The Silverton Northern Railroad , now defunct, was an American 3 ft ( 914 mm ) Narrow Gauge Railroad constructed to reach the mining area north of Silverton, Colorado along the upper Animas River . This line was the third railroad project built by known Colorado toll road builder and Russian Immigrant Otto Mears , beginning in 1889 as a branch of the Silverton Railroad to Eureka . Incorporated in 1895 as the Silverton Northern Railroad, the line was projected to run past Eureka to Animas Forks and on to Mineral Point and then on to Lake City via Henson Creek , including a proposed three-quarter-mile tunnel through the mountains. However, Animas Forks was the end of the line, which was reached in 1896.
7-770: Operations on the line were seasonal, due to the tremendous amount of snowfall that was typical in the San Juan region. The Silverton Railroad and the Silverton Northern while never officially merged, were operated as one entity, sharing rolling stock and motive power. In 1915, the Silverton, Gladstone and Northerly Railroad built by the Gold King Mine, was purchased by Mears, becoming the SN's Gladstone Branch. The railroad managed to survive bad weather and fluctuating metals markets for years,
14-566: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Silverton, Gladstone and Northerly Railroad The Silverton, Gladstone and Northerly Railroad was incorporated in 1899 after Otto Mears and associates were unable to procure financing to build a branch of the Silverton Northern Railroad to the mining area around the town of Gladstone. The railroad was chartered in 1899 by the Gold King Mining Co. to haul ore from
21-910: The Gold King mine and the Mogul mill. Following the ups and downs of the metals markets, the SG&;N was finally absorbed by the Silverton Northern Railroad in 1915, being operated as the Gladstone Branch. The line was dismantled between 1938 and 1942. The railroad had connections with both the Denver & Rio Grande and also the Silverton Northern at Silverton. Sloan, Robert E. and Skowronski, Carl A. (1975). The Rainbow Route . Denver, Colorado: Sundance Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-913582-12-3 . {{ cite book }} : CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link ) This United States rail–related article
28-695: The Silverton Railroad being dismantled in 1926 after several years of inactivity, and the main line was cut back from Animas Forks to Eureka in the late 1930s. Finally, in 1942, while the mines were idle and US involvement in World War II was increasing, the remaining SN equipment was requisitioned by the US Army for use on the White Pass and Yukon Route during the hurried construction of the Alaska Highway , and
35-467: The mines on Cement Creek to the Silverton smelters. It was 7.5 miles long and had .5 miles of spurs. It was leased by the Silverton Northern in 1910. (Mears leased the Silverton Northern in the same year and purchased the SN outright in 1915, although traffic was discontinued soon thereafter.) Construction began from the mainline of the SN on the north side of Silverton, and followed Cement Creek northward to
42-548: The rails were torn up for scrap. The San Juan County Historical Society is planning on rebuilding the section between Silverton and Howardsville . Visit the Silverton Northern Railroad Reconstruction Project: http://www.silvertonnorthern.com This United States rail–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about transportation in Colorado
49-845: The town of Gladstone. At one time, an extension to the Silver Lake Mine was proposed, but no further construction ever was accomplished. The line served the Kendrick and Gelder (or Gilder) smelter, later run by the Ross Mining and Milling Co., the McKinley sawmill, the Boston & Silverton Milling and Reduction (Yukon Mill) site, the Anglo Saxon mine, the Mammouth Mine, the Henriette(a) mine, Fisher's sawmill,
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