspaper December 1972. Ralph E. Clark, Jr., indicated that he built the connecting section in 1973. Aerial photographs and discussions with longtime residents could not provide a more precise date for the relocation of the southern section of the building.
Undated historic view of the Crested Butte D&RG Depot and locomotive number 34 (date unknown)
Early 1950s view of the Crested Butte D&RG Depot (1950)
Front (west wall) of depot, with original part to left and addition to right (1998)
North wall and part of east wall of original part of depot (1998)
East wall (rear, trackside) of the original part of the depot (1998)
East wall (rear, trackside) of the depot, with addition to left and original part to right (1998)
South wall and east projection of the addition, with Northeast upper portion of original part beyond (1998)
West wall (front) of the depot, with original part to left and addition to right (1998)
