The Twisting Tale of the Georgetown Loop - Part 6 (The finale)

The Twisting Tale of the Georgetown Loop
-part 6

by Kurt Maechner

Here is Part 1

Here is Part 2

Here is Part 3        

Here is Part 4 

Here is Part 5

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25th, 1983
GEORGETOWN, COLORADO

Almost five months after their last visit, Mae Boettcher is back with her friend Katheryn Willard Biese.  They approach the remaining massive 30-foot-long span sitting on the ground.  An even more massive crane towers behind it and from its powerful hook numerous cables descend to wrap around the steel span.  

At one corner of the bridge piece is a small table, adorned with an oversized white table cloth hanging just a bit askew.  On the left of the table top is a silver bowl of ice with one bottle of champagne resting inside it.  To the right of this are a number of pristine glasses next to another champagne bottle.  

With Mae, Katheryn, and other important onlookers present, the final bridge span, adorned with numerous signatures, is christened, glasses are raised, and all eyes watch as the final gap between the north and south abutments is about to be erased.  With this raising, not only is the flag of Colorado attached, but the flag of the nation, gently undulating in the westward flowing wind, also proudly accompanies this historic move.  

Rising higher and higher, the span carries not only flags, but two passengers.  Two members of the Colorado Historical Society climb aboard wearing safety helmets and eagerly snap photos from on the bridge piece itself.  

At last, the Grett Steel Company employees settle the eighth span into place against the south abutment, and the Devil’s Gate Viaduct, while still in need of rails, spans the Clear Creek Valley for the first time in 44 years.  The happy crowd below now celebrates, as so many early visitors to the Loop did in its heyday, with a picnic.

With the bridge structure complete, work continued with railroad ties laid across in November ‘83.  However, as happened during the original Loop line’s construction, the winter weather in Colorado made work difficult for the crews.  It wasn’t until the spring of 1984 that rails were spiked down across the bridge. 

First Train Over the Viaduct

In the early morning of a cloudy Friday, June 1st, 1984 “a semi-secret unofficial test run” at 7:58am occurred with the Loop’s diesel.  Good news: it survived!

Media at the official first run -
July RMRail Report

With this successful test and confidence in the structure, the first public run of a train across the bridge occurred at 10:00am as Shays 8 and 14 pushed ex-D&RGW caboose 0586 and a gondola with very lucky passengers across the bridge from the south to north abutments.  This run was no secret.  Television and newspaper representatives were there to capture the historic occasion for posterity and free rides were offered to all.

The Rocky Mountain Railroad Club captured the enormity of the occasion in their Rocky Mountain Rail Report of July 1984 in a piece by Bob Griswold.

“Do a little wishful thinking! Try to imagine yourself riding in an ancient narrow gauge gondola car behind an honest-to-goodness operating 1922 Shay through a magnificent Colorado mountain canyon. Then try to think of those cool alpine breezes blowing down the canyon and the fleecey [sic] white clouds skimming the mountain peaks. Next, try to think of yourself looking over the side of the old car through the ties to the churning, rushing stream ninety feet below.

“Stop fantasizing! Now you can actually ride such an unbelievable train on the Georgetown Loop Railroad and across the famous Devil’s Gate Trestle.”

No. 14 blows off steam on the first official run- July RMR Report

Regular excursions began operating from Silver Plume over the bridge with the old Silver Plume station order board listing in all caps “DEVILS GATE NOW OPEN,” but the Loop was not entirely a loop as of yet.  The remaining mile down grade from the north abutment of the bridge west and the curve crossing Clear Creek one last time while angling back east under the high bridge were not yet complete.  

Work progressed that summer on this stretch.  The Burlington Northern railroad, which had absorbed the Colorado & Southern Railway officially in 1981, located a 50-foot bridge in Ashland, Nebraska for use on the final Clear Creek crossing.  This bridge was installed the same day as the first public run across the high bridge.  During the remaining summer months track was laid from the north abutment all the way to this bridge and around until it reached under the great high trestle.  With this, the Georgetown Loop was officially a loop once again.

It had taken a decade from the very first work train to reach the completion of the Georgetown Loop.  All that remained was the party, and, with plans of grand proportions, the party was fixing to be a Colorado Day celebration like never before.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1984
COLORADO DAY – 10am
GEORGETOWN, COLORADO

With the clock at 10am, the Clear Creek Secondary School Band launches into a rousing rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.”  The music echoes off the valley walls as hundreds of onlookers, whose string of parked cars reach nearly to the town that gave the Loop its name, stand with hats off and hands over hearts.  They honor their country but also the 108th birthday of their state on this Colorado Day.

Nearly one year has passed since the last time Mae Boettcher stood on the ground beneath the Devil’s Gate Viaduct to christen the last bridge pier before it was installed on the grand structure.  With E. Warren Willard’s widow Katheryn Willard Biese again next to her today, she is standing inside the middle of The Georgetown Loop on a stunningly sunny day.  Ahead of her is a striped, raised platform with a brown podium astride the top, flanked on either side by poles holding the American and Colorado flags, both symbols of the ingenuity of the people who built Colorado, built such a spectacular railroad, and then built this railroad again.  600 people are in attendance for the dedication of the new bridge, though some believe there to be more.  There are so many visitors this day, in fact, that quite a few happy onlookers are even standing behind the stage for the festivities.  

