Train in Ibex, Colorado

Abstract

Photograph showing mines and buildings of the Ibex Mining Company and the train stopped nearby. There are two men standing next to the train on top of a snow drift that is several feet tall. The Ibex Mining Company was founded in the 1880s by John Champion and associates, who purchased the Little Jonny Mine and a number of adjacent claims on Breece Hill in Lake County, Colorado. Vast quantities of high grade gold and copper were discovered and in 1894, the company paid a million dollars in dividends. The Denver and Rio Grande built a branch line to Ibex in 1898 to transport supplies and workers to the mines and ore to smelters. After World War I, the area's mining industry declined due to low world metal prices and other factors, and Ibex's Little Jonny Mine was one of the few mines that continued to operate throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad closed their Ibex Branch line in 1944.