Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railroad

The Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railroad was a railroad that operated in northern Colorado in the United States during the 1880s. Founded with heavy backing with the Union Pacific Railroad, it was controlled by the Union Pacific from its inception and was later incorporated into the company's lines.

History

The railroad company was organized by investors in northern Colorado in 1882 with the intention of starting a southern branch of the transcontinental railroad that would pass through northern Colorado, connecting westward from the former Denver Pacific Railroad line at Greeley, Colorado. The railroad received financial backing from the Union Pacific, which was concerned about plans by its rival, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, to extend its line westward from the South Platte River valley over the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City, Utah. The GSLPRR constructed a line between Greeley and Fort Collins, as well as several spurs, one which went up into the foothills to the stone quarries at Stout at the present site of Horsetooth Reservoir. The GSLPRR was the second railroad to arrive in Fort Collins, coming five years after the arrival of the Colorado Central Railroad. The line skirted the Cache la Poudre River in Fort Collins, along the current Willow Street. Eminent domain was used by the (then) Town of Fort Collns to obtain property for the line. The line is still part of the Union Pacific system.

The towns of Timnath and Windsor were both founded in the early 1880s along the line between Greeley and Fort Collins.

Although the Union Pacific sponsored surveying expeditions up the Poudre Canyon, with the intention of possibly extending the line over Cameron Pass, the parent railroad lost interest in the project after the abandonment of the similar plans by its rival, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy.