Fountain Creek History

fountain Creek Railroad

The History of a Railroad

In 1856, a caravan of covered wagons from Kansas City made up of 100 or more trail worn settlers made their way to the foothills of the Rainbow Ridge Mountains, below what is now a small railroad town 100 miles west of Denver, Colorado that they called Fountain Creek.

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Pioneer Wagon Train, 1856

Lumber was badly needed so the lumberjacks cut through the forests and up the narrow path of Calico Canyon, and set up the first sawmill in the Rainbow Ridge Mountains. A few sawmills quickly sprang up across the ridge towards Fountain Creek Valley. As the town of Fountain Creek grew more pioneer homes were built. In 1860, the railroad came to town.

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Fountain Creek, Colorado 1860

During the late 1880's, The Fountain Creek Railroad was built to haul lumber from the logging mills to the nearby towns out of the Rainbow Ridge Mountains every year. It was not long after that a Utah company bought out the Rocky Mountain Lumber Company that was operating in an area next to Cactus Springs, Colorado.

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A few years after the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific joined rails at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869 the Fountain Creek & Western began to haul logs from the mill to other states. 2 more locomotives were added engine 42 and engine 101.