300 People Searched a Colorado Creek for a Lost Locomotive. It Left in 1880

On a cold day in January 1989, more than 300 people spread out across a sandy creek bed east of Denver with metal detectors, radar, a backhoe and a government satellite overhead. They were looking for Kansas Pacific engine number 51, which went into Kiowa Creek with its crew on the night of May 21, 1878. They found a few bits of the wreck. They never found the engine, because it had been gone since 1880. In this video: how a small creek of sand swallowed a locomotive, why the railroad dug 40 feet down and came up with nothing, how the story changed every time it was retold, what the railroad's own records said all along, and the part the legend forgot: the three men who went into the water that night, and the creek that is still out there. 0:00 The search in the sand, January 1989 0:49 The strange part: the engine was already gone 1:29 Three questions 2:05 The Kansas Pacific heads for Denver 3:08 Engine No. 51 3:39 A broke railroad 4:15 Kiowa Creek 5:38 May 21, 1878 6:23 Three men died 6:36 The creek gives things back 7:14 How a dry creek swallows a locomotive 9:19 Forty feet down 10:18 How the legend grew 11:45 Clive Cussler and NUMA 12:30 The 1989 search 13:08 The answer was in the paperwork 14:50 The insurance theory 15:50 The engine was never lost 16:01 The three men nobody searched for 16:39 Why iron gets counted 18:01 1935: the creek again 19:42 Kiowa Creek today 20:11 How much water is too much 20:55 The whole story in one minute 22:36 Watch next Have you stood at Kiowa Creek east of Bennett, or does your family have a story about the old Kansas Pacific line? Tell us in the comments. Watch next: the railroad tunnel in Richmond, Virginia, where locomotive 231 is still buried under a city park. Video 02 on the Hank channel