The making of Colorado: a historical sketch

University of California • Berkeley

LONG'S PEAK, FROM TOP OF MOUNT MEEKER

THE

MAKING OF COLORADO

A HISTORICAL SKETCH

BY

EUGENE PARSONS

AUTHOR OP " GEORGE WASHINGTON ; A CHARACTER SKETCH,'
" TENNYSON'S LIFE AND POETRY," ETC.

A. FLANAGAN COMPANY

CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT 1908

BY
A. FLANAGAN COMPANY

PREFACE

COLORADO has had a stirring history — one verging
upon the romantic. When it was known as a part
of the Louisiana Territory, it was first explored
by Captain Pike; then by Major Long, Colonel
Fremont, and Captain Gunnison. The first per-
manent settlement by white Americans was made
on the banks of Cherry Creek in 1858. Soon
after the rush to Pike's Peak a territorial govern-
ment was organized, and fifteen years later Colo-
rado was admitted to the sisterhood of American
commonwealths as the Centennial State.

In the half-century of its eventful history Colo-
rado has forged to the front in the annals of the
nation. No other western state, save California,
has been so prominent in the public eye. The
fame of its mountains and its mines is world-wide.

In 1857 there were a few score of trappers in the
Rockies and ranchers on the plains; in 1907 the
state had a population of 700,000. Some of the
features of its history the author has endeavored
to present comprehensively and concisely. He
can honestly say that he has loved the truth and

5

0 PREFACE

sought it diligently in the journals of the old ex-
plorers and in the records of more recent times.
His wish is that this little volume may help the boys
and girls of Colorado to become more familiar with
its picturesque past, also to realize something of
the progress made along industrial lines in this
imperial state.

Colorado has been called the Switzerland of
America. It is the Mecca of hundreds of thou-
sands of sightseers every summer. In preparing
the later chapters of this book the writer has tried
to supply information for this class. For the
average reader the work may serve as an intro-
duction to the elaborate histories written by Hall
and Smiley.

It has been the author's good fortune to talk
with some of the makers of Colorado's history.
From the reminiscences of the old pioneers he has
gleaned many interesting details and vivid pictures
of life in Colorado Territory. He cannot mention
by name all the individuals to whom he is under
obligation. For suggestions and courtesies he
expresses his thanks especially to Mr. William C.
Ferril of the State Historical Society; Mr. Charles
R. Dudley of the Denver Public Library; Professor
George L. Cannon of the East Denver High School ;
Mr. John T. Burns, former Secretary of the Colo-
rado State Commercial Association; Mr. Charles

PREFACE 7

J. Downey of the Daily Mining Record; to Mr.
Gaines M. Allen, and to Mr. Oliver P. Wiggins-
all of Denver.

Major S. K. Hooper and Mr. T. E. Fisher
kindly furnished views of striking scenes along the
Denver and Rio Grande Railway and the Colo-
rado and Southern.

DENVER, 1908.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AND

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE CENTENNIAL STATE 17

Authorities: — H. GANNETT, A Gazetteer of Colorado;
GEN. FRANK HALL, History of the State of Colo-
rado; H. H. BANCROFT, History of Colorado; G. L.
CANNON, Geology of Denver and Vicinity.

II EARLY INHABITANTS — CLIFF DWELLERS AND

INDIANS 32

Authorities:— S. D. PEET, The Cliff Dwellers and
Pueblos; F. H. CHAPIN, Land of the Cliff Dwell-
ers; W. H. JACKSON, Reports in U. S. Geological
Survey, 1874 and 1878; R. I. DODGE, Our Wild
Indians.

PERIOD OF EXPLORATION

III PIKE 48

IV LONG 68

V FREMONT 88

VI GUNNISON 117

9

10 CONTEXTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

TERRITORIAL PERIOD

CHAPTER PAGE

VII THE RUSH TO PIKE'S PEAK 127

Authorities:— IE,. INGERSOLL, Knocking Round the
Rockies; A. D. RICHARDSON, Beyond the Mississippi;
W. N. BYERS, History of Colorado.

VIII DENVER 130

Authorities: — J. C. SMILEY, History of Denver; Rocky
Mountain News, 1859 and I860; F. L. PAXSON in
American Historical Review, October, 1906.

IX COLORADO IN THE CIVIL WAR 157

Authorities:— W. C. WHITFORD, Colorado Volunteers
in the Civil War; II. H. BANCROFT, History of New
Mexico; A. A. HAYES, in Magazine of American
History, February, 1886; J. D. HOWLAND, in
Rocky Mountain News, January 27, 1901.

X THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 172

Authorities: — Reports of Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, 1861-65; Report of the Military Commis-
sion on the Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Docs.,
2d Sess. 39th Cong., 1866-7; Congressional Globe,
January 13, 1865.

XI THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 198

Authorities: — GEN. FRANK HALL, History of Colo-
rado; GEN. R. I. DODGE, Plains of the Great West;
GEN. G. A. CUSTER, Wild Life on the Plains; GEN.
G. A, FORSYTH, Story of the Soldier; GEN. P. II.
SHERIDAN. Personal Memoirs

CONTENTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 11

CHAPTER

XII TROUBLES WITH THE UTES .......... 223

Authorities: — DAWSON AND SKIFF, The Ute War;
J. P. DUNN, Massacres of the Mountains; W. B.
VICKEKS, History of Colorado; G. B. GKINNELL.
Indians of To-day; Ute Affairs, Senate Docs., 2d
Sess. 46th Cong., Vol. I., 1879-80.

XIII THE MINES OF COLORADO .......... 240

Authorities: — (). J. HOLLISTER, Mines of Colorado;
A. LAKES, Geology of Western Ore Deposits; Min-
eral Industry, 1891-1906; Reports of the Colorado
Commissioner of Mines; Mines and Quarries of
the United States, Department of Commerce and
Labor, 1902.

XIV THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO . . ....... 259

XV IRRIGATION IN COLORADO ........... 272

XVI AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO ......... 283

XVII CONSTITUTION AND CAPITOL .......... 300

XVIII STATE AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS ........ 307

XIX EDUCATION IN COLORADO ........... 314

APPENDIX
GOVERNORS OF COLORADO ............. 323

NOTABLE COLORADO DATES . 324

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

LONG'S PEAK FROM TOP OF MOUNT MEEKER 2

MOUNT OF THE HOLY CROSS 19

WOODLAND IN ESTES PARK 22

ENTRANCE TO THE GARDEN OF THE GODS 26

CLIFF PALACE IN THE MESA VERDE 34

A UTE BRAVE 36

LIEUTENANT PIKE 49

BIGHORN RAM 57

ROYAL GORGE, GRAND CANON OF THE ARKANSAS .... 63

A BUFFALO OF THE PLAINS 73

TIMBER LINE, PIKE'S PEAK 82

PIKE'S PEAK, SEEN FROM COLORADO SPRINGS 102

KIT CARSON 115

LA¥ETAPASS 118

BLACK CANON OF THE GUNNISON RIVER 123

THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER OF A PIONEER 132

JAMES W. DENVER 138

TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH, DENVER 141

ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL, DENVER 143

OLIVER PREBLE WIGGINS ("Old Scout" Wiggins) .... 147

BROWN PALACE HOTEL, DENVER 150

AUDITORIUM. DENVER 152

OFFICE OF THE DAILY MINING RECORD 154

WILLIAM GILPIN, FIRST GOVERNOR OF COLORADO TER-
RITORY 158

AN ATTACK ON A MAIL COACH 174

13

14 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

COL. GEORGE A. FORSYTH 207

CURLEY, GENERAL OUSTER'S SCOUT . 220

CHIEF RED CLOUD 221

OURAY, CHIEF OF THE UTES 224

JIM BAKER 225

JIM BAKER'S FORTLIKE HOME 226

THE GREAT MINING-DISTRICTS OFCENTRAL AND SOUTHERN

COLORADO (Map) 242

DOWN IN A GOLD MINE 246

CRIPPLE CREEK . 252

UNITED STATES MINT AT DENVER 255

PANNING GOLD 257

GEORGETOWN, FROM LEAVENWORTH PEAK 262

UTE PASS PALISADES, NEAR MANITOU 266

CROSSING THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE IN COLORADO „ . . 270
IRRIGATING GRAIN, NEAR GREELEY .......... 276

BEET-SUGAR FACTORY AT LONGMONT 290

A BEET FIELD NEAR FORT COLLINS 295

THE STATE CAPITOL AT DENVER 301

THE COLUMBINE, COLORADO'S STATE FLOWER *. 304

MAIN BUILDING OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY, BOULDER . . 308
GUGGENHEIM HALL, COLORADO SCHOOL OF MIXES . . . . 309

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, GREF.LEY 310

McCLELLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, PUEBLO . '. 312

OFFICE OF THE DENVER POST .315

THE Y. M. C. A. BUILDING, DENVER . . . 317

A COLORADO PANTHER . . 320

INTRODUCTORY

0 COLORADO, land of gold,
Thy everlasting mountains hold
Their heads aloft with crown of snow,
As Fremont saw them long ago.

Through vistas of the far-off years

1 see the trains of pioneers.

Their schooners headed for Pike's Peak;
The shining grains of gold they seek.

The decades pass; fair cities rise
Where tepees' smoke curled to the skies.
Iron horses quiver o'er the rails
Where bison thundered down their trails.

Thy beetling crags and canons grand,
By ozone-laden breezes fanned;
The metals hidden in the rocks;
The valleys ranged by herds and flocks;

The sunshine bathing hill and plain,
Made fruitful by the snow and rain —
These make thy name known far abroad,
O Colorado, blessed by God!

15

The Making of Colorado

CHAPTER I

THE CENTENNIAL STATE

COLORADO is the central state of the West beyond
the Mississippi. In shape it is nearly a parallelo-
gram. Its breadth is two hundred seventy-six
miles, and the length from east to west of its south-
ern boundary is three hundred eighty-seven miles.
It is one of the larger commonwealths of the Union.
Only four other states — Texas, California, Mon-
tana, and Nevada — exceed it in size. Its area is
greater than that of all New England with Virginia
thrown in, and equal to that of New York, Penn-
sylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware combined.
The state is nearly twice as large as Illinois. One
of its counties, Las Animas, is almost as large as
Connecticut, and the area of Routt County nearly
equals that of New Jersey.

Colorado has three natural divisions — plains,
mountains, and plateaus.

The surface of the state is very uneven. In the
eastern part near the Kansas line the altitude is

17

18 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

from three thousand to four thousand feet above
sea level. In the mountain ranges are many
peaks over fourteen thousand feet, or nearly three
miles, high. Colorado has the highest average
elevation of all the states — six thousand eight
hundred feet.

The eastern third of the state is composed of
rolling steppes and plains. The absence of timber
is noticeable, except along the rivers, which are
lined with cotton woods and willows. There are
scattering clumps of pines on the high knolls of the
Divide, the watershed between the Arkansas and
Platte rivers. The Divide is the highest ridge on
the great plains extending from Canada to the
Gulf of Mexico. Its elevation at Palmer Lake
and other places is over seven thousand feet.
From this range of hills the watercourses flow
north into the Platte, and south into the Arkansas.
For a distance of from fifteen to twenty-five miles
eastward from the foothills or hogback the country
is broken. Then there is a treeless expanse
sloping gradually toward Kansas and Nebraska.
While there are slight depressions and elevations
here and there, the land is for the most part level.

The middle third of the state is mountainous.
Several ranges of the Rockies, which form a part
of the Cordilleran system, traverse the state and
attain here their greatest altitude. The most

THE CENTENNIAL STATE

19

MOUNT OF THE HOLY CROSS

eastern chain of mountains is the Front Range,
also named the Colorado Range. It enters the

<T>

state from Wyoming, and extends southward to
Pike's Peak. The famous Cripple Creek mining

20 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

district is near its southern termination. Promi-
nent among the lofty heights of this range are
Long's Peak, Gray's, Evans, Torrey, and Pike's,
all over fourteen thousand feet high. The portion
of the range north of Estes Park is sometimes
called the Medicine Bow Mountains. The Platte
and Grand rivers rise in the Front Range.

West of the Front Range is the Park Range,
which enters the state from Wyoming and runs
south to the Arkansas Hills, some twenty miles or
more west of Cripple Creek. Leadville lies in the
valley west of these mountains, which have several
peaks over fourteen thousand feet in height. Among
them are Sherman, Sheridan, Lincoln, Bross, and
Quandary. The headwaters of the Yampa River
are in this range.

The Sawatch Range is a high, massive chain
beginning with the Mount of the Holy Cross and
running south into the northern part of Saguache
County. It is parallel to the Park Range and
about sixteen miles west of it. The Sawatch Range
is part of the backbone of the Rockies, or the Con-
tinental Divide. The streams on the western slope
empty into the Pacific, and those on the eastern
slope into the Atlantic. The range contains some
noted peaks with an altitude of over fourteen
thousand feet — the Mount of the Holy Cross,
Elbert, La Plata, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, An-

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 21

tero, Shavano, and Massive. The last named is
the highest known mountain in Colorado. The
sources of the Gunnison River are in the Sawatch
Mountains.

Farther south is the Sangre de Cristo Range,
which stretches from the Arkansas River into New
Mexico. The southern portion, to the east of the
San Luis Park, is sometimes called the Culebra
Range. Running parallel to the Sangre de Cristo
Range, some twenty miles to the east, are the Wet
Mountains, in Fremont and Custer counties.
Three peaks in the Sangre Mountains have an
altitude exceeding fourteen thousand feet — Cres-
tone, Humboldt, and the crest of Sierra Blanca.

West of the San Luis Park rise the San Juan
Mountains, running in a northwesterly direction.
This range, which is sometimes called the Alps of
America, forms the southern part of the Conti-
nental Divide. On the eastern slope are the head-
waters of the Rio Grande, flowing into the Gulf of
Mexico. On the western slope are the sources of
the Rio San Juan, which empties into the Colorado
River in southern Utah. The range contains
many high peaks — Eolus, Simpson, Stewart, San
Luis, Handies, Red Cloud, Uncompahgre, and
Sneffels, all of them over fourteen thousand feet
in height.

The San Miguel Mountains are an outlying

TiiK MAKING OF COLORADO

group of the San Juan. They contain some very
high peaks, Lizard Head and Wilson being over
fourteen thousand feet high. Farther north are
the Elk Mountains. Of these Maroon and Castle
have an altitude of over fourteen thousand feet.
Some of the short ranges in the state have not

WOODLAND IN ESTES PARK

been mentioned ; and there are solitary mountains,
like the Spanish Peaks on the southern border of
Huerfano County.

The western third of the state is broken into
hills and bluffs, extensive valleys, and broad
plateaus. The higher mesas are wooded. The
surface descends toward the Utah line, and much
of it is desert. There are immense tracts of deso-

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 23

late country, almost bare of vegetation or growing-
only sagebrush.

The mountain parks are striking features in
Colorado's physical structure. Between the Front
and Park ranges and north of a cross range is a
series of high mountain basins collectively named
North Park. It has an average elevation of eight
thousand feet, and an area of two thousand five
hundred square miles, mostly in Larimer County.
It is a wilderness of groves and grazing lands,
diversified by streams and tiny ponds. It is the
home of deer, bear, mountain lions, and other wild
animals.

Middle Park is hemmed in on all sides by the
high ranges of Grar.d County. It has an area of
three thousand square miles and an elevation of
from seven to nine thousand feet. This park is
celebrated for its striking scenery and its hot sul-
phur springs.

South Park, in Park County, lies between Lead-
ville and Cripple Creek. It is fifty miles long and
ten miles wide, with an elevation of from eight to
ten thousand feet. In its sheltered valleys count-
less herds and flocks feed on the luxuriant grasses.
The fertile soil produces grains, potatoes, and
other crops. Within the park are mineral
springs.

Between the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo

24 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

ranges is the great San Luis Park, eight thousand
square miles in extent. Its surface is nearly level
and has an altitude varying from seven to eight
thousand feet. It was once the bed of a fresh-
water lake, sixty miles wide and more than a
hundred miles long. This valley is a fertile
agricultural region.

Estes, Egeria, Animas, and other natural parks
are small valleys of various elevations and many
scenic attractions.

The mountain lakes of Colorado are little sheets
of water found at altitudes of nine and ten thou-
sand feet. They are fed by the perpetual snows
of the surrounding ranges.

Colorado's principal rivers are the Platte, Ar-
kansas, Rio Grande, San Juan, Dolores, Gunnison,
Grand, White, and Yampa. None of these water-
ways is navigable. The Kansas River extends
two arms, the Smoky Hill and the Republican,
into eastern Colorado.

Colorado is the heir of all the ages. Millions
of years before the elevation of the Rockies, her
granite rocks were formed. It is of this granite
bed rock that the Capitol and the United States
Mint in Denver are constructed.

Time passed, a long time, which we cannot esti-
mate in years. There came an era, when, most
of the continent was submerged. The Mississippi

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 25

valley was a vast inland sea, and the Rocky Moun-
tain region an archipelago of large islands.

Another era came, known as the Age of Reptiles.
Huge saurians disported in the waters and were
the lords of creation. In this period of geological
time the "Red Beds" were formed. The red
sandstones from the quarries near Lyons and
Fort Collins are used extensively in the build-
ings of Denver and other cities. The red rocks
in the Garden of the Gods belong to this far-off
period.

In this and later times there were monsters of
the deep, and still greater animals dragged their
unwieldy bodies over the land. It was the time
of the Dinosaurs. These strange creatures were
both carnivorous and herbivorous. Some of them
dwelt on land, and others lived in the water. Some
walked upright, and some crawled about on all
fours. They fed on water plants and browsed
on the abundant herbage growing along the reedy
margins of lakes and rivers. They were sluggish
reptiles of enormous proportions, having some
resemblance to the crocodiles of the present.
The skeleton of one of them, excavated at Morrison,
has a length of eighty feet. Its ribs are ten feet
long and four inches thick. Resting on its tail
and two hind legs, the animal could rear its head
some thirty feet in the air. There were smaller

gf

r

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 27

species that were more active, armed with claws
and sharp teeth.

One queer specimen of a reptile called a Stego-
saur was covered with a sort of armor formed of
great plates of bone. It had a small head and a
long heavy tail. The latter served as a third limb
in sustaining the weight of the body, and also as a
weapon of defense, for tall spines covered it.
This lizard-beast had short fore legs and very long
hind legs, which with the long tail gave its back a
highly arched appearance. Its length was from
twenty-five to thirty feet, and it must have been a
formidable animal to encounter.

The western sea was for a long time the habitat
of Mososaurs, or swimming lizards with long ser-
pentine forms. They had paddle-shaped feet, pow-
erful tails, and massive jaws having sharp teeth
with which they could capture slippery prey. With
these murderous sea-serpents swam turtles a dozen
feet long that had heads a full yard in length, and
voracious fishes with teeth like spikes prowled in
the shallow waters.

In this interesting period of geological history
the beds of cream-colored sandstone were formed
in the foothills. This sandstone is split into slabs
that are much used for pavements in Denver. Be-
tween the rock strata are bands of fire-clay that is
used in the manufacture of brick, tile, pottery,

28 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

and crucibles. The white sandstone of which the
Denver Public Library is built wras taken from
deposits of this period, formed along Turkey Creek
west of Pueblo. Building material also is ob-
tained from the beds of limestone, some of them
forty feet thick, in the hogback.

At the time of which we are speaking sharks
from fifty to one hundred feet long swam in the
Colorado seas, crocodiles wallowed in the mud
along the shores, and the islands were inhabited
by birds with teeth. One strange flying creature,
the Pterodactyl, had batlike wings that measured
twenty-five feet from tip to tip. Another bird of
bulky figure could swim and dive, but not fly.
The deposits of this period furnish a superior
brick-clay, from which bright-colored bricks are
made.

In an epoch called the Laramie there were
swamps in places where deep waters had rolled for
ages. The climate was a great deal hotter than it
is now in Colorado. There were forests of willow,
oak, poplar, myrtle, and laurel. Semi-tropical
trees like those of California and southern Texas
flourished in the country north of Denver. Species
of palm, magnolia, fig, and other fruit trees grew
in profusion.

The hot, moist climate was favorable to the
growth of dense woods. Of the decaying vegeta-

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 29

tion were formed the layers of coal that underlie
the surface of nearly one fifth of Colorado. The
coal-bearing formations in some sections being
fifteen hundred feet thick, the forest growths of
tens of thousands of years were necessary to
produce the veins of coal.

The Laramie and two succeeding epochs mark
the close of the Middle Ages of geological time.
Most extraordinary animals and reptiles, some of
them of tremendous size, lived then. One land
animal, the Triceratops, was twenty-five feet long
and had a horned head that was all out of propor-
tion to its clumsy body. The skulls of the largest
specimens existing at the time of the formation of
the Denver sandstones were from six to eight feet
long; and there was a bird -footed Dinosaur about
the size of a kangaroo.

Meanwhile the seas and lakes were drained of
salt water, and the land area increased considerably.
The predatory reptilian monsters of earlier ages
came to an end. They were adapted to the ele-
ments in which they had their being, and when
conditions changed they passed away. Other
forms of animal life succeeded them in the Age of
Mammals. Then mastodons stalked through the
forests. Elephants, rhinoceroses, camels, and tigers
had their habitat in Colorado, and all were of
gigantic size.

30 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Then came the elevation of the sea bottom and
islands of a former time into mountain ranges.
There were mighty convulsions of nature. There
was one uplift after another. The period cf
mountain-making lasted a long while, and took
place at least a million years ago. The earth's
crust was broken and tilted; the strata were
folded and crumpled up. Volcanoes poured forth
floods of lava that rolled down the slopes westward
and eastward. Rhyolite tuff is an eruptive rock
much used for buildings in Denver.

As time passed, enormous masses of debris were
washed from the mountainsides and ridges into
the valleys and plains. A thousand feet or more
of horizontal strata were removed from above the
present site of Denver. The channels of mountain
streams were gradually deepened into canons.
Wind, water, and other agencies are still producing
similar changes in the mountain region.

In the upheavals of the past the strata of the
rocks were exposed, with the result that ore deposits
and veins of minerals were formed near fissures
and in surface placers, where in the fullness of time
they were discovered by man. In a half century
gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead have been ex-
tracted to the value of more than a billion dollars.

But greater even than this prodigious treasure
is the agricultural wealth of the Centennial State.

THE CENTENNIAL STATE 31

The plains and valleys have a soil of wonderful
fertility. Before the possibilities of farming by
irrigation were known, east Colorado was included
in the "Great American Desert." Now two and
a half million acres of arid waste have by artificial
watering become productive of greater riches than
the metalliferous mines. Colorado's crops of hay,
alfalfa, wheat, oats, and sugar beets harvested in
1906 were valued at $28,000,000, or several mil-
lions more than the output of its gold mines during
that year.

CHAPTER II

EARLY INHABITANTS — CLIFF DWELLERS
AND INDIANS

A STRANGE people lived in Colorado long ago.
Centuries before America was discovered by
Columbus, the Southwest was inhabited by a race
of men somewhat civilized. Their skeletons, their
rude stone implements, their architectural remains
have been found in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah,
and Colorado. They appear to have had the same
general characteristics as the peoples found by
Cortez in Old Mexico and Pizarro in Peru.

In various parts of western and southwestern
Colorado are the ruins of habitations and rock
shelters dating back to a prehistoric period. They
abound in the Mesa Verde of Montezuma County;
they are scattered here and there in the San Juan
country, some being in the neighborhood of Pagosa
Springs; and they are found as far north as the
Shavano valley near Montrose. The time of their
occupation may be roughly conjectured to have
been from five hundred to one thousand years
ago.

Little is known of these early inhabitants of

32

EARLY INHABITANTS 33

Colorado, for they left no literature. Some tradi-
tions concerning them are current among their
descendants, the Pueblos and Zunis of New Mexico
and the Mokis of Arizona ; also a few legends about
them survive in the memories of the Utes, the
Navajoes, and other tribes of Indians.

The signs and inscriptions on the cliffs in Shava-
no valley and Mancos Canon, southwest of Durango,
are similar to the pictured records of the Indians.
They are as queer as the cryptograms of Egypt, or
the cuneiforms of Assyria. Some of the hiero-
glyphics have been deciphered by archaeologists.
The drawings of weapons, animals, and strangely-
clad men and women are interpreted as stories of
journeys, contests, and other events. As yet only a
beginning has been made along the lines of linguis-
tic investigation, although quite full descriptions
of the cliff homes of this primitive people have
been given by Jackson and Nordenskjold.

Many interesting remains known as cliff dwell-
ings have been found in what was formerly the
Southern Ute Reservation. By an act of Con-
gress in 1906 the region including Mancos Canon
was set apart as a government preserve, called
the Mesa Verde National Park. It is situated in
the southwestern corner of Colorado, and, with
the rim, embraces some three hundred square miles
or more.

EARLY INHABITANTS 35

These early inhabitants are called Cliff Dwellers
because they made their homes in the cliffs which
formed the sides of the many cafions of the country.
They fashioned their houses out of hewn limestone
and sandstone; some were built in the form of a
square; others were circular. The rooms in the
stone structures found in Mancos Canon are small,
and it has been conjectured that the people who
lived in them were undersized.

In some places cave dwellings were hollowed out
to a distance of fifty feet or more from the entrance.
These were large enough to accommodate at least
four or five families. The inmates seem to have
climbed up to them by difficult pathways where
holes had been cut in the cliff for the hands, or to
have entered by means of ladders, which were
drawn up afterward in order to prevent the en-
trance of Indian foes. There was no access to
the caverns from above.

These cavelike recesses were fortresses, places
of defense and refuge in time of war. Here, when
the men were away fighting, the women and
children were secure from attack. Supplies of
food and drink were stored in caches within the
caves, so the inmates could stand a long siege.

There were watch towers where sentinels were
posted to give notice of the approach of their
enemies. These round towers were generally

36

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

from five to twenty feet high, and from ten to six-
teen feet in diameter. The walls were from twelve
to sixteen inches thick. The men probably entered
the towers by means of rope ladders.

Like the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, this

earth -bur rowing
race was a peaceful,
gentle people when
not molested. The
Cliff Dwellersraised
crops, for corn and
beans have been
found in the vacant
apartments of their
cavate lodges. They
farmed by irriga-
tion in the valleys,
having ditches and
reservoirs for stor-
ing water. Though
not hunters like the
Indians, they at
least made braided-
rope snares to catch deer and mountain sheep.

The primitive inhabitants of this region were
farmers, with settled abodes. They were far
superior to the Utes, who were nomads and are
nomads in disposition to this day. They had

A UTE BRAVE

EARLY INHABITANTS 37

stone implements and dishes made of fine clay.
Fragments of their crockery have survived, and
sculptured figures chipped by them out of the rock
have been found.

It may be fairly supposed that the Cliff Dwellers
were relatives of the Aztecs; and they were fire-
worshipers, like the ancient Mexicans. In one of
the interior rooms of a cliff village was a place that
contained the sacred fire, which was never allowed
to go out. The apartment was circular in form,
and evidently was used for the practice of religious
rites, and also as a council hall. An estufa, the
Spaniards call this inner chamber. The Cliff
Dwellers worshiped the sun as God. On some
cliffs are rude pictures of the sun god.

These people left behind them not only monu-
ments of massive masonry, but evidences of suc-
cessful work in surgery and dentistry. They knew
something of astronomy. The decorations on the
pottery buried with their dead are unique. This
picture-writing conveyed a meaning to their de-
scendants. Perhaps the persons singled out as
worthy of having painted pottery buried with them
were officials, or men who had achieved distinction.
No unlettered savages could do what was done by
these early inhabitants of the Southwest.

