A Silver Plume resident tells how 1006 came to Silver Plume!

A surprise came from the DSP&P Yahoo group when Dale Buxton shared his personal story of hearing how caboose 1006 came to Silver Plume.  He heard the tale from Tom Young, the man responsible for the caboose's restoration in the 1980s.  He also relates the names of many residents of Silver Plume who played a role in saving the caboose.  I thought this type of information may have been lost to history!

My Family is from Silver Plume. So let me add what I know to this story. In mid-eighties Tom Young a resident of Silver Plume, got permission from the town to refurbish 1006. It needed many things but, new siding and paint were on the top of the list. While we were working on the caboose he told me a tale of how it got there. 

During the Clear Creek line's abandonment the C&S had offered all the towns of Clear Creek some manor of Narrow Gauge equipment, but the towns where the rails were already gone had to find and pay for the transport to their town. 

It seems that the Silver Plume Town Council came late to the idea of getting it's own piece of C&S Narrow Gauge history. The county was still in the grips of the Depression so it had no money to ship the caboose from Denver. It looked like it just wasn't going to happen. 

Then at the last minute, with time rapidly running out (literally just a few days) a man with a big truck and heavy equipment trailer showed up and told the town he would bring it to Silver Plume for free. I have no idea who he was other than it seems he liked to move large are (ore?) loads with his truck. I don't think he even got paid for the gasoline he used for the trip. If this load had been too high to get through the many (then new) tunnels on highway 6 he would have had to drive over highway 40 going over the high route to Idaho Springs and beyond.

Two other men in Silver Plume probably figured heavily into this negotiation, Ed and Lon Buckley. They owned the Silver Plume, Buckley Bros. Grocery Store and were members of the town council. 

Other members of the Buckley family held the Conoco gasoline concession for Clear Creek and Gilpin Counties. Three other men in Silver Plume might have been involved with caboose move. Dinger Williams, Andy Reeble and lastly a man by the name of George Rowe. 

Born and raised in Silver Plume, George severed as the mayor there for many years. He also served as town Constable, Historic Guardian and local person of colorful tales. 

One local woman probably figured into at least the later preservation of the caboose. Her name was Josie Marshall, another native born resident of the town. She, like all of the above, lived her entire life in Silver Plume. None of them probably ever imagined in their youth, that the RR would ever leave the town. It was such a focal point there; how could it be imagined? 

I knew every one of these people as a child and count myself lucky to have met and known such individuals. I will never meet their like again!

As a child, the local children showed my sister and I how to get into the locked caboose by unscrewing one of the cupola windows. But the Buckley brothers and George Rowe kept a pretty close eye on the caboose. So that happened rarely.

Dale Buxton