YOUR AD HERE »

This Week In History: A near wreck of big cattle train on South Park branch

Compiled by Breckenridge Heritage Alliance
This Week In History
The Reiling gold dredge.
Courtesy Breckenridge Heritage Alliance |

This week in history as reported by the Summit County Journal 100 years ago.

The caboose jumped the track near Peabody switch but no damage resulted other than a shaking up of the occupants and delaying the train.



The longest train of cattle ever pulled out of Summit county: started from Dillon last Wednesday morning.

It consisted of twenty-one cars, each loaded to its full capacity in compliance with the orders of the National Council of Defense, who have notified all shippers to only load cars to the overweight capacity.



The twenty-one cars left Breckenridge attached to four engines.

It presented a sight long to be remembered by those who witnessed it, and seldom, if ever, seen in this section before.

Harold Roberts drowned: Unfortunate boy slipped while working on dredge and fell into water

Harold Roberts, 19 year old son of Mrs. J. H. Allingham of 424 East Sixth St., Leadville, was drowned Wednesday afternoon in the dredge lake of the French Gulch dredging company, two miles east of Breckenridge. The accident occurred when Roberts, working on the deck of the dredge, slipped and fell into the water and was carried beneath the boat bottom. In falling, it was presumed his head was struck in such a manner that he was knocked unconscious. When employees, hearing the splash of his body against the water ran to investigate, Roberts had sunk below the surface.

Colorado state news

Peter Frison, 45, one of the oldest brakemen on the Colorado midland in point of service, was killed at Aspen when engaged in switching cars at the Smuggler Mine.

The proposed revival of the Colorado chapter of the American Mining Congress, steps toward which are to be taken at a convention to be held in Denver is to meet with objection from the Colorado Metal Mining Association, according to a statement made by M.B. Tomblin, secretary of the latter organization.

An opportunity to help the soldier boys in France

Send your donations for tobacco for the soldiers at the Front to the Journal Office, and they will be forwarded – make some boy happy.

One of the windows at the Rogers Furniture store is now prettily decorated for an appeal for the Soldier Boy’s Tobacco Fund. The national colors predominate, in the background. A picture of one division at Camp Kearny, in which a number of the Breckenridge boys can be seen is used also, while the foreground is a stack of the Journal Tobacco Fund boxes.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.