Como Civic Association

05/30/2026

Meet George Champion, George was born in 1884 and was one of the last railroaders in Como, CO on the DSP&P and was a major historian of the region. He was the pilot for the last rotary snowplow through the Alpine Tunnel on December 31st 1909 and took 5 days from Como to Pitkin! 3 engines behind the plow and a combo car for the crew behind. On the way back to Como they hit a herd of cattle and ground up a few in the plow! George spent a lot of time in the early days Jeeping around the region. He was audio interviewed that’s available on YouTube and died in 1982.
Photos and post originally created by Weikert

In 1963, George wrote a biography that was published in the January issue of the Colorado Magazine, that provided some great insight into this accomplished man.

George wrote that he was born on the Litmer ranch in 1884 and although the family moved to Denver for 6 years, they returned to Jefferson in 1890. His father, George Champion Sr., owned the general store and Post Office there and he was also the agent for the South Park Hay Company and the South Park Full Cream Cheese company - a cheese factory in Jefferson!

The Champion family knew Father Dyer and George (Jr.) drove him to Como or Fairplay several times in a buggy.

In December of 1898, the family moved to Como so George Sr. could run the mercantile store with Uncle David Gwinn. At age 17, George Jr. became an apprentice in the railroad shop, starting at 5 cents/day for a 10-hour day. He got to ride in the “helper” engines to either Boreas or Kenosha Passes. He also got to drive a rotary plow.

In 1908, he married Mayme Delany, whose father owned the Turf Exchange Saloon.

George moved on to Denver for railroad employment in 1910 but his heart was always in South Park.

Photo from the Colorado Magazine, January 1963.

Here is a wonderful video about George Champion hosted by his daughter and granddaughter:
Remembrances of George Champion:
https://youtu.be/fkZPgR8xvP4?si=koDXLuwHUX6dGCMs
Many of the photos attached in this post are from their collection.

and here is an an audio recording of George Champion.
Created April 21, 1958: Mac Poor interviews George Champion about piloting the last rotary snowplow through the Alpine Tunnel between December 31, 1909 and January 4, 1910.
https://youtu.be/X6w_CjghBNk?feature=shared
via Colorado Railroad Museum

05/29/2026

For , check out this photo of men operating a Keystone churn drill to determine a location for the Evans hydraulic elevator. In 1900, the Gold Pan Mining Company purchased three of these churn drills and bored 120 holes to bedrock over an eighteen month period to test the ground for gold. The company owned about 1,700 acres of placer ground south of Breckenridge, extending six miles up the Blue River valley and three miles along Indiana Gulch.

📸Mary M. Marks Photograph Collection, 1890-1910; Utah State University Library. Courtesy Breckenridge History, Colorado

05/29/2026

⛰️ A glimpse into the mining history of Park County.

This historic view near Mount Bross captures the rugged landscape surrounding the Moose Mine in the Greater Alma Mining District. Images like this help tell the story of the miners, communities, and high-country industries that shaped South Park and the Mosquito Range.

Explore the “Mining Memory From Park County, Colorado” digital exhibit for more historic photographs and stories from the region:
https://pchla.cvlcollections.org/exhibits/show/mining/introduction-page

🔗 Link also available in our Linktree in bio.

📍 Area surrounding Moose Mine on Mount Bross, Park County, Colorado, 1996

05/27/2026

Did you know that The Park County Local History Archives is a great resource on the history of Park County!?
One of the many projects they have been a part of is to assemble oral histories of this area. This includes an excerpt about Como, Colorado. You can hear the recording here:
http://www.parkcoarchives.org/online-resources/oral-history/voices-from-park-countys-past/

"The next excerpts were taken from a long interview with Bud Anderson (age 85) when he and his wife, Betty, were living in Pueblo West on September 29, 2005. Bud Anderson and his family are closely associated historically with the Colorado and Southern Narrow-gauge Railroad in Como and Leadville. Bud’s dad, Alvin “Brownie” Anderson, Sr. and his uncle, Tom Gibbony spent their careers working the railroads there—Brownie for 42 years and Tom Gibbony for 50 years. Tom Klinger and Bob Schoppe joined Linda Bjorklund on the interview team because of their experience with the Colorado narrow-gauge railroads. To continue with the Prohibition and Moonshining theme we pick up a story that Bud Anderson remembered in Como during the early 1930s. Tom asked what people did for liquor during prohibition. Bud: “Well, there were several bootleggers. One bootlegger worked on the railroad—got fired for bootlegging. They (the moonshiners) lived on the old Martin Ranch behind the cemetery. While we’re mentioning names, George and Syd Duffey lived there. George used to moonshine and had his stills out at the end of the lane. And the Feds (treasury agents) were always coming out of Denver. They would get on the train, and they were always after George. They had him in jail one time, and I think they just fined him and let him go. But they’d (Feds) leave the depot at Union Station in Denver and the dispatcher would type some kind of a message that the Feds were on the train. So George and Syd had a big long spyglass and so they’d see the train coming in. The Feds thought they would be real cute and when the train was turning at the wye (approximately a half mile from Como) they would get off at the wye and walk in. (The trains would turn at the wye and back in to Como to be headed in the proper direction for the trip to Leadville or back to Denver.) The treasury agents would walk all the way up to the old Martin place and read the search warrant to raid the ranch up there. Syd Duffey met them at the door with a butcher knife and held them off so George could pour the h***h out. The agents ran in and caught some in their felt hats. They said, “George, we’ve got you now!” What they didn’t know was that the whiskey went through the felt hats and they didn’t have any evidence.”

Bud continuing: “George had two horses. One was named Fly and the other was a gelding named Brownie, after my dad. So one day he (George) went down to hook the horses up to go out to where the still was, a big long lane going toward Boreas Pass. A bee stung the mare and it took off running. George was sitting in the old wagon and got clear down in. There were big trees down at the end, one on one side and one on the other. The wagon tipped and George flew up in the air, came down and broke his leg—sitting there north of town. There was only one phone in town, that was at the depot. They called old Doc Durbin in Fairplay (to come and fix George’s leg).

Tom asked Bud what the moonshiners did with the old leftover mash from the stills in Como. Bud: “Well there was a second well in back of one house where they (moonshiners) were living. A man there named Johnson was a Swede who couldn’t speak English. So they threw the mash down this old well. (Apparently it was a shallow hand-dug well.) Grandpa Gibbony had eight or ten pigs. The pigs ate that mash and got drunk and couldn’t move. So grandpa tried to sober up the pigs by pouring water on them. Once sobered up a little bit they’d go right back and eat that mash again. The sheriff found out about this and came over and took George and Mr. Johnson to jail. My dad used to say that all Johnson could say in Swedish was: “What would all my relatives in Sweden think about my being in jail!”

Edited by Gary Minke of the Park County Local History Archives Introduction A collection of oral histories was assembled with […]

05/26/2026

Ed (left) and Charles (right) Twining, family friends of the Uhls, joined their mining endeavors on occasion. Carl Uhl and his sister Marie supervise in the back.

05/24/2026

05/23/2026

The Como Mercantile about 1989-1990.
Shared with us via Nancy Schloerke
Thanks, Nancy