Another great image from Then and Now, Images of Colorado and the West
Notice the rock formation at top left (a large rock with a smaller one on top of it). You can see the same formation in the 2015 photo.
Here is the description from the Facebook post:
Tracks of the Colorado & Southern narrow gauge in Platte
Canyon. Early 1900's to 2015. The distance to Denver would have been roughly 28
miles by rail from this point when L.C. McClure took the original photo. Today,
the most dramatic portions of the canyon are inundated by the Strontia Springs
reservoir which was completed in the 1980's. When I visited in 2015, the water
levels had receded just enough to allow me to stand out on the sandbar and
capture this view.
Original photograph from the Denver Public Library Western
History Collection.
2 comments:
Any sense of how high above track level you were? It looks like it might not be more than a few feet underwater.
Original Photographer here: Probably no more than 15-20 feet. Unfortunately it's covered mostly by mud and sand rather than water so the grade is likely obscured. However, due to the extensive sediment deposits there are plans to drain the reservoir and dredge out the debris sometime in the future. My hope is that certain parts of the grade, maybe even the old Strontia Springs station, will be revealed, if only for a short time.
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