Research Help Needed

[South Park]

  A bit off topic, but we seem to have some real research sleuths
hanging around this joint, so indulge me, please ...



  On page 25 of The Rainbow Route is a full page photo taken of
a stage coach along the Ouray & Red Mountain Toll Road just above
Ouray.  Photo is credited to Jackson Thode collection.  Mr. Thode
passed away a few years back, or I'd go direct.

  I searched DPL and the general interweb thing, but can find no
source for where I might procure a large, high quality print.  The
Rainbow Route version appears to be a made from a large glass
plate negative that would support considerable enlargement.  I'd
like to track down such a source.  Maybe I just don't know where
to look ?

  Any help would be appreciated.

[Chris Walker]

Well SthPark,

that is taken at or about the Bear Creek Falls, it may be in the DPL undigitised and a copy maybe at the Ouray County Museum.  A poor copy was full page in Images Of The San Juans by P.David Smith.

Jack Benham and his daughter Sarah ran a book/gift shop in Ouray, Benham's Bear Creek Store back in the 1980's: he had a very large print of the same scene hanging on the wall amongst others.  I think some of his stuff was donated to the museum there.

The picture isn't as early as you would think, George L. Beam took several up there as did W.H.Jackson.
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/32093/rec/90
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll21/id/9339/rv/singleitem/rec/6
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/30014/rv/singleitem/rec/34

The road goes under several names: Ouray-Red Mountain Toll Road, Ironton-Ouray Stage Road  and also was known as the Circle Route Stage, so consider that in your searches.  A quick look in the NYPL didn't turn up a copy in their WHJackson collection either.

My copy isn't any better resolution than yours I'm afraid.



I get the feeling you're interested in this stuff....


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/10998/rec/112

[South Park]

  Well, you are correct in my interest.  I am putting together a display
of that type of pole, so unique to that area and period. Having having
a large, framed period photo of it with the single crossarm as part of
the display would really be terrific.  I will check your suggested references
and see if something pops.  Thanks.

  A portion of this line still stood up the top of the gulch until recent
years.  Last time I was through there in 2003 it still looked good, but
this last time, it was gone.  Photos like this truly convey just how hard
men worked to make things happen in a day when picks, shovels, and
hand drills were all they had to work with.  For those that appreciate
such things, this photo really says a lot.

[John Greenly]

This image really grabs me.  The telegraph line in this scene of primitive, hard traveling is so evocative of both the isolation of these far places, and the need to resist isolation and establish and keep contact with the outside world.   Now I can't imagine building a model C&S without telegraph poles along the right of way-- indispensable!

thanks for the photo,
John

[Jimmy Blouch]

A good portion of Jack Thode's photographs were transferred to the CRRM.

Whether that includes anything from his collection I could not say.

However, perhaps contact with CRRM would yield some sort of answer.

Jimmy

[South Park]

  FYI - that line is telephone.  Built by the Ouray & Red Mountain Telephone Co.,
if memory serves.  Originally built as a two-wire lead, it got the ten pin arm, and
later a second ten pin arm below the top one mounted in the cast iron saddle, before
being destroyed by highway work and the line being rebuilt lower in the cañon.
Mountain States Tel & Tel eventually swallowed it into their system around 1910.

  Telephone and telegraph, while similar in construction, typically have notable
differences to the keen eye.  Many RR's favored steel pins with threaded wood cobs,
whereas phone companies rarely used those steel pins.  Phone is typically built
lighter, and more spindly looking. Phone insulators are typically small, where RR
telegraph and signal lines use heavier stock.  Overall, RR lines look "beefier".  The
exception with telephone was long lines, the major long distance "through" circuit
lines between major points.  These often used the same glass as RR, stouter poles,
more down guys, etc.

  If applying any of this to modeling, one should study the photos they can find of
a given area during a given period.  The High Line had 2 wires, Buena Vista to
Gunnison, one wire.  The mainline varied, as wires dropped off for different
branches.  In 1919, Western Union decided to move their Salt Lake wire/s from
the D&RG from Denver to Pueblo to Buena Vista, in favor of the more direct
route following the South Park line.  They shaved 100+ miles of maintenance
off their budget against the cost of the rebuild.  The line from Denver to Como
went from four wires on a single short arm to two arms full of glass.  By 1919
the main beyond Garos was not in use, and only had 2 wires before getting the
two arm treatment.

  An O & RM Tel Co. pole as originally built (center, right):