The Arkansas River spilled over its banks and flooded Pueblo’s commercial and industrial districts three times between June 3 and June 5, 1921.  At least 120 people died.  The railroad yards, located near the riverbed, suffered catastrophic damage.  Historic photographs show engines and cars in unlikely places: floating into a drug store, wrapped around a telephone pole, on top of a building.  An entire train was washed into the river.  At the Union Depot, the high-water mark reached eleven feet.  After the waters receded, it took an army, literally, to clean up the mess.

With time, the city recovered.  But the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, the successor to William Jackson Palmer’s line that had turned Pueblo into an industrial metropolis—“the Pittsburgh of the West”—was unable to get back on track.  A Colorado judge put the financially anemic line into receivership in July the following year.  Though the road’s new caretakers could not return the company to immediate profitability, they did make several improvements to its properties throughout Colorado, including the construction of a freight station in Pueblo.  The freight house was constructed in 1924 on land acquired by the Pueblo Conservancy District, an organization established to help the city rebuild after the flood.  Now, eighty-three years later, the Southeastern Colorado Heritage Center (SCHC) is rehabilitating the building for use as an office and exhibit space.

The SCHC is a nonprofit organization with a mission to preserve, interpret, and exhibit the heritage of a sixteen-county region in southeastern Colorado.  Founded by five organizations, including the Pueblo County Historical Society, the Fray Angélico Chávez Chapter of the Genealogical Society of Hispanic America, the Pueblo Locomotive and Rail Historical Society, the Pueblo Archaeological Society, and the Pueblo Street Railway Foundation, the group reaches a geographically and ethnically diverse audience.  Though the Pueblo Locomotive and Rail Historical Society and Pueblo Street Railway Foundation have disbanded, the Pueblo Railway Foundation and El Pueblo Living History Association have stepped in to take their place.

The D&RGW freight station serves as a sort of headquarters and educational clearinghouse for the regional history community.  The SCHC offers meeting and exhibit space to its members in the rehabilitated building, and hopes to send traveling exhibits and school outreach programs into the surrounding counties in the future.  In a way, the group’s mission and activities reflect the station’s original role.  Freight came in, was sorted, and then redirected to customers in and beyond Pueblo.

In 2002, the SCHC received a $30,000 State Historical Fund grant to restore the station’s office area and turn it into a workspace for curators.  Coupled with a $16,000 grant from the Union Pacific Foundation, this financial assistance enabled the group to realize its goal of providing a sound and secure area to accession artifact donations for public exhibition or storage.  This grant follows interior and exterior rehabilitation carried out with assistance from an earlier $300,000 SHF grant.

At one time five railroads served Pueblo.  At least two of them, including the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific, utilized the D&RGW’s freight station.  Perhaps it is appropriate that a collaborative organization such as the SCHC should use the building now, in another era of renewal.

Once again, a flood has washed over Pueblo.  But this time, the flood is beneficial. Waves of economic and cultural revitalization have filled the sidewalks with shoppers and museum patrons along historic Union Avenue and the surrounding blocks. Children play in fountains next to the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo and watch people float past in flat-bottom tourist boats.  The Colorado Historical Society’s new El Pueblo History Museum and Archaeological Site draws patrons from around the region.  And among history-minded folks that know a little about Pueblo’s splendid railroad heritage, there is a general feeling that the city is on the right track.

The Southeastern Colorado Heritage Center is located at 201 W. B Street in Pueblo, across the street from the Union Depot.  For more information, call 719.295.1517.