The
Denver Pacific Railway was a historic railroad that operated in the western
United States during the late 19th century.
Formed in 1867 in the
Colorado Territory, the company operated lines in
Colorado and present-day southeastern
Wyoming in the 1870s until merging with the
Kansas Pacific and
Union Pacific railroads in 1880. The railroad was formed primarily to create a link between
Denver and the
transcontinental railroad at
Cheyenne, an achievement that was widely credited at the time with making Denver the dominant metropolis of the region.
History
The construction of the rail line linking Cheyenne and Denver was widely credited at the time for reviving the city of Denver, which had been founded less than a decade before during the
Colorado Gold Rush. The decision to build the transcontinental railroad to the north had left the fledgling city stranded from the major transportation routes. Many at the time expected that Cheyenne would blossom into the major population center of the region. As a result, Thomas Durant, vice president of the Union Pacific, pronounced Denver "too dead to bury." Colorado Territorial Governor
John Evans declared that "Colorado without railroads is comparatively worthless."
Race To Cheyenne
As a result, Evans, together with other local business leaders, including
David Moffat,
William Byers (founder of the
Rocky Mountain News),
Joseph E. Bates, Bela Hughes, Walter Cheesman and
Luther Kountze partnered with East Coast...
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