Once Upon a Depot: The Many Lives of Georgetown Station

This article first appeared in the January 2015 edition of The Bogies and the Loop. 

Once Upon a Depot:

The many lives of Georgetown Station

by Kurt Maechner

On a warm, June day in 1939 a dusty, old trophy was finally taken off the shelf.  The high bridge, crown of the Georgetown Loop, a trophy of engineering and tourism, was pulled apart limb by limb.  As the gravediggers did their work on high, they could look down and see the once proud Georgetown depot, shuttered since 1937, decaying next to the now naked railroad ties.

And there the story may have ended.  It is unclear just what became of the depot from the last page of its railroad life to the 1950s, other than Mac Poor’s comment that it was sold for a degrading $50.  By the middle of the century, though, the likely denouement was for the building to be erased from the page by the ominous highway slated to lay asphalt right over it.  

Unlike some other C&S depots that vanished after their book was shut (such as Gunnison’s that incidentally got overrun by a highway), the station at Georgetown got itself a sequel.  Two plot twists made this possible.  The first was the dogged campaign of then mayor of Georgetown, James Grafton Rogers, to kick I-70 up the side of the valley and save “The Park.”  This saved not only the chance for steam to rise again from the resurrected Loop, but also pulled the depot out from underneath the oncoming interstate steamrollers.

The second twist in the tale is the arrival of two failed entrepreneurs.  Bill Brough and Hugh Johnson, who tried and failed at running a bus company, saw an opportunity to cash in on the growing inflow of tourists due to nearby Loveland Ski area by having a go at opening a restaurant in Georgetown.  They purchased the old station and each weekend drove in from Boulder to serve hungry skiers.

In 1953 a Nebraska native by the name of Dwight Jones bought the station and took the fledgling restaurant one step farther by completely changing the building’s image.  He gave it a Swiss chalet makeover, and christened it The Alpine Inn Restaurant. 

Just a few years later, in 1960, a principle character entered the story of the depot’s second life.  Bob Gibbs, an ambitious young man, came on board as a bartender and manager.  Just seven years later, however, he went on to buy the Inn outright from Jones, and then managed it faithfully for more than two decades.

As Bob’s life grew, so did the old station’s.  The Alpine Inn could seat 250 people and often served 400 dinners a night.  In addition, a successful hotel complex was added near the restaurant in the early 60s.    

The depot was not the only place that was changing; the town around it was changing too.  From a ski town to a national historical district, Bob saw the little valley hamlet transform.  One of the most significant changes began in the 1970s with the reconstruction of the fabled C&S line from Silver Plume to the old abutments of the high bridge above Georgetown.  The vision of reconstructing the Loop as a tourist line had finally moved from dream to reality.  In 1984, 45 years after the original was scrapped to oblivion, the resurrected bridge once again echoed the squeal of a locomotive wheel down into the valley below. 

As the trains began to chug and the decades wore on, Gibbs’ Alpine Inn continued to flourish, serving locals, skiers, tourists, and train buffs.  By the time that the 1980’s were wrapping up, however, Bob was ready to move on from the restaurant business.  It was time for someone else to write another chapter in the depot’s life.

When Bob put the old Georgetown station up for lease, Lindsey and Rosa Ashby, operators of the Georgetown Loop Railroad (GLRR), took him up on the offer and eventually purchased the building in 1995. 

The Ashbys wrote the life of a railroad back onto the page.  They built an annex on the depot as a home office for the two tourist railroads that they operated, the GLRR and the Royal Gorge Railroad.  A concession was also added to the station with a snack bar serving breakfast and light lunch, though they quickly found out that it didn’t work well.  What did work, though, was a very nice train-themed gift shop.

Most importantly, the depot returned to one of its original functions: it was once again a ticket office for train fare.  For a number of years, tourists wanting to ride the famed Loop had to pick up their tickets at the depot and then drive to Silver Plume to catch the train. 

The plot, however, didn’t stay placid for long before there was one final twist.  In the middle of the 2000s, ownership of the GLRR operations changed. 

Once the Ashbys moved out, the Georgetown depot was vacant once more.  Here is where our protagonist comes back into the story.  Bob Gibbs, who had moved from the restaurant world to realty, returned to the story of the station when he was called upon to try to sell it, which he did to the present owners. 

 

Today the old Georgetown station thrives again as a reincarnation of its food-serving life.  It was rechristened “The Alpine Restaurant and Bar,” its logo heralding its two sources of life: a train on the high bridge at the top, and a skier on the side.  The Alpine, according to its website, offers both lunch and dinner “homemade from scratch!”  In addition to cuisine, the owners host live music every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

According to Bob Gibbs, all the original interior station walls, though covered in modern accouterments, still proudly retain the shape of rooms that long ago served a tiny, but determined railroad in the valley.  And while tourists must drive a bit further down the road to catch the train these days, they can still stop by the old depot and listen to the whistle of a sturdy locomotive echo from the high bridge, all while enjoying food prepared by hand in historic Georgetown, Colorado.

Special thanks goes to Bob Gibbs who graciously gave of his time for several phone interviews where the majority of this information came from.  He continues to serve on the board of directors for the Georgetown Trust.

References

The Georgetown Loop: Colorado’s Scenic Wonder  By Gary Morgan.  Published by Centennial Publications. Copyright 1984.

Georgetown and the Loop By P.R. “Bob” Griswold, Richard H. Kindig, and Cynthia Trombly.  Published by the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club.  Copyright 1988.

The Denver, South Park & Pacific By M.C. Poor, Published the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club.  Copyright 1949.

Alpinerestaurantgeorgetown.com. Copyright 2014 Alpine Restaurant and Bar, Georgetown, CO.