A hammer rang  against steel, echoing through the high stone bays of the Como Roundhouse. The air was thin and carried the scent of oil and coal dust. Morning light cut through tall windows as volunteers moved between tools and timber, their voices rising softly beneath the curved roof. The roundhouse hummed with more life than it had seen in generations.

Every other weekend, a shifting crew of men and women from across the Front Range gathered here to restore what history nearly erased. Steve Thompson, a retired Navy pilot and now president of the South Park Rail Society, watched the bustle with quiet pride. “They’re just interested in railroads and Colorado heritage,” he said. “It’s an eclectic group and that’s what makes it fun.”

Como sits 75 miles southwest of Denver, tucked against the eastern base of the Mosquito Range in a broad mountain valley once crisscrossed by narrow-gauge tracks. Once home to several hundred residents in its railroad heyday, the town now counts only a few dozen year-round inhabitants. In the late 1800s this remote outpost linked the mines of Breckenridge, Leadville and Gunnison to the capital.

Trains bound for Breckenridge climbed over Boreas Pass, the 11,493-foot summit that ranked among the highest and most difficult railroad crossings in North America. At 9,800 feet, the town of Como served as the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad’s division point – a place where locomotives were turned, serviced and sent back into the peaks. From its beginnings, the town grew around the roundhouse itself – a structure built to keep trains and people moving through the high country.

Built in 1881 by Italian stonemasons using local granite, the roundhouse originally held six stalls that later grew to 19. In its prime, about 25 trains a day steamed in and out of Como. A roundhouse like this functioned as a semicircular workshop centered on a turntable that swung locomotives from one bay to another.

Then the whistles faded. When silver prices collapsed in 1893, South Park’s mining traffic slowed to a crawl. By 1910, trains were scarce; by April 1937, the last passenger run was documented through Como. Crews soon tore up the rails for scrap. Across the wide basin, the silence of the mines spread quickly and even South Park itself seemed to exhale and wait. Wind replaced the sound of steam and the valley held its breath for half a century.

Condemned and crumbling, the Como Roundhouse was already marked for demolition when Bill Kazel, a precious metals miner from Idaho Springs, stepped in. Park County had posted warning signs by the time he bought the property in 1984 – the roof sagged, windows gaped, and half the bays lay open to the weather. With help from a bearded stonemason – “a former Hell’s Angel who looked like ZZ Top,” one volunteer recalled – Kazel rebuilt the roof and reset every stone by hand, saving the roundhouse from collapse.

When Chuck and Kathy Brantigan of Denver bought the property in 2001, they became its next stewards. “Our intention was just to preserve it and make sure nothing bad happened to it,” Kathy said. She credited Tom Lawson, the South Park Rail Society’s tireless vice president, for channeling donations and volunteers. “He’s an Energizer Bunny,” she said, with a laugh.

Today, two intertwined nonprofits – the South Park Rail Society and the Denver South Park & Pacific Historical Society – share responsibility for keeping Como’s legacy alive. Their signature project is the restoration of a steam locomotive affectionately known as Klondike Kate.

Built in 1912 by Baldwin Locomotive Works, the 2-6-2 narrow-gauge engine once hauled ore in Yukon Territory before returning to Colorado. After blowing a cylinder in 2021, she became the heart of the roundhouse revival. Volunteers led by Dan Silbaugh – a commercial pilot and former aircraft mechanic from Dumont – logged thousands of hours rebuilding her with help from welders at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

“The project is right up my alley,” Silbaugh said. “Parts are no longer coming off – they’re going on.” Around him, the clang of metal rang through the stone bays as two volunteers hand-cranked a reamer, boring holes just as their predecessors did in 1898. Oil and steel scented the cold air.

Klondike Kate’s arrival in 2017 drew more than 100 onlookers as flatbeds eased her into South Park. Volunteers laid half a mile of new track by hand in time for Boreas Pass Railroad Day that August. For the first time in 80 years, steam filled the roundhouse again.

“Our greatest resource here is volunteers,” Thompson said. “People call us up: ‘You want a milling machine?’ We’ll come get it.” The Denver South Park & Pacific Historical Society has grown from a dozen members in 1999 to more than 300 today. Many are retirees, but new faces arrive each summer – students, machinists, history buffs – all drawn by the chance to keep something tangible turning.

“The Como Heritage Project is an incredible grass roots success story that bears witness to railroad life in the Rockies when Colorado was just getting started. Future generations will now be able to fully share in that experience,” Thompson said.

Beyond ongoing maintenance, plans call for whitewashed walls, new wood flooring and three reconstructed stalls matching the originals. Long-term, the group intends to extend track across Park Gulch and reconstruct the King Wye to enable trains to turn around. A $250,000 grant application with History Colorado is pending and matching funds are nearly secured.

The effort sits within the South Park National Heritage Area, one of only three such regions in Colorado. Here, railroads, ranching and mining shaped a landscape still defined by open space and persistence. Standing in the roundhouse doorway, Thompson gestured toward the horizon. “Let’s be honest,” he said. “This stuff wasn’t built to last this long.” Yet the walls held.

Luke Miller, a 19-year-old Colorado State University student, represents the next generation. His fascination with model trains eventually drew him to the real thing. He now drives up from the Front Range several weekends each summer to help restore Klondike Kate, proud to see the century-old locomotive taking shape under his hands.

As daylight faded across South Park, the Mosquito Range cast long shadows over the rails. The valley that once roared with engines now listened to the rhythm of restoration – steel on stone, wind through open doors, the echo of work that refused to end.

 

The South Park Rail Society welcomes visitors and hosts open houses on the third Saturday of each summer month; the third Saturday in August (Aug. 15, 2026) is Boreas Pass Railroad Day. Visit www.southparkrailsociety.org for details.