60 



GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



Pueblo. 



Elevation 4,668 feet. 

 Population 43,050. 

 Denver 119 miles. 



facturing community and is the largest town of this kind in the 

 Rocky Mountain region. Indeed, it is generally considered the 

 greatest manufacturing center between Missouri 

 River and the Pacific coast. Pueblo is in the Ar- 

 kansas Valley/*^ which is well watered and capable 

 of supporting a large population. Already the 

 valley is well farmed, but with the construction of 

 storage reservoirs to hold the water in the upper courses of the river 

 and deliver it as it is needed below for irrigation the valley would 

 support many times its present population. Pueblo has abundant 

 railroad connections, both for the receipt of crude material to be 

 manufactured and for the distribution of the manufactured products. 

 Coke can readily be obtained from the Trinidad field, on the south, 



marked liy deeds of heroism and blood- 

 shed that were worthy of a better 

 cause. 



Thus we see that the Denver & Rio 

 Grande, originally planned as a north 

 and south line, was compelled to be- 

 come an east and west line, much to 

 its ultimate advantage, and although 

 it made a most vigorous effort to reach 

 the Rio Grande with its main line, it 

 failed to do so. 



After the compromise construction 

 was carried forward rapidly, and the 

 narrow-gage line reached Leadville in 

 July, 1880. The first line across the 

 Continental Divide — the line over Mar- 

 shall Pass — ^Nvas completed to Gunni- 

 son in August, 1881. The line over 

 Tennessee Pass — the present main 

 line — was completed in the following 

 year. The line from Marshall Pass 

 was pushed westward, reachin'g Grand 

 Junction in November and the Utah 

 State line in December, 1882. 



About this time the Pleasant Valley 

 Railway of Utah, extending from Provo 

 to Clear Creek, was purchased by Gen. 

 Palmer and the Denver & Rio Grande 

 Railroad and extended eastward to the 

 Colorado line under the name Rio 

 Grande Western Railroad. This made 

 a through narrow-gage line from Den- 

 ver to Salt Lake City, which was 

 completed to Ogden a year later. The 

 laying of a third rail to give standard 

 gage between Denver and Pueblo was 

 completed on December 23, 1881, and 



the main line from Denver to Ogden 

 was changed to standard gage by the 

 autumn of 1890. 



Several of the branch lines of this 

 system are still narrow gage, and the 

 traveler who wishes to see Marshall 

 Pass and the Black Canyon of the 

 Gunnison will have ample opportunity 

 to compare the narrow, cramped cars 

 and small engines of the narrow gage 

 with the modern equipment of a stand- 

 ard-gage line. 



Recently the company has been re- 

 organized, and the name Denver & 

 Rio Grande W^estem Railroad has been 

 adopted for the entire system. 



'^^ On June 3-5, 1921, a succession of 

 flood waves occurred in Arkansas 

 River as a result of heavy rains of 

 " cloud-burst " violence in the drainage 

 basins of several small streams tribu- 

 tary to the Arkansas above or near the 

 city of Pueblo. The highest flood wave 

 and the one that caused the greatest 

 damage reached Pueblo during the 

 evening of June 8, when a stage 6i 

 feet above the tops of the levees was 

 reached. At this time water 10 to 15 

 feet deep flowing through the lower 

 parts of the city drowned many people 

 and wrecked scores of buildings. The 

 property losses caused by the flood in 

 the Arkansas River valley aggregated 

 bearly $20,000,000. The flood is de- 

 5cribed in detail in U. S. Geol. Survey 

 Water-Supply Pai^er 487, The Arkansas 

 River flood of June 8-5, 1921. 



