Central City depot

[Chris Walker]

John,
were you refering to this picture?  More on Mountain City covered in there.
http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Box-culverts-tp2262p2647.html

[John Greenly]

Chris,

Yes, thanks, that's the one!! I should have known that it would have been posted here somewhere already, but I didn't know what it was called, to search for it.  I realized only later last night that I was dealing with Bobtail Gulch, not Packard Gulch, as the other thread you reference makes clear.  I discovered it when I found the photo on p. 255 of the Kindig Pictorial Supplement, which shows the upper part of the gulch with a train crossing the high fill there, and identifies it.  

Anyway, here's that photo that I wanted to post:

http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/75051/rv/singleitem/rec/128



and here's a blowup of the bottom of the frame, with my migrating buildings:



And again, here are the buildings in the photo I posted before, for comparison:



I tried to identify the exact location on Google maps to see if by any chance the buildings have survived.  I believe not.  That little area between Black Hawk and Central is very complicated topography. I think I have Bobtail gulch identified in the satellite image- if I'm right, then the Gregory store was just about where the Red Dolly casino is today.  I think you can see the trace of the C&S grade through that whole area, though crossed and confused with other paths, and almost obscured in the woods in places.    You can see I'm quite fascinated with this little area (beginning to have very grandiose ideas of a layout with this part of the upper switchback, and on into Central)!

many thanks,
John

John Greenly
Lansing, NY

[John Greenly]

Here, for completeness, is the still later view of Bobtail, or Gregory, Gulch:

http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/75345/rv/singleitem/rec/20



and now the house on the right has gone, but the privy has been enlarged:



These are fascinating and rather horrifying photos.  Mines and houses bloom, go to seed and vanish like wildflowers on the hills.  And always of course the relentless progression of the innards of the hills being belched out onto the slopes.  Now in my fevered brain is a whole set of layouts, the first of virgin timber on the hills, then three layouts with more and more and then fewer and fewer mines but ever larger tailings piles, with the railroad appearing in perhaps the second one, and then a final one with the tracks gone and the Central depot entombed under a mountain of waste.  What an exhibit those would make for a Central City historical museum….


John

John Greenly
Lansing, NY

[Doug Heitkamp]