Of America's many unusual railroads perhaps none was stranger than the very short, very crooked Crouch line in the Black Hills. This 30-mile-long railroad chugged from Rapid City to Mystic up twisting Rapid Canyon. Nearly every rail was curved to fit the canyon. A train would make the equivalent of 14 complete circles on every trip to Mystic. And people joked about the Crouch Line. They said its bends were so sharp that the brakeman on the rear car could receive a chew of tobacco from the engineer in the locomotive. They said some part of every train was always over a bridge. Indeed, there were 110 bridges on the line, or nearly four every mile.
Too many bridges-that was part of Crouch Line's hard luck story. In 1907 a major flood demolished all but five bridges. Raging waters wrapped rails around trees and washed out most of the grade. But the plucky Crouch Line was back in service within months.
There would be other calamities in the same year. In one instance, an eastbound train plunged through a burning bridge and into the creek below. The mystery of the fire was never explained. And before 1907 ended there was a thunderous collision between two engines near Big Bend.
The passing years brought more hard luck. From its birth in the early 1890's to its demise in 1947 this littlest railroad had several owners and at least 10 different names! It was variously called the Dakota & Wyoming R.R., the Dakota, Western & Missouri River R.R., the Rapid City, Black Hills & Western R.R., the Rapid Canyon Line. But Black Hills folks didn't care much for those official names. Everybody called it the "Crouch Line" for Charles D. Crouch-the man who built the railroad and dreamed it would stretch to the Pacific.
10/01/03