Classic steam engines – like the ones that grace the rails of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad – are an iconic image of the history of the American West. But there is an unsung hero on every steam train: the little red caboose.
The caboose is as iconic as the engine pulling a train, but because it takes up the rear, the intrepid car can sometimes be overlooked. But not for one multigenerational Durango family.
In 1953, Jackson Clark Sr., descendant of an immigrant hardware store owner and the founder of the Toh-Atin Gallery, bought the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad 0501 caboose when it was retired.
The 0501 was built in 1886 and rode the rails on the Rio Grande narrow gauge railroad system for just shy of 70 years.
After buying it, Clark had it moved to his family’s property – right below the Front Hill on Fort Lewis College – and retrofitted it to become affordable housing for college students.
Over the ensuing decades, an estimated 90 FLC students lived in it, said Antonia Clark, Jackson Clark’s daughter.
Now, after the deaths of her mother and brother, Antonia decided it was time to part with the caboose and is selling it back to D&SNG. One day, after being restored, the 0501 will ride the rails once again.
Antonia said her great-grandfather, Harry Jackson, followed the expansion of the railroad to Durango in the late 1800s from New Jersey.
The son of German immigrants, Jackson found work as a blacksmith in railway camps before saving enough money to open a hardware store in Durango – one of the first major businesses in the burgeoning railroad and mining town, according to his biography on the Strater Hotel’s website.
By the time Antonia’s father, Jackson Clark, was born, Durango had grown from a frontier town to a major hub in Southwest Colorado, largely because of the railroad.
Antonia said after returning from World War II, her father ran the family hardware business for 12 years before selling. He then became a partner of the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company and later founded Toh-Atin Gallery in 1983.
She said her father was always enamored by the railroad. So, when he found out the 0501 was being retired, he jumped on the opportunity to buy it from the railroad and move it to the family’s property on East Eighth Avenue and Jackson Place.
Antonia said her father was a good friend of Dale Ray – the president of FLC at the time the institution was moved from its original location in Hesperus to Durango. She said one of the main concerns the school had was that there would be a shortage of housing for its students.
“Dale Ray said to my dad, ‘It’s great that we’re expanding the college, but we don’t have any housing for our students,’” she said. “So my dad said, ‘Well, we’ll just transform the caboose into a little apartment.”
The family installed a desk, hot plate, mini fridge, bathroom, linoleum floors and two bunks for sleeping, transforming the caboose into a cozy place for students to live, cook and study between classes.
At the same time, the location of the caboose – at the base of the Front Hill on East Eighth Avenue – made it ideal for commuting to class.
“It was great place to live,” Antonia said. “You could sit on top of the caboose and drink beer and watch the world go by.”
Dustin Bradford, who graduated from FLC in 2004, lived in 0501 for six months in 2001. He said its location, uniqueness and affordability (just $150 per month) made it one of the more memorable places he had lived.
“It was definitely more like camping than, you know, living,” he said. “It was great. I remember watching the Fourth of July fireworks over Durango cause I could sit on the roof.”
Bradford also lived in 0501 during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was working at the FLC Independent newspaper and was able to get to campus to document student reactions for the story almost immediately, because of his proximity to campus.
During its six decades, 0501 was rented out by about 90 students who called it home, Antonia said.
According to D&SNG General Manager Jeff Johnson, the experiences Bradford and other students experienced was similar to railroad crews, who used cabooses as living quarters while working on the train.
“The caboose was the hub for the crew,” he said. “They ate breakfast, slept there and hung out. There was also a little desk in there for the conductor to do paperwork.”
When Antonia’s mother died suddenly, followed shortly by her brother, Jackson Clark II, she decided she did not want to keep the caboose.
“I really loved having people in the caboose, right across from my mother, who was 97 when she died,” she said. “My brother and I always thought we’d keep her property. But then he died suddenly in August.”
Antonia said she decided to sell her parents’ property, and to give 0501 back to the D&SNG.
The railroad gladly accepted, because 0501’s hardware and wooden structure was in nearly pristine shape from when it was built in the 1860s, Johnson said.
“It survived pretty much intact from the day it was built,” he said. “It’s essentially been the same for nearly 200 years.”
Additionally, 0500 – the sister caboose to 0501 – is being displayed in D&SNG’s museum. To have one caboose in the museum and another riding the rails would add to the immersive experience of the train, Johnson said.
On March 27, the railroad arrived to pick up 0501. The caboose was lifted from its bed on the Clarks’ property, loaded onto an oversized trailer and driven to the train depot.
Johnson said a caboose is a special train car, as unique in appearance and function as a train’s engine.
Cabooses became more uncommon as trains were modernized and automated. So, to have one back – and in such pristine condition – was a special opportunity, he said.
“Look at any of the old pictures of trains, and the cars all look the same,” he said. “Then you get to the caboose, and it’s just radically different. I think that’s the whole magic of being so different and having so many stories created about it – it’s just symbolic of original trains.”
The railroad plans to use the caboose for charter trips and special occasions because of its small size, Johnson said.
Antonia said she was saddened to see 0501 leave, especially after having been part of her family for so long.
“But her job was over at nine Jackson place,” she said. “It was time for her to go back to work for the railroad.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
