54 
GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
of the great transcontinental railway systems, should, after starting 
from Denver, go due south 119 miles, to Pueblo, before attempting 
to cross the mountain range in a westerly direction. It is generally 
assumed that the road was built southward in order to reach the 
valley of the Arkansas and that this valley affords the best route 
through the mountains. This can hardly have been the reason for the 
southward extension, however, for other roads cross north of Pueblo 
and Canon City, and hence there must have been some other reason 
for the course pursued by this road. 
The explanation of this southerly 
course is bound up in the general railroad history of this mountainous 
region, a brief account of which is given in the footnote below.** 
- apnea difficulty was ex- 
ced early days of Colo- 
rado in conte mone eyed men inter- 
The Denver & Rio Grande ‘dasa 
be 
Railroad under the presidency of J. 
Edgar He served with 
distinction in ) ‘ivil jar an 
me man- 
aging director of the oe Se 
Railroad and was placed jn e of 
the struction ot the ae waned 
most saints task of building 150 
miles of railroad in the same num- 
ber of days csi having materials 
of any kind to begin with. It is 
dope iss if i record in railroad con- 
empire builder that he was, foresaw 
wonderful aenraaersly in creating a 
system of transpo ore that should 
cover the en sr re pts speaking 
of him, William J. pases, founder and 
for a aes doe editor of the Rocky 
Mountain News, says: 
“The Denver & Rio Grande 
road, with its numerous bra 
the mountains, was Gen. Palmer’s con- 
tio: It was a comprehensive 
scheme, regarded as Utopian, 
b e it contemplated the construc- 
tion of hundreds of miles of railroad 
through a country practically unin- 
banited and 2 aie ere: unfit 
for habitati from few 
white settlers at aan site: teats 
ean settlements at Trinidad, a village 
of aus rs at Colorado City, small 
bands of Cheyenne and Arapahoe In- 
dians, ae scattered settlers at some 
other points, there were not enough 
inhabitants for the nucleus of a com- 
munity anywhere on the pro pete = 
But Gen. Palmer’s prevision 
trated dest than the ane "of 
others who looked with doubt and sus- 
gigantic, a daring proposition, but not 
visionary, for the man who conceived 
