Hello there Mallory, again.
Just thought that I would bring you up to date. A little. In point form because there is a lot of information to cover.
The DSP&P Hotel was never extended out the back as described in the Bogie & Loop. The ground floor of the building was one large dining room according to the BB&S book. It would be virtually impossible to extend that original hotel as is thought for the whole rear of the building would have collapsed under the weight in the removal of the lower rear wall in order to extend the dining room.
Instead, the extension, was the building that joined the DSP Hotel to the Gilman Hotel.
Aside from the Gilman hotel, the DSP&P Hotel was 99 & one third feet long. 99'4". It had a hallway 89'6" long, leaving a wall thickness on the south end, around 10 inches in thickness.
It had a window in that hallway at the end. To let light in, as you would.
That is why the roof was replaced over the Depot office. For the the office roof originally ran the other way, having been part of the building that was next door to DRG Station in Wynkoop Street.
And as the roof as reconstructed as such against the DSP Hotel, it became a snow trap and had to be changed. Therefore the new roof.
Building the new roof, an extension then of the depot roof running North South, The entire depot had to be moved closer to the rail in order to clear the window of the Hotel.
The Hallway in the Hotel was six feet wide, so there would have been a row of rooms in front of the hallway roughly 12 feet deep. The rear wall of the hallway, if you care to work it out and I can give you the list of room dimensions if you need, the rear wall of the hallway, or the extension as you may call it, was the supporting wall for the roof ridge line when it became the Gilman Hotel. Beyond the peak in the roof where the extension was, there was a void in other words.
The windows removed from Gilman when the two hotels were joined together, two of them were used in the construction of the Switchman's shanty on the South end of the Depot. Third one, not sure, Think it ended up in the North wall on the West side.
The two Gilman windows were installed into the ends of what was a workcar or caboose. I have old drawings of the shanty dimensions. Everything checks out that way.
Not one hundred percent certain but I think the roof over the shanty was also part of the roof of the building that came from Denver also. The one next door to the DRG station when it was in the location that it was for a year or so.
The floor bearer dimensions also equate to this. As does the length of the shorter floor joists that were used dead smack in the middle of the Depot. Revealed when it was renovated into the lovely new clubhouse that we know today.
The dividing wall in the office was only double clad, is only double clad to just over head hight. Cladding to the ceiling is only on the Western face of the dividing wall. The wall is from most likely an ex boxcar or cars. Possibly the two that are or were joined together near the engine house.
But get this. The dividing wall in the office is exactly half the internal width of the depot back from the rear of the depot. Because the dividing wall is there to meet the join of a half wall that came from the end of the original DRG station.
So although only a boxcar side, this dividing wall was there from the time the buildings were reassembled to become the Como Depot.
This all happened while the Hotels were shut down for renovations of coarse, and naturally.
So all of what was thought about the early years of Como was misunderstood. I knew that straight off. It has taken me a long time with no help thank you to put it all together. But I did.
So you may ask, "Where was the original Como Depot then?" Next door to the roundhouse on the platform that became known as the oil loading platform, almost as large as later platform on the replacement depot, According to Mike Blazeks work book that does not stipulate the position of the Oil loading Dock. But it makes sense. In between the leads to the roundhouse and turntable. Next to the Water Tank, on those unused flat grounds. Ice House, I predict was on the other side of the water tank. Not the ridiculous position that it was thought to be.
Just touching on a few matters here Mallory. Would be difficult to go into all the details in a single post. Just wanted to point out the more important parts of the picture.
Now that you know them too, answers may begin to fail into place for you what you will have had.
Cheers,
jd
