Train and crew at Ibex

Abstract

Photograph showing the train stopped at Ibex, and there are at least six members of the train's crew standing around or on the locomotive. There are snowbanks as tall as the top of the train on both sides of the tracks. This train line was built in 1898 to transport supplies and workers to the Ibex Mining Company on Breece Hill (approximately 11,500 ft. in elevation) east of Leadville and to take ore down the mountain to the Arkansas Valley Smelter. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Ibex's Little Jonny Mine was one of the few mines in the Leadville area that continued to operate. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad closed down the Ibex Branch line in 1944.