Central City depot

[Bill Uffelman]

The last photowith a single gondola clearly shows areight door on the back of the Hawley building but also appears to show n angled chute near the right edge of the photo. Would this be a chute to take coal to a boiler room or ????

I also like the dark brick building across the street with the awning over the front door and what appear to be ringed planting aress on the raised "patio". Is this an upscale hotel or ???? The building next to it with its roof support structure on the outside is very cool too.

Bill  Uffelman

Ocean View DE

On Tuesday, November 15, 2016 12:59 PM, Jim Courtney [via C&Sng Discussion Forum] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Chris, you never disappoint in finding the neatest things in DPL photos! And in the middle of an earthquake!

The first photo, with the corral, can be dated as after April 1898 by the presence of the 3 board St Charles coal car in the original "delivery" UPD&G lettering:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/70920/rv/singleitem/rec/510



I don't know what the structure with the metal roof is, a freight house that preceded the brick depot? Or are you thinking an engine house?


The photo of the original brick ticket office and five-sided section house, shows a small structure between -- perhaps this is the original depot privy that Rick was wondering about:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78658/rv/singleitem



The ticket office seems to have a mud-room or snow-room on front. Also visible is the harp switch stand to the Hawley Mdse siding, which is on a head tie that is suspended out of the stone retaining wall, into the street!  The crossing sign, with light letters on dark diagonals is something I've never seen before.


This is the best overview, IMHO, of the entire Central railroad facilities:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/236/rv/singleitem/rec/1586



All one needs to build a model railroad of the C&S in Central City!


And if these two photos of Hawleys's siding are re-cropped, one can see that the ball park existed as early as the late 1880s, being modified over the years:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78659/rv/singleitem/rec/608



http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78620/rv/singleitem/rec/594



Again, thanks for all the wonderful things that you post here!  I know how much time is involved in posting things like this.

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NAML

[Jim Courtney]

Bill,

As best I can tell, the larger structure of light brick was originally a hay and grain feed store back in the mid 1880s:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll21/id/10737/rv/singleitem/rec/499


The smaller, attached dark brick building seems to be part of the same business.


By the late 1880s to early 1890s, the feed store has had its roof reinforced with exposed trusses:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78659/rv/singleitem/rec/608



The lower story is now the city Fire Station, the second story now a meeting hall, the "Armory Hall".  The smaller dark brick building has been remodeled with an addition and second story porch with staircase. No signage to identify it as business or residence.


By the late 1890s, the smaller structure has been landscaped:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78620/rv/singleitem/rec/594



The building has acquired the awning at front. Perhaps it is a hotel or boarding house, as you suggest. In addition to the landscaped area, note the porch swing suspended from its own detached and roofed structure. Note also all the "Grandt Line" "S" shaped brick washers, in both views, on the front facade.

Perhaps Rick can tell use whether the "Fire Station" still stands.

Jim

[Chris Walker]

Bill wrote: The last photowith a single gondola clearly shows areight door on the back of the Hawley building but also appears to show n angled chute near the right edge of the photo. Would this be a chute to take coal to a boiler room or ????

X-2550

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78620/rv/singleitem/rec/594

Bill,
I'm glad you picked upon that, the Hawley would probably have retailed Coal for all those apartment room chimneys you see in great abundance, since there is no large Stack visible.  

The Chute itself could also be the bin depending on the length of such.  A number of Chutes to domestic dwellings appear in back alley photos of Central and Blackhawk, these I guess would have been filled by the local Coal Dealer rather than the smaller scale of the Hawley but as with the limited indications as to the scope of this I do not know.  It is quite possible that there was a larger bin inside and we can see that there was considerable expansion of the building in later years.
 
There were several Mercentiles in the small rural town North of my parent's farm, as a farm kid I loved to explore those musty and darkened buildings with all the different bays and bins, the differing smells of hardware and tack, fertilizer, seed and grain, timber and creosote etc, echoing voices and footsteps on the creaking floors.

Fascinating scenes to ponder (and recollections to exhume).

[Jeff Young]

They're both still there:


... and still wearing its wacky external roof supports (although now with another covering on top of them):


Cheers,
Jeff.

[Bill Uffelman]

Looks like the patio and added staircase are gone. Attorney in me makes me wonder if they didn't own the now vacant lot?

Bill Uffelman 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 7:16 AM, Jeff Young [via C&Sng Discussion Forum]

<[hidden email]> wrote:

They're both still there:


... and still wearing its wacky external roof supports (although now with another covering on top of them):


Cheers,
Jeff.