In the deserted rooms of the cliff dwellings
visitors have picked up fragments of hide, pieces

38 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

of cord, bags containing salt, and wooden bows
and arrows, bone awls, stone axes and hammers,
and other implements. Among the articles for
domestic use which have been discovered are
needles, knives, and spoons of bone; baskets of
reed and willow; water jars, jugs, pitchers, mugs,
etc. Pieces of cotton cloth and of yucca fiber cloth,
fringed buckskin garments and yucca sandals
have been found. While no metal tools have as
yet been brought to light, some scholars believe
that this ancient people had them.

Possibly the Cliff Dwellers of Mancos Canon
and adjacent localities came from Utah, where
many old ruins are extant. In some instances
the people were smoked out of their Utah dwellings
by fire, and had to seek other quarters. It may be
that a volcanic eruption drove them elsewhere.

In the summer of 1874 the first notable discovery
of Colorado cliff dwellings was made in the Mesa
Verde by William H. Jackson and his companions,
members of Hayden's geological surveying party.

The Mesa Verde extends north and south about
twenty, and east and west about forty miles.
Canons with cliff walls that are sheer perpendicu-
lar penetrate the mesa, running in every direction.
It is only here and there that the adventurous
climber can work his way up the wooded slopes of
the escarpment. The canon in which the discov-

EARLY INHABITANTS 39

eries were made is about two hundred yards wide,
and a shallow stream meanders through it, fringed
by willows and thorn bushes interlaced with grape-
vines. Here the party found heaps of broken
pottery scattered about, and they kept on looking,
hoping to find the remains of buildings. Jackson
writes in his journal:

"Our camp for the night was among the stunted
pinons and cedar immediately at the foot of the
escarpment of the mesa; its steep slopes and per-
pendicular faces rising nearly one thousand feet
above us. Quantities of broken pottery wrere strewn
across the trail, to the edge of the stream, and as
ruins of some sort generally followed, close atten-
tion was paid to the surroundings ; but, with the ex-
ception of a small square inclosure of rough slabs of
stone, set in the earth endwise, and indicating, pos-
sibly, a grave, nothing was found to reward our
search. Just as the sun was sinking behind the
western walls of the canon, one of the party descried
far up the cliff what appeared to be a house, with a
square wall, and apertures indicating two stories,
but so far up that only the very sharpest eyes
could define anything satisfactorily.
* * *

"All hands started up, but only two persevered to
the end. The first five hundred feet of ascent were
over a long, steep slope of debris overgrown with

-10 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

cedar; then came alternate perpendiculars and
slopes. Immediately below the house was a
nearly perpendicular ascent of one hundred feet,
that puzzled us for a while, and wThich we were only
able to surmount by rinding cracks and crevices
into which ringers and toes could be inserted.
From the little ledges occasionally found, and by
stepping upon each other's shoulders, and grasping
tufts of yucca, one would draw himself up to
another shelf, and then, by letting down a stick of
cedar, or a hand, would assist the other. Soon we
reached a slope, smooth and steep, in which there
had been cut a series of steps, now weathered away
into a series of undulating hummocks, by which it
was easy to ascend, and without them, almost an
impossibility. Another short, steep slope, and we
were under the ledge upon which was our house.

* * *

"The house stood upon a narrow ledge, which
formed the floor, and was overhung by the rocks of
the cliff. The depth of this ledge was about ten
[feet] by twenty in length, and the vertical space be-
tween ledge and overhanging rock some fifteen feet.

* JR *

"The house itself, perched up in its little crevice
like a swallow's nest, consisted of two stories, with
a total height of about twelve feet, leaving a space
of two or three feet between the top of the walls and

EARLY INHABITANTS 41

the overhanging rock. We could not determine
satisfactorily whether any other roof had ever ex-
isted or whether the walls ran up higher and joined
the rock, but we incline to the first supposition.
The ground-plan showed a front room about six
by nine feet in dimensions, and back of it two
smaller ones, the face of the rock forming their
back walls. These were each about five by seven
feet square. The left hand of the two back rooms
projected beyond the front room in an L. The
cedar beams, which had divided the house into
two floors, were gone, with the exception of a few
splintered pieces and ends remaining in the wall,
just enough to show what they were made of. We
had some little doubt as to whether the back rooms
were divided in the same wray, nothing remaining
to prove the fact, excepting holes in the walls, at
the same height as the beams in the other portion.
In the lower front room are two apertures, one
serving as a door, and opening out upon the es-
planade, about twenty by thirty inches in size, the
lower sill twenty-four inches from the floor; and
the other a small outlook, about twelve inches
square, up near the ceiling, and looking over the
canon beneath. In the upper story, a window
corresponding in size, shape, and position to the
door below, commands an extended view down
the canon.

42 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

"Ruins of half a dozen lesser houses were found
near by, but all in such exposed situations as to be
quite dilapidated. Some had been crushed by
the overhanging wall falling upon them, and others
had lost their foothold and tumbled down the

precipice.

# * *

"Scratched into the face of the cliff which con-
tains these houses are various inscriptions. . . .
As they are not cut in very deeply, and in some
places mere scratches, it is very doubtful whether
they are contemporaneous with the houses
themselves."

Since Jackson and Holmes explored the ruins in
Mancos Canon, other travelers have penetrated
branch canons of this region, which was once
well peopled. They have examined hundreds of
villages, or groups of houses that were occupied by
clans in that distant past. One December day
in 1888 Alfred and Richard Wetherill, ranchers
from the neighborhood to the north of the reserva-
tion, were looking for some lost cattle. While
riding through the labyrinth of canons, the two men
suddenly came upon a massive pile of walls and
towers. The crumbling heap had an appearance
so grand and imposing that it has been named
the "Cliff Palace." Not far from this place they
found another majestic monument, now called the

EARLY INHABITANTS 43

"Spruce Tree House." These remarkable re-
mains were described by the Swedish traveler
Nordenskjold, who also explored the cliff villages
in Wetherill Mesa and Chapin's Mesa.

In the summer of 1907, Dr. A. J. Fynn of Denver
discovered in Spruce Tree Canon a portion of a
structure six stories high. It was very artistically
built of blocks of stone, regularly cut, and contained
at least forty rooms. It was given the name,
"Peabody House," in honor of Mrs. W. S. Peabody.
Another member of the same exploring party, Pro-
fessor E. S. Hewitt, discovered a cliff ruin that
was christened the "Red House," because of the
red sandstone about it. Among other finds in the
vicinity was that of a ceremonial stone, picked up
near a room of worship. This circular room was
on a lower floor, and could be entered only through
an opening in the top. These discoveries aid
the imagination in picturing the life of the town-
building people who once resided on this lofty
plateau.

The Cliff Dwellers could not hold their own
against the onslaughts of hostile Indian tribes.
With all their skill, they did not make so good
weapons as did their enemies; and just as the red
men have gone dowrn before the advancing march
of the whites with their firearms and artillery, so
did this earlier race fall before the bow and arrows

44 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

and the tomahawk of the ancestors of the Utes and
Apaches. Like the former inhabitants of Old
Mexico, they were agriculturists, not fighters, and
they made only an ineffectual resistance to their
enemies. To this day may be seen the mounds on
the hills that were formerly fortified, with lookout
points here and there where guards were stationed
to give warning. All in vain. It was a case of the
survival of the strongest rather than the fittest.

That the Cliff Dwellers of Colorado and the
Pueblos of the Great Plateau in the Southwest
formed one people, seems altogether likely. The
Pueblos, who lived in underground villages,
numbered millions in the eleventh century. The
Navajoes and other savage tribes fought them and
slew many. Suddenly most of the early inhabit-
ants of the broad expanse of country north of
Mexico vanished. Perhaps there had come an
urgent call from Montezuma for help.

The aborigines, or red men, as they are generally
called, had roamed over the country west of the
Missouri River for ages before the coming of Euro-
peans to the New World. We do not know how
long they had been here or who their ancestors
were. They were for the most part tribes of the
Shoshonean stock, and they wandered at will from
Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The seven tribes of the Utes occupied the valleys

EARLY INHABITANTS . 45

and mesas of the Rocky Mountains. They some-
times traversed the plains to the east of the Rockies,
usually camping along the Platte and Arkansas
rivers or their tributaries. They also inhabited
the western portions of Colorado. Tribes of Utes
and Pah-Utes dwelt, too, in Utah.

That part of Colorado east of the Front Range
and north of the Arkansas River was the home of
the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes. The Kiowas
and Comanches roamed over the country south of
the Arkansas. The four tribes mentioned did not
confine their wanderings to these regions. Bands
of Cheyennes frequently strayed northward into
Wyoming, or eastward into Nebraska. The Arapa-
hoes made occasional raids into the mountains for
the ponies and scalps of the Utes. The Colorado
Kiowas often journeyed by easy stages southward
across the plains of New Mexico into Texas. The
Indians of all these tribes were nomads. They
moved about from place to place where they found
good pasturage for their horses. They depended
for their livelihood chiefly upon the chase, and went
where game was plentiful.

The Navajoes and Apaches were later arrivals
than the Utes in what are now the Rocky Moun-
tain states. They belong to another Indian family,
the Athapascan of British America. They were a
bold, warlike people. In the sixteenth century

46 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

the Spaniards found the Navajoes on the Rio San
Juan in both Colorado and New Mexico The
Apaches had no fixed habitations, but roamed
over the entire region from the Rio Grande to the
Rio Gila.

The Navajoes were more of a pastoral people
than some of the other tribes ; they had their flocks
and herds. In southwestern Colorado they came
in contact with the Utes, and intermittently fought
with them for the possession of the grazing lands
in the valleys along the streams.

From time to time bands of Plains Indians, be-
longing to tribes of Pawnees, Cherokees, Choc-
taws, and Kickapoos, followed the course of the
Platte or the Arkansas westward almost into the
mountains, and engaged in bloody conflicts with
the Colorado tribes. So the West was a great
battle ground for hostile savages.

It is probable that the early inhabitants of this
region all had a common origin, which is lost in the
mists of a faraway past. The Pueblos and Mokis
of to-day are called Indians, and their ancestors,
like the Aztecs of Old Mexico, were of the same
race as the red men. However, as centuries passed,
they came to differ from the wild Indians in some
important respects.

The Pueblos and their cousins the Cliff Dwellers
had permanent abodes, while their distant relatives

EARLY INHABITANTS 47

of the wild tribes roamed over a wide stretch of
country. They were peaceful farmers, while the
Utes and Arapahoes were hunters and nomads, who
engaged in predatory warfare with their neighbors.
They built houses, while the savages lived in tepees
and wickiups. They wore clothes, while the
roving red men went nearly naked, except in the
most inclement weather. They were industrious
and accumulated property, while the copper-
colored denizens of the wilderness wrere lazy and
improvident. In consequence, the sun-worship-
ing Cliff Dwellers reached a higher plane of culture
than did the warring bands of nomadic Indians
that fought them and at last all but exterminated
them. The Utes and Arapahoes made no progress,
while the builders of the cliff dwellings, like the
peoples whom the Spanish found in Mexico and
Peru, were on the road to civilization. Among
the Pueblos one man had one wife, while the wild
Indians were polygamists.

As late as the sixties bison, bear, deer, and other
game animals abounded on the western plains, and
the encroachments of the whites on the red men's
hunting-grounds led to massacres and wars, which
will be described in later chapters of the book.

CHAPTER III
PIKE

COLORADO'S history begins with the Rocky Moun-
tain expedition of Captain Pike in 1806-7. At
that time New Spain extended far to the north of
Old Mexico; it included a strip of what is now
southern Colorado and the western slope. The
remaining part of the state, from the Arkansas
River north to Wyoming, belonged to the Territory
of Louisiana, which the United States had pur-
chased from France in 1803.

Since the time of Coronado the Spaniards had
made a number of expeditions across the Buffalo
Plains into Kansas and Nebraska. In the eigh-
teenth century several Spanish explorers found their
way into southwestern Colorado. A party under
Padre Escalante set out from Santa Fe in July,
1776, and reached the San Juan country. They
bestowed upon the streams they crossed the names
of Piedra, Florida, Las Animas,and Dolores. They
traveled northward to the Gunnison River, which
had been visited by Rivera in 1761. Then they
pursued their course by a circuitous route north-
west to White River and passed into Utah. Other

48

PIKE

49

Spanish adventurers made tours through southern
Colorado.

Escalante's object was to find a route from Santa
Fe to the upper coast of California, then a part of
Hispania Nova. The others were searching for
the precious metals. They made some unimportant
discoveries of gold
and silver mines,
which were never de-
veloped by them to
any extent. They
established no mis-
sions and founded
no permanent settle-
ments within the
present limits of the
Centennial State.

Escalante left
some descriptions of
the country through
which he journeyed,
and doubtless there

are records in Spanish of the travels of other daring
spirits who set foot on the soil of Colorado, but
Pike's "Journal" was the first published account
of the Rocky Mountains known to Americans.
One adventurer, James Pursley (or Purcell) of
Kentucky, is said to have wandered among the

LIEUTENANT PIKE

50 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Plains Indians and crossed the Snowy Range be-
tween the Platte and Grand rivers about the year
1805. Perhaps other citizens of the United States
had ventured into the wilds of what is now the
Centennial State. If so, they kept no diaries that
have been printed. Therefore, we may say that
Colorado's history begins with the expedition made
by Zebulon Montgomery Pike a century ago.

The fame of this courageous soldier and ex-
plorer is as enduring as that of Lewis and Clark,
who spanned the American continent in 1804-5.
Pike was born near Trenton, New Jersey, January
5, 1779. He came of military stock. His father
was a captain in the Revolutionary War and later
served in the army as a major. The son was not
long in school; he became a cadet in the ranks as
soon as he was able to bear arms, when but fifteen
years old. At the age of twenty years he was a
lieutenant; in 1806 he became captain; in 1808,
major; in 1812, colonel; arid in 1813, brigadier-
general.

The Lewis and Clark expedition was made under
the auspices of the general government. Pike's
expeditions were military enterprises. He was
accompanied by soldiers, and he was in frequent
communication with General Wilkinson and the
Secretary of War. The objects of his expeditions
were both geographical and political. The West

PIKE 51

was then unknown and unexplored, save by Lewis
and Clark. The War Department, as well as
President Jefferson, desired information concerning
the recently acquired Louisiana Territory.

Lieutenant Pike was only twenty-six years old
when he was chosen to lead an expedition to the
sources of the Mississippi. He set sail from St.
Louis with twenty soldiers, on the afternoon of
August 9, 1805. He was directed to ascend the
Mississippi to its source, charting the course of the
river, noting its tributaries, locating rapids, falls,
and so forth, and describing the character of the
country on both sides. He was to visit the Indian
nations and make treaties with them, using his
best efforts to prevent intertribal wars, and he was
to bring the British traders to book in the North-
west (now Minnesota). The voyage was success-
fully accomplished. The party were back in St.
Louis April 30, 1806, after an absence of eight
months and twenty-two days.

Immediately after his return from this arduous
journey, Pike was urged by his commander to
undertake another. On the second expedition he
was sent to explore the headwaters of the Arkansas
and Red rivers, and to assert the authority of the
United States government over the tribes of savages.
It is probable that he was instructed to ascertain
more definitely the boundary between our country

52 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

and the northern provinces of New Spain. Per-
haps, in addition, he was expected to try to enter
Spanish territory and inform his superior officer as
to the land and people. His tour was to be one of
exploration for geographical knowledge, and he
was to report concerning encroachments by the
Spaniards on the south.

Pike was chosen to conduct this difficult and dan-
gerous enterprise because of his superior qualifi-
cations. His Mississippi voyage had shown him to
be eminently fitted for the undertaking. He was
a soldier of fortune, who recked little of hardships
and privations; these were forgotten in the quest
of information that would be useful to his country.

On July 15, 1806, Pike set sail from St. Louis
up the Missouri River. He was accompanied by a
surgeon, an interpreter, and twenty-one soldiers.
Fifteen of the soldiers had been with him on his
Mississippi expedition. He was charged with the
mission of returning fifty-one Indian captives to
their relatives in the villages on the Osage River.

After accompanying the Osage captives to their
homes in western Missouri, the exploring party
struck across the prairies to the Pawnee Republic
on the Republican River, near the northern boun-
dary of Kansas. The chief told him that a force
of Spanish soldiers under Lieutenant Malgares
had lately visited them. The Spaniards had heard

PIKE 53

in advance of Pike's expedition, and had set out
with the intention of intercepting the party. For-
tunately for Pike, they mistimed the visit and re-
turned a few weeks before his coming.

Marching southwest, Pike and his little band
traversed the plains to the Arkansas (or Arkansaw,
as he spelled it). On October 28 the company
separated, Lieutenant Wilkinson with five soldiers
sailing down the river and Pike with fifteen soldiers
going up stream. Pike's route was not far from
what is now the line of the Santa Fe Railway to the
present site of Pueblo. Game was abundant on
the plains, and the party killed deer, elk, antelope,
and buffalo, for their subsistence.

Several times they encountered large bands of
Pawnees, and it is remarkable that there was no
bloodshed. One day they met an unsuccessful
war party returning home. Pike put on a bold
front, but was obliged to submit to insolence from
the braves before he was rid of them.

The little band traveled along the south bank of
the Arkansas, and on the afternoon of November
15 they reached a point near the confluence of the
Purgatory River with the Arkansas. "Here the
mountains are first seen," is marked on Pike's
map. He was riding a little ahead of the party
when he got his first glimpse of the mountain that
bears his name. By air line he was more than a

54 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

hundred miles from the great "White Mountain,"
whose outlines were faintly distinguished to the
northwest. In his journal Pike says it appeared
like a small blue cloud. A half hour later the
Front and Sangre de Cristo ranges appeared in
full view, and when his men came up they gave
vent to their feelings with "three cheers to the
Mexican Mountains."

The explorers pushed forward, and a week later
arrived at the present site of Pueblo. After build-
ing a breastwork for defense, the leader left here
the greater number of the party, and, with three
companions, made a side-trip northward, with the
view of ascending "to the high point of the blue
mountain," which he believed "would be one day's
march, in order from its pinnacle to lay down the
various branches and positions of the country."

In the thin air of Colorado far-off objects seem
near, and Pike found the distance much greater
than he had expected. On November 24 the little
party proceeded twelve miles. "We marched at
one o'clock with an idea of arriving at the foot of
the mountain," Pike writes, "but found ourselves
obliged to take up our night's lodging under a
single cedar, which we found in the prairie, with-
out water and extremely cold. Our party besides
myself consisted of Dr. Robinson, and Privates
Miller and Brown."

PIKE 55

The next day he "marched early, with an expec-
tation of ascending the mountain, but was only
able to encamp at its base, after passing over many
small hills covered with cedars and pitch pines."
That day he covered a distance of twenty-two
miles, as he figured it, in the hilly country along
Turkey Creek.

In the morning of the 26th the four men began
the ascent of the mountain. "Found it very diffi-
cult," the journal goes on, "being obliged to
climb up rocks sometimes almost perpendicular;
and, after marching all day, we encamped in a
cave, without blankets, victuals, or water. We
had a fine clear sky, whilst it was snowing at the
bottom."

The men passed a miserable night, but Pike was
determined to scale the peak. The day's experi-
ences are thus described in his journal:

"Arose hungry, dry, and extremely sore, from
the inequality of the rocks, on which wre had lain
all night, but were amply compensated for toil by
the sublimity of the prospects below. The un-
bounded prairie was overhung with clouds, which
appeared like the ocean in a storm; wave piled on
wave and foaming, whilst the sky was perfectly
clear where we were. Commenced our march up
the mountain, and in about one hour arrived at the
summit of this chain; here \ve found the snow

56 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

middle deep; no sign of beast or bird inhabiting
this region. The thermometer, which stood at
nine degrees above zero at the foot of the moun-
tain, here fell to four degrees below zero. The
summit of the Grand Peak, which was entirely
bare of vegetation and covered with snow, now
appeared at the distance of fifteen or sixteen miles
from us, and as high again as what we had as-
cended, and would have taken a whole day's march
to have arrived at its base, whence I believe no
human being could have ascended to its pinnacle.
This with the condition of my soldiers who had
only light overalls on, and no stockings, and every
way ill provided to endure the inclemency of the
region ; the bad prospect of killing anything to sub-
sist on, with the further detention of two or three
days, which it must occasion, determined us to
return."

There is a group of mountains to the south and
southwest of Pike's Peak, and it is a question as to
which one of them Pike ascended. Cheyenne
Mountain lay directly in his path, but he may have
climbed Mount Rosa or some other peak in this
part of the Front Range.

Although he made a determined effort, Pike
failed to set foot on the Grand Peak. However,
he immortalized his name by making the attempt.
On the 29th he and his companions rejoined the

PIKE

r>7

main party at the Pueblo breastworks, after an
absence of more than five days.

The next morning it was snowing hard, yet the
company set out, undismayed. They found it
hard marching in the rugged and hilly country
along the river. Their progress was slow, and

BIGHORN RAM

they suffered much from the cold. On December 2
the temperature fell to seventeen degrees below
zero. The men had no thick winter clothing, and
they underwent frightful hardships. Their shoes
were worn out, and they had to cut up buffalo hides
for moccasins. The horses, too, were in poor con-
dition, with sore backs, on which magpies and crows
alighted to peck the bloody flesh.

5S THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The following day Pike took observations and
tried to measure the altitude of the great moun-
tain to the north. He was wide of the mark in
estimating its elevation to be 18,581 feet. Scien-
tists of our day have found the altitude of Pike's
Peak to be 14,107 feet above sea level.

Pike declared that this towering summit \vas
never out of his sight in his wanderings, except
while he was in a valley, from November 14 to
January 27. According to his own statement, he
was not the first man to be impressed by the great-
ness of this monarch among mountains. It was a
landmark to the Indian nations for hundreds of
miles around. The Spaniards of New Mexico
looked upon it with admiration, and it was the
goal of their travels to the northwest. But to Pike
belongs the honor of making it known to Ameri-
cans; he gave it a place in history, a habitation
and a name. In this sense, the rugged sentinel of
the plains wras discovered by him in 1806.

On December 5 the party camped near the en-
trance of the chasm known as the Royal Gorge.
They were now in the shadow of the Rockies.
Winter had come, and it would have been the part
of prudence to build a log blockhouse and stay here
till spring. Caesar, in his campaigns in ancient
Gaul and Britain, always interrupted military
operations for three months in winter. Pike was

PIKE 59

not so sensible as the Roman commander, or else
he had a special reason for exposing himself and
his men to the rigors of a winter march in the
mountains. It may be that he was acting in
accordance with oral instructions given by Wilkin-
son, who is supposed to have been involved in
Aaron Burr's conspiracy to found an empire in the
Southwest; if such was the case, Pike's course is
accounted for.

None of the party was used to mountaineering,
and Pike had no experienced guide. The men
lacked not only clothing but other supplies needful
for a long jaunt through the pathless wilds. The
leader must have remembered vividly the sufferings
of himself and companions the previous winter on
the upper Mississippi. He certainly ought to have
known better than to continue his march at that
season of the year.

Pike was not the only hero in the little band of
explorers who braved the horrors of that terrible
winter in the Rocky Mountains. They all shared
the hardships and difficulties; and not a man
flinched or murmured, except once. The annals
of exploration contain the records of no more
faithful and courageous men.

Pike's impatience to be moving would not per-
mit his lying still in camp. So on the party went.
After scouting several days in the vicinity of what

00 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

is now Cailon City, they started up Oil Creek
toward South Park on December 10. Three days
later they crossed the Park Range, the dividing
ridge between the Arkansan and Missourian waters.
They were then at an elevation of over nine thou-
sand feet.

On the 14th they broke up camp at the head of
Eleven Mile Canon, in South Park, and followed
up the Platte, which was frozen over. In the
course of their wanderings in the next few days
they found traces of abandoned Indian camps.
On the 17th they reached the headwaters of the
Tlatte.

The snow was deep and the cold intense, but
Pike resolutely pressed forward. Without know-
ing the trails, which were hidden beneath the snow,
the explorers picked their way through the maze
of unexplored mountains. Finally they got through
the Park Range by Trout Creek Pass. Again
they struck the Arkansas River, "which here was
about twenty-five yards wide, ran with great rapid-
ity, and was full of rocks." Pike then supposed it
to be Red River.

From a point near Buena Vista the company
ascended the Arkansas, and camped under the
shadow of Mount Harvard of the Sawatch Range.
The next day Pike with two men set out for a prom-
inent point of the range, where he sighted the

PIKE 01

sources of the Arkansas River to the west of Lead •
ville. He was then on a sharp spur southeast of
Twin Lakes. This was the most northern point
reached by the expedition. At no time did Pike
cross the Continental Divide.

Now he turned about and descended the Arkan-
sas. The men were benumbed with cold and half
starved, going nearly two days without food. For-
tunately for them, a small herd of mountain bison
were wintering in the fastnesses near Brown's
Canon. The hunters killed eight buffaloes and
got an ample supply of meat. This saved the
party from starvation.

In their ignorance of passes and trails the ex-
plorers blundered along, taking the most round-
about and difficult route. On December 24 they
halted a little distance north of Salida. Here they
spent a cheerless Christmas in camp.

On the following afternoon the explorers marched
some seven miles to the north end of the Sangre de
Cristo Range. Thence they continued down the
Arkansas River by a very rough route. They had
an awful time of it, struggling over rocks and
precipices. The men made sleds and hauled the
loads taken from the backs of the exhausted horses.
They averaged only about ten miles a day.

When occasion called for self-sacrifice, Pike was
ready to give up comforts for others. One night

62 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

he slept out in the snow, his tent being occupied
by sick men.

On New Year's Day the foremost of the scat-
tered band approached the Grand Canon of the
Arkansas. This day one of the hunters shot a
bighorn ram. The next day the party found
marching exceedingly difficult, and made a dis-
tance of only one mile. The horses lost their foot-
ing and had bad falls down the steep slopes. One
was hurt so severely that it was shot.

The way over the steep cliffs and rocks beside
the Royal Gorge was so difficult that the party
kept to the river. It was frequently necessary to
cut roads on the slippery ice and thus go around
precipices. At times the men covered the track
with earth, to avoid slipping.

On January 5, 1807, Pike finally escaped from
the gorge, and he was surprised to find himself at
his old camp near the present site of Canon City.
Till now he had fancied that he was on Red River,
whose sources he had been instructed to discover.
It was with chagrin he learned that he had only
traveled around in a circle. This was the cap-
tain's birthday. "Most fervently did I hope never
to pass another so miserably," he jotted down in
his journal.

Three days passed before all the stragglers ar-
rived. A rude blockhouse was built on the north

PIKE

63

ROYAL GORGE, GRAND CANON OF THE ARKANSAS
Courtesy Denver & Rio Grande Ry.

bank of the Arkansas, and after a short rest the
explorers were off again. Two men were left in
the camp in charge of baggage and the broken-

64 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

down horses. Pike and the others set out on foot,
each carrying a load of about seventy pounds, con-
sisting of arms, tools, provisions, and presents for
the Indians. This terrible trip should never have
been attempted in the dead of winter with the poor
outfit at Pike's command.

On the 14th the little party started southward
on a further search for the elusive Red River. They
plodded on through almost impassable mountains.
They stumbled along through the main ridge of the
Wet Mountains; then the trail led the freezing,
starving explorers through the Wet Mountain
valley.

In crossing a creek near the edge of the Sangre
de Cristo Range, some of the soldiers got their
feet wet. That night was bitter cold, the ther-
mometer being 18^° below zero. In the morning
two of the men were unable to walk, so badly
frostbitten were their feet. The poor fellows were
left behind, with a supply of provisions and ammu-
nition, while the others continued on their itinerary.
"We parted, but not without tears," says Pike.
He urged the two men to hold out bravely, and
promised to send relief as soon as possible.

