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The Piute Lumber Company

© John R. Crandall 2000



PLCo #7 on the Rip Track

The Strange Story of PLCo #7

The Piute Lumber Company was started in the early 1870's by an eccentric young man named Deforester Kelly. He grew up in Missouri and it seems young Deforester was helping his father clear some land one day, when he was hit on the head by a falling tree and knocked unconscious. After that he had this strange notion that he was some sort of Paul Bunyon type of character with a deep seated hatred for trees of all kinds. He headed out West to Colorado Territory to cut down trees since there were few left East of the Mississippi. Why he didn't go to the Pacific Northwest is anybody's guess, but after the accident, it was said that he was, "a little touched in the haid".

After an arduous journey, with few trees to slake his thirst for sap, he reached Denver. Finding few trees, except for a few sickly Cottonwoods, Kelly spied the Front Range. These were mountains covered with the hated trees. He left for Golden and followed Clear Creek up to the point where Silver Plume would soon be built. Climbing over the ridge, to the South, he headed uphill till he reached an area surrounded by mountains. This is where Kelly decided to stop and set up his logging operations. Kelly, mistakenly thinking, this to be indian territory, decided to build a fort. This fort he called Dorf, for reasons unknown to this day. Upon completion, he looked on his "Walled Dorf" and started calling it just that. In later years this would be shortened to Waldorf.

After setting up his operation, he needed a name for it and thought that by naming it for the indians of the area, he could soothe some hurt feelings for taking their land and cutting their trees and, also, to defray any attacks by the Nobel Red Man. He decided to call his logging operation the Piute Lumber Company. He didn't think about the fact that the Piute Indians where miles away in Arizona or that there hadn't been an indian attack in many years.

Kelly had soon depleted the entire valley of trees and had a huge stack of timber, that he needed to find a use for. Earlier, on one of his many trips down Clear Creek for supplies, he had noticed a great building boom as Gold and Silver was discovered. It was at this time he figured out that he could use his passion for cutting down trees with his need for money. Now he needed a way to get his large supply of timber to those who would pay for it. He had heard of a railroad, the Big Yawn and Overbite, working it's way up Clear Creek and decided to build a railway of his own to meet it. He thought if he could grade it and lay the ties, he would be able to meet the BYOB in Overbite, later to be renamed Silver Plume, to get rail, cars, and locomotives for his new railway.

When the BYOB finally reached Overbite, March 10, 1884, Kelly made a deal with them to trade lumber for rail and cars built in the BYOB shops, in Denver. He used money, from selling timber to the many mines in the area, to purchase locomotives.

The Piute Lumber Company was now a full logging and railway operation.


PLCo #3 near Overbite Switch

Slim & Stumpy visit the PLCo
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