Gunnison Pioneer Museum

"Cinder Ella," one of the most famous engines in Colorado history, was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia in 1882 and served the Gunnison area and other southern Colorado narrow gauge routes for over 70 years. Only three of the original 150 ordered by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad still exist, with No. 278, on display crossing a trestle while exiting the Black Canyon near Cimarron west of Gunnison, and No. 223 being refurbished for display in Utah.

"Cinder Ella" began the "celebrity" part of her career as the featured engine during the Denver & Rio Grande's 75th Anniversary Tour in 1945, travelling on the back of a standard gauge flatbed car with other historic rolling stock, pulled by their most modern engine in their fleet and making scheduled appearances all along their routes. In 1949 she again travelled on top of a standard gauge flatbed car, this time representing the D&RGRR at the Chicago Railroad Fair, where she was the only engine that pulled passengers around the shores of Lake Michigan on the make-believe Cripple Creek & Tin Cup Railroad, marked as the "Montezuma", to pay tribute to the first engine in the D&RGRR fleet.

It was her Hollywood co-stars in the 1952 Paramount Pictures movie, "Denver & Rio Grande" that gave her the "Cinder Ella" nickname, as she truly was the "star" of the film, which includes a spectacular head-on collision between trains. Thankfully she had a stand-in for that scene!

With the last of the coal mines closing in 1952, the D&RGWRR "abandoned" the over 300 miles of track in Gunnison County and she spent the next few years pulling in unused rolling stock from outlying rail stops and hauling the dismantling scrap trains. Her fire was extinguished for the final time on June 30, 1955, and after that she was placed on static display on the west end of Gunnison and at Legion Park before one final "celebrity" appearance. During the summer of 1959 she was hauled by semi-truck over Monarch Pass and put on display in Civic Center Plaza in front of the Colorado State Capitol and next to a Titan Ballistic Missile during the "Rush to the Rockies" Centennial celebration. She was moved to the museum grounds in 1964 and has had her bell rung by thousands of visitors since then.

Gunnison Pioneer Museum

Caboose 0589 was one of six (numbers 0584 to 0589) built in 1900 by the Rio Grande at their Burnham car shop in Denver. As originally built, 0589 had only one window in the side of the cupola; it was rebuilt to its present appearance with two windows in the cupola in the 1940s. It was used primarily in the Gunnison area on the Crested Butte and Baldwin branches, on the line to Montrose through the Black Canon and over Marshall Pass to Salida. No. 0589 was used on the last trains on the "Valley Line" between Alamosa and Salida, making a round trip on February 14 and 15, 1951. After the 1955 abandonment of the Marshall Pass line to Gunnison, caboose 0589 was moved on a standard gauge flat car from Salida to Alamosa where it was used until the 1968 abandonment of the D&RGW's remaining narrow gauge trackage.

Jerry B. Day / The Gunnison Train

argents, at the foot of Marshall Pass (Monarch Pass on the highway), was once a vital point on the D&RGW narrow gauge railroad line from Salida to Gunnison. Sargents was a helper station (helpers were locomotives used to assist heavy trains up steep grades). The D&GW stationed several helper locomotives at Sargents to move the heavy Crested Butte and Baldwin coal trains to the summit of Marshall Pass. Normally two of the larger locomotives (series 470, 480, or 490 2-8-25) could pull the heavy coal trains from Gunnison to Sargents, but three were required on the steep west slope of Marshall Pass. Even three of the large locomotives required several round trips to move all the cars in an eighty or one hundred car train to the summit. Spur tracks were provided at Sargents and Marshall Pass to store the cars between trips. Only one locomotive was required to move the heavily loaded cars down the 4 percent grade into Salida.

The Sargents depot was a frame building 20 by 30 feet. Facilities at Sargents included in addition to the depot: an eating house for the train crews, a six-stall roundhouse, an engine turntable, a coal chute, water tank, and a sand house. The Rio Grande railroad line through Sargents over Marshall Pass was scrapped in 1955. The depot sat empty and abandoned for over twenty years until it was donated to the Gunnison Pioneer Museum by the Bernard Irby family of Sargents. It was moved to Gunnison on April 12, 1976.

Jerry B. Day / The Gunnison Train

The water tower was moved to the museum site from Mears Junction, Colorado. It was located on the east side of Marshall Pass and was filled with 50,000 gallons of water. The water was hand-pumped from a well or hauled from a nearby creek or spring. The tower was moved in 1971 and erected on site by the Bill Endner family.

Gunnison Pioneer Museum

The Andy Mallet Antique Car Museum was constructed in the spring of 2000 in order to house a very prized collection of 25 antique cars. Our amazing collection has grown from the original 25 that Andy donated to approximately 90 vehicles on display today. Mr. Andy Mallett's donation, which he restored himself, originated in Delta, Colorado. In addition to Mr. Mallett's collection are vehicles from the Gunnison area, donated or on loan from local residents.

Gunnison Pioneer Museum