It was with the greatest difficulty that the weak-
ened soldiers continued the march. They floun-
dered in the snow and had to lean upon stout walk-
ing-sticks. Two of the party could not bear their

PIKE 65

packs, and the burdens were divided among the
others. A blinding- snowstorm overtook them, and
they had nothing to eat. They were now in a des-
perate plight. With death staring them in the
face, the leader was discouraged for the first time
in the expedition.

Still they kept on. One private while toiling
through the snow said it was "more than human
nature could bear to march three days without
sustenance, through snows three feet deep, and
carry burdens only fit for horses." The captain
allowed this complaint to pass unnoticed for the
moment, but after the hunters had slain a buffalo
and the company had "feasted sumptuously," he
gave the lad a severe reprimand.

Another lad, Hugh Menaugh, was utterly ex-
hausted by the fearful march and was left behind.
The remaining eleven adventurers dragged them-
selves across the Sangre de Cristo Range. On
January 28 they were so fortunate as to strike a
brook flowing westward. They followed the stream,
whose course ran through the Sand Hill Pass.
More dead than alive, they emerged into the San
Luis valley.

The worst was now over. Proceeding by easy
stages along the base of Sierra Blanca, Pike came
to the Rio Grande del Norte near the present site
of Alamosa. Going down a stream which he

66 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

supposed to be Red River, he camped on the south
bank of the Rio Conejos and erected a stockade
of cottonwood logs. Pike's journeyings in Louis-
iana Territory were at an end; he was now on
Spanish soil.

On February 7 Dr. Robinson set out alone, on
foot, for Santa Fe. Ostensibly, his object was to
collect a merchant's account; in reality, he was a
spy. The Spaniards so considered him, and not
long afterward they sent dragoons to arrest the
American explorers, whom they looked upon as
invaders. Pike was treated with consideration,
yet he was a prisoner. The ragged men made a
sorry appearance when presented to the governor
at Santa Fe. Pike was questioned, and then es-
corted to the city of Chihuahua for further exam-
ination by General Salcedo, who seized his jour-
nals. He was forbidden to write notes, but he
managed to keep a secret record, concealing his
papers in the gun barrels of his soldiers. His
Mexican tour lasted four months. On July 1,
1807, he found himself at Natchitoches in Louis-
iana. Six years afterward he met a soldier's
death, leading the assault on York (now Toronto),
Canada.

A squad of Spanish cavalry was despatched for
the poor fellows who had been left behind. Some
of them were crippled for life. Several members

PIKE 67

of the expedition accompanied Pike through Texas ;
a number were detained for a while in Mexico.
Eventually they were all returned to the United
States. Their names are worthy of remembrance.
Besides Dr. Robinson and Interpreter Vasquez, the
party included Sergeant William E. Meek, Corporal
Jeremiah R. Jackson, and eleven privates: John
Brown, Jacob Carter, Thomas Dougherty, William
Gordon, Hugh Menaugh, Theodore Miller, John
Mount joy, Alexander Roy, Patrick Smith, John
Sparks, and Freegifte Stouk.

In September, 1906, a centennial celebration of
the discovery of Pike's Peak was held at Colorado
Springs. In Antlers Park of that city a massive
boulder from the peak that bears his name was
placed as a fitting monument to commemorate the
achievements of the illustrious explorer.

By a rare piece of good fortune, a century after
Pike's detention among the Spaniards his letters
and journals were discovered among some old
papers in the archives of Chihuahua.

CHAPTER IV

LONG

OTHER adventurous spirits followed Pike across
the plains and through the mountains. They felt
the lure of the wilds, and roughed it with grizzlies
and savages. They hunted and trapped; they
traded with Indians, and some of them were
scalped by Indians. So the knowledge of the West
grew from more to more.

But there was a curiosity to learn more of the
animal and vegetable life of the plains and moun-
tains. The publication of Pike's journal served
only to increase the desire for knowledge of the
country and the natives. So the expedition under
Stephen H. Long was organized in 1819, under the
auspices of the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun,
who wished to learn something of the resources of
Louisiana, especially its agricultural possibilities.
The objects in view were to explore the Missouri
and other rivers in the territory beyond the Miss-
issippi, to make scientific researches, and to ascer-
tain the number and character of the tribes of
savages.

The exploring party set out from Pittsburgh on

May 5, 1819. Besides the crew of the United
States steamboat on which the party sailed, there
were nine members of the expedition — Major Long,
Major Biddle, Lieutenant Graham, Cadet Swift,
four naturalists, and one painter.

After a leisurely voyage down the Ohio and up
the Mississippi, they landed at St. Louis. From
this outfitting point they took their departure on
June 21, sailing up the turbid Missouri. At Fort
Osage a detachment left the main party and made
an overland trip through Kansas and Nebraska,
visiting the encampments of various Indian nations.
The others moved up the river in the steamboat to
old Council Bluffs, where they established them-
selves in winter quarters. In the winter they held
councils with the Pawnees, Sioux, Omahas, and
other bands of red men.

Major Long being absent in the East, the ex-
pedition did not proceed until June 6, 1820. The
company of explorers then consisted of a score, in-
cluding six privates of the army — a larger party
than Pike's, and better equipped for the work be-
fore them. They expected to have trouble with
redskins, and every man was armed to the teeth.
The soldiers had rifles, and the others were pro-
vided with either rifles or muskets; most of the
party had pistols, and they all carried tomahawks
and long knives suspended at their belts.

70 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The explorers were mounted on horses and
mules, and there were eight pack-horses loaded with
baggage. They took a large supply of provisions,
ammunition, instruments and presents for the
Indians. The latter articles were beads, trinkets,
notions, vermilion, and tobacco, with which to
purchase the good will of savages encountered.

On the march across the plains, the cavalcade
stopped at the Pawnee village in Nebraska.

"Your heart must be strong," said a chief, "to
go upon so hazardous a journey. May the Master
of Life be your protector !"

He added that he would tell his young men, who
were going on the warpath, to smoke the peace pipe
with them.

Here Major Long engaged two Frenchmen re-
siding among the Pawnees to accompany the ex-
pedition as guides. Both had been on the head-
waters of the Platte and the Arkansas, hunting and
trapping beaver.

A ride of twenty-five miles in a southerly direc-
tion brought the party to the Platte. On the way
they passed several communities of prairie dogs.
They found traces of immense herds of buffalo,
but the animals had lately left for fresh pastures.
Only a solitary bison was seen, and four horsemen
gave chase without overtaking it. Antelope were
numerous, but the wary creatures took to flight

LONG 71

and outdistanced the fastest horses. However, two
pronghorns were secured by strategy.

The antelope possesses an unconquerable in-
quisitiveness, of which the hunter takes advan-
tage. The man lies down on the ground and raises
a cap or handkerchief on a ramrod. The animal
sees this strange object, and approaches, waver-
ing between fear and curiosity, until near enough
to be shot.

On the explorers went, westward up the Platte.
In the middle of the day the heat was so intense
that they halted and pitched their tents for shelter
from the scorching rays of the sun. At night the
horses were tethered out to feed on the grass, and a
cordon of sentries were on duty to guard against
the attacks and depredations of any redskins that
might be skulking in the vicinity.

At a point about two hundred miles from the
Missouri the party encamped on a spot where a
battle had been fought, or there had been a mas-
sacre. The ground was strewn with bones, and
the men picked up a number of human skulls.

The explorers found the scenery rather monoto-
nous in the Platte country. Beyond the ranges
of gravelly hills on both sides of the bottom lands
were extended plains having an elevation of from
fifty to one hundred feet above the river and "pre-
senting the aspect of hopeless and irreclaimable

72 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

sterility." The wide, shallow stream was studded
with green islands, on which grew willows, cotton-
woods, and other underbrush. No forests \vere
to be seen anywhere, and the grass was parched.
In the report of the expedition we read: "The
monotony of a vast unbroken plain, like that in
which we had now traveled nearly one hundred
fifty miles, is little less tiresome to the eye and fa-
tiguing to the spirit than the dreary solitude of the

ocean."

A thunder storm came up and revived the droop-
ing plants along the way. On the following day
the cavalcade moved over a flower-dotted prairie.
The supply of fresh meat being low, several hunt-
ing-parties were sent out in different directions to
search for game. The hunters killed one bison,
two antelopes, and a hare. During the night some
thin strips of steak were dried over a slow fire.
Jerked buffalo was henceforth a staple article of
food and much prized.

On coming to the forks of the Platte, the ex-
plorers found timber more abundant. Some of the
men out hunting observed three beavers cutting
down a large cottonwood. When the tree was
nearly ready to fall, one of the animals swram out
into the river a little way and gazed intently at the
top. Seeing it begin to sway, he gave warning to
the other two, which were still gnawing away at the

LONG

cottonwood, by slapping his tail upon the surface
of the water, ami they hastily ran from the falling-
tree.

After fording the north fork of the Platte, the par-
ty ascended
a high swell
of ground
and were as-
tonished to
find the
broad ex-
panse of ta-
bleland alive
with buffalo.
At least ten
thousand
burst on their
sigh tin an in-
stant. The
scene was a
lively one.
Some of the
bulls were

rolling their massive forms on the soft earth, while
others were pawing the dust into the air. Here
and there two bison could be seen engaged in com-
bat, either in sport or in dead earnest. Some
individuals were going to their drinking -place.

A BUFFALO OF THE PLAINS

74 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The explorers enjoyed the novel spectacle till dusk
and retired. In the morning not one of the noble
animals was to be seen.

Proceeding on their way up the South Platte, the
explorers noticed that the valley above the forks
became more narrow and the hills more abrupt.
Viewed from the river bottom, the landscape
seemed like a transcript of Alpine scenery, on a
small scale.

They had no sooner crossed to the south bank
than they observed the beautiful white primrose
peeping from the grass and prickly pears growing in
profusion. Along the river they saw some dead
trees in which, resting on the top of the trunks, were
the nests of bald eagles.

As they journeyed farther up stream, they found
blacktails and pronghorns plentiful. They could
see vast herds of bison, blackening the surface of
the country. The officers of the expedition re-
strained the delighted hunters from slaughtering
more wild game than they needed for food. The
men picked out the fattest cows, and preferred
their flesh to that of elk and deer. The fat of bison
they declared to be richer and sweeter than that of
the ox.

"We found," the report says, "a constant
source of amusement in observing the unsightly
figure, the cumbrous gait, and impolitic movements

LONG 7f)

of the bison ; we were often delighted by the beauty
and fleetness of the antelope, and the social com-
fort and neatness of the prairie dog."

While the explorers were crossing extensive tracts
of naked sand, the intense reflection of light and
heat made their eyes sore. The brilliant sunshine
and the rare atmosphere produced a distorted
vision, so that they often supposed antelopes in the
distance to be mounted Indians. There were
other effects of mirage, such as the looming of
wolves to the proportions of horses, or bison seem-
ing to stand in a glassy pool of water that was only
vapor rising from the plain.

One day, when they were not far from Fort
Morgan, the party passed through a dreary plain
of coarse sand, where the cactus reigned sole
monarch. In the transparent air the planet Venus
was distinctly visible at three o'clock in the after-
noon. It was near the zenith in a clear sky of a
deep and beautiful azure.

On the morning of June 30 they were cheered by
a distant view of the Rocky Mountains. For some
time the travelers were uncertain whether they saw
snow-capped mountains or banks of cumulus
clouds glittering in the sun's rays. In the evening
the grand outlines of the Front Range were im-
printed in rugged contour upon the luminous mar-
gin of the sky. The most prominent peak in sight

70 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

was the one that has been named in honor of
Long.

There was little vegetation in the plain through
which the party passed; acres and acres appeared
to be almost barren, with the least shade of green,
the sunflowers and grasses being now entirely
withered and brown. Countless ant-heaps rose
from twelve to eighteen inches above the level sur-
face, all having a uniform reddish aspect.

The ensuing day the party traveled twenty-seven
miles directly toward the base of the mountains,
which toward evening appeared to be no nearer than
in the morning. The range stretched from north
to south like an immense wall, occupying all that
portion of the horizon lying to the northwest, w^est,
and southwest. The course of the travelers now
inclined to the south, from the point where the
Cache a la Poudre empties into the Platte.

On July 2 a heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and
the temperature dropped from 89° at noon to 60°
at sunset.

The party hoped to celebrate the Fourth of 3u\y
on the Rocky Mountains, which they supposed to
be only about twenty miles away. On the fifth
day they camped near the mouth of Vermilion
Creek, which is probably the Cherry Creek of
to-day. Dr. Edwin James with three companions
waded the river and set out with high hopes of

LONG 77

walking to the mountains before noon. The rocky
battlements of the foothills appeared to the travelers
about five miles distant. To them belongs the
honor of being the first white men to traverse the
present site of Denver; at least, they were the first
who left any definite record of their rovings near
the place where the city now stands.

James and his party walked nearly eight miles,
and the mountains seemed to be almost as far off
as when they started. They had neglected to take
any dinner with them, and found themselves tired
and faint. Giving up the idea of reaching the
peaks, they wrheeled about and started back toward
the encampment. On the wray one of them shot
two curlews, and without loss of time the hungry
men roasted the birds and devoured them.

Moving in a southwesterly direction, Major
Long and his party marched to the head of Platte
Canon. The Platte was here about four feet
deep and the current exceedingly swift. One
man wrho ventured in was quickly swept off his
feet in the rocky bed of the river. With a rope in
his teeth, a soldier swram the foaming stream. One
end of the line was made fast on one bank, and
the other on the opposite side. Even with this
aid it was with extreme difficulty that the men in
crossing kept their feet, in the swirling eddies. Soon
after sunrise the detachment were all safely landed

78 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

on the west side of the stream. Once across the
sandstone hogback, they plunged into the hills at
the foot of the mountains.

Deceived by the apparent nearness of the Front
Range, they expected to be able to climb the most
lofty pinnacles and return the same day. Having
separated into two parties, a number started in
the direction where Mount Evans stands, ringed
by the azure world, with its crown of snow
gleaming in unsullied whiteness. At nightfall
they found themselves scarcely at the base of the
mountain.

The design of the party had been to cross the
first range of mountains and gain the valley of the
Platte beyond, but this they were unable to ac-
complish. After climbing successively to the sum-
mit of several ridges, which they had supposed to
be the top of the mountain, they still found others
beyond higher and more rugged. They therefore
relinquished the intention of crossing and began
to look for the best way to descend to the bed of the
river, which lay on their left hand. Here they
halted to rest for a few moments, and exposed a
thermometer in the shade of a large rock. The
mercury fell to 72°; in camp, at the same hour, it
stood at 86°. They were so much elevated above
the river that, although they could see it plainly,
it appeared like a small brook of two or three yards

LONG 79

in width, white with foam and spray caused by the
impetuosity of its current and the roughness of its
channel. They could distinguish two principal
branches of the Platte, one coming from the north-
west, the other from the so'uth. A little below the
confluence of these branches the river turns ab-
ruptly to the southeast, bursting through a chasm
in a vast mural precipice of naked columnar
rocks.

About noon the party abandoned all expectation
of gaining the mountain-top, and they began the
descent, which they found fully as fatiguing as the
upward climb had been. They took a route
toward the river, hoping to travel along its bed.
So steep was its declivity that they were often
obliged to lower one another down precipices.

Clambering over the rocks sharpened their ap-
petites, but they were too thirsty to eat. There wras
no \vater on that part of the mountain, and they
really suffered for want of it. Several men par-
took of some ripe currants growing on the slope;
these, being juiceless, only aggravated their thirst
and caused a violent headache. A few delicious
raspberries were found and eaten.

After crossing a long and rugged tract that was
rendered almost impassable by boulders and frag-
ments fallen from above, the panting men came
at length to a spring of cold water. In the shade

SO THE MAKING OF COLORADO

of a narrow ravine they sat down to rest and dine
on the few scraps of food left.

Here one of the party was taken sick and could
not stand. A companion set out alone for camp,
to get medicine. On reaching camp late in the
afternoon, he found several others of the mountain-
climbers who were ill, though not disabled. Mean-
while the sick man rallied arid was able to walk a
little. Assisted by his comrades, he trudged slowly
down the incline and reached camp at a late hour of
the night. The relief party sought for him in vain.

Two others of the expedition entered the moun-
tains on the south side of the fork and scaled a
steep height, only to find their horizon bounded by
another towering majestically above them. Fac-
ing about, they contemplated with admiration a
panorama of beauty and sublimity. Far to the
east the interminable prairie stretched out like a
map, threaded by the meandering rivers and creeks.

Together again, the exploring party resumed
their journey on the 9th, traveling up Plum Creek,
across which some beavers had built dams of
willows and cottonwoods. In their wanderings
a detachment came to enormous masses of sand-
stone, which appeared to be the colossal ruins of a
castle, with columns, porticoes and arches.

Thence they passed on to the ridge dividing the
waters of the Platte from those of the Arkansas.

LONG 81

On the Divide they gathered specimens of the
purple columbine, which has since become the
state flower of Colorado. Till then the existence
of this splendid flower among the flora of the
United States was not known.

Pursuing a bison trail for some distance the ex-
plorers first observed clusters of shrubby cactus
growing to a height of six or eight feet. The sur-
face of the plant was covered with a terrific ar-
mature of thorns and spines, and its branches bore
purple flowers.

Their course now led the company down Monu-
ment Creek. Advancing through romantic scenery,
they traversed the present site of Colorado Springs.
Major Long, with the main body of the expedition,
camped by the Fontaine Qui Bouille, while Dr.
James, with several men, left for a three days' ex-
cursion to Pike's Peak. The detachment camped
near the boiling spring of Manitou. In the bottom
of the mineral springs that they discovered were
beads and other ornaments which the red men
had thrown in as presents and sacrifices to the
Great Manitou, whom they worshiped.

On the afternoon of July 13, James, with three
companions, set out to surmount the peak that
had proved the despair of Captain Pike. The*
French guide assured him that though many at-
tempts had been made by Indians and hunters to

v32 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

climb to the top, none had ever proved successful.
Each man carried a blanket, ten or twelve pounds
of bison meat, three grills of parched cornmeal,
and a small kettle.

The ascent was extremely difficult, and the
climbers were many times fearful of being hurled

TIMBER LINE, PIKE'S PEAK

over precipices. Night overtook them as they
toiled up the mountainside. At the point at which
they halted the ground was so slanting that they
placed a pole against two trees to prevent them,
while they slept, from rolling down into the brook
in the ravine.

LONG 83

At daybreak they continued the ascent, leaving
their coats and blankets hanging in a tree. As
the forenoon wore away with the height still far
beyond them the men realized the impossibility of
scaling it and returning to their camp that day.
But they resolved to keep on and to spend the night
wherever darkness overtook them.

At four o'clock in the afternoon they gained the
pinnacle. Dr. James found it not a cone but an
area of ten or fifteen acres of uneven ground, with
patches of snow and ice between the rocks. The
mercury sank to 42° on the summit, while in the
encampment it was 96° at noon.

"From the summit of the peak," James writes,
"the view toward the north, west and southwest is
diversified with innumerable mountains, all white
with snow ; and on some of the more distant it ap-
pears to extend down to their bases. . . . To the
east lay the great plain, rising as it receded until
in the distant horizon it appeared to mingle with
the sky."

There is now a government trail leading from
Manitou to the top of the peak, a distance of ten
miles. It is steady upgrade, an average of eight
hundred feet to the mile. Those who on foot have
climbed up the trail to the summit can appreciate
the feat of endurance on the part of James and his
comrades. In honor of his achievement Major

84 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Long called the mountain James's Peak, and for
many years it was so known. Another moun-
tain in the Front Range now bears the name of the
intrepid explorer who first scaled the topmost crag
of this grand peak. As early as 1840 Pike's Peak
was so christened by trappers and plainsmen, and
this name gradually supplanted that given it by
Long. In 1890 a rack and pinion railroad was
completed by which passengers are carried up
without fatigue or suffering.

About five o'clock in the afternoon of July 14
Dr. James and his men began the descent, and had
not gone far below the timber line when night was
upon them. They were no\v in imminent danger
of falling over precipices if they proceeded in the
dark, so they halted on the first spot of level ground
they reached. Hungry and weary, they laid them-
selves down to sleep, after kindling a fire. The
night was freezing cold, and they missed their
blankets.

They were up at the first flush of dawn and had
traveled three hours when they saw a dense col-
umn of smoke rising from the ravine where they
had first camped. They had not put out their
fire, and it had spread over several acres. Reach-
ing the spot, they found that their clothes and
blankets had been burnt up and the few fragments
of bison meat left of their supplies had been half

LONG 85

consumed. They broke their long fast and then
continued the descent, arriving at the boiling spring
a little after noon.

Here they drank freely of the exhilarating waters
and ate a substantial dinner of venison. At night-
fall the detachment rejoined the main party's en-
campment on Fountain Creek. In the vicinity a
small owl was captured in a burrow dug either by
itself or by a prairie dog. Not far away a hunter
shot a grizzly bear without killing it. Afterward
they found grizzlies far out on the plains.

The cavalcade got in motion on July 16 and rode
twenty-eight miles without dismounting from their
horses. It was a calm, sultry day, the temperature
ranging from 90° to 100° in the shade. There was
not a drop of water in any of the ravines that they
traversed, and they suffered greatly from the heat
and from thirst. Late in the afternoon they arrived
at the precipice that divides the barren plain from
the valley of the "Arkansaw," as Long spelled it.

Winding their way down to the meeting of Foun-
tain Creek and the Arkansas, they camped within
the present limits of Pueblo. They sought in vain
for any traces of the cottonwood stockade erected
by Pike's party in November, 1806.

The folk-wing day Captain Bell, with a small
party, ascended the Arkansas to the mountains,
where they found several mineral springs near the

8G THE MAKING OF COLORADO

present site of Canon City. These have received
the name of Bell's Springs. Here the exhausted
men lay down to sleep under the open sky.

In the morning they made an excursion to the
entrance of the Royal Gorge, then designated in
the language of hunters as "the place where the Ar-
kansas comes out of the mountains." There is
no record of their finding the wooden breastwork
that was erected near here by Pike's soldiers.

They reported the upper Arkansas valley, now
famous for gardening and fruit-growing, as having
"a meager and gravelly soil." "Above the rocky
bluffs on each side," the account says, "spreads a
dreary expanse of almost naked sand, intermixed
with clay enough to prevent its drifting with the
wind, but not enough to give it fertility. It is arid
and sterile, bearing only a few dwarfish cedars, and
must forever remain desolate."

Major Long now thought it necessary for the ex-
pedition to return. For some time they had been
on short rations. The supply of sea biscuit that
they had taken with them was nearly gone, and but
a small quantity of parched maize remained. They
had used up all the salt, and the little sugar, tea and
coffee left were reserved for hospital supplies. The
explorers were at times in sore straits for food.
They were obliged to depend upon hunting for
subsistence, and game was scarce about the moun-

LONG 87

tains. Much as they longed to explore the Rockies,
an immediate departure was necessary.

On July 19 the travelers headed their horses
toward the rising sun. Regretfully they turned
their backs on Pike's Peak, whose snowy crest was
visible ten days later at a distance of one hundred
thirty miles.

Before reaching the Colorado line the party was
divided, Captain Bell with eleven men going down
the Arkansas, while Major Long with nine men
struck across the country southward in search of
the Red River that Captain Pike had failed to find.

It was a long, tedious journey through New
Mexico to the Canadian River, and thence eastward
to Fort Smith in western Arkansas, where they
arrived on September 13, 1820. Captain Bell's
party, after many mishaps and sufferings, had
reached this rendezvous before them. Here the
half-famished explorers rested and recuperated be-
fore proceeding on their way to the States.

During an itinerary of more than fifteen hundred
miles on the plains they had never once heard the
dreaded whoop of the Indian foe. Fortunately
for them, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas and
other bands of savages were absent from their
usual haunts, on a warlike expedition in the South.

CHAPTER V

FREMONT

LONG did not penetrate the mountains; his ex-
ploring party only skirted the base of the Front
Range. To John Charles Fremont belongs the
credit of leading several expeditions through the
Rockies and making known routes of travel which
might be followed by emigrants journeying from
the plains to the coast. Because of these eminent
services he has been called the "Pathfinder."

Lieutenant Fremont, afterward captain and
colonel, is one of the most picturesque characters
figuring in the romantic annals of Rocky Moun-
tain exploration. He was undaunted by perils, and
recked little of hardships and privations. He
found the keenest enjoyment in the free life of the
explorer. He was impressed by the majesty of
the mountains, and the excitement of danger added
zest to the rough experiences through which he
passed.

For a third of a century trappers had wandered
through the chains of the Rockies in search of
beaver streams, taking little interest in the geog-
raphy of the mountain region. Fremont crossed

88

FREMONT 89

the ranges, explored the passes, and voyaged
through one of the canons. It was his privilege to
give names to a number of the lakes, streams,
ridges, defiles, and other striking features of the
country traversed by him. He brought back
plants growing on the Continental Divide, and the
reports of his explorations gave to Americans an
enlarged knowledge of the western world.

Before Fremont's expeditions this far western
coifntry was a land of wonders and mysteries; the
vague reports of Indians and the tales of earlier
voyageurs gave rise to extravagant notions concern-
ing it. These enterprises were set on foot to clear
up some of the mystery of the unmapped wilder-
ness. While on his explorations Fremont was
accompanied by frontiersmen who were acquainted
with the country, and he carried a set of scientific
instruments with which to take bearings and to
measure the elevations of the mountains. In his
second expedition he traveled over the great in-
terior basin between the Sierras and the western
Rockies. Here was a tract more than a thousand
miles wide that was a blank in geography until he
journeyed thither and described it. To his hands
was committed the task of opening the gates of our
Pacific empire.

Fremont's expeditions were not merely excur-
sions of a geographer; they were made in the in-

90 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

terests of western expansion. The first one, in
1842, was intended to pave the way for emigration
to Oregon Territory. At that time little had been
done to develop the vast section that wras once a
part of the dominions of France.

In 1842 a thousand adventurers crossed the
prairies and wended their w^ay westward through
the mountains. Some drove ox-carts; others
took their families and household goods in covered
wagons drawn by horses or mules. Braving the
perils and privations of the wilderness, they made
homes for themselves on the Columbia River and
in other parts of the Far West.

It was a pet scheme of Senator Thomas H.
Benton of Missouri to make a highway across the
continent and plant settlements along the principal
rivers from the Missouri to the coast. With
prophetic eye he saw a time wrhen argosies should
sail the Pacific, bearing the rich commerce of Asia
and America.

Lieutenant Fremont, w7ho had had experience in
surveying and mapping Iowa and Minnesota, wras
chosen to conduct the proposed expedition. He wras
then in his thirtieth year, a man of hardy constitu-
tion, brave, and resourceful in danger. He had
married Miss Jessie Benton, and it wras through
his father-in-law's influence that he secured the
coveted post of leader.

FREMONT 91

From St. Louis Fremont and his men sailed up
the Missouri to Chouteau's Landing, in eastern
Kansas; a short stop was made, and the final ar-
rangements for the expedition completed. On
June 10, 1842, the explorers set out westward to
cross the ocean of prairie.

The party consisted of twenty-nine persons-
most of them Creole and Canadian voyageurs, who
had been in the employ of fur companies in the
West. Charles Preuss, a topographer, was Fre-
mont's assistant and companion. Lucien Max-
well was hunter, and Kit Carson, the hero of the
prairies and the mountains, was the guide of the
expedition. Two youths of St. Louis, Henry Brant
and Randolph Benton, accompanied the expedition.

Eight men drove mule teams; the others were
mounted on horses. All were armed with carbines
or rifles, for the journey was expected to be fully as
hazardous as Long's.

