By Guest Historian Paul Haseman
150 Years Ago
By 1876, Golden was abustle with railroads going north to Longmont, east to Denver and west to Blackhawk and Idaho Springs transporting passengers and freight with the most important freight being coal and sulfide ores for smelters in Golden. All of these railroads from Golden were part of the Colorado Central Railroad (CCRR) run by Bill (W.A.H.) Loveland.
Financing for these new rail routes was derived primarily from the Union Pacific Railroad (UP). Relations between the CCRR/Loveland and the UP waxed and waned with the UP’s Jay Gould in Boston exercising “tough love” in controlling the CCRR. However, in a telling series of events, Loveland revolted.
Prior to a May 1876 CCRR Board meeting in Golden, Edward Berthoud, in his role as CCRR Secretary, noted that the UP failed to give its agent authority to vote UP’s proxies. Without those voting proxies, the Golden CCRR directors regained control of the CCRR for Loveland. Naturally followed a series of lawsuits, to which Loveland was no stranger, as the UP now sought to force the CCRR into bankruptcy and, thereby, take total control.
On 15 Aug 1876, a hearing in Boulder was set to appoint David Moffat, of Moffat Tunnel fame, as the “receiver in bankruptcy” by Judge Amhurst Stone, an Associate Justice of the State of Colorado. (Statehood was signed into law by President Grant two weeks earlier on 1 August 1876). Bankruptcy would be bad news for William Loveland and the CCRR.
So . . .twenty-five masked gunmen stopped the CCRR train half way to Boulder and kidnapped Judge Stone. The next day The Colorado Transcript trumpeted: Militia and Mounted Men in Pursuit of Mob. A party of some twenty-five masked men, who appeared like laborers, took Judge Stone from the train and moved off with him toward the mountains . . . The judge made a show of resistance . . . but their efforts were quieted by a display of revolvers.”
As authorized the same day by Governor Routt, William Loveland and the Sheriff of Boulder County formed a posse to pursue the kidnappers but could not track them down. The upshot of the kidnapping: the receiver hearing in Boulder did not occur. The judge was released the next day unharmed and he stated he could not identify his kidnappers.
The judge did note as reported the next week in Transcript that “every one of the vigilantes had on an elegantly fitted pair of boots and from the style and quality it is believed these boots were all bought of Lee Mellon” a Golden boot store . . . so maybe not “laborers.” Rough and ready justice here in Golden.
The Union Pacific and Loveland later reached a more equitable “understanding” for the next ten years with Loveland as CCRR President. They say you are known by the company you keep. Loveland kept the CCRR.
