Silverton RR Proposed Extensions Document

I recently acquired a document (a CRRM reproduction) of a map titled "Map of the Silverton Railroads and Proposed Extensions". It is a very interesting map featuring proposed routes to Mineral Point, Lake City, Creede, and Vallecito/Pine River Headwaters. I can post snippets of interesting areas and maybe someday attempt to scan it, but there's a burning question I have that I can't seem to narrow down.

The map does not have a date/year created.
This didn't seem like a big issue at first, I thought to myself just figure out what trackage had been depicted as built, which should give a reasonable timeframe for when the map was made. This presented a few problems:

1. The Silverton Railroad as we know it is depicted completed in its entirety, though at Red Mountain Town it is depicted just as a regular curve omitting the trackge fully going around The Knob and running into the town with the one switchback and a wye.
2. Relevant snippets of the Rio Grande Southern to the west are depicted as completed. (Ophir, Telluride)
3. The section of proposed trackage between Ironton and Ouray is depicted, but rather nonsensically considering the terrain. It's not designated as anything special like the Ouray & Ironton Electric Railway, nor does it follow what the Preliminary Location survey documents for the railway depict. It's not even depicted tying into the D&RG in Ouray. It would kinda make sense for this to be some sort of precursor to the O&IERy before they truly realized what they were dealing with, given the Preliminary Location wasn't done until 1892, but it's rather odd considering Mears knew the territory.

Thus far, this could mean the map was created in 1890? Maybe early 1891?
However:

4. The Silverton Railroad is labeled "Silverton & Red Mountain Railway" despite the map's title only featuring "Silverton Railroad". There are photographs referring to the SRR as this, and I think other early maps doing the same, but this was slightly confusing as the later operator of the railroad from Corkscrew Gulch to Joker Tunnel shared the same name.
5. Unlabeled trackage of what would become the Silverton Northern railroad is depicted as completed up to Eureka. This didn't seem like a problem at first, as I understood the SRR finished building track up to the Silver Lake mill by 1893, but no later, nor further as that was when it was designated as separate from the SRR and the SN was formed. This map depicts the SN up to Eureka completed as a branch of the SRR.

[AFTER EDIT]
As noted in my post below, the map key lists: "Eureka to Silverton ... Operated as Sil. Northern Ry."
So the map couldn't have been made until after the Silver Panic... but why would they be proposing any of this after the panic?? When the silver traffic is essentially gone???? The whole Ouray to Ironton proposal died because of it...

So with completed trackage to Eureka, aspects of the SRR that predate its completion, and alignments that don't conform to the terrain or what was actually constructed, this doesn't add up to me. One could maybe argue this map started life as an early map of the SRR before completion and morphed into a map showing all these routes, but the inclusion of completed track to Eureka doesn't make sense to me.

While it appears genuine, part of me questions the authenticity of this map. The listed items were only relevant to the date problem, but generally, a lot of these proposed routes seem quite frankly ridiculous, or maybe I'm not taking enough grains of salt. There are two proposed routes to Mineral Point, the first of which climbs up from Animas Forks which I could see as plausible... At least in comparison to the second route, which branches off the extension to Ouray, basically paralleling the Alpine Loop up Uncompahgre River, up the canyon just shy of Lake Como, then curving around to Mineral Point.

What spurred me to get this map, was me initially searching for a different but similar one. I swore the Rainbow Route featured an illustration dated 1892, titled similarly "Proposed extensions of the Silverton RR". It depicted a brief overview of the O&IERy, a route from Ironton to Mineral Point and then onto Animas Forks, and portraits of Gibbs and Mears. Not being able to find a clear photo of this map or being able to find the one I was thinking of anywhere, I figured it was worth the 25 bucks and maybe I'll find a good place for it on the wall.

If this post made any coherent sense, I'd love to hear your thoughts

Joe Weigman
from the D&RG City Mine spur



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2024 11:27PM by Joe Weigman.