It was the leader's custom to halt the company
an hour or two before sunset. The wagons were
disposed in a circle so as to form a sort of barricade.
Within this area, some eighty yards in diameter, the
tents wrere pitched. The horses and mules were
hobbled or picketed and turned loose to graze near
the camp. After eight o'clock a mounted guard
of three men kept watch, being relieved at intervals
of two hours.

92 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

For several weeks the route lay chiefly along the
Kansas and Platte rivers. The daily ride was
usually no more than twenty or twenty-five miles.
Clouds of bothersome gnats followed the animals,
and mosquitoes annoyed the men. The monotony
of the march was occasionally broken by the sight
of Indians, and bison in immense numbers swarmed
over the plains. Fremont gives a graphic descrip-
tion of the monarch of the prairies :

"In the sight of such a mass of life, the traveler
feels a strange emotion of grandeur. We had
heard from a distance a dull and confused murmur-
ing, and when we came in view of their dark
masses there was not one among us who did not
feel his heart beat quicker. It was the early part
of the day, when the herds are feeding; and every-
where they were in motion. Here and there a
huge old bull was rolling in the grass, and clouds
of dust rose in the air from various parts of the
bands, each the scene of some obstinate fight.
Indians and buffalo make the poetry and life
of the prairie, and our camp was full of their
exhilaration."

The voyageurs now had buffalo beef to their
heart's content. At any time of the night some
members of the party might have been seen roast-
ing pieces of delicate flesh on sticks around the fire,
and the guard were never without company. In

FREMONT 93

the darkness wolves could be heard barking and
howling, not far from camp.

In many spots the prairie was yellow with sun-
flowers, and the air fragrant with the odor of the
wild rose.

The national holiday was observed with a feast
of fruit-cake, preserves, the choicest buffalo meat
served in various ways, and coffee. Several Chey-
ennes shared Fremont's hospitality and indulged
freely in "red fire-water," which made an Indian
lad drunk.

On July 5 the company had reached a point not
far from the northeast corner of Colorado. Here
they separated, the leader with Maxwell and two
other men going up the South Platte, while Carson
and Lambert with the main party continued on the
overland journey to Fort Laramie, where Fremont
wras to join them about the 16th. The Cheyennes
decided to accompany the leader, as their village
lay up the river.

On this excursion Fremont and his companions
set forth on horseback, with one led horse and a
pack-mule to carry provisions and the slight bag-
gage of the little party. They took no tent; at
night they rolled themselves in their blankets and
slept soundly under the stars. The red men lay
in the grass near the fire. Fremont's course was
southwest up the Platte valley, which was thickly

94 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

dotted with bright blossoms. He observed that
"flowers of deep warm colors seem most to love the
sandy soil." Like Long, he got the impression
that the country was dry and barren. Herds
of buffalo and an occasional drove of wild horses
gave life to the dreary landscape. At midday the
men found it unendurably hot and halted on the
bank of the river or sought the shade of a wooded
island. On July 7 the thermometer stood at 103°
in the shade.

On they journeyed, through the lowr and undu-
lating country. One day Fremont noticed some
dark-looking objects among the hills, which were
at first supposed to be buffaloes coming to water.
Soon, group after group of Indians darted into
view, riding rapidly toward them. The little party
made for the timber, but before they could gain the
river, between two and three hundred naked sav-
ages swooped down upon them. Fremont and his
men paused, with their fingers on the triggers of
their guns. An encounter seemed imminent, and
they resolved to sell their lives dearly. In a few
seconds the redskins who were leading the charge
would have rolled in the dust. Just as Maxwell
was about to fire he recognized the foremost wrar-
rior, and shouted to him in the Indian tongue:
"You're a fool! Don't you know me?"

The brave showed surprise at hearing his own

FREMONT 95

language. Swerving his horse a little, he passed
the white men like an arrow. Instantly Fremont
wheeled and rode up to him, when the savage gave
him his hand, exclaiming, "Arapahoe!"

Maxwell had resided as a trader among the
Arapahoes, and they knew him. The chief said
he and his men were hunting buffalo, and presently
there galloped up, riding astride, a troop of women
whose duty it was to assist in cutting up the meat.
Scores of wolflike dogs followed.

Soon after this meeting between the Indians and
the white men a herd of buffalo was sighted. Sepa-
rating into two parties, in an extended line the
Arapahoes bore down on the bison and began the
slaughter with spears and guns. As Fremont rode
on toward their village, which was near by, Indian
after Indian came dropping along, his pony laden
with meat. He found one hundred twenty-five
lodges scattered about near the river. A little
apart were twenty tepees of Cheyennes.

The white men were hospitably entertained by
the chiefs, and Maxwell was given a bundle of
dried meat, a very acceptable present. Dinner
over, their host, with a red man's curiosity, asked
the object of their journey. Fremont frankly
answered that he was simply on a visit to see the
country, preparatory to the establishment of
military posts on the way to the mountains. This

96 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

was a piece of unwelcome news, to which the
Indians listened with grave courtesy. The pipe
was passed around, and each man present took a
whiff in silence. Before putting it in his mouth,
each sachem turned the stem upward, with a quick
glance, as in offering to the Great Spirit.

At dusk the whites set out and rode three miles
up the river. A fire was kindled, and they roasted
some buffalo meat. Their camp that night was
six or seven miles northeast of the present site of
Brush.

The next day they caught the first faint glimpse
of the Rockies, about one hundred miles distant.
There was a slight mist in the morning, and they
could just make out the snowy summit of Long's
Peak, which appeared like a small cloud near the
horizon. "I was pleased," says Fremont, "to find
that among the traders the name of 'Long's Peak'
had been adopted and become familiar in the
country."

For a considerable distance Fremont had trav-
ersed Long's route near the river — the route after-
ward followed by the overland stages and the
Union Pacific Railroad. After a fatiguing ride of
forty-five miles, the little party reached St. Vrain's
Fort late in the evening of July 10. This fur-
trading station was situated on the right bank of
the Platte, about forty miles east of Long's Peak.

FREMONT 97

Fremont found the elevation of the place to be
five thousand four hundred feet. He saw but
little snow on the southern slopes of the neighbor-
ing mountains, where a forest fire was raging south
of the peak.

Fort Laramie, about one hundred twenty-five
miles to the northwest, was now his destination.
He started on the morning of July 12, and the
valley road hear the Platte "resembled a garden in
the splendor of fields of varied flowers, which filled
the air with fragrance." Journeying northward,
the band halted at midday on the bank of the Cache
a la Poudre, which Fremont describes as "a very
beautiful mountain stream, about one hundred feet
wide, flowing with a full swift current over a rocky
bed . ' ' He says : ' ' We halted under the shade of some
cottonwoods, with which the stream is wooded
scatteringly." His camp was a few miles south of
where Winsdor is to-day. Thence the party had
a long march over a parched desert. An exclu-
sive meat diet creates much thirst, and the men
suffered for want of water. The horses, too, were
distressed.

Fremont was a careful observer, and he no-
ticed that the soil was good. The barrenness of
the country he rightly concluded was due almost
entirely to the extreme dryness of the climate.

About sundown, on July 13, the party came to a

98 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

beautiful creek with grassy banks, and were de-
lighted to find themselves in a hunter's paradise.
One of a herd of buffalo feeding near by was killed
for their supper.

Northward the explorers pursued their course
through a country that was bleak and ashen-hued,
except along the creeks. On the 15th they arrived
at the junction of the Laramie and North Platte.
Here was a trading-post named Fort Platte. Like
St. Vrain's, it had thick, strong earthen walls; on
the side toward the river it was open. A few hun-
dred yards beyond was the large post of the Ameri-
can Fur Company, called Fort Laramie. A short
distance away the newcomers found Kit Carson
and the other members of the expedition encamped
on the bank of the Laramie River, with its clear,
cool water making a pleasant contrast to the muddy
waters of the Platte.

Fort Laramie was built in Mexican fashion. It
was an imposing quadrangular structure with clay
walls fifteen feet high, surrounded by a wooden
palisade. Each apartment had a door and window
opening on the interior court or plaza. There was
a large public entrance beneath a square tower
with loopholes; a second, smaller, entrance was a
sort of postern gate. The traders living here had
squaws for wives. They bought buffalo robes and
other skins of the Indians, who took in exchange

FREMONT 99

blankets, guns, powder, lead, vermilion, tobacco,
beads, looking-glasses, and other articles.

Fremont was told that the country to the west
was swarming with war parties of Sioux and other
Indians. In view of the dangers ahead, it was
thought advisable to leave young Benton and Brant
at the fort.

Setting out from Fort Laramie on July 21, the
party explored South Pass, by which route hosts
of gold-seekers passed on their way to California in
1849 and later. While they were in the Wind River
Mountains, in western Wyoming, the leader with sev-
eral companions ascended a peak that has been
named in his honor Fremont's Peak. Its elevation
is thirteen thousand seven hundred ninety feet.
On the loftiest crag he hoisted the American flag.

The party now turned their faces homeward, and
Fremont with six men ventured to descend the
North Platte. They had a perilous voyage through
the canon, in an india-rubber boat twenty feet long
and five feet broad. The cliffs towered above
them, a sheer precipice four hundred feet high. In
places the channel was so narrow that the men
could touch the walls on both sides; boulders had
fallen into the stream, and the water rushed by them
with tremendous violence. The light craft sustained
shock after shock, and leaped the cataracts like a
waterbird.

100 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Singing a Canadian boat song, the little company
dashed through the gloomy chasm, when suddenly
the boat struck a concealed rock and whirled over
in a twinkling. The next instant the men were
swimming, or clinging to projections of the rocky
shore. Books, boxes, and articles of clothing were
floating in the boiling stream. So strong was the
current that the case of heavy instruments remained
on the surface. With signs making themselves
understood by one another (for the roar of waters
drowned their words), they righted the boat and
recovered a few blankets, some journals, and a
circle. One gun was saved. Everything else on
board was lost.

On the last day of August the daring voyageurs
were again in Fort Laramie, and a month later they
gained the settlements along the Missouri River.
On October 10 they halted at the mouth of the
Kansas, just four months after they had set out
from Chouteau's trading-post. Then they dropped
down stream to St. Louis, the voyage occupying
seven days.

Fremont's second expedition outfitted in May,
1843, at Westport. This outpost on the border
of civilization was long ago swallowed up in the
flourishing metropolis of Kansas City. Mrs. Fre-
mont relates that while her husband was on the
frontier making preparations for the long journey,

FREMONT 101

an order of recall came from his superior officer in
Washington. Immediately she despatched a mes-
senger with a letter, urging the lieutenant to start
without delay. Some time afterward the young
wife wrote to the commanding officer, saying she had
not forwarded the order. In those days there were
no telegraph lines in the West, and it was too late
to prevent the expedition.

On May 29 a party of two-score started up the
Kansas River. It was a motley company, com-
posed largely of men who served with Fremont on
his former expedition. They were all armed with
carbines or rifles, and the party had a howitzer to
use in case they should be attacked by large bands
of hostile Indians. There were twelve carts drawn
by mule teams, and a light covered wagon carried
the instruments. All except the teamsters were
mounted on mules or horses.

The frontiersmen of the party were striking
figures in their picturesque costumes — slouched
broad-brimmed hats, blue flannel shirts, short
blouses, buckskin leggings, and moccasins. They
were weatherbeaten men, speaking English, French,
German, and Spanish. Two Delaware Indians
were engaged as hunters, and Thomas Fitzpatrick,
an old plainsman and mountaineer, acted as guide.

Moving up the valley of the Kansas River by a
winding road, the explorers made the forks on

FREMONT 103

June 8. Their route was then along the Republi-
can River through a timbered country, well watered
and fertile. On the 16th the expedition was
divided, Fremont going ahead with a party of
fifteen men, while Fitzpatrick followed with twenty-
five men in charge of the baggage wagons.

A fortnight later the party crossed a range of
high hills and "found ourselves," Fremont says,
"overlooking a broad and misty valley, where,
about ten miles distant, and one thousand feet be-
low us, the South fork of the Platte was rolling
magnificently along, swollen with the waters of the
melting snows. It was in strong and refreshing
contrast with the parched country from which we
had just issued." The elevation here was four
thousand feet above the sea.

The next day the explorers camped at the mouth
of Bijou Creek, in sight of Long's Peak, clad with
glittering snow. A three-days' journey brought
them to St. Vrain's Fort, on Independence Day.
Traveling up the Platte ten miles, they came to
Lupton's trading-post and stock ranch. Farther
up stream they found an Arapahoe village of one
hundred sixty lodges in a beautiful valley. When
not far from the present site of Denver they sur-
prised a grizzly bear sauntering along the river.
Raising himself upon his hind legs, Bruin took a
deliberate view of the strangers, then hastily

104 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

scrambled down the bank and swam to the opposite
side of the stream. The party bivouacked for the
night near Cherry Creek.

On the 8th they journeyed up the Platte in
plain view of the foothills, which Fremont supposed
to be eight or ten miles distant. He describes this
out range as "a dark corniced line, in clear contrast
with the great snowy chain which, immediately
beyond, rose glittering five thousand feet above
them." In the morning he got a glimpse of
Pike's Peak, about seventy -five miles to the
south.

The following day his route took him over the
Divide, with its green spots of luxuriant grass.
"This is a piny elevation into which the prairies
are gathered and from which the waters flow, in
almost every direction, to the Arkansas, Platte, and
Kansas rivers; the latter stream having here its
remotest sources." The topmost ridge he found to
be seven thousand five hundred feet above sea
level. From this elevation the Spanish Peaks
could be seen. On the summit were several rock-
built natural forts, difficult of approach in front and
protected by a precipice in the rear.

The valley or basin south of the Divide was
radiant with flowers, purple, scarlet, yellow, and
white. Fremont thought the soil was excellent,
and the country admirably adapted for agriculture,

FREMONT 105

and stock raising. The myth of the "Great Ameri-
can Desert," however, was not exploded for a score
of years afterward.

Turning to the southwest, the party reached the
wagon-road to the settlements in the Arkansas
valley. Down Boiling Spring Creek (Fontaine
Qui Bouille) they journeyed on June 14 to the
Mexican settlement at Pueblo. Here were a
number of Frenchmen and Americans \vho had
married Spanish women from the valley of Taos.
They occupied themselves with farming, stock
raising, and trading with the Indians. Fremont
was disappointed in his expectation of procuring
supplies here, but he was glad to meet Kit Carson,
whom he sent to Bent's Fort for mules. From this
point, some seventy-five miles to the east on the
Arkansas River, Carson was to cut across the
country to St. Vrain's with what animals he could
procure.

On the 16th Fremont rode up Fountain Creek,
intending to visit the springs from which the stream
takes its name. At the north base of Pike's Peak
he came suddenly upon a large smooth rock, where
several springs were boiling and foaming. Pass-
ing on through a narrow thicket, he stepped upon
a wrhite rock whence the water bubbled up. A
deer was drinking at the spring, and it bounded off
up the mountainside. An analysis of the white

100 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

crust with which the water had covered the rock
showed it to be chiefly carbonate of lime.

Fremont had now surveyed to their sources some
of the plains streams that feed the Arkansas and
the South Platte rivers. On his homeward march
he hoped to explore the headwaters of the Platte in
the mountains. On the morning of June 23 he
joined Carson and Fitzpatrick at St. Vrain's.

Once more the expedition was divided. Fitz-
patrick with twenty-five men was sent northward
by the Oregon trail to Fort Hall in Idaho, where he
was to await the arrival of Fremont. The other
party included, besides the leader, Carson, Preuss,
and a dozen others. Fremont tried in vain to find
a trapper who could guide them from Long's Peak
through the ranges to the plains of the western
slope. But the race of trappers who formerly
lived in the recesses of Colorado's mountains had
almost disappeared; they had been murdered by
Indians or had gone to Wyoming and Idaho. Hav-
ing no guide, the party took another route.

Leaving St. Vrain's on the 26th, they passed up
the Poudre River for several days, then skirted the
Front Range into southern Wyoming. Fremont
was delighted with the pleasant weather and the
beautiful country with its magnificent flora. "The
slopes and broad ravines were absolutely covered
with fields of flowers of the most exquisitely beauti-

PKEMOVi 10?

i'ul colors." He found mountain sage abundant;
this bush, called artemisia, grows from three to six
feet in height. On August 14 the band forded the
North Platte and halted on the left bank, two
hundred miles from St. Vrain's Fort.

The next day they were busy drying buffalo
flesh for the long journey before them in a region
nearly destitute of game. Scaffolds were erected,
fires built, and the beef cut up into thin slices.
While thus engaged the party were thrown into a
sudden tumult by the charge of about seventy
mounted redskins. The guard saw one of the
\varriors just in time, and gave warning. With a
yell the savages rode down the hill, coming to an
abrupt halt when they saw the whites drawn up
ready to receive them with a howitzer shot. Signs
for peace were made, the pipe went round, and
presents were bestowed. The Indians proved to
be a war party of Cheyennes and Arapahoes re-
turning from an unsuccessful expedition against
the Shoshones. They had a lot of horses that they
had stolen from the whites at Fort Bridger in
northeastern Utah. They said they had mistaken
the explorers for a band of hostile Indians.

The party crossed the Continental Divide through
South Pass, at an elevation of seven thousand four
hundred ninety feet. They found the trail well
beaten by the wagons of Oregon emigrants. Fre-

10S THE MAKING OF COLORADO

mont estimated the distance of the pass from the
mouth of the Kansas River, by the ordinary travel-
ing route, at nine hundred sixty-two miles; from
the mouth of the Platte, eight hundred eighty-two
miles; and about fourteen hundred miles from the
mouth of the Oregon.

From this halfway point between the Mississippi
and the Pacific Ocean the explorers entered Mexi-
can territory, occasionally running across parties of
emigrants from the States. After a journey of
seventeen hundred miles they finally got to Salt
Lake, on September 8. Fremont and four com-
panions were the first white men to explore this
great inland sea. From Salt Lake the company
proceeded northward to Fort Hall on the Snake
River. This trading-post of the Hudson's Bay
Fur Company Fremont estimated to be one thou-
sand three hundred twenty-three miles from West-
port via Fort Laramie.

From Fort Hall the lieutenant writh less than
thirty men headed northward, pursuing the course
of the Snake River to the valley of the Columbia.
Carson with the main party being left at the Dalles,
Fremont sailed down the river to Fort Vancouver
on the coast. This was the western termination
of the expedition. Here he obtained supplies for
the homeward journey, and on November 10 he
started upon his return. He rejoined the main

FREMONT 109

party, and two weeks later they set out southward
on a "voyage" of discovery and exploration.

It was a tedious trip across the desert expanse of
the Great Interior Basin of Nevada, but the horrors
of the midwinter journey through the Sierras are
beyond description. Fortunately for Carson and
a number of the other men, they had parted com-
pany with the main company, having decided to
go back to New Mexico.

Fremont took observations and calculated pretty
accurately where the end of the proposed route
would land them. Captain Sutter's ranch was his
objective point. The mountains ahead looked
dreary, but the party pressed forward. The how-
itzer became such an incumbrance that it was left
behind, in the snow, on January 29, 1844. Pro-
visions were becoming fearfully scant, and at times
the company were reduced to the extremity of want.
The hungry men were ill protected, and shivered in
the icy blasts. Some nights they had no shelter;
then, covering the snow with boughs, they would
spread blankets on them and lie down to unpleas-
ant dreams. Horses and mules floundered in the
deep drifts, and the adventurous plodders were
obliged to break roads through the inhospitable
wilderness. The glare of the snow made them
nearly blind, and they wore black silk handker-
chiefs over their faces to relieve their eyes Some of

'110 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

the men were almost crazed by their sufferings.
On March 6 the advance party got to Slitter's
ranch in the Sacramento valley.

After a fortnight's rest they resumed the home-
ward line of march. The procession moved south-
ward to a pass at the head of the San Joaquin
River, then in a southeasterly direction to the
Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.
They had to be constantly on their guard against
marauding savages, who stole stock and killed one
man. For some time the route lay through the
Colorado desert, then they traversed Utah and
entered Colorado, going up Grand River. The
valley was alive with buffalo, and they frequently
met parties of Indians who were on the warpath.
One day they witnessed a hot battle between five
hundred Utes and Arapahoes.

On June 20 they entered the rugged mountains
of the Park Range. "In the afternoon," Fremont
writes, "we continued our road — occasionally
through open pines, with a very gradual ascent.
We surprised a herd of buffalo, enjoying the shade
at a small lake among the pines; and they made
the dry branches crack, as they broke through
the woods. In a ride of about three quarters of an
hour, and having ascended perhaps eight hundred
feet, we reached the summit of the dividing ridge"
This pass has since been named Fremont Pass ; its

FREMONT 111

altitude is eleven thousand three hundred twenty
feet.

The explorers were then in sight of the springs and
small branches which form the headwaters of the
Arkansas River. After a week of difficult travel-
ing, following buffalo trails, they emerged from
the mountains into the Arkansas valley. The
cavalcade moved rapidly down the river, stopping
at the Mexican-American settlement near the
mouth of the Fontaine Qui Bouille. On July 1
they arrived at Bent's Fort. Thence they con-
tinued their easterly course, arriving at St. Louis
on August 6, 1844, after an absence of fourteen
months, having traveled some six thousand fi^e
hundred miles.

In 1845 the Pathfinder, whose name had become
known in two continents through his services to
geography, w^as promoted to a captaincy. On
August 6 he set out, from Bent's Fort, on his third
expedition. His well-equipped party of nearly
sixty men proceeded up the Arkansas, passed on
through western Colorado into Utah, and thence
across the central basin. In the spring of 1846
they found themselves in California. War broke
out between the United States and Mexico, and the
exploring party was merged in a battalion that did
its part valiantly in adding an immense domain to
our country.

112 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

On October 14, 1848, Fremont started from
St. Louis on a fourth expedition across the conti-
nent. It was not made under the auspices of the
government, but was financed by himself and
Benton. Some public-spirited citizens of St. Louis,
who were interested in the project of a national
road to the Pacific, aided in the preparations and
contributed to the expense fund. With thirty-three
men and one hundred twenty mules, Fremont
crossed the plains to Bent's Fort. Thence the
company made their way to the upper waters of the
Rio Grande del Norte, and in December they were
battling against snow and ice, trying to effect a
passage through the San Juan Range.

The cold was intense, and the mountain trails
were impassable. They were encamped nearly
twelve thousand feet above sea level. Here a
blizzard overtook them, and they could go no
farther. One by one the mules froze. Several of
the explorers were frostbitten, and one man in his
despair lay down in the trail and froze; others
starved. The party grew discouraged, and became
scattered in the blinding snowstorm. They beat
a road with mauls, but soon it became impossible
to advance. By this time the animals had all
succumbed to the severe cold.

It was a desperate situation, and Fremont de-
cided to send a small party on foot to the Spanish

FREMONT 113

settlements in New Mexico for provisions and for
mules to transport the baggage to Taos. It was
a forlorn hope, and failed. Sixteen days elapsed,
and there was scarcely anything left in camp to eat.
The Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and other tribes
were then at war with the United States, and Fre-
mont feared the little band had been cut off by
Indians. With four comrades he started forth to
look for succor, and on the sixth day he found three
of the famished men; one had died of hunger, and
the rest were on the verge of starvation. Finally
the weak, emaciated travelers reached the home of
Kit Carson at Taos, where they were kindly cared
for. A relief party with horses and supplies was
immediately sent back for the remaining explorers.
Meantime, one by one the poor fellows gave out
and died. They lost all hope of obtaining relief, and
thought it best for the party to break up ; perchance
some of them might have the luck to kill game.
They did get a grouse here and there, and so they
were kept alive till a deer was shot. This afforded
only a temporary relief. Slowly and painfully
they dragged themselves along; when a man's
strength failed so that he could travel no farther,
the others kindled a fire for him and pushed on,
leaving him to die alone. When the relief party
came up with the handful of survivors, "they all
cried together like children."

114 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

It was an ill-starred enterprise, and Fremont laid
the blame upon the guide, Bill Williams. This
old trapper had passed many years in the moun-
tains and knew them as well as any one, but at that
time of year snow had filled the trails and hidden
the marks by which Indians and mountaineers find
their way. Williams blundered, as might have
been expected. The party pursued a tortuous
course, making unnecessarily slow progress, till
ruin overtook them.

A man of less Spartan mold than Fremont would
have been crushed by the disaster with which he had
met. He wras stripped of almost everything but
life. One third of the men who had started out
with him had miserably perished or were hopelessly
ill. All the animals were lost, and much of his
equipment was scattered over the mountain slopes.
Vet his indomitable spirit was not broken. Car-
son and others helped him refit, and the army
officers stationed in that section extended every
aid in their power. Another start was made at
Santa Fe and in a hundred days he was in the
Sacramento valley. Here a new career opened
before him. California was admitted to the
Union as a state, and Fremont was chosen a United
States senator.

In the interests of a Pacific railway, he organized
iind led another expedition, in 1853. Starting in

FREMONT

115

KIT CARSON

September, this party crossed the plains, and
continued up the Arkansas to the Sangre de Cristo
Range, which they crossed through the Sand Hill
Pass, following in the footsteps of Captain Pike.
Their route took them through the San Juan
country, in the southwestern part of Colorado,
which was now United States territory. This

116 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

time Fremont succeeded in finding passes where he
believed steel tracks could be laid, and within a
generation the Denver and Rio Grande Railway
was constructed through the inhospitable moun-
tains of the San Juan.

The members of the expedition found the Utes
very troublesome, and once the Indians threatened
to attack them, when Fremont defied the warriors.
An exhibition of shooting with Colt's revolvers
scared them, and an encounter was narrowly
averted. Supplies ran exceedingly low, and the
party were finally reduced to the disagreeable
necessity of killing their horses for food. Each
man took an oath that he would never eat a com-
rade. They burnt off the prickles of cactus and
ate the pulp. For fifty days they eked out a
wretched existence, while traveling westward from
Grand River to the valleys beyond the first range
of the Wasatch Mountains. After horrible suffer-
ings, they arrived (February 8) at Parawan, where
the Mormons succored them. The enfeebled party
rested and continued their journey, reaching San
Francisco on May 1, 1854.

In his five expeditions Fremont traveled more
than twenty thousand miles, exploring the wilds of
the West and seeking routes for transcontinental
travel. He lived to see his ideas more than real-
ized in the building of the great western railways.

CHAPTER VI

GUNNISON

CAPTAIN John W. Gimnison \vas as brave a man
as ever gave up his life in the exploration of the
West. In the spring of 1853 he was sent by the
Secretary of War at the head of an expedition
whose object was to find a practicable route for a
railroad from St. Louis to the Pacific coast. Cap-
tain Gunnison, Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith and
several scientists and topographers made up the
exploring party. They outfitted at St. Louis in
June and traveled by stage to the Kansas frontier.
On the 20th Captain Morris, with a detachment
of thirty soldiers from Fort Leavenworth, joined
them as an escort. The cavalcade consisted of an
ambulance carriage, a light vehicle for instruments,
and sixteen wagons, each drawn by a six-mule
team.

Following the Kansas River and Smoky Hill
route, Captain Gunnison and his party traversed
the valleys and rolling prairies of the Sunflower
State. Striking across the country southward in
eastern Colorado, they came to Bent's Fort, on the
Arkansas River. They found its adobe walls in

117

GUNNISON 110

ruins. Bent had abandoned the fort and destroyed
it a year before. For a long time it had been a
rendezvous for trappers and freighters.

Fording the river, the company marched to the
mouth of the Apishapa. From this point they
directed their course toward the Spanish Peaks.
They were now in territory that had been recently
annexed to the United States as a result of the
Mexican War.

On August 6 Gunnison reached a settlement of
half a dozen New Mexican families in the valley of
the Greenhorn River. Here he engaged as guide
a Spanish mountaineer who was familiar with the
country westward to the Pacific, having been a
trapper, trader, and Indian fighter.

