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.
Historical Society, the Como Depot and Hotel, the Colorado & Southern Railway Society, the Georgetown Loop, and the Leadville, Colorado & Southern.
