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3: South-Central Boulder: Floods, Minorities, and the Railroads
- University Press of Colorado
- Chapter
- Additional Information
he 100-year flood hit Boulder in 1894. Most of Boulder’s “red light district,” which covered the area along Water Street (Canyon) between the current Municipal Building and the Boulder Public Library auditorium, was destroyed. Madams blatantly moved their girls to upstairs rooms in the downtown business district. However, the brothels’ days were numbered. When the Better Boulder Party succeeded in closing Boulder’s saloons in 1907, it closed the “houses of ill repute” for good. The Goss and Grove Street neighborhood, known as Culver’s Subdivision, did little better in the flood. The neighborhood was home to most of the city’s minorities and immigrants. A reporter, typical of his era, wrote in the Boulder County Herald in 1883 of the “rustic Queen Anne style comemighty -near-tumbling-down residences of our happy-go-lucky colored population.” The 1880 census listed blacks as approximately 1 percent of a population of 3,069 for the entire county. Although the neighborhood surrounding Goss and Grove Streets was rebuilt, the majority of large homes, churches, and public buildings erected after the floodwerelocatednorthofdowntownoronhigher ground. Minorities were part of Boulder’s history, but they are rarely pictured. Chinese placer miners kept to themselves in mountain communities. Few blacks or Asians hired photographers to have their portraits taken. Photos of Boulder prostitutes were even rarer. In order to prosper and grow, Boulder needed the railroad. Before 1873, the coal-mining town of Erie was the closest station. It was a long wagon ride away to reach additional markets for Boulder’s farmers. Two years before, Boulder residents had raised $45,000 in subscriptions to bring the Denver & Boulder Valley from Erie to Boulder. Ground was broken in 1871, “amid many toots and speeches,” but the railroad company delayed construction . South-Central Boulder Floods, Minorities, and Railroads 47 b o u l d e r : e v o l u t i o n o f a c i t y 48 On April 5, 1873, before the Denver & Boulder Valley arrived, the Colorado Central reached Boulder . The Colorado Central built a small depot, at approximately 31st and Pearl Streets, where the tracks intersected. At the time, the Colorado Central ran between Longmont and Black Hawk. The Denver & Boulder Valley finally reached Boulder on September 10, 1873. It built a depot just northofPearlStreetbetween22ndand23rdStreets. By 1877, both railroads were turning around at the wye, where the tracks intersected, and backing in to the Denver & Boulder Valley depot. In a little more than three hours, travelers could get to Denver on either railroad. The fare was $2.25 each way. From 1877 to 1888, a short feeder line, the Golden, Boulder & Caribou, brought coal from the Marshall coal fields to Valmont. The two East Boulder depots were just the beginning of railroad activity in Boulder. In the years to come, Boulder would have five more depots . Meanwhile, mining activity in the mountains required a cost-effective way to bring in coal for steam-powered machinery and to haul out gold and silver ore. In 1883, the narrow-gauge Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific connected Boulder with Sunset , then called Penn Gulch, in Four Mile Canyon. The Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific built Boulder’s third depot just northwest of the railroad tracks and 10th Street. It was a red-frame building used for both passengers and freight for all of the railroads . The Denver & Boulder Valley depot was abandoned. Rails from the wye paralleled Pearl, then cut diagonally southwest (west of today’s 28th Street) and intersected Water Street (Canyon) at 22nd Street. All trains then came into Boulder from the wye, and followed Water Street (Canyon) to the Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific depot. Spur lines and a switching yard were built as industries developed between this depot at 10th Street and the Colorado State Flour Mill (Yount/McKenzie) near the mouth of Boulder Canyon. From this depot, the Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific narrow-gauge crossed Boulder Creek near 4th Street to go into the mountains. The railroad then followed what is now Arapahoe Avenue into Boulder Canyon and turned into Four Mile Canyon. Today’s bike path in Boulder Canyon follows this railroad grade. The flood of 1894 washed out many of the mountain tracks and bridges. Four years later, the narrow-gauge was reorganized as the Colorado & Northwestern, and a branch north from Sunset to Ward was built. The scenic line became known as the “Switzerland Trail of America.” In 1904, the Switzerland Trail branched south from...