Up the Huerfano they proceeded by a pathway
of bright flowers to the Sangre de Cristo Pass.
Captain Morris and his men went in advance of
the exploring party and prepared a road for the
wagons on the mountain slopes and through the
serrated pinnacles of the Sierra Blanca. The alti-
tude of the highest point passed by the wagons
was nine thousand three hundred ninety-two feet.

It is through this depression, by which Gunnison
passed with the wagons of the party, that the Den-
ver & Rio Grande Railway was constructed by a
tortuous course on the mountain flanks. It is now
known as Le Veta Pass, in the Culebra Range.

120 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

He observed no evidences of snowslides or ava-
lanches about the pass.

Leaving camp on August 15, Gunnison took a
side-trip through the San Luis valley to Taos, in
New Mexico. During the first day's ride he and
his companions occasionally saw columns of smoke
in the distance: with signal fires the Indians of
the neighborhood were making knowTn, to those
farther on, the presence of strangers. He found
but little grass in the broad valley, where cactus,
prickly pears, and sagebrush were growing in pro-
fusion. The Indian-bred mules which the men
rode fed that night on standing wheat, of which the
kernels were still soft.

On the 23d the company left Fort Massachusetts
in the sheltered valley under Sierra Blanca. This
log fort was afterward dismantled and succeeded
by Fort Garland. Northward they proceeded,
winding their way among the immense hills formed
by the wind blowing the loose sand. These dunes
with wavy outlines rise to a height of seven hun-
dred or eight hundred feet. They were seen in
1807 by Captain Pike and "appeared exactly like
the sea in a storm, except in color."

Avoiding the thickest patches of sage, the party
traveled along the northern edge of the San Luis
Park toward the Cochetopa Pass. The mag-
nificent mountain masses to the east and west

GUNNISOX 121

aroused their enthusiasm. In Captain Gunni-
son's journal we read :

"The sharp edges and needle forms of the Sierra
Blanca, rising three thousand feet above the valley,
attract much admiration at our camp to-night ; and
the promising opening in the Sierra San Juan, to
the southwest, which allured Colonel Fremont to
the disaster of 1848-9, attracts its full share of
attention and comment, some of the gentlemen of
our party having participated in that misfortune."

At the head of the San Luis valley the party as-
cended the Cochetopa Pass, which divides the
waters of the Arkansas from those of the Rio Grande
del Norte. The trail being too narrow for wagons,
the men working under Captain Morris had to cut
a road over the ridge. The Sa watch Mountains
towered to the north, and to the northwest rose the
Elk Mountains. Thither the explorers wended
their way through the country that has been named
Gunnison County in honor of the explorer.

As they advanced into the mountainous country,
they found the nights freezing cold, although the
September days were pleasant. The men noticed
that they felt the cold less than in a moist climate.
Grouse and sage hens were common, and big game
abounded. The explorers were now in the summer
hunting-grounds of the Ute Indians.

It was anything but easy going over some of the

122 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

steep trails, where wheeled vehicles had never been
before. It was often necessary to blaze a new
trail, to cut down trees in the path, or to remove
boulders. One especially difficult passage was a
rapid descent of about four fifths of a mile to a
stream nearly one thousand feet below. The road
was stony, and the wagons, with locked wheels,
thumped against the stones and grated upon the
pebbles at an ever accelerating pace down the
steep incline. At one point as they passed ob-
liquely over a ridge, the men had to hold them
with ropes to keep them from overturning. In
ascending slanting hills it was necessary to double
up teams.

Notwithstanding their exhausting labors, the
members of the expedition found a continual
source of satisfaction in the wild beauty of the
Rockies. Forgetting their weariness, they took
keen delight in contemplating the rugged scenery
that confronted them. All kept in good health,
being invigorated by the bracing atmosphere.
Captain Gunnison says:

"The agreeable and exhilarating effect of the
pure mountain air of these elevated regions, ever a
fruitful theme of eloquence among trappers and
voyagers, exhibits itself among our men in almost
constant boisterous mirth. But violent physical
exertion soon puts them out of breath; and our

GUXNISON

123

BLACK CANON OF THE GUNNISON RIVER
Courtesy Denver & Rio Grande Ry.

animals, in climbing hills, unless often halted to
breathe, soon become exhausted and stop from

124 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

the weight of their loads, but after a few minutes'
rest move on with renewed vigor and strength."

The party traversed for some distance the valley
of the river that has been named in honor of Gunni-
son, but they did not enter the precipitous gorge
west of Sapinero, which is sometimes called "Black
Canon." This is said to be the grandest canon
in Colorado. They halted at the portals of the
gloomy chasm, which the Indians declared to be
inaccessible to man.

At that point Gunnison turned aside and chose
a route through the more open country to the south.
Proceeding westward to the present site of Mont-
rose, he traveled northward to Delta. The ex-
plorers were struck by the absence of vegetation in
the Uncompahgre valley, and Lieutenant Beck-
with describes it as a barren waste, unfitted for
habitation except by Indians. Little rain having
fallen during their wanderings on the western
slope, except in the mountains, they found only
cactus and sage growing aw^ay from the rivers.

The Gunnison was then called Blue River. This
stream, at the season of melting snow, was greatly
swollen. "At every step," writes Beckwith, "we see
evidences of the great volumes of water which, at
such times, roll forward in its channel or spread
out over its bottom, in the deep channels now dry,
and islands now part of the mainland, covered

GUNNISON 125

with huge trees cast up and left by the angry
stream."

The explorers' course along Grand River, west
of the junction of this stream with the Gunnison,
was through striking scenery. "From one position
a majestic shaft stood out clear against the sky; and
chimney rocks were almost hourly presented," as
they rode along, "with piles occasionally resembling
ruins of immense churches and dwellings, and one
or two on eminences resembling the ruins of mighty
cities of adobe buildings."

Gunnison thought it a desolate country near the
state line.

Following the Spanish trail westward, he ex-
plored the country as far as the Sevier River, in
Utah, where he met his tragic death. So far the
red men had given the travelers little trouble,
and no special alarm was felt when a detachment
set out on October 25 to explore Sevier Lake. The
party consisted of Gunnison and four companions
and an escort of seven soldiers. For a long period
the explorers had been among wild Indians who had
not molested them, and the men lay down to sleep
with a feeling of almost perfect security.

Guards were on duty all night. The men were
up at daybreak and sat down to breakfast before
sunrise. While they were eating, a large band of
Pah-Utes crept up under cover of the thick bushes,

126 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

within twenty-five yards of the camp fires. With
frightful yells the savages poured a volley of rifle
balls and a shower of arrows into the camp.

Instantly all was confusion. The surprised
soldiers paid little attention to the order, "Seize
your arms ' Captain Gu unison stepped from his
tent and called out to the redskins that he was
their friend. The shooting continued, and he fell,
pierced by fifteen arrows.

Four of the party mounted horses and succeeded
in getting away. One of these rode till his horse
gave out, then he ran on foot fourteen miles till he
reached his comrades who had remained with Cap-
tain Morris. Weak and exhausted, he reeled
breathless among them and told the tale of the
terrible disaster.

Captain Morris and his men saddled up and rode
to the scene of the bloody massacre. The Indians
had disappeared. The surviving members of the
expedition paid the last duty to the mutilated
remains of their late companions.

CHAPTER VII

THE RUSH TO PIKE'S PEAK

THE discovery of gold in California led men to look
for it in the Rocky Mountains. Before that, trap-
pers and hunters had seen the glistening grains
in creek beds, but these men were not miners and
gave the matter no serious thought.

In 1850 a party of Cherokees from Indian Terri-
tory prospected Cherry Creek and the Poudre,
finding quartz studded with gold. They kept up
the search, and in the spring of 1858 a band of
thirty came with William Green Russell and eight
other Georgians to hunt for gold mines and placers.
Two parties of Jayhawkers (who had somehow
heard rumors of gold finds in the South Platte
River) joined them on the journey up the Arkansas,
and in June the united company exceeded one
hundred persons.

They traveled in a very leisurely manner, and,
wherever the sands in the beds of streams they
crossed looked promising, they stopped and washed
out colors. The Georgians had done some mining
in California, and they determined to make a
thorough examination of the placers in the "Pike's

127

128 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Peak country." Tney found free gold in Fountain
Creek, but not in paying quantities. So they
pushed on northward, past Pike's Peak, arid
prospected Cherry Creek, the Platte, and the
Poudre, getting but little gold dust.

From time to time members of the expedition
became discouraged and set out for Kansas. In
the latter part of June the party camped at the
mouth of Cherry Creek. Here the Cherokees
abandoned the quest and, with four white men,
went back home. The glittering prize was not for
them.

The little company of prospectors, numbering
only thirteen, worked southward and prospected
the tributaries of the Platte in the southwestern
corner of what is now Arapahoe County. At last
their persistence was rewarded. About the middle
of July they made a rich strike in Dry Creek, only
a mile or so south of the present site of Denver. In
a short time they had washed out several hundred
dollars' worth of the shining flakes. This was the
first important discovery of gold in Colorado.

In May, 1858, Captain R. B. Marcy's command,
while on the march from Fort Union to Fort
Bridger, camped at the confluence of the Platte and
Cherry Creek. Here a teamster washed out a
small amount of gold dust. Soon afterward he
was discharged and went to St; Louis; he told of

THE RUSH TO PIKE'S PE\K 129

the find, starting the hegira of Missourians to the
locality.

Parties carried the news of these discoveries to
Kansas and Nebraska, and ere long hundreds of
fresh immigrants had arrived on the scene, and
pitched their tents on the banks of Cherry Creek.
Most of the campers did not stay long, but scattered
to the foothills and mountains, turning up the sands
and gravels. They supposed the free gold in the
streams had drifted from deposits and veins higher
up, and they sought for these veins. In the course
of the season upward of a thousand men made their
way to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains
between Fort Laramie and the Spanish Peaks.
At one time or another the majority of this floating
population made a shorter or longer stop near the
mouth of Cherry Creek. This point became the
principal rendezvous and base of supplies for the
prospectors and miners. So a town grew up here.

Meanwhile numerous finds (or, rather, "pros-
pects") were made, and a group of mining-camps
sprang up at the foot of the Rockies. Snows fell
in the latter part of September and put a stop to
work in some of the gulches. Full of hope, the
gold-hunters returned home, or stayed at the forks
of the Platte, awaiting the spring. Winter was
coming on, and it was time to provide for them-
selves some shelter besides tents. So they set to

130 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

work, in October and November, to build cabins
of cottonwood logs. The camp thus built up was
the beginning of Denver.

Reports of the gold discoveries, greatly exagger-
ated, were carried back to the States, causing the
wildest excitement. On January 5, 1859, some
men arrived in Omaha, bringing several quills full
of gold dust from the placers of the Pike's Peak
country. The section thus vaguely known in-
cluded, roughly speaking, Pueblo (or Fountain
City), Boulder, and the intervening area. The
name of Colorado had not yet been thought of,
so the historic mountain seventy-five miles south
of the diggings came to stand for the whole
gold region roundabout.

The reason is not hard to find. In the summer
of 1858 a company of men from Lawrence, Kansas,
camped for two months in the Garden of the Gods.
Some digging Avas done on the slopes of Pike's
Peak, and a little gold washed out. From this time
the name of the peak was given to the newly dis-
covered gold-mining district of the Front Range.

The following spring witnessed a great rush of
gold-seekers to Pike's Peak. There were a hun-
dred thousand of them, and the mighty landmark
of the plains was their Ultima Thule. Cherry
Creek was not so well known ; if any of the Fifty-
niners had heard of this stream, they probably

THE UUSH TO PIKE'S PEAK 131

supposed it flowed fast by the rugged sentinel of
the out range.

The influx of gold-hunters to the Pike's Peak
country may be likened to the rush to the Black
Hills in 1876. A tide of men streamed up the
valleys of the Platte and the Arkansas and across
the plains between these rivers. Some came on
foot, some in stages, and others rode in convey-
ances drawn by mules or horses. The trip from
Omaha to Denver consumed six or seven weeks,
if the driver had no bad luck. But many of the
pilgrims never saw Denver. They headed their
prairie schooners straight for Pike's Peak. The
snowy crest of this majestic mountain could be seen
from far out on the plains, and it attracted the ad-
venturers. On one canvas top was scrawled:
"Pike's Peak or Bust, also Cherry Creek." The
idea was used by many of the newcomers, the legend
being slightly varied, in accordance with the whim
of the individual. On one wagon cover it ran as
follows :

PIKE'S PEAK OR BUST

My name it is Joe Bowers

I have a brother Ike
I'm all the way from Missouri

And on the road to Pike

Busted by Gum ! ! !

132

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Most of these fortune-seekers had had no prac-
tical experience at mining ; they had simply caught
the gold fever and joined the procession of schooners
traveling westward across the prairies. Many of
them never got near the glittering pinnacle that was
their beacon-star; they perished of hunger and thirst

THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER OF A PIONEER

on the way, and their bones whitened the plains.
Here and there could be seen a broken - down
schooner with the grim label, "Busted, by Thunder !"
A host of the immigrants hailed from Indiana,
Illinois, and other states of the Middle West. They
did not know how far it was to the land of gold.
They had not made provision for so long a journey;

THE RUSH TO PIKE'S PEAK 133

and, when they wandered away from the rivers,
they and their animals suffered for lack of water.
Sometimes a man had the misfortune to lose a
horse, tempted to join a passing herd of wild horses.
These mishaps were among the many that over-
took them.

There were three principal routes to the gold
country: the Arkansas, the Platte, and the Smoky
Hill. The latter trail, between the Kansas and
Republican rivers, traversed a "region of barren
desert and waterless sand hills." The pilgrims
were misled as to distances in the rarefied atmos-
phere of the plains, and before some of them gained
their destination they underwent untold agonies
from the pangs of hunger and the tortures of thirst.
The line of travel west of Fort Wallace got the
name of "Starvation Trail."

Even when the horses and mules were in good
condition, six or seven weeks were required for the
trip across the seven hundred miles of arid waste
between the Missouri and the Rockies. When
supplies of food gave out, the travelers lived on
game; some of them subsisted for days on prickly
pears. The creeks and rivers were not bridged and
had to be forded; sometimes they were so swollen
as to be utterly impassable. The banks were steep
and often miry; and there were no blacksmith
shops where broken wagons could be mended.

134 THE MAKTXG OF COLORADO

The lone wayfarer, though not often in danger
from Indians, lived in almost constant dread of
them; and when the immigrants moved in cara-
vans the Arabs of the American Desert hovered
about the trails, lying in wait to steal oxen and
horses.

These were some of the hardships and perils that
the pioneers faced on the way to Colorado, in 1859
and 1860, for the "rush" lasted two years.

The gold-seekers who did reach Pike's Peak
were quickly disillusioned. They fancied nuggets
of the yellow metal were scattered about on the
mountainsides. They believed the soil was full
of shining particles and that the streams rolled
down golden sands. The Miinchausen stories
they had heard were absurd lies.

After they arrived at Colorado City they learned
to their surprise and sorrow that the gold diggings
were seventy-five miles or more to the northwest.
Some of them wended their way thither, only to be
disappointed and disheartened.

The rush was followed by an eastward stampede
of disgruntled "Pike's Peakers," who turned back,
sadder, though not always wiser, men. The height
of the gold boom was over by June, and the home-
ward movement of discouraged adventurers was
well under way. They were a sorry lot of fellows,
who "looked as if they were under a deep convic-

THE RUSH TO PIKE'S PEAK 135

tion of sin." Many immigrants, meeting them on
the way, were caught in the ebb-tide and never
got anywhere near the Rockies. Tens of thou-
sands returned in the summer and autumn of 1859.
Those who did press on to the gold fields had to
endure hardships and put up with sore privations.
Thousands upon thousands lost their all and disap-
peared forever, or drifted elsewhere. Some met
with success in following the will-o'-the-wisp of
fortune; they made their pile, and stayed to help
build up a prosperous commonwealth. The Fifty -
niners laid the foundations of Colorado's greatness.

CHAPTER VIII

DENVER

IN THE month of June, 1858, a large party of
Georgians and Kansans prospected Fountain Creek
and other streams as far north as the Poudre. Here
and there they washed out a little "pay dirt," but no
valuable deposits of placer gold were discovered.
In consequence, many members of the expedition
turned back, disappointed; they expected to find
"lumps of gold like hailstones all over the surface."

On the first of July the remnant of the gold-
seekers, then camped near the mouth of Cherry
Creek, were reduced to a baker's dozen. These
had the good fortune soon afterward to strike some
rich diggings in a neighboring creek, and they were
encouraged to continue prospecting.

Later in the summer other bands of adventurers,
brought thither by the golden lure, pitched their
tents at the confluence of the Platte and Cherry
Creek. This being the most central point, a camp
of miners and prospectors grew up here, and in
September it had become a permanent settlement.
In October the parties who had been prospecting
in the foothills and at the base of the Rockies re-

136

DENVER 137

turned to this rendezvous and began building houses
on the west bank of Cherry Creek. This was the
nucleus of a city destined to become the metropolis
of the Rocky Mountain states arid territories.

A crude sort of shelter was already standing there.
It was a tepee rather than a house, and had been
erected the previous winter by an Indian trader
named John S. Smith. In October, 1858, a log-
cabin was built beside it, and ere long there was
an "Indian Row" of cabins. By the end of autumn
scores of settlers had put up houses and stores.
This budding village on the west bank of Cherry
Creek was called Auraria, after a town in Georgia.

Meanwhile a number of citizens from Lawrence,
Kansas, laid out a town on the east side of Cherry
Creek. The site occupied a section of land south
of the Platte River. It was then known as St.
Charles. In November a company of enterprising
men from Leaven worth, Kansas, arrived. Seeing
the advantages of the location, they began to
build the town, which till then had existed
only on paper, and changed the name to Denver,
in honor of General James W. Denver, who was
then governor of Kansas Territory. At that time
Kansas extended to the Rockies, and the western
slope was included in Utah Territory.

One of the prominent men of the Leavenworth
party, General George W. Larimer, built the first

13X . THE MAKIXG OF COLORADO

house on the east bank of the creek. It was a log
cabin twenty feet long by sixteen wide, with a turf
roof. It stood not far from the site of the present

JAMES W. DENVER

City Hall. Larimer Street was named for him, and
Lawrence Street for another Kansas member of the
town company. Late in the fall the second house

DEXVKit 130

was constructed near by in Fifteenth Street. Not
long afterward a store was opened ; then a tin-shop.

On Christmas Day came the noted frontiersman,
Richens L. Wootton, with six wagonloads of goods,
which were placed on sale in the third trading-
establishment of the infant city. "Uncle Dick"
threw in his fortunes with Anraria, which then had
some fifty houses ready and occupied.

At that time more than a score of cabins had
been erected on the east side of Cherry Creek,
mostly in Blake and Larimer streets. They were
built of round cottonwood logs, and had only one
story, with no floors and not a glass window. All
the pioneer cabins of that period had mud-and-
brush roofs. This is all there was then of what is
now East Denver.

Already there was a trading-rivalry between
Denver and Auraria. The latter was in the lead,
but as the weeks passed, one after another of the
business men of "Indian Row" crossed the creek
and joined the Denver town company. Among
them were Andrew J. Williams, a New Yorker, and
Charles H. Blake, for Avhom Blake Street was
named. Early in 1859 these two men put up the
first hotel of the place. It was a log building with
a canvas roof; some thirty feet wide, and about a
hundred feet long, of one story. In those days it
was called the "Denver House."

MO THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The weather was mild, and building went on,
almost uninterrupted, through the months of
January and February. By March about one
hundred fifty houses had been erected in Auraria,
and nearly as many had been built or begun on the
site of " Denver City," as it was called at first.

In the spring of 1859 Auraria received an addi-
tion of twenty settlers who had founded "Montana
City" in the previous fall. Their log huts were
moved, and no trace remains of the little village
that was located on the Platte in what is now South
Denver. The original houses of the pioneer settlers
in Auraria also have disappeared in the march of
progress. Railroad tracks now occupy the ground
where stood "Indian Row," near Twelfth and
Wewatta streets.

The first child born in the new town of Denver
was William I). McGaa, whose birth occurred
March 3, 1859. He was the son of William McGaa
and an Arapahoe woman. In 1907 this half-breed
was living in South Dakota, a prosperous business
man.

In April the advance trains of prairie schooners
arrived from the States. Tens of thousands of
Pike's Peakers followed in May and June, and
Denver suddenly became an important city. The
Auraria settlement also grew with amazing rapidity.

In the summer of 1858 the whites in Colorado

DENVER

141

were numbered by hundreds. Twelve months later
the population had increased to upward of twenty
thousand. The year-old settlement on the banks
of Cherry Creek had between two and three thou-
sand inhabitants. It was the chief center of popu-
lation and a dis-
tributing-point for
the mining-camps.
Golden became a
secondary center.

Among the new-
comers to Cherry
Creek was William
N. Byers, who es-
tablished the first
Colorado newspa-
per, the Rocky
Mountain News.
The initial number
appeared April 23,
1859, two days af-

,. • i r\ TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH,

ter his arrival. On DENVER

the same day was

printed the first and only issue of the Cherry Creek
Pioneer. The News was for some years a weekly;
it became an important factor in exploiting the re-
sources of the gold region.

In April the first load of lumber arrived in town

142 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

from a sawmill built in the Plum Creek pineries.
Henceforth frame dwellings and stores took the
place of tents and log cabins.

It was a red-letter day in Denver's early history
when the first stage reached the frontier town, on
May 7, 1859. Far out on the overland trail a
swirling mass of yellow dust could be seen. The
moving cloud drew nearer, and a cro\vd of red-
shirted miners gathered to watch the strange sight.
Presently two Concord coaches, each drawn by six
galloping mules, rolled up and were greeted by a
tumultuous shout and a lively fusillade of revolver
shots. Denver was now in touch with civilization,
for the stage carried letters and papers back and
forth between this western outpost and the home
country "back east." The lumbering, rocking
vehicle was a welcome institution.

The first trip of the Leavenworth and Pike's
Peak Express was made over the route via Fort
Riley, passing over the Divide between the Repub-
lican and Solomon's forks of Kansas River to its
source, westward across the heads of Beaver and
Kiowa creeks, and striking Cherry Creek about
twenty miles above its mouth. The length of the
road at first was six hundred eighty-seven miles,
which was shortened some twenty miles. The
second trip was made in nineteen days, the coaches
arriving at Denver on May 12. In August the time

DENVER

143

consumed by the trip was about seven days. The
fare from Leavemvorth to Denver was one hundred
dollars, meals included.

Gold-seekers now came by stage as well as in
ox-carts and schooners. Once on the ground, they
began the quest for the golden fleece. Multitudes

ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL, DENVER

flocked to the diggings near Colorado City, Boulder,
Golden, Chicago Creek, and Gregory Gulch.
They had great expectations. They were in fever-
ish haste to become rich. Claims were staked and
almost immediately abandoned. Men tramped
the hills and prospected in creek beds. Getting
only meager returns, they gave up the search in
disgust and made their way to Denver.

144 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

It was not long before these disappointed adven-
turers were out on the plains, headed eastward,
some of them on foot and others riding in schooners.
Soon the tide of "Go Backs" was swelled to tens of
thousands. To the immigrants that they met they
proclaimed the flat failure of their quest for gold.
In strong language they denounced the "Pike's
Peak hoax," and thousands upon thousands turned
back when in sight of the mountains.

But there was something real back of all this run-
ning to and fro. Genuine finds were made in the
gulches, and sensible men took the view that there
were seams of valuable minerals far up in the gran-
ite mountains; the specks of gold panned out of
the sand and gravel had been washed down from
veins and deposits at higher altitudes. Prospect-
ing continued, and there were rumors of many
discoveries of gold mines.

The excitement brought newspaper men from
the East. Horace Greeley, Albert 1). Richardson,
and Henry Villard visited Gregory's Diggings and
other camps. These veracious correspondents in-
vestigated and became convinced of the richness
of the Clear Creek and Gilpin mining country.
With his own hands Greeley dug up some
shovelfuls of soil, from which he washed a goodly
number of "colors"; and his enthusiasm rose to
the boiling-point.

DENVER 145

The story is told that a miner had shot a gun-
load of golden grains into the hole before the famous
Tribune editor dipped his shovel into the ground.
Whether this is true or not, Greeley truthfully re-
ported what he saw, and his realistic descriptions of
the gold fields did something to check the stampede
eastward. He addressed a mass-meeting in the
barroom of the Denver House. There were more
than two hundred in the mixed audience, and his
words carried weight with the bearded-faced ad-
venturers who had come to seek their fortune in
the ranges of Colorado.

The report of Greeley, Richardson, and Villard
appeared in the News and was spread broadcast
over the land. The publication of their letters in
eastern papers enlightened the public and had the
effect of counteracting the dismal opinions of the
"Go Backs." It was largely through Greeley's
influence that the confidence of the people was
restored.

The better class of miners and prospectors were
unshaken in their belief that here was a great
mining-country. They concluded to stay and cast
in their lot with the new commonwealth, which had
the promise of a golden future.

The need of a home government was felt, and a
constitutional convention was held at Denver in
August. By vote of a majority of the inhabitants

146 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

a new territory named Jefferson was organized in
November. It embraced an area much larger than
the Colorado of to-day, taking in big slices of Ne-
braska, Wyoming, and Utah.

Meanwhile Denver was growing beyond the
wildest expectations of its founders. It was a base
of supplies for Colorado City, Boulder, Golden,
and the newer settlements of the gold district-
Central City, Georgetown, Breckenridge, Idaho
Springs, Black Hawk, and other places. The City
of the Plains, as it came to be called, did a vast
business as a distributing center for the mountain
towns and camps. Gold dust to the value of more
than six hundred thousand dollars had been taken
out of the earth in the Pike's Peak mining-region,
and capital from the East was pouring into the
lap of the young community situated on the banks
of Cherry Creek. Denver then had less than
three thousand permanent residents, and yet the
optimistic editor of the News declared that he
expected to see it a city of a hundred thousand
souls, a railway center between the Atlantic and
Pacific. Mr. Byers lived to see it the metropolis
of the Rocky Mountain states, with a population
of more than one hundred thousand.

Before Denver was a year old a professor from
St. Louis arrived, driving an ox-cart. His first
task was to get the few women and children to-

DENVER

147

gether and organize
a Sunday school.
Then he opened a
day school. Not
long afterward reli-
gious services were
held in Goldrick's
schoolhouse. It was
in 1860 that the first
church was started,
the one that after-
ward became Trin-
i ty Methodist
Church. The pub-
lic school system was
established in 1861,
and from that time
intellectual progress
has kept pace with
the material in the
City of Lights.

Among those who
lived at a little dis-
tance from early
Denver was Jim Baker, who took up a homestead
on Clear Creek in 1860. This old-time trapper
and Rocky Mountain guide belongs in the same
class with Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. It is

OLIVER PREBLE WIGGINS

("Old Scout" Wiggins)

14S THE MAKING OF COLORADO

said that Baker was the first white American settler
in Colorado. Another man who figures promi-
nently in the annals of the West is "Old Scout"
Wiggins, who was a member of Fremont's first and

oo

second expeditions. At the ripe age of eighty-five
years, he survives hale and hearty, the oldest of
the pioneers who have seen Denver grow up from i\
cluster of log cabins into a great city.

After maintaining a separate existence for nearly
a year and a half, the two cities of Auraria and
Denver, recognizing their best interests to be iden-
tical, decided that they ought to be consolidated.
It was a pleasant April evening in 1860 when the
citizens of the Cherry Creek twins met on the Lar-
imer Street bridge and ratified the bond of union.
Auraria was thenceforth known as West Denver.
In course of time settlers built on the wooded hill
north of the Platte, and this division of the city was
called North Denver. Like Chicago, Denver has
a North Side, a South Side, and a West Side. She
has also an East Side.

