William Jackson Palmer - Building The Western Railroads, Colorado

Building The Western Railroads, Colorado

After the War, Palmer resumed the railroad career he had started previous to the conflict. In 1867, a very optimistic, eager 30-year-old Palmer, and his 21-year-old chief assistant Edward H. Johnson, headed west from their hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Palmer was the construction manager for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, mapping routes through New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific coast.

The Kansas Pacific Railroad was an enterprise of the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose president John Edgar Thomson had employed Palmer as his personal secretary before the War. Under General Palmer's direction the Kansas Pacific was extended from Kansas City, Missouri, reaching Denver, Colorado, in August, 1870. The railroad was constructed eastward from Denver as well as westward from Kansas City. The two lines were connected at Strasburg, Colorado, thus giving Colorado its own miniversion of the connecting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory, Utah, to form the First Transcontinental Railroad. Upon completion of that line, Palmer founded his own railroad, the north-south Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, whose first section was a Denver to Pikes Peak area line.

Palmer met Mary Lincoln (Queen) Mellen while she and her father, William Proctor Mellen, were on a train going to see the West. They were married November 8, 1870 in Flushing, New York where the Mellen family lived at the time. On their honeymoon in the British Isles, Palmer saw narrow gauge railroading in operation and realized the advantages for use on his own line, with substantial initial savings in manpower and materials. Furthermore, the narrow 3-foot gauge lent itself to mountain construction with the ability to take sharper curves and steeper grades. Thus, Palmer's Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad was built in narrow gauge. Two sections remain of his narrow gauge empire: the 45-mile (72 km) Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, and the 63-mile (101 km) Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. The former is a National Historic Landmark District; the latter, a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Palmer envisioned "an integrated industrial complex based on steel manufacturing" in which all necessary resources were controlled by one company. In 1879, as Palmer's railroads were expanding, he noted the demand for steel for rails was high in Colorado. This prompted him to construct Colorado Coal and Iron Company's steel mill south of Pueblo. His dream became a reality for his successors when, in 1892, CC&I merged with the Colorado Fuel Company to form Colorado Fuel and Iron. This company became Colorado's largest employer and dominated industry around the state for decades.

Palmer was delighted with the new area. In 1871, he acquired 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land east of the former (unofficial) Colorado territorial capital, Colorado City. He called his new community Colorado Springs. Saloons and gambling houses were not welcome in Colorado Springs, and if one wanted alcohol, they had to travel to the more unruly Colorado City, or nearby Manitou Springs, to get it. Production or sale of alcohol was illegal in Colorado Springs until 1933, when Prohibition was lifted nationally.