I have found very little about this station, a namesake for St. Vrain Creek, also called the St. Vrain River, a tributary of the South Platte. (Ceran St. Vrain was a pioneer trader, who, with others, established Fort St. Vrain, a fur trading post, in 1837. An historical marker noting the place where Fort St. Vrain once stood stands approximately seven miles north of Fort Vasquez, which itself was a trading post. A restored version of Fort Vasquez sits on Highway 85 just south of Platteville.)
I came across a sprinkling of references to St. Vrain in conjunction with railroads:
- The Colorado Public Utilities Commission, in its 1918 “Reports of Decisions,”, identifies the St. Vrain station as one of the stops on the Denver, Laramie and Northwestern Railroad line between Denver and Greeley.
- A Colorado Transcript newspaper article dated August 29, 1877, quotes the Longmont Post, saying, “the building of the St. Vrain railroad, running from the St. Vrain coal bank to the Boulder Valley railroad, is progressing favorably.”
- An entry in the 1892 National Corporation Reporter refers to the construction of the Greeley, St. Vrain and Denver Railway from Greeley to Denver.
- A column titled “Colonial Wheel Notes” in the August 4, 1892, issue of the Greeley Tribune remarks that there are isolated stretches of Greeley sidewalks “which are not traveled much more than the Greeley, St. Vrain & Denver railroad…”
REFERENCES:
- Colorado Transcript dated August 29, 1877 (www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.com)
- “Fort Saint Vrain,” Wikipedia.org at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain
- Greeley Tribune dated August 4, 1892 (www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.com)
- The National Corporation Reporter, Vol. IV, From March 12, 1892 to September 3, 1892, page 12, edited by Adolph Moses. Published by the United States Corporation Bureau of Chicago (Google Books)
- “St. Vrain Creek,” Wikipedia.org at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vrain_Creek
- 1918 Reports of Decisions of the Public Utilities Commission of the State of Colorado, from May 1, 1917, to November 1, 1917, Vol. 4, page 319. (Google Books)