As in other mining-towns, there was a rough
element here of gamblers and desperadoes, but the
majority of the inhabitants were of the well-to-do
class, law-abiding, industrious, and ambitious.
They came from all parts of the East and the Mid-
dle West. The best blood, brain, and brawn of the
nation went into the making of the Rocky Moun-

DENVER 149

tain commonwealth which had organized itself
into a territory named in honor of the distinguished
author of the Declaration of Independence.

The winter of 1859-60 was mild and pleasant,
and mining operations went on about the same as
in the fall. The majority worked for low wages,
but they were buoyed up by the thought of making
a "strike" some day. "Nearly all were young
men, full of virile strength and sustained by lively
imaginings of cherished dreams to be fulfilled;
there were college graduates, sons of wealthy fami-
lies reared in luxury, the educated and the ignorant,
the rich and the povertystricken uniting in one
common brotherhood reduced to a common level,
each firmly resolved never to go back home till he
had 'made his pile.' :

While mining was the great industry of this new
country, gardening, farming, and stock-raising
were carried on successfully in the plains around
Denver. Here and there a miner or a plainsman
was killed by Indians, but as yet the red men
had given the pioneers no great trouble. They
were inveterate beggars and plunderers rather
than fighters.

In the spring of 1860 there was another furore of
emigration. The trains of wagons stretched across
the plains in an almost unbroken line. The in-
coming tide represented in the main a good class

150

THE MAKIXO OF COLORADO

of people. Some
tarried in Denver,
but most of the new-
comers struck out
for the mines. New
discoveries were
made, and countless
placers and lodes
were worked. In
many localities the
yellow metal was
found in paying
quantities ; the yield
for 1860 exceeded
two million dollars.
If not a Golconda,
the mining-region of
the Front Range
and South Park was at least not a humbug, as some
of the disgruntled Fifty-niners had represented.
Still, a considerable number of the pilgrims, after
trying their luck, returned to the States or drifted
to other parts of the West. There were a few who
did not expect to make a fortune in one summer.
They were willing to rough it. These stayed and
swelled the population.

In 1860 a census was taken, and Jefferson Terri-
tory was found to contain some forty-eight thou-

BROWN PALACE HOTEL, DENVER

DENVER 151

sand souls. No exact estimate can be given of the
number of people in the Pike's Peak mining-region,
otherwise known as "Arapahoe County, Kansas."

On February 28, 1861, the Territory of Colo-
rado was organized by act of Congress, with the
boundaries of the present state. Forthwith the
provisional government of the so-called Territory
of Jefferson came to an end. President Lincoln
appointed the first territorial governor, William
Gilpin, who had accompanied Fremont's second
expedition and fought in the Mexican War. The
Territorial Legislature, composed of representa-
tives from thirteen counties, met in Denver on
September 9.

During the next four years the country was in
the throes of civil war. There was little emigra-
tion to the West, and Colorado's growth was
almost at a standstill.

Two memorable calamities mark this period of
disasters and troubles of various kinds that weighed
on men's spirits in the dark days when the fate of
the Union seemed to be hanging in the balance.
On the morning of April 19, 1863, the business
portion of East Denver was devastated by fire.
A more appalling catastrophe was the flood of
May 19, 1864.

People had carelessly erected their homes and
stores in the dry bed of Cherry Creek and on the

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

AUDITORIUM, DENVER
Meeting-place of the National Democratic Convention of 1908.

low land near by. Melting snows had raised the
stream, but no danger was feared. A cloudburst
over Plum and Cherry creeks suddenly filled the
channel in the night, and families were aroused
from sleep to find their dwellings inundated. A
mighty torrent of water, spreading like a tidal
wave, swept trees, driftwood, wrecked buildings,
animals, and human beings down the roaring
current with resistless fury. Among the buildings
in the path of the muddy billows were the City
Hall, the office of the News, and the Methodist
Church.

The surging waters overflowed the bottoms till
the valley of the Platte looked like an inland sea.

DENVER 153

A terrific gale was blowing and added to the horrors
of the situation. A dozen or more persons were
drowned, and the property loss was upward of a
million dollars. Some barely escaped with their
lives, losing everything they had, even the lots on
which their houses had stood. The flood had the
effect of wiping out sectional jealousy and rivalry.
Henceforth Denver east of Cherry Creek forged
ahead; people preferred to settle on the higher
ground.

In 1863 placer mining came to an end in
most of the Colorado diggings; the gulches and
creek beds had been denuded of free gold. The
miners, not knowing how to extract the gold in
refractory ores, left the mining-camps in great
numbers.

Those were the times that tried the hearts of men.
Famine prices were paid for necessaries, and many
felt the pinch of want. "The period between 1864
and 1868 was the darkest in the history of the
Territory," says Byers, "and the people, from this
and other blighting causes, including the Civil
War, trouble with Indians on the plains, scarcity
of supplies and of money, were in despair." With
the establishment of smelters, in 1868, mining
interests revived, and Colorado and its capital
entered upon a new era of prosperity.

A newspaper man from the East who visited

154

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Denver in 18G9 called it "a western Chicago."
While commending the business men of the place,
he characterized them as having "a brusque and
rapid way."

In 1871 the population was estimated at ten thou-
sand. The inhabit-
ants were ambitious
and energetic. They
were all confident
that the Queen City
would some day be a
metropolis. The rail-
road had come, and
street-cars were run-
ning in the principal
thoroughfares.
There were many
fine buildings. The
stores and hotels
were mostly of brick
in the business part
of town. Adobe
cabins were scarce, except in the bottoms and here
and there along Cherry Creek. Elsewhere were
substantial wooden houses, the homes of refined
people. The streets were broad, with shade trees,
and there were plank sidewalks in which were
many pine knots that had a way of hunting the toes

OFFICE OF THE DAILY MINING
RECORD, DENVER

DENVER 155

of pedestrians. At night the business streets were
lighted with gas, and places of amusement were
much in evidence. Even then Denver \vas known
as the "Paris of America."

Some of the points in Denver's history during its
first decade may be enumerated. The first jail
was a log cabin on the West Side, rented for the
purpose; prisoners were first confined in it about
January 1, 1862. The first telegraph line entering
the city was completed October 10, 1863. The
first national bank wras organized April 17, 1865.
The Platte was bridged in 1865, near the mouth of
Cherry Creek; the river then flowed some twenty
rods south of its present course. A volunteer fire
department was organized in 1866.

As the cattle industry grew in the territory,
Denver became a great livestock market. Later
it developed into a packing-house center, and the
seat of various manufactures. For many years it
has been the most important mart for mining
machinery in the United States.

The Queen City was eighteen years old when
Colorado was admitted as a state, in 1876. The
log-cabin village had then been transformed into a
flourishing town with a world-wide reputation.
Its population had more than doubled during the
second wave of immigration, in the early seventies.
Thenceforth it grew by leaps and bounds. It

150 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

gained three hundred per cent, in a single decade,
jumping from 35,629 in 1880 to 106,713 in 1890.
The Federal Census gave Denver 133,859 inhab-
itants in 1900.

Up to 1902 Denver was included in Arapahoe
County; in that year it became the "City and
County of Denver," with an area of 59| square
miles.

According to a government census bulletin, Den-
ver in 1906 was the twenty-fifth city of the Union
in point of population, having 151,920 souls, or
nearly one fourth of Colorado's total population.
In 1908, at the close of the first half century of its
eventful history, it had 180,000 residents. This
progressive, beautiful city of fifty years' growth has
become the greatest business center between Kansas
City and San Francisco. It is the mining metrop-
olis of the Rocky Mountain region.

Paris is not France, and Denver is not Colorado ;
yet so closely are the interests of city and common-
wealth identified that it is scarcely possible to think
of one without the other.

CHAPTER IX

COLORADO IN THE CIVIL WAR

THE Territory of Colorado was scarcely born, when
the country was plunged into a fratricidal conflict.
The long struggle over the extension of slavery
\vas brought to a crisis by the secession of the
Southern States and the firing on Fort Sumter.

Before Governor Gilpin's arrival in Denver, a
mass meeting was held and public-spirited speakers
voiced the sentiment of the assembly in favor of a
nation one and indivisible. The chairman wired
to President Lincoln this patriotic dispatch:

"The eyes of the whole world are upon you;
the sympathies of the American people are with
you; and may the God of battles sustain the Stars
and Stripes !"

When the newly appointed governor reached
Denver, May 20, an enthusiastic reception was
held. "We accept you," said Judge Bennet, in-
troducing His Excellency, "as Governor of Colo-
rado under the palladium of the Union and the
principles of the Constitution."

At the opening of hostilities there was a strong
southern element in Colorado, and many of those

157

WILLIAM GILPIN
FIRST GOVERNOR OF COLORADO TERRITORY

COLORADO IN THE CIVIL WAR 159

whose sympathies were with the South hastily
departed to join the Confederate Army. Thou-
sands of Union men also returned to their former
homes in the States and enlisted.

A considerable number of disloyal men remained
in the territory, and the governor took active steps
to checkmate their plottings. He raised a regi-
ment and equipped the soldiers as best he could
with arms and other military supplies. The
officer in command of the First Colorado regiment
was Colonel John P. Slough ; his subordinates
were Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel F. Tappan and
Major John M. Chivington.

The first important service of the raw troops was
to break up a band of secessionists who had planned
to plunder the banks and business houses of Den-
ver. The head of the conspiracy, a Texan named
McKee, was taken prisoner, with about forty of his
followers.

In January, 1862, came the belated news of a
contemplated campaign against New Mexico and
Colorado. Back of this movement was a project
on the part of southern leaders to seize the whole
Far West for the newly established republic, which
had Jefferson Davis at its head. Once they had
obtained possession of the forts and chief cities of
these two territories, it would be an easy matter,
they believed, to overrun and hold Utah, Oregon,

160 HE MAKING OF COLORADO

and California. There being no navy on the
Pacific coast, they had high hopes of winning all
the country west of the Continental Divide for a
"Western Confederacy." But for the Colorado sol-
diers this military enterprise might have succeeded.

Jn December, 1861, General Henry II. Sibley,
formerly a major in the United States Army, as-
sumed command of the Confederate forces of
Texas and New Mexico. These troops of mounted
infantry numbered nearly thirty-five hundred men,
and they were a courageous lot of fighters. This
army of invaders usually went by the name of
"Sibley's Brigade," and the larger division of it
was made up of fierce Texan Rangers. These
have been described as a desperate lot of fellows,
many of them half savage and some of them out-
laws. Each man was mounted on a wiry mustang.
lie carried a lasso, and was armed to the teeth,
having a rifle, a brace of revolvers, a bowie knife,
and a tomahawk. A broad-brimmed sombrero
overtopped his flowing locks and swarthy features.

At that time Colonel Edward R. S. Canby was
in command of the Federal soldiers of the depart-
ment of New Mexico. He had only a few regi-
ments of regulars and militia to repel the advance
of the Texan brigade. Among them was Cap-
tain Theodore Dodd's Independent company of
volunteers from Canon City. The redoubtable

COLORADO IX THE CIVIL WAR 161

Kit Carson led one battalion of the New Mexicans.
Canby had a larger force than Sibley's, but the un-
trained militia (more than a thousand strong)
could not be depended upon, and he met defeat in
the hot engagement at Valverde on February 21,
1862. The Colorado volunteers behaved like
veterans, while the undisciplined New Mexicans
fled in terror, leaving the Pike's Peakers to bear the
brunt of the fighting. For hours the latter valiantly
stood their ground until they were nearly over-
whelmed by the furious charges of the Texans.
Then Canby gave the order to abandon the field.
The Federal army retired up the Rio Grande valley,
allowing the Confederates to occupy Albuquerque
and Santa Fe.

Already the First Colorado had been ordered to
reinforce Canby. So. leaving Camp AYeld near
Denver, on February 22, they began the march
southward. The snow was nearly a foot deep,
and they encountered snowstorms and sandstorms
on the way, yet they pushed on, making from forty
to fifty miles a day. Near the present site of Trini-
dad they were joined by the companies from Fort
Wise (afterward christened Fort Lyon), under
Lieutenant-Colonel Tappan. Before this they had
learned of Canby's disaster at Valverde and were
urged to hasten to his relief.

Throwing aside unnecessary baggage, the two

102 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

columns followed the Santa Fe stai>'e route south-

o

ward, making as good time as they could through
the rough country.

At the close of March 8 the wearied soldiers
were preparing to bivouac on the southern slope
of the Raton Mountains, when a courier dashed
into camp. He brought a message from Major
Gabriel R. Paul, commander at Fort Union, beg-
ging the Coloradoans to march with all possible
haste to the fort. The little garrison was expect-
ing an immediate attack by Sibley, and no time
was to be lost.

The volunteers had already had a hard day,
trudging thirty-seven miles, up hill and down,
through mountainous country; yet they expressed
willingness to keep on. After a short rest they
set out, carrying only their arms and blankets, and
made a forced march of thirty miles in the night.
At daybreak they were obliged to halt from sheer
exhaustion. In twenty-four hours they had covered
sixty-seven miles. Nearly all of them were on foot.
Only the most hardy, resolute men could have
performed this extraordinary feat of endurance.
Another disagreeable day was now before them,
for they were assailed on the road by a mountain
windstorm, which pelted and blinded them with
sand, dirt, and snow. Finally the advance com-
panies reached Fort Union on March 10.

COLORADO IN THE CIVIL WAR 163

The Coloradoans were joyfully welcomed, and
their coining \vas most timely, for the force of eight
hundred regulars and volunteers under Paul was
insufficient for the defense of the fort. Fort Union
was a supply depot, and the officer in command
intended to blow up the arms and ammunition that
lie could not take with him, thus preventing the
enemy from securing these coveted spoils of war,
valued at a quarter of a million dollars. The terri-
tory was panicstricken, and the militia had dis-
persed. The New Mexico volunteers were desert-
ing in large numbers; they were afraid of the
formidable-looking Rangers.

The regiment remained at Fort Union ten days,
recuperating and drilling. They were equipped
with clothing and arms from the government stores.
Then Colonel Slough announced his intention of
acting on the aggressive, and, with the forces of in-
fantry and cavalry available, he set out, March 22,
for Santa Fe. Besides his own men of the First
Colorado regiment, he had with him Captain James
Ford's Independent company of Colorado volun-
teers and two light batteries of four guns each.
The combined force numbered thirteen hundred
men. They were determined to meet and attack
the Texans.

On the 25th a detachment of four hundred eigh-
teen men under Chivington was sent ahead to

164 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

surprise and expel the enemy from Santa Fe, if
possible. Captains Wyncoop, Downing, Anthony,
Cook, Rowland, Walker, and Lord accompanied
him. Part of the men were mounted.

The old Santa Fe trail pursues its winding way
by many a detour from Fort Union to the "City of
Holy Faith," a distance of seventy-five miles in a
southwesterly direction. It runs through a moun-
tainous country, and for some ten miles the trail
passes through Apache Canon, a grim defile
flanked by almost perpendicular walls of rock a
thousand feet high.

On the afternoon of the 26th the Federals sur-
prised the Confederate advance at the mouth of
Apache Canon, and Major Chivington gave battle.
The Texans under Major Pyron halted at once and
unfurled their red flag with the lone star. Inured
as they were to Indian warfare, they could not stand
the impetuous onset of the Pike's Peakers. After
a sharp skirmish, the Texan battery fell back,
with the horsemen in hot pursuit, and the infantry
leaping over the rocks like mountain sheep. As
they dashed forward with sw^ords and revolvers
drawn, the cavalrymen looked like so many flying
demons.

"Nothing like lead or iron," says one of the
Texans, "seemed to stop them, for w^e were pour-
ing it into them from every side like hail. We ex-

COLORADO IX THE CIVIL WAR l(>r>

pected to shoot the last one before they reached us,
but luck was against us, and after fighting hand
to hand with them, and our comrades being shot
and cut down every moment, we were obliged to
surrender."

The enemy were driven from the field, although
they had artillery, while the Colorado batteries
were with Slough in the rear. The Federals had
between twenty and thirty killed and wounded.
The intrepid Chivington galloped about on horse-
back in the thickest of the fray, through a storm
of bullets that whistled harmlessly by him, although
his gigantic figure was an easy target for the Texan
sharpshooters. From thirty to forty Confederates
were killed, and forty-three wounded. Nearly a
hundred were captured.

While the foe suffered severe losses, the engage-
ment was indecisive. Another skirmish took
place two days later. Part of the time the
fighting was hottest near Pigeon's Ranch, and
this is the name by which the battle is generally
known. The action of March 26 and that of
the 28th are by some writers regarded as one
battle, which is called Glorieta from La Glorieta
Pass, in which the engagements of Apache Cation
and Pigeon's Ranch occurred.

In the second encounter Lieutenant-Colonel
William R. Scurry, the leader of the Confederates,

100 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

forced the attack. He had about eleven hundred
soldiers, and a battery of three guns. Scurry was
an able leader, and he skillfully marshaled his
columns. He mingled everywhere with his men,
sharing in the dangers of the terrible battle. It
was indeed a fearful struggle, and more than once
Slough's battalion was driven back by the deter-
mined Rangers. Slough had about eight hundred
men, and opposed to him were more than a thou-
sand. The engagement lasted seven hours without
a pause.

The day was saved by Chivington's attack in the
rear. With about one third of the command he
was ordered to march to the western end of La
Glorieta Pass. There was no road over the rocky,
wooded slopes, but a loyal New Mexican officer
named Chaves offered to show a way. Chivington's
force of one hundred twenty regulars and three
hundred seventy volunteers was led up a precipi-
tous ascent to a bluff overlooking the enemy's camp.
The toilsome march had consumed over five hours,
and another hour was spent in surveying the
situation and noting the position of the wagons a
thousand feet below. In single file they started
down the steep, narrow path. They lowered them-
selves over the face of the cliff by means of ropes
and straps. Down the slope they slid, crawled, and
leaped.

COLORADO IX THE CIVIL WAR 107

Getting nearer the base, the men yelled and
whooped like wild Indians, frightening the
teamsters and few remaining guards. They
charged at double-quick, drove back the Texans,
spiked the cannon, and burned seventy-three
wagons loaded with provisions, arms, powder, and
other stores. Only one man in the expedition was
hurt. The Coloradoans captured a number of
Rangers and bayoneted upward of six hundred
mules and horses in the corral, thus compelling the
Southerners to go home on foot.

This bold exploit of Chivington's men caused
Scurry to retreat just as he supposed victory to be
in his grasp. Colonel Slough had given his troops
the order to abandon their position and return to
camp. The soldiers on both sides had fought
nearly the whole day without stopping to eat or
drink, and they were all worn out. Soon after
five o'clock an ambulance bearing a flag of truce
was driven down the road from the west. A
Confederate officer stepped out and asked for an
armistice until the dead could be buried and the
wounded cared for. His request was granted by
Colonel Slough, who had not yet learned of the
crushing disaster inflicted by Chivington. This
flank movement decided the issue in the Gettys-
burg of the Southwest. Scurry had probably heard
the noise of the firing and the explosions, and sus-

168 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

pected the trouble. His men were almost without
ammunition, and had to cease fighting.

Having accomplished their purpose, Chivington's
detachment ascended the slopes and retraced their
steps, in the darkness, over the heights back to
camp, thus avoiding a possible encounter with the
enemy in the pass.

The casualties on the Union side in the fight of
March 28 were about forty killed and more than
fifty wounded. "Our loss in killed, wounded,
and missing in the two days' encounter will reach
one hundred fifty/' wrote Governor Connelly on
March 30. The Confederate loss was twice as
great. The number of their casualties, though
not exactly known, exceeded three hundred
killed and wounded. 'The bloodiest battle of
the war," a historian of the South calls the en-
gagement.

At the expiration of the armistice, which was
extended till March 30, Slough expected Scurry to
renew the engagement, but the Texans retreated
as fast as they could. He had orders from Canby
not to follow them. He was thus prevented from
inflicting still further punishment on the fleeing
enemy.

Without ammunition and supplies, the Sibley
expedition came to an inglorious end. The de-
moralized Confederates beat a precipitate retreat

COLORADO IX THE CIVIL WAR 169

back to Texas, and Sibley's dream of conquest
faded into thin air. In dead and wounded, sick,
prisoners, and missing, he left behind him fully
one half of his original force.

The Pike's Peakers had proved more than a
match for the Texan Rangers, and Chivington
had become a hero. The Colorado regiment,
raised by the energetic efforts of Governor Gil-
pin, turned the scale and "broke the far left
wing of the Rebellion." By the valor of these
heroic men New Mexico was saved to the Union,
and the attempt to conquer Colorado failed.

So anxious was Sibley to get out of the country,
that he buried near Albuquerque the few brass
howitzers he had left. The guns were afterward
dug up, and four of them were placed in the war
relic museum in the Colorado capitol.

On April 15 there was a slight skirmish at
Peralta, in which four Colorado volunteers were
slain. During the New Mexico compaign, lasting
nearly three months, the casualties of Colorado
soldiers were fifty-six dead and ninety-one
wounded.

The two independent companies, recruited from
the southern counties of the territory by order of
Gilpin, formed the nucleus of the Second Colorado
regiment, which had an interesting history. Colo-
nel J. H. Leavenworth raised six companies of

170 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

volunteer infantry, and later two other com-
panies were organized. These eight companies,
together with the Coloradoans who served under
Canby in New Mexico, composed the Second
Colorado regiment, which ultimately became the
Second Colorado Cavalry. From time to time
detachments were sent out against hostile Indians
and to quell civil disturbances. In 1864 this
mounted regiment was assigned to duty in Mis-
souri, where scattered bands were engaged in run-
ning down Confederate bushwhackers. It was a
difficult and dangerous kind of fighting that they
had to perform.

In the fall of 1864 the Second Colorado Cavalry
rendered efficient service with other Federal squad-
rons in checking the advance of General Sterling
Price, who marched up from Arkansas at the head
of sixteen thousand men, intending to conquer
Missouri. The First Colorado battery also took
part in the battles of this campaign, which resulted
in Price's retreat into Arkansas. In the winter
of 1864-5 the regiment was called upon to fight
Comanches and other tribes of hostile savages in
the district of the Arkansas River. After making
a creditable record the Second regiment was
mustered out at Fort Riley, June 15, 1865, and
at Fort Leavenworth in October, 1865.

In the sanguinary battle near the Little Blue

COLORADO IX THE CIVIL WAR 171

River several officers and privates of the Colorado
Second fell fighting against Price's veterans. In
the cemetery near the battlefield lie the remains
of Captain S. W. Waggoner and his brave com-
rades, who gave up their lives for their coun-
try. A marble shaft has been erected near their
graves.

The Colorado Third, which was never a full
regiment, distinguished itself in many a hard-
fought encounter. The infantry volunteers com-
posing it were recruited in 1862 by order of
Governor Evans, and were disbanded at the close
of the war.

The members of the Third Colorado Cavalry
were mustered out December 28, 1864, the term
of their enlistment, one hundred days, having ex-
pired. They donned the blue for a campaign
against the plains Indians and, with a detachment
of the First Colorado, took part in the fight at Sand
Creek.

After waiting more than a generation, the State
of Colorado erected a monument in honor of her
brave citizen-soldiers who fought and died to
save the Union. The dedication of this appro-
priate memorial, standing in front of the Capitol,
took place October 9, 1907.

CHAPTER X

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT

THE Cheyennes and Arapahoes occupied the plains
north of the Arkansas River in Colorado and
Kansas. As Indians go, these tribes were better
than the average. It is but simple justice to them
to say that they were not so bad as they have
sometimes been painted. Often they refrained
from deeds of violence and treachery when white
men were in their power.

Cautiousness has always been a characteristic
of the red man, and this trait frequently led the
Indians to avoid clashes with parties of armed
emigrants on their way to Oregon and California
in the forties and fifties. But when a multitude
of civilized men took up their abode in the Pike's
Peak region, trouble was bound to come. The
interests of the red race and the white conflicted ;
each wanted a monopoly of the country. In the
early days, when trappers and adventurers were
comparatively few, they were tolerated and al-
lowed to continue at their avocations. But when
settlers came by tens of thousands, encroaching
upon the hunting-grounds of the Indian, he found

172

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 173

it harder to live in his accustomed way. With the
supply of game diminishing, the savage tried to
make up for the loss by stealing cattle and horses
from the paleface.

The trouble between the two races was deep-
seated ; the struggle for existence lay at the bottom
of it. Both were selfish and unfair. Every man
on the frontier being a law to himself, each side re-
taliated. If the savage was cruel to his victims,
the white man was at times guilty of gross in-
justice. While many of the copper-skinned no-
mads were peaceably disposed toward the pale-
faces, they had their grievances; having suffered
wrongs at the hands of traders and plainsmen,
they dealt out vengeance upon some other white
man who was innocent. Such was the situation
just before the Civil War.

The red man saw a great tide of human beings
rolling toward the setting sun, innumerable prai-
rie schooners with occupants who had coine to
dispossess him of the land of his fathers. He
foresaw the outcome, and made up his mind
not to give up his heritage without a struggle.
Under the circumstances outrages and depre-
dations by the Indians were to be expected. The
wonder is that there were not more acts of ra-
pine and bloodshed. Had the redskins been
as bloodthirsty as some have imagined them to

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 175

be, they could have wiped out the white popu-
lation.

Matters reached a crisis at the time of the Civil
War. The United States troops were withdrawn
from the frontier; they were needed to fight for
the Union. This was the red man's opportunity,
and he seized it. A conflict was precipitated, and
in the end the stronger side triumphed.

In 1861 the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were
persuaded to cede their lands to the government,
a large tract upon the Arkansas being set apart for
a reservation. They had no sooner deeded away
their ancestral domain than they regretted their
act. A considerable portion of the tribes never
joined in or consented to the treaty, and they were
unwilling to be confined to the limits of the reser-
vation. Here was a bone of contention between
the two races.

On a basis of mutual respect and appreciation,
a common understanding might have been reached
without war. Contemptuous toleration, if not
abuse, was generally the portion of the Indian, who,
on his part, knew nothing of the principle concern-
ing "the greatest good of the greatest number."

The natives were subjected to nameless indig-
nities by plainsmen and miners. Ruffians invaded
their tepees and insulted the squaws. The un-
tutored red man wras cheated by traders; he was

176 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

given villainous whiskey in return for valuable
robes and pelts. There was no redress for these
injuries when the chiefs made complaints. They
bore with patience the insults and frauds of a su-
perior race, but they brooded over their wrongs in
silence and bided their time. Being poorly sup-
plied with firearms and ponies, they could make
no effectual resistance, and it was the part of pru-
dence to avoid or postpone a collision with the
whites. Meanwhile they nursed their grievances
and prepared for an uprising by purchasing or
stealing guns and ammunition.

Trouble was brewing not only among the Colo-
rado tribes, but among the different Indian nations
from Texas to Minnesota. They discussed their
wrongs around the council fires. For ages the
tribes had warred upon one another; now they
agreed to bury the hatchet and to unite in a common
cause against the white people. As a preliminary,
they stole horses and mules from soldiers, settlers,
and immigrants. Though goaded to reprisals,
they waited and plotted.

