Railroad Evolution
Early on “Native Americans, Spanish explorers, fur trappers, and scouts traveled by foot and horseback…blazing trails through the mountains and plains, long before railroads.”[1] Settlers also used freight wagons, jack trains, and stagecoaches to transport people and goods. The routes they used followed rivers and natural trails. These methods of transportation were slow and less productive, often taking weeks or longer to complete a delivery trip. With the boom of the mining industry a more efficient movement of goods was necessary. Therefore, many of the paths were converted into rail lines.
The railroad and mining industries were were inextricably tied dependent on one another. The rail lines were built to accommodate mining communities and “[s]upply and shipping centers… [the] agriculture and the tourist industry all followed the railroads to the mines.”[2] With railroad technology, the same transports that would take weeks with a horse and wagon could be delivered in a day.
For example. Ore mined from the riverbeds in Breckenridge that required transport by wagon through the Boreas and Kenosha Passes would take weeks or longer to reach Denver. With the railroads, trains carried ore and bullion into the mining hub of Denver, while others would bring machinery and supplies back out to the mining communities in Park County in a day’s time. “The railroads and the mining industry had a symbiotic relationship that grew, prospered, and declined together.”[3]