90 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



The largest town in the mountains west of Canon City is Salida 

 (from the Spanish word outlet; locally pronounced sah-lie'da), which 

 was so named because it stands at the outlet of the 

 Salida. upper Arkansas basin. It was settled in 1880 at the 



Elevation 7,050 f.et. time the railroad was being built up the Arkansas 

 Denver 215 miles. Valley, and it is at the junction of the narrow-gage 

 road over Marshall Pass to Grand Junction and that 

 over Poncha Pass to San Luis Park with the main line of the Denver 

 & Rio Grande Western Railroad. Here are the repair shops of the 

 railroad and some other manufacturing plants, and a mile northwest 

 of the town there is a large smelter. It is a town of homes, but in 

 addition there are several hotels for the accommodation of travelers 

 who change from one route to another in order to see the beautiful 

 scenery for which this region is noted. The town lies in a basin that 

 is nearly surrounded by mountains. (See PI. XLIV.) The Sangre 

 de Cristo Range, which begins near Santa Fe, N. Mex., terminates 

 just south of the town in a prominent point known as Hunts Peak 

 (12,446 feet). The Sawatch Range begins in Mount Ouray (13,955 

 feet), a little west of the north end of the Sangre de Cristo Range, 

 and stretches northward, including Mount Chipeta, Mount Shavano 

 (14,179 feet), and other high peaks, shown in Plate XLIV. To the 

 north and northeast there is a jumble of lesser ranges without 

 special names. 



As the braijch railroad lines that enter Salida are narrow-gage 

 all the freight originating on them and bound for the East must be 

 reloaded into standard-gage cars. This reloading entails consider- 

 able expense and loss of time and is a great handicap to the shippers 

 on the narrow-gage lines. Xarrow-gage cars can run, however, be- 

 tween Salida and Leadville, because here a third rail has been main- 

 tained for the benefit of the mining interests in shipping ores to 

 the smelter. 



A description of the route over Marshall Pass and through the 

 Black Canyon begins on page 158. 



MAIN LINE OF RAILROAD FROM SALIDA TO MALTA. 



On leaving Salida the railroad runs up the right side of the valley, 

 but it leaves the base of the hills in a short distance and finds a route 

 near the middle of the valley. About a mile out of Salida the 

 traveler has on the west (left) an unobstructed view of the southern 

 part of the Sawatch Range, which at its extreme southern point 

 is crossed by the narrow-gage road over Marshall Pass. This line, 

 after passing westward from Salida about 6 miles, enters the range 

 by Poncha Canyon, which is indicated on Plate XLIV. 