Petty outrages, such as the stealing of stock and
other property of ranchers, were committed time
and again and were allowed to go unpunished in
many instances; so the roving warriors grew more
bold and insolent. In 1862 the Sioux of the plains
and Minnesota broke out into open hostility, and

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 177

many of the Arapahoes and Cheyennes joined
them. Those of Colorado were sullen and resent-
ful, but held aloof. In 1863 some of them, aggra-
vated beyond endurance, declared openly for war,
while the cooler and wiser heads among the older
men counseled patience. Traders who understood
the Indian dialects listened to the boasts and omi-
nous mutterings of the younger bucks, and reports
of a conspiracy against the whites were spread
abroad. Time passed, and it was rumored far
and near that the Comanches, Kiowas, and other
tribes of plains Indians were preparing for a gen-
eral outbreak. Coloradoans feared that the Chey-
ennes and Arapahoes would swoop down upon
them, and many false reports were circulated, in-
creasing disquietude. Finally matters reached a
crisis.

In 1864 a coalition was formed by most of the
tribes occupying the country between Mexico and
British Columbia; its purpose was to expel or
exterminate the white population. A reign of
terror ensued. Detachments of soldiers were at-
tacked; ranchers were murdered, and their homes
burnt; scores of immigrants were slain while
journeying westward in the valley of the South
Platte; overland stages were fired upon by redskins
in ambush, passengers were killed, arid the mails
strewn over the prairie. Other barbarities that

178 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

cannot be described were perpetrated. "By the
beginning of autumn the whole plains region was
aflame."

Nothing effective was done by the military to
prevent or punish these outrages. The officers in
command at the forts and other posts had not
enough troops to intimidate the warriors, who
moved about in bodies of hundreds and even thou-
sands. The majority of the braves were now
armed with muskets and revolvers, and they were
sometimes bold enough to fight in the open. One
of the expeditions sent out against them was under
Lieutenant Eayre, who had one hundred cavalry-
men and two howitzers. On the Smoky Hill the
company encountered four hundred Cheyennes,
who made a desperate charge, rushing up to the
mouth of the cannon. Twenty-five or thirty of
them were killed before the band wras beaten back.

Something had to be done to put a stop to these
raids and atrocities of armed savages. In this
emergency the militia was ordered out, and, with
the Hon. Henry M. Teller in command, patrolled
the stage route between Julesburg and Denver.
The military being too -few to cow the fighting In-
dians into submission, the Coloradoans themselves
were obliged to raise a regiment. A call was issued
for volunteers to serve one hundred days; the men
came from the shops and offices, the mines and the

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 179

fields, eager for the fray. The dashing Chivington,
now a colonel, was placed at their head. In Sep-
tember they took the field against the hostiles,
determined to deliver a crushing blow before winter.

In the summer Governor Evans had sent mes-
sengers to the plains tribes of the territory, directing
the friendly Indians to rendezvous at Forts Lyon,
Laramie, and Collins for safety and protection.
A proclamation made by the governor stated that
all who did not respond to his call wrould be pun-
ished. Not many came in, except Friday's band
of one hundred seventy-five Arapahoes, who took
up their residence at Camp Collins.

Evans appealed to Washington in vain. No
government troops were available. "We have
none to spare, you must protect yourselves," wrote
General S. R. Curtis, the commander of the west-
ern department. The Commissioner of Indian
Affairs at the capital favored a policy of concilia-
tion, while the Coloradoans believed severity was
necessary.

All the while the situation was becoming more
critical and complicated. Little Raven was head
chief of the southern Arapahoes, and Black Kettle
head chief of the southern Cheyennes. There is
evidence tending to show that they were both in-
volved in the league against the whites at the very
time they were making professions of friendship.

ISO THE MAKING OF COLORADO

One day in early autumn three Cheyennes came
to Fort Lyon, bearing a letter from some of their
chiefs. It was written by a half-breed named
George Bent and was addressed to Major S. G.
Colley, the Indian Agent for the Cheyennes and
Arapahoes. The letter ran as follows:

CIIEYEXNE VILLAGE, August 29, 1804.
Sin : We received a letter from Bent, wishing us to make
peaee. We held a council in regard to it; all came to the
conclusion to make peace with you, providing you make
peace with the Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahoes, Apaches,
and Sioux. We are going to send a messenger to the Kiowas
and to the other nations about our going to make peace
with you. WTe heard that you have some prisoners at Den-
ver; we have some prisoners of yours which we are willing
to give up, providing you give up yours. There are three
war parties out yet, and two of Arapahoes; they have been
out some time and expected soon. When we held this
council there were a few Arapahoes and Sioux present. We
want true news from you in return. (That is, a letter.)
BLACK KETTLE AND OTHER CHIEFS.

Major E. W. Wyncoop was at that time com-
mandant of the post. He was extremely anxious
to effect the release of the white prisoners, and
took the risk of encountering a force of warriors
much larger than his own. The Indians were
encamped at a place called Bunch of Timbers, on
the Smoky Hill, about one hundred forty miles

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 181

northeast of Fort Lyon. If the red men really
desired to make peace with their white brothers, he
was willing to meet them half-way. At the head
of one hundred twenty-seven mounted men, with
two howitzers, he marched to the rendezvous.

The Indians were drawn up in line of battle and
prepared to fight. Presently Wyncoop's little de-
tachment was surrounded by six hundred armed
braves. Some of them were insolent and threaten-
ing, and the officer realized that he was in extreme
danger. Putting on a bold front, he stated his
mission to the chiefs and cut short the parley. He
assured them that he had no authority to make a
treaty of peace, but he invited them to accompany
him to Denver for a conference with the governor,
promising them protection and a safe return. Then
he withdrew to a strong position and remained
three days. Black Kettle and Left Hand, an Arapa-
hoe chief, showed their good faith by delivering
up four prisoners. These were a sixteen-year-old
girl named Laura Roper and three young children.
The captives stated that the Indians had treated
them well. One, a boy about eight years old, said
he was willing to stay with his captors.

Acting on Wyncoop's assurances, seven chiefs
accompanied him to Denver. On September 28
they met Governor Evans in a council at Camp
Weld. Black Kettle, White Antelope, and Bull

1S2 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Bear represented the Cheyennes; the Arapahoe
chiefs present were Heap Buffalo, No-ta-ne, Neva,
and Boisee (or Bosse). Several citizens and some
army officers attended the meeting, and John
Smith, the Indian trader, acted as interpreter.

The chiefs in their regalia made an imposing
appearance. They first shook hands with every-
body in the room, and the pipe was passed from one
to another. The first to speak was Black Kettle,
who made an eloquent speech. He stated that
since receiving Governor Evans's proclamation of
June 27, he had done everything in his power to
promote peace. As soon as he was able to gather
his people together, they had held a council and
secured the services of Bent, who had written a
letter for them. Afterward the chief had followed
Wyncoop to Fort Lyon and trusted himself in the
hands of the soldiers, so anxious was he to see the
governor in the hope of making a treaty of peace.
He concluded with a touch of poetry :

"We have come with our eyes shut, following his
handful of men, like coming through the fire. All
we ask is that we may have peace with the whites;
we want to hold you by the hand. You are our
father; we have been traveling through a cloud;
the sky has been dark ever since the war began.
These braves who are with me are willing to do
what I say. We want to take good tidings home

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 183

to our people, that they may sleep in peace. I
want you to give all the chiefs of the soldiers here
to understand that we are for peace, and that we
have made peace, that we may not be mistaken
for enemies." He added: "We must live near
the buffalo or starve."

Black Kettle and other chiefs denied that they
had made an alliance with the Sioux. In the dis-
cussion that followed they positively stated that
the whites were the aggressors and had started the
war, forcing the Indians to fight. They protested
that the stealing and murdering had been done
by the bands of Sioux and other tribes ; at the same
time they admitted that fighting had been done
and some depredations committed by the Chey-
ennes and Arapahoes.

Several chiefs expressed themselves on one
point or another. "It was like going through a
strong blast of fire," exclaimed White Antelope,
"for Major Wyncoop's soldiers to come to our
camp, and it was the same for us to come to see
you." He referred with pride to the medal that
he had received from the Great Father at Wash-
ington, President Buchanan.

Governor Evans reproached the chiefs for not
meeting him when he went to the head of the Re-
publican River for a council. "The time is near
at hand when the plains will swarm with United

184 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

States soldiers," he observed threateningly. He
evaded the question of attacks made by troops on
the Indians, but insisted with emphasis that the
braves must show their sincerity by aiding the
military in punishing the hostiles. He asserted
that, war having begun, it was no longer in his
power to make peace. Henceforth the red men
must deal with the military authorities and make
such arrangements as they could with the officers
in regard to protection and subsistence. All \vlio
were disposed to be friendly should come to the
posts; the others would be hunted and punished.

By this time the conversation had become
broken and desultory, every chief having something
to say, and the statements made by the Indians
did not always agree. Then Colonel Chivington
got up and made a terse, blunt speech, which was
at once a warning and a threat.

"I am not a big war chief," he began, "but all
the soldiers in this country are at my command.
My rule of fighting white men or Indians is, to
fight them until they lay down their arms and sub-
mit to military authority. You are nearer Major
Wyncoop than any one else, and you can go to him
when you get ready to do that."

The conference was over, and it looked as though
nothing would come of it. It had, however, served
to clear the air, and the chiefs seemed to think it

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 185

satisfactory, although no conclusion had been
reached. A treaty of peace was out of the ques-
tion, for General Curtis telegraphed from Fort
Leavenworth that no terms must be made without
his directions. All that remained for the red men
was to do as Major Wyncoop ordered. They
appeared willing to submit to his authority, being
anxious for peace.

Acting upon the advice given, Black Kettle
brought in several hundred Cheyennes of his band
to Fort Lyon, and Little Raven came with a small
number of Arapahoes. There were some six
hundred Indians all told. They complied with
Wyncoop's orders, and it was understood that they
were to be protected by the troops. Later, in
November, Major Scott Anthony assumed com-
mand at the fort, and he directed the Indians to
hunt buffalo in the vicinity of Sand Creek, or Big
Sandy Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas; he
could furnish them with provisions no longer.
There wras some friction between him and them,
but no open outbreak; he seems to have had a
poor opinion of the red men, and they mistrusted
him. Although dissatisfied writh the change of
commander of the post, fearing it boded them no
good, they had no fears that their families would
be disturbed.

On their part, these Arapahoes and Cheyennes

ISO THE MAKING OF COLORADO

refrained from depredations, and the ranchers of
the Arkansas valley harvested their crops in safety;
all through October and November solitary trav-
elers passed back and forth on the road between
Denver and Fort Lyon and were not molested.
Previously travel through this country had been
unsafe except for large parties well armed or with
an escort of soldiers.

Meanwhile Governor Evans reported to Major
Col ley that he had declined to make peace with the
Arapahoes and Cheyennes because they were at
war against the government and peace could be
made only by the War Department. He then
went to Washington, and Chivington had a free
hand.

It was the belief of General Curtis that the red
men needed more punishment before there was
any more peace talk. "I want no peace till Indians
surfer more," he telegraphed on September 28, the
day of the council at Camp Weld. "I fear the
agent of the Interior Department will be ready to
make presents too soon. It is better to chastise
before giving anything but a little tobacco to talk
over." Chivington seems to have held the same
view, and he set out with his battalion to punish the
"bad Indians." He resolved to strike them a blow
they wrould never forget.

John M. Chivington was a man of more than

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 187

ordinary abilities, intellectual and physical. He
had to a high degree the qualities of a successful
officer. He won the attachment and admiration
of his soldiers and subordinates. More than six
feet in height, he was of magnificent physique.
Although not trained in military affairs, he had in
him the making of a leader. He was brave with-
out being rash. This masterful man, then in the
prime of life, apparently had a brilliant future be-
fore him.

There was no unanimity among the Indians in
regard to the contemplated uprising. The chiefs
and the influential Arapahoes and Cheyennes op-
posed it; a majority of the bands whose chiefs had
talked with the governor wanted peace, but a
number of the young men could not be restrained
and were still fighting. It took time to recall them
all from the warpath.

Chivington knew this wrhen he set out on his
punitive expedition. He seems "to have thought
that on general principles the Indians needed fur-
ther chastisement; they were to be whipped into
submission. The one-hundred-day volunteers had
enlisted for the sole purpose of suppressing the
disturbances on the plains, and they were chafing
because of inactivity. So he took the field, march-
ing first to Fort Lyon for reinforcements. Major
Anthony fell in with his idea and placed at his dis-

188 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

posal all the regulars of the First Colorado and the
New Mexico volunteers that could be spared from
the post. These detachments increased the regi-
ment to nine or ten hundred men. Major An-
thony had been anxious to have a brush with the
Indians, but had not dared to attack them with his
small force.

Colonel Chivington's command arrived at Fort
Lyon on the morning of November 28, 1864, after
a long march through deep snow. They rested
all day, and in the evening they started with three
days' cooked provisions and two hundred rounds
of ammunition. Before setting out on the expe-
dition against Black Kettle's camp, or while on the
way, Lieutenants Cramer and Cannon protested
against attacking a band of friendly Indians who
were resting in fancied security, relying upon the
assurances of safety given by Wyncoop and An-
thony. Chivington retorted hotly that men in
sympathy with the Indians had better get out of
the United States service. Captain Soule and
other officers remonstrated with him, but in vain.

Colonel Chivington had kept his destination a
secret, and the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in camp
on Sand Creek, about forty miles northeast of Fort
Lyon, knew nothing of his movements and inten-
tions. By a forced march in the night his regiment
of mounted men reached the neighborhood of the

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 189

Indian village at daybreak on the 29th and sur-
rounded it. There were one hundred thirty tepees
of Black Kettle's band of Cheyennes and eight
lodges of Arapahoes under Chief Left Hand.
The encampment consisted of some one hundred
fifty warriors and four hundred fifty old men,
squaws, and children. Their exact number is not
known.

Before the troops reached the camp, in the bend
of the creek, an old squaw heard the rumbling of
the artillery and the tramp of the approaching
squadrons. She thought a herd of buffalo was
coming, and tried to rouse some of the braves, but
they doubted her story. They had made no prepa-
rations for defense and were completely surprised.

In the glimmering dawn Chivington halted his
troops in the bed of the stream, which was then
nearly dry. Then he addressed them with a few
words. "Men, strip for action," he said. "I don't
tell you to kill all ages and regardless of sex, but
look back on the plains of the Platte, where your
mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters have been slain,
their blood saturating the sands of the Platte."
Then he gave the command to attack the slumber-
ing camp.

It was about sunrise when the columns ap-
proached the village from different directions on
the opposite banks of the creek. The First Colo-

190 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

rado leading, the troops charged upon the place
with yells, firing their guns.

The first soldier killed was Private George
Pierce, of Company F. He chanced to see John
Smith, who had been trading at the village, run
from a tepee during the volley and start toward the
troops. Some of the men fired at him, and Pierce
tried to rescue him. Spurring his mount forward
at full speed, he dashed ahead of the line. In the
excitement the horse became unruly and ran away,
carrying his rider through the lower end of the en-
campment. Suddenly steed and man fell together
in a heap. Pierce sprang up and ran a short dis-
tance; there was a puff of smoke from an Indian
gun, and he dropped. The same moment the
rifles of Lieutenant Wilson's battalion spoke, and
soon afterward was heard the cracking of carbines
en the opposite bank. The fight had begun in
deadly earnest.

The men of the Third Colorado needed no urg-
ing; they were burning to avenge the Hungate
murders, and rushed toward the lodges, firing as
the startled Indians ran out singly or in groups.
A chief and several Cheyennes were killed while
running toward the troops with both hands raised,
as though begging the cavalrymen to spare their
lives. Paying no attention to these gestures, the
volunteers fell upon them in a frenzy of uncoil-

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 191

trollable fury. Helpless old men, as well as bucks,
were cut down in an indiscriminate slaughter.
Most of the women and children huddled together
in fright, and nearly every one was shot down in
cold blood. Others fled.

In the meantime the two pieces of artillery were
brought up and placed in position. The cavalry
were around on the different hills firing at the
Indians, who had left the village and taken to the
creek bed. The howitzers opened fire with grape
and canister on the warriors under the banks,
changing their position as the red men moved
farther up the creek. Meanwhile the regulars and
volunteers with rifles and muskets got in their
deadly work, shooting at a distance of fifty yards
or less.

The soldiers wrere so maddened that the officers
could not restrain them. In their vengeful feroc-
ity they committed many hideous barbarities on
the slain. They scalped and mutilated dead
squaws and fallen braves, and even knocked in the
skulls of boys and girls of a tender age.

It would have been an easy matter to take the
women and children captive, but Chivington had
given orders to take no prisoners. It seems to
have been his wish and intention to annihilate the
camp.

Of the six hundred or more inhabitants of the

192 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

village perhaps one half escaped. The warriors,
between one hundred and two hundred in number,
did not form in line of battle, but fled promiscu-
ously to the creek. Their herd of horses had been
cut off before the charge, and they were at the
disadvantage of fighting on foot, while their as-
sailants mounted or dismounted as suited their
convenience.

Being pursued along the c~eek, the Indians kept
up a running fight for three or four miles. At first
they dug holes in the sandy bank, which afforded
them some protection from the leaden missiles.
Time and again they were dislodged from these
pits by shells. For a while they made a desperate
resistance, sometimes bravely charging until they
had emptied their weapons; they killed ten and
wounded about forty men. The surviving braves
scattered, every one looking out for himself and
fleeing from the battlefield wherever there chanced
to be a gap in the ranks. Their muzzle-loaders
and squirrel rifles could not do so destructive work
as the firearms of the soldiers, and ammunition
was scarce.

Black Kettle with a handful of his people suc-
ceeded in breaking through the lines and escaped.
The Arapahoe chief, Left Hand, had already been
slain. White Antelope was made a target for the
soldiers as he came running out to meet them at the

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 193

beginning of the fight. Holding up his hands, with
palms outward in token of peaceable intentions, he
cried: "Stop! stop!" His words, spoken in Eng-
lish, were drowned in the whooping and hallooing.
Folding his arms, he stood still for an instant,
within fifteen or twenty paces of the advancing col-
umn; then he fell, pierced with bullets. He met
his fate without flinching, and a few minutes later
his scalp was taken.

The firing continued from sunrise until about
two o'clock in the afternoon. From start to finish
the fight was an unequal one. The troops out-
numbered the warriors five or six to one. Setting
at naught the recognized rules of civilized warfare,
regulars and volunteers kept up the butchery as
long as any Indians were in sight. "No Indian,
old or young, male or female, \vas spared," says
Lieutenant Cramer. James Beckwourth, who was
present, declared "there wrere all sexes, warriors,
women, and children, and all ages, from one week
old up to eighty years." There were upward of
three hundred fifty women and children in the
village at dawn, and only five or six were taken
prisoners.

The total number of the slain was variously esti-
mated at from one hundred to five hundred. Chiv-
ington reported that betwreen four hundred and
five hundred persons were killed. Probably three

194 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

hundred, or about one half of the village, is nearer
the correct estimate. The survivors lost almost
everything they possessed. The volunteers re-
turned from the expedition laden with plunder;
many of them led ponies covered with buffalo robes,
blankets, and other trophies.

In his telegrams Chivington greatly magnified
the details of the "famous victory," and he after-
ward referred to it as "the glorious field of Sand
Creek."

In a letter to his brother, penned December 1,
Major Anthony wrote :

"We have just had, day before yesterday, an
Indian fight. We nearly annihilated Black Kettle's
band of Cheyennes and Left Hand's Arapahoes.
... I never saw more bravery displayed by any
set of people on the face of the earth than by those
Indians. They would charge on a whole company
singly, determined to kill some one before killed
themselves."

On his return to Denver, the "conquering hero"
received a royal welcome. The citizens called the
"battle" a brilliant exploit. On December 21,
Chivington issued a Complimentary Order, in
which he pronounced it a victory "unparalleled in
the history of Indian warfare."

The massacre sent a thrill of horror through the
land. Many Easterners could scarcely credit the

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 195

shocking particulars until it was proved beyond a
doubt that the soldiers had acted with fiendish ma-
lignity. Chivington was unsparingly condemned.
He was censured by Congress, but the legislature
of Colorado thanked him.

The government felt disgraced by the Sand Creek
affair, and in reparation provided for donations of
land to the widows and orphans of the Arapahoes
and Cheyennes who had been killed in the sangui-
nary affray. Also, the property taken from the vil-
lage was liberally paid for. The remnants of the
tribes were assigned another reservation, but were
in the meantime allowed to range the country be-
tween the South Platte and the Arkansas, away
from the traveled routes.

As time passed and men's passions cooled, Chiv-
ington got more of blame and less of praise for the
part he took in the sickening tragedy. Although
public indignation subsided to some extent, he was
under a cloud all his life. The old pioneers gener
ally stood by him.

There was some color of justification for his act,
it has been claimed in his defense, in the fact that
the Indians wrere not all non-combatants. A small
party of young braves who had been on the warpath
had just returned to the village; two or three fresh
scalps of murdered whites were found in the lodges,
together with some older scalps.

196 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Chivington assumed the camp to be hostile. Be-
lieving the only effective way of dealing with red-
skins was with powder and ball, he acted accord-
ingly, and his course was generally approved by
Westerners who were familiar w^ith Indian war-
fare. If squaws and pappooses happened to be in
the wray of flying bullets, so much the worse for
them.

There were those who looked at the matter in a
different light. To deal out destruction to hos-
tiles and friendlies alike, was a miscarriage of
justice such as General Curtis had never ordered.
While Governor Evans thought the Arapahoes and
Cheyennes should be whipped into subjection,
this was overdoing the punishment; he had ex-
pressly directed to discriminate between the peace-
able and the warlike. "Any man," he said, "who
kills a hostile Indian is a patriot, but there are
Indians who are friendly, and to kill one of these
will involve us in greater difficulties. It is im-
portant, therefore, to fight only the hostile, and no
one will be restrained from this."

Chivington went on the warpath after the Indian
fashion. This is the more to be wondered at be-
cause he had been a minister of the gospel. If he
hoped to gain promotion by winning a victory, he
was disappointed. He resorted to the tactics of
savages in surprising the camp and letting loose

THE SAND CREEK FIGHT 197

the exasperated soldiers upon the sleeping red men
who were there to hunt buffalo, as the commandant
at Fort Lyon had advised. The act was regarded
by his superiors as a stain on his record, and his
military career was cut short. What he considered
a splendid achievement, some of his brother
officers denounced as a blunder and an outrage.

The consequences of the Sand Creek massacre
were far-reaching and deplorable, as we shall see
in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND

AFTER the Chivington massacre the infuriated
Cheyennes threw dosvn the gauntlet of war in open
defiance of the United States government. Their
old-time allies, the Arapahoes, were with them;
the Kiowas and Comanches also went on the war-
path; the Sioux and other northern tribes had
already been fighting.

Indians who had long been loyal to the govern-
ment were now between two fires. The hostiles
threatened to make war on them unless they joined
the league against the whites, and they were liable
to be brought to book by the military if any of the
young men showed signs of becoming restive and
ugly. Suspicion bred distrust on both sides. In
nearly all the bands the turbulent spirits had
control.

Those who had been wavering concluded to
fight. The wrong done Black Kettle and his
camp was what turned the scale. The accumu-
lated mass of discontent and smouldering resent-
ment needed but a spark to cause it to burst into
a blaze.

198

THE BATTLE OF BEECHEH ISLAND 109

The day after the Sand Creek fight Major
Anthony said it would "put a stop to the Indian
war," but it proved to be only the prelude of a long
series of horrors. For a while there had been a
lull in hostilities. Now a fierce warfare ensued, in
which the worst passions of the red men were
aroused to deeds of diabolical ferocity. While
avoiding open attacks on large bodies of cavalry,
they wreaked a terrible retribution on small detach-
ments and on ranchers, freighters, and immigrants.

The flames of farmhouses lit up the midnight
skies, and the owners had to flee. Those who
risked the trip from the Missouri River to the
Rocky Mountains took their lives in their hands.
Caravans along the Platte and the Smoky Hill
were annihilated, although in some instances the
parties of immigrants stood off the hordes of
Indians. Only large companies, heavily armed,
ventured to make the perilous journey across the
plains. Mail coaches were attacked and rid-
dled with bullets. Time and again drivers and
passengers were murdered and scalped. The
stage was an arsenal of weapons, enough guns and
revolvers being loaded to fire fifty times; in conse-
quence, the red men called it a "fire-box." All
the stage stations on the line between Julesburg
and Denver, except Hollen Godfrey's, were burnt,
and most of the inmates killed or wounded.

200 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

In the winter of 1864-5 overland communication
was interrupted for weeks in succession ; goods and
provisions were stolen; in the spring the Denver-
ites were at times without the necessaries of life,
and famine was staring them in the face. Indian
raids were common day and night, and settlers of
western Kansas and eastern Colorado never knew
when they were secure. Panic and consternation
prevailed everywhere.

In the early years of the Civil War there were
secession agents among the Indians, stirring up
revolt against the authority of our government.
This was the chief cause of the onslaught of the
Sioux in Minnesota. Now the plains tribes had a
grievance, and the war in the States gave them a
favorable opportunity to rise and glut their ven-
geance, even if they could not recover their lands.
With but few exceptions, all the northern and
southern bands were engaged in "pernicious activ-
ity." For months the military could do little to
stop the merciless and destructive warfare.

With the surrender of Lee at Appomattox the
fearful struggle between the North and South was
ended. Now there were plenty of soldiers to fight
the redskins, and regiments were hurried to the
frontier. To the Indians it seemed that the boys
in blue were as numerous as the leaves of the forest.
But the savages moved about with celerity and

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 201

managed to elude pursuit. A hard campaign was
waged against them, and yet little was accomplished,
although a force of eight thousand men was put
into the field to crush the uprising.

The results were fearful to contemplate. Hun-
dreds of soldiers lost their lives, and a great number
of border settlers and plains travelers were slain.
Scarcely a score of Indians were killed in the skir-
mishes with the troops. Just how many were shot
by frontiersmen and freighters is not known, prob-
ably not very many.

The redskin is stealthy and wary; he seldom
gives his opponent a chance to reach him with
powder and lead. The wild Indians of the West,
like the Bedouins of the Arabian Desert, were ex-
pert horsemen and used their ponies for a shield.
Clutching the mane of his steed, with one heel
thrown over the withers, a warrior would ride at
full speed with only a foot exposed. At times his
head would appear in sight, though scarcely long
enough to serve as a target. Circling around his
foes, he fired under or over the neck of his pony
and was off like the wind, returning as soon as he
could load again. So the casualties of the red men
were comparatively few.

In the summer of 1862 the roving bands of Sioux,
Ogallalas, and other northern tribes gave the whites
a great deal of trouble along the Platte, where there

202 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

was a stream of travel to and from the settlements
in Colorado In 1865 there was a much more
formidable array of hostiles along the main-traveled
routes of Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. An
immense amount of property was stolen and de-
stroyed. No precautions availed to save stock
from the prowling Indians. The war cost the
government thirty million dollars, and in the be-
ginning of autumn there appeared to be no pros-
pect of peace. Therefore, other tactics were tried.

Generals Harney and Sanborn and other peace
commissioners were sent to make treaties with the
hostile tribes, and thus end a useless and expensive
conflict, in which the lives of several hundred
plainsmen and soldiers had been sacrificed. To
placate the red men, their old friends, Kit Carson
and William Bent, were appointed members of the
commission. In October a council was held with
the Arapahoes and Cheyennes on the Little Ar-
kansas, and the matter of terms was talked over
amicably, hard as it was for Black Kettle and the
other chiefs to bear the rankling memories of Sand
Creek.

"We are willing, as representatives of the Presi-
dent," said General Sanborn, "to restore all the
property lost at Sand Creek, or its value. So
heartily do we repudiate the actions of our soldiers,
that we are willing to give the chiefs in their own

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 203

right three hundred and twenty acres of land, to
hold as their own forever, and to each of the chil-
dren and squaws who lost husbands or parents, we
are also willing to give one hundred sixty acres of
land as their own, to keep as long as they live.
We are also willing that they receive all money
and annuities that are due them, although they
have been at war with the United States." He be-
lieved the interests of whites and Indians required
that the Cheyennes and Arapahoes be located on
another reservation, south of the Arkansas.