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NAML

[Ken Martin]

According to Frank Hollenback's "Central City and Blackhawk Then and Now" 1961 the Armory Hall was built in 1875 as the Belvedere theatre by Henry Teller and Judge Silas Hahn. It had three stores on the first floor. Not being adequate for large crowds the Central City Opera house was built to replace it in 1878. In the 1880's it was used by Westman and Newell for hay and grain. In 1886 J.S.Beaman bought it and used it as the Central Bottling works for many years. The fire department used it for many years. Around 1900 it was used by Company F First Infantry Colorado National Guard.

The adjoining building is believed to predate the fire of 1874. In 1875 it was referred to as the Alhambra Theatre. In 1886 It was bought by J.S.Beaman and used as a residence.

If you can find it, it is a good book for history on the buildings but not much on the railroad.

Ken Martin

[Ken Martin]

Here is a postcard view of the city showing the Armory hall with curved roof.


For those who want a different car check out the car by the bus depot.


Ken Martin

[Rick Steele]

This is a real treat for me.

I love it.

The metal roofed building mentioned on site before the Central City Depot was listed early on as a freight house. It was obviously demolished to build the Brick Depot that we all know and are familiar with. Dan Abbott mentions this Freight House in his book. The only other photo that I have seen of it was a very poor and out of focus photo of it taken with a fish eye or panoramic lens. From what I could tell, it was a large wooden building with a loading dock on the side and end that was visible. (which would have been the east end and north side. (Compass, not Railroad direction).

The brick depot was designed by Varian and Sterner, Architects of Denver, Colorado. Unfortunately, the drawing copy that I have is not dated.

The floor plan that I have shows no "Sanitary Facilities" or W.C. as they were known back then. It has a really large 18' x 22' waiting room, a 14 x 22 ticket office and a 26 x 22' freight and express office.

The brick walls were 13" thick on the exterior, 9" on the interior.

The W.C. was shown to be on the far (hill ) side (as shown in the Chain O'Mines photo) and was directly south of the ash pit.

#3 Privy 4' x 5' x 6'6" eaves, Painted Outside. Same as at Birds Eye, Colo. 18 1 x 4 T&G door.

Did you notice on the early Section House/Depot view, The one marked "Original Depot Privy and Section House" that the Concrete reinforcement around the base of the buildings is missing. That the end of the North End of the Section House does not have the Overhead Door opening cut into it. That there is a shed built between the two buildings. That the Ticket office has a "Mud Room" or Snow room built on to the front door? Did you notice the Depot Sign located above the front door of the ticket office? Dollars to doughnuts it is a standard UP mileage sign with "Central City" and the distance to Denver. I also notice a sign just below the upper eave on the ticket office. Either a "Wells Fargo & Co. Express Company" Or Western Union Telegraph Company. What is interesting to me is the arched lettering on the top row. Any ideas?

Notice also that there seems to be a sign of some sort above the door entrance structure to the Ticket office. (Ticket Office?).

And, of course, the harp switch stand.

Note the black crossbucks with the white lettering. It could be a reflective anomaly, but I think that it was intentional for better contrast against the snow.

Just one cool photo with lots of detail.

I also like the cooler behind the Section house. Very nice detail to add.

No, they didn't use stone biffy's back then. The rock there is Precambrian Granite, and after the original hole filled up, it took a miner to dig a new one.  Notice that the one for the Central City Depot is on a dirt fill. The Valuation shows a W.C. for the Section House and old Ticket Office built on the fill that the Railroad used behind the Hawley Merchandise Warehouse.

The Section House and Ticket office were built of a local brick, known to Central City Residents as "Hooper Brick" from the name of the man who manufactured the brick. This brick was not a fired brick and many buildings built of this brick have some serious deterioration issues as the brick turns back into sand. This is one reason why many of Central City's brick buildings were painted. It keeps the brick facade in place. In one building that I lived, we were vacuuming up dirt from one of the window sills and the brick began to come up with the dirt. My buddy said "Give me enough Electrolux bags and we can have this thing down to the ground by morning"....

As far as the Armory building goes, the roof supports are still there, they were there when it was the Belvedere Theatre.  I don't know what happened to the old Armory Sign that was there. I suppose that it fell down after the last owners sold the building.

When I lived there, there was a stage and there were local productions staged there. These were the ones that the locals actually wrote and directed. They had nothing to do with the Central City Opera Company, which at that time was a "subsidiary" of the University of Denver. It's a long story....

But back to the Belvedere. The brick building that you were showing immediately to the south and adjoining the building was accessible from the street and, after climbing a flight of stairs, ushered you into the Shoo-Fly Saloon. The Saloon adjoined the theater and it was a true pleasure to go there on a cold winter's night, get dinner (they had a kitchen) and a beer, sit at a table in the Belvedere and watch a movie. The locals there just called this brick building the "Shoo Fly".

The owners of the Belvedere back then had two 35 mm theater projectors and showed movies during the winter. No, there wasn't a big marquee. It was one of those things that the locals knew about and enjoyed.

