Bud Werner Memorial Library and Tread of Pioneers Museum present “Meet David Moffat: A time-traveling history talk” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, in Library Hall. This is a free evening of Northwest Colorado history told through the eyes of railroad tycoon David Halliday Moffat.

Through a first-person, Chautauqua-style monologue, storyteller and performer Dave Naples, as Moffat, reveals the multimillionaire’s major contributions to Colorado’s development.

Moffat was the builder of one of the most important and challenging railroads in the country, known as the Moffat Road, president of the First National Bank of Denver and one of the wealthiest, most important businessmen in the West. As owner of many gold and silver mines, the banker and railroad tycoon was responsible for collaborating with a small group to rescue Denver in 1866 when the Union Pacific decided not to pass through the city with its transcontinental railroad.

Moffat’s legacy would create his own rail line from Denver to Craig and leave the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (which later became the Union Pacific Railroad) with lines that would outlast most other rail lines in Colorado.

For his enormous efforts, the Moffat Tunnel and Steamboat’s neighboring Moffat County were named after him.

For more information, visit steamboatlibrary.org/events.