railroad history
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100 Years Ago Today: Murder-Suicide at Tolland Station
More tragedy on the old Moffat Road this week. On January 29th it was a boiler explosion on the hoodoo Engine No. 100 near Dixie Lake that killed two coworkers. Today it’s a murder suicide at the Tolland railroad station of the Denver Northwest & Pacific that left two friends dead. In 1919, Tolland was… Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Blizzards and Lizards
M. H. Loeffler was a tailor and prominent Grand Junction Elk member who was known not only for his custom suits, but also for promoting and selling the Hynes Level Measure, which was the first instrument of its kind that could measure the angle of a person’s shoulders. Anyway, he was riding the not-mentioned-by-name Rio… Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Lunatic Threatens to Cut Off Police Chief’s Head
Governor Oliver H. Shoup (shoop ba-doop) was elected the 22nd governor of Colorado in November, 1918, and he was already receiving death threats by February, 1919. “Lunatics” weren’t wasting any time. Granted, Shoup’s own head was not under threat but that of a proxy, Hamilton Armstrong, long-serving Denver Chief of Police. Neither Shoup nor Armstrong… Continue reading
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103 Years Ago Today: Flanger Jumps Track, Hits 75mph
A flanger is a railroad car that clears the area between the rails of ice and snow. A flanger would often be used in conjunction with a rotary snow plow when there was significant snow buildup on the tracks. Whereas a rotary is placed on the front of a train to blast the majority of… Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Two Men Killed in Boiler Explosion
Railroading was so incredibly dangerous 100 years ago. One of the reasons why these old pictures and stories of railroad routes through the Rockies leave me shaking my head in awe is just how much risk there was in building, maintaining, and operating these lines. I’m especially fascinated by the Moffat Road, aka Rollins Pass… Continue reading
About Me
Local history enthusiast curious about how Colorado’s present is informed by the people and places of its past
Pick and Sledge 