THE CROSSING

The complete series published by the Rocky Mountain News from Jan. 23, 2007, to March 2, 2007.

Stories by KEVIN VAUGHAN

Photographs by CHRIS SCHNEIDER

Videos by TIM SKILLERN and LARESSA BACHELOR

Welcome to the new digital home of the Rocky Mountain News series, The Crossing.

The Crossing examined the lifelong implications of Colorado's worst traffic accident — a 1961 collision between a high-speed passenger train and a school bus a few miles from Greeley, a crash that took the lives of 20 children and left behind 17 survivors and a grief-stricken community. The stories, which were told with the support and participation of nearly every family touched by the tragedy, showed how a single moment in time uncoiled through decades, shaping people for the rest of their lives.

After the Rocky ceased operations in 2009, access to this project was lost.

Now it's been resurrected, thanks in large part to the generosity of the staff at the Western History/Genealogy Department at the Denver Public Library, which holds all of the Rocky's archives.

Here, for the first time since the Rocky closed, you can find the entire web version of The Crossing. Every word. Every photograph. Every historic document. Every video. All of it exactly as it appeared on the Rocky's website.

You will find that the e-mail addresses for the journalists who produced the series have been updated — so you can write to them with questions or thoughts.

And you'll find that we've added a section of "extras" for associated content — including follow-up stories about some of those touched by the tragedy of Dec. 14, 1961, and about the creation of a permanent memorial at the crash site.

All material is copyrighted and used with permission. ©Rocky Mountain News Archives, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library. Contact the Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library, for permission to publish. By entering this site you are acknowledging that all of this material is protected by copyright and no part of it may be used or published for any purpose without written permission from the Western History/Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library.

Use of the Rocky Family of fonts made possible by Webtype