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Chuck Mack: Railroad Plans Part 6

Chuck Mack

July 27, 1921, Development and Railroad companies reorganized

– Route of railroad not settled but may go by Lay

“The annual meeting of the Axial Basin Development Co. and the Mount Streeter Railroad Co. was held at Mount Streeter last week and at the same time work was started on the Mount Streeter Railway.



“The development company was reorganized. The new board is composed of H. W. Myers, president; Judge H. J. Paulus, vice president; H. W. Swigert, treasurer; and A. L. Sears.

“The new board of directors of the Mt. Streeter Railroad company is composed of H. W. Myers, president; M.T. Streeter, H. W. Swigert, G. H. Hines, L.J. Lambiotte, C. M. Thompson and R. L. Hale.



“The stockholders of the railroad company voted to push construction work throughout the fall and winter, and it is expected that all earth grading from Mount Streeter to the Yampa River will be completed before snow flies with the exception of a few big fills. These fills will be made this winter and the rockwork on the southern end of the route completed.

“The route of the proposed railroad has not yet been definitely decided, according to President H. W. Myers. The road can either go to the Union Pacific by way of Great Divide or come through Craig. Engineer Thompson is now completing the survey by way of Great Divide and engineering data was obtained this spring on the Craig route.

“Great pressure is being brought to bear on the railroad builders to take the Great Divide route, according to M.T. Streeter.

“This way the road would cross the Yampa River Valley about midway between Lay and Craig. Eastern capitalists who control great bodies of coal lands in the vicinity of Lay desire the road to pass as close to their holdings as possible. If the road is built on this route, an eight-mile spur could be run from Craig to connect with the north and south route.

“Craig has not, however, been definitely stricken from the route, according to president Myers. Not only would the Mount Streeter Road get an immediate connection with the Moffat road, if this route were selected but the trouble which is bound to be caused in the attempt to secure a franchise to pass over the Juniper Springs dam site withdrawal will be done away with. The dam site withdrawal is apt to prove a stumbling block for the railroad builders, it is said, as the government has definitely decided that the big dam will sometime be built.”

Golly, I have lost track by now of just how many times these two companies have changed president and directors. And I certainly lost track of how many times they had started to build the same railroad, and how many times they have decided to change the route of the railroad. The newspaper articles have run back a couple of years. A couple of years ago, they were supposedly doing the grade work for the railroad right-of-way. And now, in this article, we find they are ready to start building the railroad grade again. And they are still doing the grade work in reverse of what it should be, by starting at Mount Streeter and working back toward Craig.

In this article we also learn about another project, which was planned but never came to life. At least I’ve never seen a dam on the Yampa River anywhere in the Juniper Springs area. I’m surprised that a dam never was built, in either Juniper Canyon, or little Juniper Canyon. Either one of those canyons would make a damn good dam site.

I’ve still got a couple of articles about the Mount Streeter railroad, enough to make another story in this series. And then after that I’ve got enough articles to write a book, on the Axial Basin Development company and the building and the failure of the Streeter mine, and the town of Mount Streeter; and of course the Mount Streeter railroad pops up in a lot of those articles also.

To be continued in part 7.

Compiled and written by Chuck Mack – Dec. 25, 2007.


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