Finding Aids

Manuscripts

M018

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad records. Includes freight waybills, tickets, stubs, clearance cards, and a deck of playing cards with scenes along the Railroad's route from Colorado to California. Also includes information on special cars, abandonment procedures, and other materials.

M019

Rio Grande Southern Railroad records. Includes bound letters, claims and reports (1890-1914), treasurer's records, coupons and other records of the narrow-gauge railroad company. This railroad was one of the narrow-gauge lines assembled by Otto Mears. It operated from 1890 to 1950, and ran from Durango through Mancos to Ridgway, Colorado. In its later years the RGS developed the ‘Galloping Goose,’ a rail bus built from an automobile body, to continue service in the region.

M053-029

Sagrillo railroad collection. Includes a cancelled payroll check, photos, and switch keys.

M116

Engineering and mining journals. Includes significant railroad-related content.

M141

Southwest railroads collection. Includes printed materials concerning railroads in Colorado and other Four Corners states.

M194

Nina Heald Webber Southwest Colorado printed materials. Post card collection includes hundreds of views of regional railroads.

M227

Clinton Conner Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad papers. Includes materials pertaining to Clinton Conner's work as a brakeman and switchman for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Includes D&RGW railroad regulations, Mr. Conner’s work logbooks, documents related to his reassignment from brakeman to switchman following a derailment, and other papers and records he compiled and/or created.

M233

De Lasso Loos Four Corners oil and gas engineering collection. Includes rail transport/engineering materials.

M238

Alva F. Lyons papers. A collection of historical records (1882–2005, bulk 1940–1969) compiled by Alva F. Lyons, a San Juan Basin narrow gauge railroad conductor. Includes records and printed materials of the Order of Railroad Conductors.

Maps

C001.01

Denver & Rio Grande Railroad right of way and track map of Durango, Colorado (1937) created by Arthur Ridgway for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, Fourth Division (Denver, CO). Denver & Rio Grande Railroad map number Colo. V-17-A/19: Station 3541+84 to Station 3670+03. This map is one section of a seventy-one-foot long by 24-inch-high contiguous map of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad track and right of way between the Durango railroad station and the Silverton railroad station.

C005

Southwest mining and engineering map. Includes railroad routes and contexts.

C006

Rio Grande Southern Railroad maps.

Photographs

P001

General photograph collection. Includes photos of CO and NM railway lines.

P026

Rio Grande Southern Railroad photographs: Approximately 367 photoprints (some, with matching negatives).

P041

Chione railroad slides. Includes views of the Rio Grande Southern narrow gauge railroad that ran from Durango through Hesperus, Mancos, Dolores, Rico, Telluride, and Ridgway, where it joined with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.

P059

Dr. John Hubbard railroad photographs. Includes approximately 30,000 photoprints depicting railroad equipment in Colorado, including an engine in snow. The photoprints, which are various sizes (no photonegatives) are grouped by railroad company. Most of the photos are identified. They include the work of Gerald Best, Otto Perry, Richard Kendig, and others, as well as photos taken by Dr. John L. Hubbard himself. Also includes approximately 25,500 color slide transparencies of railroad scenes from all over the United States and 4 records boxes of miscellaneous paper documents and printed materials pertaining to railroads.

Audio

U003

Durango oral history collection. Includes interviews with Alva F. Lyons (5 interviews) and Robert 'Bob' Sawyer. Conducted by Rae Haynes, 1989.

U004

Southwest oral history collection. Includes interviews with George Vest Day, Alfred G. Chione, M.D., Alva F. Lyons (9 interviews conducted by Robert W. Delaney, 1982), and Will A. Wagner. Also includes narrow-gauge railroad sounds (1958–1967), along with digital recordings and transcriptions.

U010

U.S. Forest Service Mancos District Cherry Creek Thompson Park Oral History Project. Includes an interview with Joe R. Archuleta.