Devil's Gate Bridge on the Georgetown Loop near Georgetown, Colorado

WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON (1843-1942)

Devil's Gate Bridge on the Georgetown Loop near Georgetown, Colorado

ca. 1884

Georgetown, Colorado, about fifty miles west of Denver, was established in 1864 as a result of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush (1858-1859). From a settlement consisting of four cabins and a few tents, the "Silver Queen of the Rockies" quickly became the center of the Colorado silver boom, but the town was not accessible by railroad until 1877, just as its importance began to decline. Five years later, when the Union Pacific decided to extend its Georgetown line to more prosperous mining towns in the region, the builders had to contend with the steep grade in the canyons of the Rocky Mountains. At ninety-five feet high and three hundred feet across, the Devil's Gate Bridge, pictured here, was considered an outstanding engineering feat along the Georgetown Loop and soon became the old mining town's most valuable asset and tourist attraction.

Albumen print

Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Purchase, J. Monroe Thorington Fund.