Outhouses - the necessary "Facility"....

Recently I wrote a post about Siloan Springs State Park in which I described the forests and campgrounds.  I had the opportunity to chat about this place with an avid camper and she mentioned seeing the place but not wanting to camp there because the camping sites were confined among the trees and the facilities were outhouses.  “Too primitive” was the final assessment, mostly based on the facilities and not the camp sites. 

  

 

Over the years we have backpacked the high Rockies and then camped in remote campgrounds in both National Parks and National Forests.   Early on you learn to use the outhouse facilities which sometimes were not very well maintained or just plain filled to the brim.  This was not unexpected because in my youth our family had a small farm in the rough hills of western  Pennsylvania.  Still, personal facilities on the farm were crude in comparison to the relative palaces of the National Parks and Forests.

Stories involving the outhouse are near legend in many families still having the memory of them from youth or through family stories.  Families often swap tales of practical jokes that revolved around the outdoor facility.  The best trick was placing a sheet of tin under the seat in the outhouse on a cold winter’s evening.  Then you waited until Aunt Bessie went out in the dark for her evening toilet before retiring.  The shriek when she sat down could be heard in the next county.

We heard stories of two story outhouses but thought them a joke until we found that they really did exist.  In very snowy areas the served a definite purpose as the snow piles up six, seven or more feet.  Hopefully everyone had good aim because it must have been a real mess cleaning out the lower level when the snow melted.  Some replicas have been built which invariably label the upper facility “lawyers” or “politicians” and the lower “clients” or “tax payers” which shows the amount of respect we have for the “lofty” view in which these so called professionals hold themselves.   

The first time on the Cumbres and Toltec for the first time we rode in the relative “luxury” of the Parlor Car.  It was filled with very pleasant old farts, like us, and we had a lot of conversational chatter but little interpretation of what we were seeing.  Noticing neatly painted small buildings along the track we naturally assumed they were placed there for the convenience of someone, but who?  The Parlor Car had a rather opulent facility and the other passenger cars were also all equipped with facilities, though less pretentious than the Parlor Car.  The train crews all had facilities available in the passenger cars or caboose if freights.  So who was using outhouses in excellent repair that seemed to regularly recur every four or five miles?

In the very early years of the Denver and Rio Grande San Juan Extension communication with the Division headquarters in Alamosa was by telegraph.  Telegraph was a single wire through which a direct current was generated from a centrally located dynamo to a common ground at the far end.  A signal could be sent through this wire by sending a pulse through the line from a key located at various places along the wire.  The other stations would receive the pulse from the sender in the form of a series of coded clicks called Morse Code.  Telegraph stations were strategically   Though we do not have any pictures of the buildings and they are now long gone, the one at Toltec Tunnel, also called Tunnel #2 and Rock Tunnel, was typical.  In the illustration from 1884 steps to the telegraph station can be seen on the left side.    

located along the track.

Telegraphone Booth - Toltec Section House

By the 1990’s, shortly after construction of the Extension, telephones came into general use.  Telephones, unlike the single line of telegraph, require two lines one for power and the second a common, or ground.   Power for the line is again supplied at a central point and is grounded at the same central point.   With a large investment in telegraph equipment but lacking the superior communication qualities of telephone, the Denver and Rio Grande employed a less than perfect alternative by using a voice communication system using the single telegraph wire with a ground, in the form of a long copper rod driven into the soil, at the location of the speaking device.  This Telegraph Phone had a limited range of about 4 miles due to the poor quality of the grounding.  Thus, every four or five miles a facility had to be constructed to house, and protect, the telegraph phone and the grounding rod. 

 

So there you have it, the little outhouses were a facility but not for personal business but rather for railroad business.  To this day they remain in excellent repair due to the efforts of the Cumbres and Toltec Volunteers.   Each and every one is also a National Historic Landmark.