DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 55 
Near milepost 85 the Santa Fe Railway crosses the Denver & Rio 
Grande Western by an overhead bridge, and a short distance farther 
on it crosses to the right bank of Fountain Creek. 
Fountain. 
evation 5,577 feet, 
Popatation 595. 
er 88 inttyn. 
Three miles below the overhead bridge is Fountain, 
the largest village in the southern part of El Paso 
County. The lower part of Fountain Creek valley 
is not particularly interesting to the traveler. There 
is little or no > irrigation, and § success with dry-land crops depends 
it was able to procure the necessary 
capital to complete the State 
No single agency: has done more 
establish mining camps and open acta: 
able mines in Colorado than the pro- 
jection and completion of this vast and 
complex system of mountain 1 
roads,” 
In 1870 only one road, the Union 
¢€, had been built across the con- 
tinent, and this road was north of 
Colorado, where the low passes pre- 
he idea of orth and south 
vate following the eastern base of 
t y Mountains from the prin- 
sitveri gold, lead, copper, iron, and 
other m 
construction; that it would tap sev- 
eral fields of coal well suited for mak- 
ing steam and for general manufac- 
turing; and lastly, that it would con- 
trol the freight business in this iso- 
lated territory and would levy tribute 
any east and west road that might 
be constructed through it. 
The main line of the Denver & Rio 
Grande, according to Gen. Palmer’s 
scheme, was to extend from Denver to 
sas to Salida, 
through Poncho Pass to Alamosa on 
the Rio Grande, and thence down that 
stream to El Paso and on to Mexico 
City. A loop was to extend south of 
Pueblo through La 
ec 
mountains at many ints, fi) 
which had Salt Lake City as their 
e ap o system 
vide cory planned is given in Plate 
XXX 
Cen? Palmer was a great believer in 
the economy of construction and opera- 
tion, in a mountainous country, of a 
narrow-gage road, so after careful 
consideration and investigation of such 
which seems singularly 
when the rolling stock of that day is 
pont ee with the rolling stock of the 
time. (See Pl. XXVII, A, 
D. "48.) 
Track laying was begun at wuesubies 
treet in Denver on July 27, 1871, 
‘and the road was completed to Colo- 
rado Springs, 75 miles away, by Octo- 
ber 21 of the same year. Construc- 
tion was pushed southward rapidly, 
and the road reached Pueblo June 29, 
~ 
