Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge: A Quick History

Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge: A Quick History is Duane Smith's compact account of the railroad that links two San Juan towns. The 106 page book keeps its focus on what made the line remarkable: the engineering feats needed to conquer rugged, isolated mountains.

The reason for the railroad is plain in the description. Rich gold and silver strikes around Silverton needed cheap and reliable transportation. By July 1881 the Denver and Rio Grande had reached Durango, and its goal was Silverton and then northward to the San Juan mines.

Construction was a fight on two fronts, as the description tells it. Crews battled steep mountains, deep snow and the constant danger of avalanches. For many years the railroad was the only way in and out of Silverton, and the book ends with the present day, when the line brings thousands of tourists to town each summer day. Open Library lists a 2002 edition from Cheshire Moon Publications, filed under narrow gauge railroads and the Durango and Silverton line.

This book is for train riders who want to know what they are looking at out the window, and for railfans who collect narrow gauge history. Visitors planning a trip to Silverton will find a short, readable background that fits in an evening. Teachers of Colorado history can pair it with the longer mining books. At 106 pages it does not try to be a roster of locomotives. It is a quick history, as the title says, built around why the line exists and what it took to lay it.

Duane Smith wrote this railroad history as part of a long career writing about Colorado mining country. His Silverton and San Juan books sit beside it in our catalogue, so a reader can go from the rails to the town they served. Dates in the Open Library record place this edition in 2002. Nine of his books are listed with us, and the full set is described on his author page.

More about Duane A. Smith →

Wikipedia says the Denver and Rio Grande reached Durango in July 1881 and built the final 45 miles to Silverton in about nine months. The railroad's own history gives a more precise day for Durango, August 5, 1881, so sources differ by a few weeks. Both agree that the Silverton tracks were finished in July 1882, when the line began hauling passengers and freight.

The work was heavy. Wikipedia reports a crew of mostly Chinese and Irish immigrants paid $2.25 a day, at least 500 laborers in all. Beyond Rockwood the track enters the Animas Canyon, where crews blasted granite cliffs to carve a narrow, level shelf. The railroad's history estimates that over $300 million in precious metals moved over the route.

Later honors followed. The line was designated a National Historic Landmark District on July 4, 1961, and the American Society of Civil Engineers named it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1968. In March 1981 the Denver and Rio Grande Western sold the Silverton branch and the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge was formed.

Source: Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad: Train History