In the distance farther behind the podium is the brand-new Georgetown Loop High Bridge standing again for the first time in 45 years and strung with long strands of patriotic red, white, and blue-colored balloons from one end to the other, designed by Ron Garrison, a balloon artist from Denver.  Since Mae’s last visit in the fall, rails have been laid westward across the structure, down the northern slope of the valley, across one more bridge over Clear Creek as it curves again eastward and underneath the High Bridge, completing the entire loop.  

With cheers and applause after the conclusion of the high school band’s performance of the national anthem, Mrs. Boettcher, Mrs. Willard Biese, and the crowd with seats available, sit down as the program begins with a welcome from Barbara Sudler, president of the CHS, followed by Roger D. Knight III, the CHS vice-chairman who honors significant donors with lifetime passes to the Georgetown Loop.  These passes, made of sterling silver, the precious metal that birthed the motive of the arrival of the railroad here and linked the two towns by this thread of rails, have the governor’s signature and the recipient’s name and pass number on one side and an 1884 replica railroad pass on the other.   The passes are given to Mae, Katheryn, and others who have given so much to see this triumphant day become a reality.  

Finally, three-term Colorado governor Richard D. Lamm steps up to the podium.

Gov. Lamm waxes eloquent, discussing a lamentable characteristic of civilizations that die.  This characteristic, he says, quoting famed Pulitzer Prize winning American poet Carl Sandberg “‘is that they forgot where they came from.’”  With triumph and a nod to the rebuilt Loop line, Lamm exclaims, “I am here to celebrate the fact that Colorado doesn’t and won’t forget where we came from.”  Mae and Katheryn clap their hands in delight along with the other 600 or more guests.

The two women have something else to applaud as well.  On this day, the Colorado Historical Society places two plaques.  One honors major benefactors, such as the Colorado General Assembly, the Atlantic Richfield, Boettcher, Burlington Northern, and Gates Foundations, and the Pauline A. and George R. Morrison Charitable Trust.   

The second plaque, though, is much more personal to the two women.  It reads, “The Devils Gate High Bridge has been reconstructed by the Boettcher Foundation in memory of E. Warren Willard longtime trustee of the Foundation and president of the Colorado Historical Society.”

As the ceremony proceedings conclude, it is time for the climax of the day: the inaugural ride on the High Bridge itself.  

Todd Hackett photo

Governor Lamm and his wife climb aboard the cab of locomotive No. 44, and 300 others clamber into the cars behind the steaming engine.  With a blast of a whistle, the train slowly chuffs upgrade, turning from the southern side of the valley, crossing the first bridge across Clear Creek, and continuing the 2 percent grade up the north side of the valley with I-70 safely overhead on the mountainside.  The train edges out onto the high bridge and, to the curious note of everyone around, stops.

What the onlookers back at the Georgetown boarding site cannot see behind the trees is that the fourth car in the train, a cattle car converted for passengers, has derailed.  Later the railroad would find out that the derailment was not due to the cattle car, but that “the new track was not level and properly ballasted.”

Once the shortened train of three open-air gondolas is ready to proceed, it continues out onto the high bridge, bursting glorious steam skyward as each of the tethered balloon strands are cut loose by the train and released to the Colorado heavens.  

Todd Hackett photo - balloon strands released

Mae Boettcher and Katheryn Willard Biese marvel as they look down at the stout viaduct beams below them.  What was an empty chasm for nearly half a century is now filled with a living breathing echo of history.  Engine 44 lets out a soaring blast on the whistle that bounces off the canyon walls, nearly drowning out the excited banter of the passengers around a man who had a hand in making this a reality.  Steve “Buzzsaw” Hart, the 17th Street pestering attorney who unceasingly pursued Cris Dobbins of the Boettcher Foundation for a contribution to build the bridge, is on this train grinning from ear to ear.  In the words of his biographer, “Steve was as proud as a new parent when he rode on the inaugural trip of the railroad over the restored high trestle in 1984.”

Todd Hackett photo

How can one capture all the stunning work that has happened since that bright, August Colorado Day in 1984?  From the development of the Everett and Lebanon Mine tours, the Devil’s Gate boarding area named the Pauline A. and Georgetown R. Morrison Valley Center and Theater, and the 2-stall engine house and maintenance facilities at Silver Plume, more volumes could be written, and maybe will someday.   Many more books could also be written on the numerous locomotives and cars that have graced the rails, the most curious of which was the one-season bittersweet resurrection in 2006 of C&S engine No. 9 that had actually run on the Loop in its original form.  

In the meantime, the resurrected Georgetown Loop continues to transport over 100,000 riders a year back in time to the early days of Colorado’s mining boom and to one of the most stunningly-constructed, hard-working, tenacious railroads that stretched its rails into the Rocky Mountains to bring its treasures to the outside world.  Today, through noteworthy vision, humble hard work, admirable sacrifice, and incredible teamwork, that same railroad remains a treasure in itself, proof that an impossible dream, like the American Dream, can indeed become possible.