The Twisting Tale of the Georgetown Loop
-part 5
by Kurt Maechner
Here is Part 3 |
| Todd Hacket photo-end-of-track before high bridge-1983 |
It had been six years since the first train on the truncated Georgetown Loop, and still there was no way forward over that gaping valley.
In the meantime, while the CHS worked to get the funds to complete the Loop, the actual operators of the line were seemingly left out of the loop of these details or its timeline. The Ashbys and their partners, while running a successful operation, continued to struggle financially as they carried the whole burden of operating expenses in addition to a yearly fee to the CHS for the rights to run it. According to Lindsey, “We lost money at Georgetown for the first, whole bunch of years. We made little off of it for a long, long time.” As if this wasn’t enough, he and Rosa, while running this railroad plus the one in Central City, were still working full-time jobs, Rosa as a teacher and Lindsey with Marathon Oil, jobs without which they would never have been able to make the Georgetown Loop work.
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| Henry Fonda |
There were some public attempts to raise money to build the high bridge such as a plan to bring famed Academy Award winning film actor Henry Fonda to ride the line in the winter in the early 1980s and do a promo for the railroad. Work went into the visit including fabricating a makeshift snowplow out of a smooth metal culvert for a diesel to deal with the snow on the tracks. Disappointingly, all came to naught when Fonda got sick and was unable to make the visit. He died not long afterwards.
In 1981, it was finally time to let go of at least one burden, the Central City Narrow Gauge Railway. The obstacles to extend the short line were insurmountable and the track was at last pulled up. With the group’s focus now solely on the Loop, they brought Shay locomotive No. 14, among much other equipment, with them to Silver Plume.
Without any knowledge of the plans for funds to construct the high bridge besides what could be garnered from information accidentally dropped, the Ashbys and their partners carried on hauling passengers from Silver Plume to the side of a forlorn abutment.
And then, like a locomotive whistle in the distance piercing a silence, nearly three years after Dobbins’ and Willard’s passings, the hope these men had sparked suddenly came into view down the track.
The Million-Dollar Announcement
Saturday, May 15, 1982 was the watershed day. While the loss of Dobbins and Willard was a blow to the railroad’s hopes, the hard work undertaken by many to inspire the Boettcher Foundation to give to this diminutive railroad finally paid off when the Boettcher Foundation made a public announcement that a million-dollar grant would be given to resurrect the Devil’s Gate Viaduct across the valley once again. One of the great chronicles of the Loop’s resurgence, Georgetown and the Loop, put it this way, “Truly, Saturday, May 15, 1982 was a glorious day as it enabled those who had dreamed, planned, struggled and worked for so many years to see the completion of the rebuilding of the ‘Far Famed Georgetown Loop.’”
The Impossible Bridge
With the money in place at last, activity in the valley took off. The United Research Services Corporation accessed the C&S’s 1919 plans for strengthening the High Bridge to help guide their engineering plans for the new one. While taking into account the need for changes to match updated safety requirements, URS was able to recreate the character of the bridge as closely as possible to the original. In the meantime, the Union Pacific Railroad, which had provided the line with old, but usable rails previously, now gave one and half miles more along with ties. These arrived in February near the construction site. Most crucially, the construction job for the High Bridge itself was awarded to Flatiron Structures Company based out of Longmont, Colorado, who put the cost at $808,755.
Before the full work could begin, though, an important ceremony took place.
MONDAY, MAY 2, 1983
GEORGETOWN, COLORADO
Just shy of one year has passed since the Boettcher Foundation announced the generous million-dollar gift towards the reconstruction of the Loop’s High Bridge. On this day Mae Boettcher is handed a shovel.
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| Mae Boettcher |
Despite the spring date of May 2nd, 1983, a snowstorm has whipped through the valley likely requiring Mae to squint. The stately, dignified widow of Charles Boettcher’s grandson, Charles II, is not here to shovel snow, but to turn the first shovel of dirt on the rebuilding of the Devil’s Gate Viaduct. Surrounded by one hundred eager supporters, including numerous others who have played crucial roles in reaching this day, she feels honored to finally begin what she and her family and fellow trustees at the Boettcher Foundation had discussed for so long.
But today is really not Mae Boettcher’s day. Today is the day to honor Mae’s late husband’s grandfather’s long-time employee, friend, and fellow trustee, E. Warren Willard, the man who served as president of the Colorado Historical Society, and as president of the Boettcher Foundation for nearly a quarter of a century. It was Willard who, before his passing, had suggested the idea of a grant to build the High Bridge. To honor his memory and his wish to protect and preserve Colorado history, the million-dollar grant to the Georgetown Loop was given in his name.
Mae is not alone in turning over the symbolic first shovel of dirt. While Willard himself cannot be here to enjoy this scene, his widow Katheryn Willard Beise can. With likely a shiver in the spring storm, the two ladies, and John C. Mitchell, the current director of the Boettcher Foundation, drive their shovels into the hard ground and turn over the dirt.
In a moment reminiscent of Lindsey Ashby’s trigger upon hearing of the Seabee’s interest in railroad construction, another starter pistol shot bursts out when Katheryn Willard Beise climbs the yellow, steel steps into a Caterpillar, while Mae and the others watch with anticipation, and starts the tractor’s engine, symbolically calling the workers to burst into action.
The motor of the Caterpillar roared to life that day, initiating a sound that was to become familiar as the canyon came alive with loaders, cement trucks, and cranes. In two months’ time, the sixteen concrete piers were in place and, by September 1st, eight steel legs, placed by the Grett Steel Company, towered above Clear Creek, casting long shadows on the valley floor.
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| Lindsey Ashby photo |
hundred years from the day that the iron for the original bridge arrived in Denver, a mammoth Grove crane started the immense process of gently raising the primer-orange painted 30-foot sections of the bridge and guiding them into place on top of the towering legs. Work began from the north abutment with the first, second, third, and fourth sections. The center span was left agape temporarily and the 5th span was also set on its legs.
On Thursday, September 22nd, the middle 60-foot lattice span was ready to be installed. One crane lifted it off the truck that ferried it to the spot, and set the girder on the ground spanning Clear Creek, 75 feet below where it would soon be placed. Two cranes on either side of the creek had their cables fastened to the bridge piece. The span then ascended with the state flag of Colorado flapping in the fall sunshine all the way up until it came to rest on its fresh legs.
Eventually two of the three remaining 30-foot sections were also put in place, but a special celebration was left for the eighth and final piece.
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| Todd Hackett photo-Sept. 24, 1983 |
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