The Denver and Rio Grande Builds a Division Point
Near Salida, Colorado
In the spring of eighteen eighty, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's narrow gauge line reached this spot along the Arkansas River, and a railroad town was born almost overnight. The Denver and Rio Grande used a three foot wide track, narrower than the standard American railroad, because narrow gauge could bend around tighter curves in steep mountain country. Salida quickly became something more valuable than a stop.
It became a division point. That meant train crews changed here, locomotives were serviced and repaired here, and rail lines branched out in several directions. From the Salida yards, tracks ran north toward the silver mines of Leadville, south toward Poncha Pass and eventually Alamosa and Durango, and west over Marshall Pass toward Gunnison and beyond.
By eighteen ninety the railroad had added a third rail on the line toward Tennessee Pass so that both narrow gauge and standard gauge trains could run. For generations, the railroad was the largest employer in town, and the sound of switching engines in the yard was simply the sound of Salida. So many people moved here for the rail work that the nearby settlement of Cleora reportedly emptied out, its residents relocating to Salida rather than lose their connection to the line.
