I had always thought that the very unique “hanging bridge” over the Arkansas River in the Royal Gorge was built by the ingenious mountain railroad engineers of the D&RG. So this week I come across some information that shows it was actually built by the Pueblo & Arkansas Valley (a paper railroad of the Santa Fe) by special permission of the Colorado court during the legal lease battles between the D&RG and the AT&SF. It was when Judge Hallett ordered all trackage west of Canon City turned over to the D&RG (at cost) that the bridge came to their possession.
I don’t know how many books I’ve read on the Denver & Rio Grande (Western) , and still never realized or understood this until now. It seems so strange that a feature that is so fundamentally unique to a specific railroad, is not even attributable to them. How many others have found out something about one of their favorite prototypes that surprised them….?.
I need to get down there and check that out. I have to go to Pueblo this weekend to get some pictures of a passenger car that is going to a museum that I am affiliated with in San Antonio, so I may just go sown there then. It is one of the most interesting bits of railroad history that I have ever come across.
Oh, and thanks for the intel Zepher. I had no idea.
How does this happen?
Just like the way what many people think of as “history” happens. It’s initially written by people with an intimate knowldge of their subject, but who are far too close to get the prespective needed to put things into a wider context. Suffice it to say, a lot of RR history suffers from this problem, at least from the point of view of historians. People tend to favor what they think makes a good story from their point of view.
Note that this sure doesn’t keep me from buying LOTS of RR history books!
'[:I]
Especially if they’re Rio Grande, in which all the pictures in them invariably show them as the trains who’ve used the Hanging Bridge for the last centuray and a quarter or so.
This is not to say that professional historians are immune from this issue. As a grad student who has just finished my coursework, I can tell you the problem never really goes away. There really is no truly objective history in the sense that people often talk about “the facts” – even the “facts” as most people believe them to be are subject to considerable dispute once the available record is read more closely and – increasingly in the last half-century or so – conscious attempts to manipulate the creation of history.
And then we are all just human.
[:D]
Speaking as a Rio Grande fan with plenty of reference material on hand, I have heard of this before. It certainly does change what one might think about the creation of the bridge.
But I also do work that explores the way memory functions in the creation of history. Not so surprisingly, visual images are particularly strong reinforcers of memory. I know of no pictures of the Hanging Bridge in Royal Gorge with P&AV trains poised there. The record as it stands for most people – who aren’t intensely intrested in the early history of the line enough to know about this – is to think of the Hnaging Bridge as being purely Rio Grande.
And they are righ
“Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.”
(People gladly believe what they wi***o.)
Can’t tell much about the history but I do know it is one fantastic ride!
Tom
Mike, I can address this from the same source I’ve been reading. I don’t believe there could be any pictures or even drawings of this. First, I don’t believe the P&AV ever had any locomotives or rolling stock for that matter. They were just a paper railroad for the Santa Fe. So it would have been and AT&SF locomotive. except: Second, I think, if I am reading all this properly, during this 8 month time period between when it was built and when all properties were turned over to the D&RG there was a gap in the rails west of Canon City so that no trains could get to it at all.
So it is possible that despite being built by another company, that the D&RG Railway, D&RG Railroad, and D&RGW is the only railroad that ever ran a train over it. And of course I mean other than detour and guest traffic.
Speaking of the Hanging Bridge (built during the battle of the Cañon) I recently took a trip along the tennessee pass line taking pictures of a lotta stuff along the line. I got quite a few pictures of the hanging bridge and other bridges along the line.
This is a very familiar phenomenon in all of history, not just that of the hanging bridges. The first “authority” puts something down, then other people pick it up (rather than researching the source.) Pretty soon this “fact” is set in stone, and anyone who dares to disagree is pelted with dead cats and rotten tomatoes.
Why do the good guys always win? Because the winners get to write the “official” history!
Chuck