There was the entrance to the Belevedere on Nevada Street, and there was also a diorama called "The Central City Story" that was carved by a local man which was open every summer for the tourists to look through. Yes, something actually educational.

When the Williamson's owned the Belvedere, they discovered that all around the entrance area people had signed their names. Some were Central City residents, one was Bill Cody, some were Congressmen, some were mayors, all were old. The Williamson's wanted to enhance the signatures so that they stood out more and make it an attraction to lure people in because most had signed in pencil. But they made one big mistake. They leased the area to a man from Golden so that he could have a souvenir store, no, not the Ashby's. Instead of enhancing the signatures he just painted the walls a white saying that the signatures were worthless because nobody knew who these people were and that he didn't want people coming in and just gawking at the signatures and buying nothing.

Yes, he was an a**hole.

Rick

[John Greenly]

I'm really enjoying this thread too!  here's one more photo I stumbled across, you all probably know it already, but I'll add it just in case.
It shows a ball game in progress, the fans are all around the field and some are standing up in front of the depot. There's at least one tank in the tank farm location, and lots of other things to see.  

John

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/78597/rec/214





John Greenly
Lansing, NY

[Chris Walker]

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[John Greenly]

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[Todd Hackett]

John Greenly wrote

...the question is, how to download or capture that view so I can post it here.  I am using a Mac...

John,

I don't know how to do it on a Mac, but with Windows, I just zoom to the level I want, take a screen snapshot of the active window (alt-PrtScn), paste it into a new blank file in a photo program (I use Corel PhotoPaint, but any photo editing software should work), and save it.

Todd

[John Greenly]

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[John Schapekahm]

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[Jim Courtney]

I purchased several C&S photos on ebay this week, including this one of Central City:





Most likely from the late 'teens or early twenties.

A quartet of C&S boxcars wait patiently on the Hawley Merchandise siding for spring to come and the baseball games to resume.

The Armory Hall now has its curved roof. The grand stands have reached their mature form.

[Jeff Young]

Cracking picture, Jim!

Cheers,
Jeff.

[John Greenly]

Another great find, Jim!  I've been looking back at all the others on this thread, and tracking the history.  At the end of the story of the C&S in Central, here's the full frame of one Jim posted above, with the abandoned depot (with "Chain O'Mines" now lettered above the door) as it began to be submerged in tailings:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/39944/rv/singleitem/rec/1



I guess the mines always threatened to eat the town they spawned.  Here's another,  much earlier (1890's?) image that really grabs me for some reason.  It seems very evocative of the way these towns grew, with the crazy hodgepodge of mines looming over the couple of neat little buildings in the foreground including the Gregory Store, named for the man who started it all there in Central City.

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/39944/rv/singleitem/rec/1



Thanks to Todd, Jim, Rick, Chris and all for this wonderful stuff!
John

John Greenly
Lansing, NY

[Lee Gustafson]

What are the two buildings to the right of the Gregory store? I can't make out the sign on the building immediately to the right of the store. Also I assume the stairs are leading to the privy behind that building. As a flat lander was it customary to build the privy higher than the surrounding residences? Thanks in advance.

Lee Gustafson

[John Greenly]

I can't make out that sign either.  As to the exalted privy, I guess necessity was the mother of invention.

I was just now looking around for other Central City photos, and was amazed to find another picture of this location, it's on p. 206 of Colo. Rail Annual #10  (my scanner isn't working so I can't post it, unfortunately).  The location is actually Mountain City, just below Central, the DPL info wasn't quite right.  That pic shows a train on the CCRR track of the upper switchback to Central City, it crosses way up on the hill above the town. I think that the CCRR grade may also be visible in the picture I posted, crossing the photo up toward the top of the frame; I can't be sure but the shape looks right.  

The CRA 10 photo is at a later time, the mine buildings are all gone and there has been a gigantic hole excavated in the hill.  There is a surprise in comparing the two photos.  The two frame buildings next to the store have moved!  They are definitely farther away to the right from the store in the later, CRA photo than in the earlier DPL photo, and the larger space in between has been fenced in.  Why the frame buildings were moved by that small distance will I suppose forever be a mystery…  unless of course they went to Denver, and when they came back they settled down in a different spot.  Well.   Amazingly, after all this that privy is still there in the later photo.

John Greenly
Lansing, NY

[South Park]

  Been digging privies for most of my life.  There was a
loose "science" to how privies were located.  Prevailing
wind was the largest factor, along with privacy, distance
from the living area, etc.

  When I go to prospect for long gone holes, I usually look
based on the above, in that order.  

  A place like Central had serious topography issues and
space cramping, probably taking all bets off the table.  They
put them any place they could find that wasn't in the way
and COULD house one, and THEN considered the other
factors.