Early Freighting Ventures

Discovery of gold and silver in the 1870s in the San Juan Mountains south of Montrose created demand for freighting services to haul equipment and supplies into the mines and carry ore to outside markets, and packing and wagon-freighting grew into a business that at its height employed thousands of men and animals. In 1882, early freighters A. E. "Uncle Bud" Buddecke and Richard Charles Diehl formed a partnership in Kansas, each bought a six-mule team, loaded wagons with groceries and merchandise, and set out for the Uncompahgre Valley soon after it opened for settlement. In Montrose, Dave Wood operated from the corner of North First and Rio Grande and built a million-dollar freighting and stage line that prospered for a decade in the late 1800s as a railroad end-of-the-line operation, using heavy-service wagons that carried up to 4,000 pounds of freight and were pulled by teams of six mules paired in tandem to reach mining communities not yet served by rail. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad reached newly established Montrose in 1882 to meet mining needs for faster and more efficient transportation, and its narrow gauge line through Montrose formed part of the Denver/Salt Lake City east-west main line until 1890, helping establish permanent settlement and expand mining, farming, fruit growing, and ranching while linking southwest Colorado to markets across the state and nation. The route, which clung to high mountain cliffs and overhung the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon, offered dramatic passenger travel, and additional narrow gauge lines to mining communities south of Montrose secured the town's role as a railroad center for many years. Besides the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Depot built in 1912, the early railroad yard included a water tower, ice house, repair facility, stockyards, and a section house for workers. In 1890, the railroad established a primary standard gauge line north of Montrose through Grand Junction, and although the narrow gauge through Montrose ceased to be the main east-west route, it continued as a regional line and a feeder connection to Grand Junction that carried the area's mining, ranching, and agricultural products to outside markets. Declining mining, the rise of automobiles, better roads, the Great Depression of the 30s, and road paving in the 40s gradually ended the need for narrow gauge rail service in the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Valleys, and by 1953 the trains were gone, with old grade lines still visible along Highways 50 and 550 and Denver and Rio Grande Railroad narrow gauge Engine #278 and cars preserved at Cimarron twenty miles east of Montrose.

Montrose, Colorado · United States