South Park Railway Historic Museum

About Us

South Park Railway Historic Museum

The property here at Trout City, is a significantly unique, historical landmark. This site once housed “McGee’s Station” and the McGee homestead. Originally, this junction was part of a pathway for wildlife and was an access for the Utes.  Then, both Pike and Fremont and the early pioneers found and used this pass.  The Union Pacific and the Santa Fe railways subsequently carved their roads through these trails as they headed west.  One of the first transcontinental highways, the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean, eventually paved its way through and toward the west.

All of the original structures, as well as the tracks, were washed away with floods and the passing of time.  The original railroad grade is still visible on the side of Juel’s Hill and the beavers continually change the flow of Trout Creek, but a highway now serves as the passageway. Trout Creek pass provides the gateway from the South Park plane through to the base of Mount Princeton, where the town of Buena Vista resides to this day.  We are determined to preserve this land and its place in the history of western expansion, the development of the state of Colorado and the founding of our unified country, the United States of America. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Juel and Irene Kjeldsen rebuilt some of the structures of the McGee homestead, the depot and mercantile, as well as, ¾ scale replicas of the narrow gauge locomotive, pullman car and caboose. A fully functioning bed and breakfast provided guests elaborate morning meals with costumed, educational tales of the history of the area. Guests slept in the pullman car, the caboose and in the depot.  The innkeepers provided a once in a lifetime experience.  Now, it is a living museum to all of those who forged the trail in the past and for all those who follow the path into the future.