Placer County Railroad War One of the first railroad wars in Old West history was the Placer County Railroad War in
California. In 1864, the
Sacramento Valley Railroad and the
Central Pacific Railroad began competing for the ownership of a road from
Ashland to a point just outside
Auburn Station, which was in the process of being abandoned by the Sacramento, Placer and Nevada Railroad. Because the Sacramento Valley company was in need of American-made rail for use in the
First transcontinental railroad, the abandonment of the Sacramento, Placer and Nevada road gave them an opportunity to purchase new rail cheaply. To the contrary, the Central Pacific was interested in completing the road to Auburn. In order to stop the destruction of the road by the Sacramento Valley Railroad, Central Pacific convinced a local
Welshman named Griffith Griffith, who owned a
granite quarry along the road, to sue the former for threatening his business. Griffith was successful and on June 15, 1864, he received a court order to stop the destruction of the road. The Sacramento Valley company ignored the order though and on July 2 they began disassembling the road for use elsewhere.
Colorado Railroad War The Colorado Railroad War, also known as the Royal Gorge Railroad War, was fought in the late 1870s between the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company (AT&SF) and the smaller
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG). In 1878, the AT&SF was competing against the D&RG to put the first line through
Raton Pass. Both railroads had extended lines into
Trinidad,
Colorado and the pass was the only access to continue on to
New Mexico. There was a great deal of legal maneuvering, and even threatened violence between rival gangs of railroad workers. To break the impasse, AT&SF hired a number of local
gunfighters in February 1878. Faced with this threat, and running out of money, the D&RG was forced to cede the pass to its rivals. The initial dispute was over without a shot being fired. However, the next year a
silver strike in
Leadville brought the struggle back to life. Now both railroads were competing to put track along the narrow
Royal Gorge. The D&RG had hired its own gunfighters so the AT&SF decided to strengthen its forces. On March 20, 1879, the railroad hired
Bat Masterson to put together a group of gunmen. Masterson's force included such famous fighters as
Doc Holliday,
Ben Thompson,
Dave Rudabaugh and
Mysterious Dave Mather, as well as about seventy others. This impressive force had great success through early June 1879, but, on June 10, the state Fourth Judicial Circuit, with the later concurrence of the federal courts, ruled in favor of the D&RG, changing matters entirely. With the assistance of the sheriffs in the counties through which the railroads passed, the Denver and Rio Grande mounted an attack on its rival's forces. There was heavy fighting at the Santa Fe's garrisons in Colorado. The garrisons in
Denver and
Colorado Springs fell quickly. Masterson's headquarters in
Pueblo held out the longest, but they eventually conceded defeat. Later, there were some bloodless skirmishes, but the war was essentially over with the Denver and Rio Grande in control of the Royal Gorge. Harriman was the first to begin construction and, after surveying the area, he decided that the eastern side of the river would be the best route. Soon after, Hill began building his own line on the western side. Later on, however, in the Deschutes River Canyon, the two roads actually ran side-by-side or shared the same rails and terminals. Over the following years, there were multiple legal disputes to decide which company should have sole access to the canyon, but railroad workers went even further. Competing construction crews would often blow up the other side's supplies by igniting their black powder stores. They also dumped boulders onto camps below and engaged in small gunfights. Casualties remained light though and by 1912 the two railroads were operating on mostly separate lines, thus removing the cause for hostility. ==See also==