"It will be a very hard thing to leave the country
that God gave us on the Arkansas," said Little
Raven, head chief of the southern Arapahoes.
"Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave
these grounds." He added that his people were
ready to make peace, but wished to wait till spring
before treating about the land. "The Indians did
nothing to the whites," he observed with flashing
eye, "until the affair at Sand Creek, but that was
too bad to stand, and they had to go to war."

"Although wrongs have been done me, I live in
hopes," declared Black Kettle in his speech. He
stated that the Cheyennes were in dire distress, and
they desired the privilege of crossing the Arkansas
to hunt buffalo — game being scarce on the pro-
posed reservation.

At the close of the conference Little Raven,

204 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

speaking for the Arapahoes, asked that the traders
be given the right to sell firearms and ammunition
to them. "I want guns and powder," he exclaimed
with emphasis.

After a long conference a sort of understanding
was reached, and a peace was patched up that
lasted for a short season.

The members of the Peace Commission heard
some plain talk in the council with the Kiowas.
Their chief, Little Mountain, asserted their claim
to all the country from the North Platte to Texas.
He insisted that the whites were intruders on this
their ancient domain ; the Kiowa had always owned
it; all the creeks and rivers, all the deer and buffalo
were given him by the Great Spirit. "I want a big
land for my people to roam over," he continued;
"don't want to stay long in one place, but want to
move about from place to place."

This was the burden of a passionate monologue
made by Eagle Drinking, a Comanche chief. "I
would like this country let alone," said he, "for
myself and my friends, the Kiowas, to roam over."

In the end the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were
induced to relinquish their reservation around Fort
Lyon and accept another, partly in southern Kansas
and partly in Indian Territory. The Kiowas also
gave up their country in southeastern Colorado.

For a year or so peace prevailed. Then war

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 205

was renewed by the Sioux on the North Platte. Its
influence was felt among the Indians on the Ar-
kansas. Some of the northern Cheyennes, as was
their custom, visited the Cheyennes in southern
Kansas. Border settlers and freighters on the
Santa Fe Trail became nervous and afraid; the
commanders at forts and military posts grew anx-
ious; trifles were noticed, and construed as hostile
purposes on the part of the red men.

The establishment by the government of a line
of military posts on the road to Montana was one
cause of dissension that led to an outbreak. The
Indians asserted that this would drive the game
out of their hunting grounds. While opposing
the extension of the road, in the latter half of
1866, they are known to have killed five officers,
ninety-one privates, and fifty-eight citizens, besides
wounding many more.

The close of the year was made memorable by
one of the saddest tragedies connected with our
Indian history. On December 21, 1866, a large
force of Sioux under Red Cloud swooped down
upon a party of soldiers and laborers within a few
miles of Fort Phil Kearny and killed ninety-four
men; not one of the ill-fated band was left to
tell the tale. Colonel Fetterman was in command,
and this disaster is known as the Fetterman
massacre.

200 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The troops were provoked to retaliate, and on
April 19 a command burnt a peaceful Cheyenne
village in western Kansas. The Cheyennes flew
to arms, and a bloody war followed, costing the
lives of over three hundred soldiers and citizens.
All through the summer the hostiles hovered along
the Union Pacific Railroad and impeded its con-
struction. They foresaw that the iron horse would
be an effective agent in their subjugation. At
times there was severe fighting, and matters as-
sumed so alarming an aspect that General Phil
Sheridan was sent to take command of the troops.
In the summer of 1868 he made his headquarters
at Fort Hays, the western terminus of the Kansas
Pacific Railway.

The war dragged its slow length along. The
field of operations covered an immense territory,
and much time was consumed in concentrating
troops, which would gather only in time to learn
that the bands of warriors had betaken themselves
elsewhere. Expeditions were sent out under
Generals Hancock and Custer to various points
in Kansas and Nebraska, while General Frank
Hall, then Acting Governor of Colorado, raised a
force of volunteers to guard the territory. The
Indians scattered and united, as occasion required.
Not burdened by artillery and baggage, they could
move faster than the troops, and kept out of their

THE BATTLE OF BEECHEH ISLAND

207

way. The process of wearing the redskins out
was a slow one, and extremely costly.

Notwithstanding the dangers of life in the West,
the incoming tide of settlers grew larger and larger.
People would not be deterred from coming by
the terrible experiences of others. The stage
stations were rebuilt
and occupied by new-
comers. Ranchers
braved the risks inci-
dental to their calling ;
neighbors worked in
squads, taking their
guns into the field.
In this way some of
the crops were put in
and harvested.

Time and again the
expeditions of Fed-
eral troops failed.
Their efforts to find
marauding redskins
were futile. So a corps of fifty scouts were
enlisted, and Colonel George A. Forsyth was
placed at their head. They were all picked fron-
tiersmen, familiar with the country. Many of
them were old soldiers, having seen service in
the Civil War. A better body of fighters could

COL. GEORGE A. FORSYTH

208 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

scarcely be found in the whole world. They were
mounted on the finest horses that could be obtained.
They carried in their haversacks only a limited
quantity of rations, and had no superfluous bag-
gage. Leader and men were admirably fitted for
the pursuit of hostile savages. Once on the trail,
there was to be no pause until they were in striking
distance of the redskins, who generally had no
trouble in outdistancing the regular army.

In September Forsyth and his daring scouts
wrere detailed for duty on the Republican River.
After following the trail of Indians for several days,
they camped on the evening of the 16th near a
little island in the Arickaree fork of the river. They
were just across the eastern border of Colorado, in
what is now Yuma County, not far from Beecher.
The stream was only a wide sand-bed, down which
flowed a thread of water two inches deep. The
island was twenty yards wide and nearly one
hundred yards long. The gravelly soil was partly
covered with a low growth of bushes. Game had
been scarce in the hunting-grounds of the Re-
publican country, and the detachment had rations
for only one day more.

At dawn the guard gave the alarm, "Indians !"
Instantly every man sprang to his feet and grasped
his rifle. Up dashed six yelling redskins, waving
buffalo robes, rattling bells, and firing guns, in

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 209

the hope of stampeding the horses. In this they
failed; the men clung fast to the lariats of their
mounts, and only seven animals got away.

Then came the order to saddle up. Scarcely
had it been obeyed when the watchful guide,
Sharpe Grover, exclaimed in astonishment: "O
heavens, look at the Indians !" Over the hills and
from every direction poured swarms of mounted
warriors, adorned with eagles' feathers and in full
war paint. Whooping and yelling, the excited
braves bore dowrn upon the little detachment that
they had surrounded.

Forsyth realized that they were trapped, and he
ordered the scouts to take up their position on the
island. Here they would have the advantage of
fighting under cover of the bushes, while the In-
dians w^ould be obliged to charge across the sandy
watercourse. "Tie your horses to the bushes in
a circle, throw yourselves upon the ground behind
them, and make the best fight of your lives," rang
out the words of the valiant leader. In the
midst of a galling fire from the redskins his orders
were obeyed.

Three sharpshooters lay dowrn in the grass at
the north end of the island; the others in a circle
dropped behind the barricade of animals and
opened a steady, well-directed fire upon the nearest
braves. Hundreds of redskins were in sight, and

210 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

many of them were armed with repeating rifles.
They had secured breechloaders, and knew how to
use them. After the fight thousands of empty
shells of Spencer and Henry rifles were found on
the ground occupied by the Indians.

The foremost warriors threw themselves from
their horses and crawled up within easy firing
distance, picking oft* men and horses. Some of
them were so near the scouts could hear them talk;
they could swear in forceful English. In the ter-
rific fire of these sharpshooters every one of the
horses was shot down, and more than a score of
the scouts were killed or wounded.

Forsyth was hit by a Minie ball, but he continued
in command. "Fire slowly," he directed, "aim
well, keep yourselves covered, don't throw away
a single cartridge." Lying propped on his elbow,
he saw everything going on and bore the intense
pain of his wound without a murmur. Another
bullet shattered his leg between the knee and ankle.
The surgeon, Dr. Moores, while bending over the
colonel, was struck in the temple and mortally
wounded. A few minutes later Forsyth received a
scalp wound.

Meanwhile the command had been busy with
their knives, digging in the sand and throwing up
a breastwork of mounds. As they took aim and
fired at the advancing savages they had the satis-

THE BATTLE OF BEECHEll ISLAND 211

faction of seeing many a warrior bite the dust or
drag himself off wounded.

Two hours of this hot work passed. The men
shielded themselves as best they could, and did so
effective shooting that their assailants became angry
and derisive. They cursed the whites for skulking
like wrolves and dared them to come out in the
open and fight like men. The hills were thronged
with squaws, chanting war songs and nerving the
bucks for battle. The medicine men rode around
just outside the ring of braves, beating drums and
encouraging the young men to fight courageously.
The Indians outnumbered the men in the rifle-pits
twenty to one, and yet they could not silence the
fire of the little party. Every one of the scouts in
condition to fight was fighting, loading and firing,
while their fallen comrades lay near them bleeding
and dying. Stout hearts were needed for this
work, but a worse trial was before the brave band.

Shortly after nine o'clock a portion of the red-
skins drew off. The entire fighting force was up-
ward of a thousand braves, composed principally
of Arapahoes, Brules, Sioux, Cheyennes, and "Dog
Soldiers." Of the Dog Soldiers, the banditti of
the plains, there were about one hundred twenty,
and they had been kept in reserve for a final charge.
With them were some two hundred other Indians,
selected for their prowess and their magnificent

212 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

physique. This body of superb warriors was
headed by the war chief, Roman Nose. This able
leader was chief of a northern band of Arapahoes,
numbering more than a hundred lodges. In the
fall of 1864 they were under the care of the agent
at Fort Laramie, and for a while they were hunt-
ing on the Cache a la Poudre. They remained
friendly some time after the Sand Creek affair, then
they cast in their lot with the belligerents,

Roman Nose was a splendid -looking Indian.
Over six feet tall and straight as an arrowr, he had
a perfect figure. The bronze muscles of his arms
stood out like a blacksmith's, and were as strong.
He had watched the military maneuvers of our
cavalry and was an adept in handling large bodies
of mounted braves. As a war chief he easily di-
vided the honors with the noted Red Cloud.

Retiring to a gully out of rifle range, Roman
Nose formed the three hundred braves in battle
line. They had stripped nearly naked and were
hideously painted. At the word of command they
started their horses into a swift trot, while the
skirmishers near the island pressed closer and de-
livered a fire so searching and continuous that the
beleagured men dared not expose a hand or head.

On the phalanx came, six ranks deep, with a
front of about sixty warriors. They were superbly
mounted and moved forward with precision, ex-

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 213

peeling to ride down and annihilate the handful of
men, now hardly more than thirty effective fighters.
It was a splendid sight when they swrept into view
at the peal of an artillery bugle.

Roman Nose rode a large chestnut horse that
went careering five paces ahead of the line. A
crimson sash was knotted around his waist, and
his feet were encased in buckskin moccasins. His
head was crowned with a great war-bonnet of
eagles' feathers, and herons' plumes trailed behind
him in the wind. He shook his clinched fist in
defiance at the small company of scouts and uttered
a few impassioned words in hearing of the warriors.

The hills and bluffs a little back from the river's
bank were covered with women and children con-
fident of victory. He glanced at them an instant
as a chorus of wild cries went up. Then the as-
saulting column of horsemen, brandishing their
guns, broke into a gallop.

Roman Nose led the charge proudly and grandly,
holding his rifle with his left hand. Suddenly he
threw his head back and, with the open palm of his
right hand, he struck his mouth, emitting a loud
war-whoop that was caught up by hundreds of
braves. Instantly it was answered by yells of
exultation from the hills, and the air palpitated
with the awful din of shouts.

Though disabled by his wounds, the gallant

214 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Forsyth made ready for the impetuous attack. All
the weapons were loaded. The guns and re-
volvers of the dead and wounded men were placed
near the best shots in the besieged party, who lay
behind the rampart and coolly awaited the approach
of the yelling warriors. The fire of the dismounted
Indians was slackened for fear of hitting their own
braves as they drew near to the island.

"Now!" called out Forsyth. "Now!" repeated
G rover and Lieutenant Beecher. Undaunted, the
savages hurled themselves forward, while the scouts,
springing to their knees, cast their eyes along the
barrels of their rifles and each singled out an
Indian for a target. The sharp reports of more
than thirty guns rang out simultaneously.

Down tumble the dusky riders, horses stumble,
the line falters. The deadly fire of the scouts
throws the savage horde into confusion. Roman
Nose rallies them, and they make another charge.
The steeds plunge into the river bed and almost
halt as their hoofs sink into the moist sand. This
is the scouts' opportunity, and another hail of
leaden missiles strikes the chests and heads of the
foremost Indians. The red men reel and fall;
the advance is checked; the wounded lurch side-
ways from their ponies, and their comrades bear
their bodies to the rear. Riding here and there
among the demoralized riflemen, the chief forms

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 215

the fighters into line, and they dash forward again
and again. The parapet blazes forth destruction.

In the fifth charge Roman Nose goes down, and
his blood reddens the sand of the river bed. The
chief medicine man bravely leads the left wing of
Indian riflemen forward to the island, and they
ride up to the very foot of the entrenchments. He
is shot down within ten feet of the scouts. A
ringing cheer goes up from the whites as he falls.
The final volley is too much for the warriors, who
lie in heaps, men and horses meeting the last
summons together; the survivors break and scatter
beyond rifle range; they go wrhirling back, dazed
and beaten, while the air is filled with the wrails
of squaws and old men mourning for the great war
chief and the brave medicine man laid low in death.

The fall of Roman Nose was wThat saved the
little band of whites from the doom of utter ex-
tinction. Without a leader, the warriors' courage
failed at the last moment ; they shrank from a hand-
to-hand encounter with the desperate men in the
rifle-pits.

The day was won, but at what a cost ! Twenty-
three of the heroes were dead or wounded. Among
the slain was the trusty Lieutenant Beecher, after
whom the island has since been named.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the mounted
warriors made a furious rush, and another at sun-

210 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

set; neither was so daring and impetuous as the
charges led by Roman Nose. Each time the attack-
ing party was repulsed just before reaching the foot
of the island. This was the last attempt to carry
the island by storm; the Indians dared not ap-
proach the parapet belching flame and smoke.
Their plan now was to starve out the determined
defenders. This expectation was not realized.

That night two good scouts, familiar with the
plains, volunteered to try to make their way through
the cordon of Indians and proceed on foot to Fort
Wallace for relief. With a compass and map, they
started on the long tramp of ninety miles through
a desert country thickly infested by their watchful
enemies. Traveling by night and hiding by day,
they covered the ground in safety, reaching the
post four days later.

In the night following the fight a wrelcome rain
fell, and the wounded on the island were rendered
less feverish. Saddles were piled up to strengthen
the earthworks. The besieged men got a scant
supply of water by digging a few feet below the
surface. They had nothing to eat except horse
and mule meat, and they cut off large steaks to be
buried in the loose soil. The one surgeon of the
party lay unconscious on the ground, with a bullet
in the brain, and there was no one to dress the
wounds of Forsyth and his suffering comrades.

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 217

The following day dismounted warriors at a
safe distance kept up a desultory fire, while the
women chanted death songs for the unreturning
braves. At dark the skirmishers drew off, having
done little damage to the besieged frontiersmen,
wrho were now well protected. On the night of
September 18 two more scouts were sent out; in
a short time they were driven back.

Forsyth and his party remained on the defensive
another day. The Indians annoyed them on all
sides and tried to draw their fire, with the hope
that the whites would exhaust their supply of
ammunition. The scouts were too knowing to
fall into this trap; they made every cartridge
count. As a last resort the Indians used a white
flag and endeavored to hold a parley with the
commander, but in vain. The main body of red-
skins now withdrew, and under cover of darkness
two men set forth with a despatch to the comman-
dant at Fort Wallace. As they did not return, the
little band wrere hopeful of succor.

Day after day passed, and the discomforts of the
situation told on the wounded and famished men.
The stench of the decaying animals in a short time
became intolerable. Rather than eat the putrid
flesh, some of the soldiers endured the cravings
of hunger. Though suffering intensely, Forsyth
never despaired ; he believed it was only a matter

218 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

of a few days when relief would come. With one
voice the survivors who had escaped hurt declared
that they would stay and die together, if need be,
rather than desert their helpless companions. By
this time eight were dead, and twenty disabled by
wounds. The others, though faint and weak,
were undaunted to the last.

On the morning of September 25 the sun rose
bright. The warriors had disappeared. Some
dark moving figures faintly showed in the horizon
of the solitary plain. To the joy of the weary
watchers, these proved to be United States troops.
There were tears in the glaring eyes of the suffer-
ing men when the detachment of cavalry under
Colonel Carpenter rode up. The courage and
spirit of the heroic scouts had pulled them
through.

Near by were discovered the bodies of seventeen
Indians; the others had been removed in the battle.
The numerous pools of dark and clotted blood
soaking the sand showed where the warriors had

o

gone down, stubbornly and valorously fighting.
At least seventy-five had been sent to the Happy
Hunting Grounds. The number of their wounded
has never been learned.

On August 7, 1868, Black Kettle with the rem-
nant of his braves — about forty half-chid, sullen

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND 219

savages — rode up to Fort Hays, claiming to be
good Indians. A powwow was held, the pipe of
peace was smoked, and Black Kettle made a
speech. With dramatic gestures he poured forth
professions of friendship and described the mis-
erable plight of the blanket Indians of his band.
He was a grand specimen of physical manhood,
and despite his rags made an impressive up-
pearance.

"Black Kettle loves his white soldier brothers,"
he said. "Six moons have come and gone, and
there has been no rain; the wind blows hot from
the south all day and all night; the ground is hot
and cracked open; the grass is burned up; the
buffalo wallows are all dry; the streams are dry,
and game is scarce. Black Kettle is poor, and his
band is hungry. He asks the white soldiers for
his braves and their squaws and pappooses. The
Sioux have gone on the warpath, but Black Kettle
will not follow their trail. All other Indians may
take the war trail, but Black Kettle will forever
keep friendship with his white brothers."

The braves sitting in a circle showed their ap-
proval of his words with affirmative nods and
grunts. Then the officers present shook hands with
the chief and congratulated him on his speech.
When the performance was over, the commissary
department dealt out bacon, flour, beans, and

220

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

coffee to the delighted warriors. That evening
they had a royal feast. In the morning they had
disappeared.

A week or so later a treaty was ratified between
the government and prominent chiefs of the Arapa-

hoesand Cheyennes.
When they received
their annuity goods
Major Wyncoop,
the Indian agent,
yielded to Little
Raven's demand for
arms and ammuni-
tion. Already Black
Kettle was off on
his last raid, and
ere long the other
braves wrent on the
warpath.

General Custer
was sent after them.
He was placed in
command of a regi-
ment of raw recruits, pitted against "the best light
cavalry in the world." He spent three weeks at
Fort Dodge, on the Arkansas River, training his
men in riding, and shooting with the rifle; then
he started southward for a winter campaign

CURLEY, GENERAL OUSTER'S
SCOUT

THE BATTLE OF BEECHER ISLAND

221

against the hostiles. The war parties had settled
down in their villages in the valley of the Wash-
ita River. With the help of some Osage scouts
Custer located them. The cavalry, eight hun-
dred strong, set out in a blinding snowstorm, and
after a toilsome night march they surprised Black
Kettle's camp o n
the morning of
November 27, at
daybreak.

Thefourcolumns
surrounded and at-
tacked the village
on all sides. The
tall white lodges
stood in a heavy
timber. The In-
dians were caught

CHIEF RED CLOUD

napping, but fought
with desperation,
seeking cover behind trees and under the banks of
the river. Black Kettle and more than a hundred
warriors were cut down in the first onset. The
squadrons were then attacked by bands of Kiowas
and other tribes encamped near by, and the battle
raged nearly all day. Besides Black Kettle, fifteen
chiefs were found among the slain. Fifty-three
squaws and children were captured.

222 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

By a bold stroke of diplomacy Custer seized
Lone Wolf and Satanta, the celebrated Kiowa
chief whose fiery eloquence had won for him the
sobriquet "Orator of the Plains." Through the
influence of these two chiefs the Kiowas came in
and settled on their reservation around Fort Cobb
in the Indian Territory.

It took five years more of fighting to bring the
Cheyennes and Arapahoes to terms. Then, chas-
tised and humbled, the remnants of these Colorado
tribes were placed on a reservation in the Indian
Territory, now Oklahoma.

CHAPTER XII

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES

FROM time immemorial the Utes (or Utahs) had
lived in the mountains of Colorado and Utah.
The latter state was named after them.

The Utes desired the mountains for themselves.
They resented intrusion, either by white men or
by plains Indians. Here and there a trapper of
the early days mixed with the tribesmen of the
Rockies and formed friendships with them. Even
then he was not secure. Familiar as he was with
their customs and habits, he incurred the risk of
being murdered. A considerable number of the
traders who ventured into the Rocky Mountains
sooner or later lost their lives, either by treachery
or by violence, at the hands of the red men.

No amount of intercourse with savages gives a
white man perfect knowledge of them. Their ways
of thinking are different from ours, and even the
most experienced "squaw man" could not always
foretell what his red friends might do next.

In the early fifties the seven principal bands of
Utes in the central and western portions of Colo-
rado numbered some ten thousand. A half cen-

224

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

tiny later they had
been reduced to
about twenty -six
hundred, including
those on the TJinta
and Green River
reservations in
northeastern Utah.
The Colorado
Utes waged a re-
lentless warfare
against the Nava-
joes of New Mex-
ico. The Arapa-
hoes and Chey-
ennes of the plains
were their inveterate enemies, and made frequent
incursions into the mountain parks and fastnesses
for ponies and scalps. The Utes retaliated by
making raids upon their hostile neighbors, some-
times going as far eastward as the Kansas line.

While many Ute Indians were peaceably inclined
toward the whites, some of them were so ruffianly
that they got the name of "Thugs of the Rocky
Mountains." Not all of them deserved to be so
called. They certainly were not guilty of some of
the outrages laid at their doors. There were rene-
gade white men who committed depredations and

OURAY. CHIEF OF THE UTES

TROUBLES WITH THE

225

murders. The Ar-
apahoes frequently
penetrated the
mountains, and
doubtless they per-
petrated a number
of the crimes with
which the Utes were
charged.

For one thing, it
is not true that the
Indians set fire to
the mountain for-
ests and destroyed
millions of dollars'
worth of timber. Nearly all of the forest fires of
1879 were caused by the carelessness of white men.
Reports of other malicious acts were either exag-
gerated or untrue. At the same time it is a fact
that some of the redskins when drunk were a source
of terror to the settlers in the mountain valleys
and on the plains. The traders who sold them
the "fire-water" should be held partly account-
able for the evil deeds done by the intoxicated In-
dians. Whites also were unscrupulous enough to
sell Indians firearms and ammunition, thus putting
it in the power of the red man to harm settlers and
immigrants.

JIM BAKER

226

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Ouray (The Arrow) was the ablest Ute chief
known to history. His record is an exceedingly
creditable one. He ruled his people, the Tabe-
quaches, with a rod of iron, but he had their inter-
ests at heart, and they deferred to his superior
judgment. This chief realized the superlative
folly of measuring arms with the United States

troops. Time
and again in
the Ute coun-
cils his voice
was raised
against w a r
upon the
whites. His
influence ex-
tended far be-
yond his own
band, and he
was sometimes called "Head Chief of the Ute Na-
tion." However, his authority was not recognized
by some of the southern Utes. "Colorado owes so
much to this Indian statesman that the debt bids
fair to remain uncanceled."

Of a very different type was Chief Canache,
whose band had its reservation in the Cochetopa
Hills. His braves had the reputation of being
bad men.

JIM BAKER'S FORTLIKE HOME

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 227

Some, not all, of the White River Utes were about
as rough and quarrelsome as any of the red men
with whom our nation has had trouble. Jim
Baker, wrho erected a log house in northwestern
Colorado in the early forties, found them very
bothersome neighbors. He built a lookout station
above his cabin, where he could observe the coming
of hostiles and prepare for them. He had many a
brush with redskins, and more than one narrow es-
cape from destruction. The White Rivers were
certainly as wild and fierce in the seventies as in the
forties. They had the roaming habits of their
ancestors, and were not disposed to stay on their
reservation.

It should be said that there were Utes who be-
haved fairly well. Occasionally a chief could be
found who had visited Washington and received a
medal from the President, or a three-dollar watch.
They knew the power of the United States govern-
ment, and they hesitated to defy the authority of
Uncle Sam. Piah, chief of the Middle Park band,
was a clever man in his way, and, among other
commendable qualities was his good-will toward
the whites. Chief Washington was a cunning,
ugly scamp. Colorow was a big, blustering bully.
Jack (sometimes called "Captain" Jack) was
probably not so bad as he has been painted. Chief
Medicine Man Johnson was a despicable, treacher-

228 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

ous specimen of a redskin. Douglass was, perhaps,
the cleverest and meanest of them all. His elo-
quence gave him great influence in councils. He
voiced the general sentiment of the Utes when he
said: "White man work; Indian no work, but
hunt."

Treaties and agreements with the Utes had been
broken right and left by the United States, and the
Indians had been badly treated by individuals who
had trespassed on their lands. Soon after the
discovery of gold, the valleys and gulches of the
Rocky Mountains swarmed with prospectors and
miners. Although the Indian title to the land had
not been extinguished, the gold-hunters settled
down upon the Ute heritage. The whites were
warned off and, in some instances, fired upon by .the
Utes. The miners paid the Indians back in their
own coin. "When they came prowling around our
camp," said one, "we shot them down like wolves."

The government tried to smooth matters and
prevent an open rupture by distributing presents
among the wards of the nation. In 1863 the
Tabequaches ceded a part of their lands in central
Colorado, where the mining-camps were located.
There was no serious difficulty with this tribe.

In 1868 Governor Hunt, Kit Carson, and N. G.
Taylor arranged a treaty with the southern Utes,
who were induced to relinquish a part of their

TROUBLES WITH THE IJTES 229

ancient domain. A broad strip in the southwest
part of the territory was to be theirs forever; it
extended as far east and north as Pagosa Springs.
At that time the various Ute reservations on the
western slope included, roughly speaking, about
two elevenths of Colorado.

Again and again did miners and herders intrude
upon the reservations in the San Juan country, and
the patience of the Utes was sorely tried. Ouray
was a firm friend of the whites, and he counseled
the dissatisfied bucks to be peaceable, notwith-
standing the injustice done them. The govern-
ment used his influence in the control of unruly
warriors, and paid him one thousand dollars a year
for it.

Ours is a big government, and many things are
neglected by it. The claims of white men, as well
as those of red men, have to wait. Commissioners
and Indian agents made promises, but Congress
was slow in providing appropriations. The Ute,
not knowing how affairs are managed at Washing-
ton, could not understand the delays occasioned by
red tape. When years passed before he received
the money due him, he thought deception was be-
ing practiced upon him. Under the circumstances
the patience and forbearance of the untutored
savage was remarkable.

By the terms of the Brunot Treaty of 1873 the

230 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Utes were to receive annually the sum of twenty-
five thousand dollars. Years passed, and not one
dollar was appropriated by Congress. Naturally
the tribesmen felt that they had been imposed
upon. Valuable mining-land had been secured
from them at a nominal price, and it looked like
broken faith for Uncle Sam to run behind in his
payments.

Meanwhile the Indians suffered for lack of the
necessaries of life. By the chase the warriors
supported their families, and the order requiring
them to remain on the reservation cut them off
from the best hunting-grounds. Though they
continued peaceable, their patience was sorely tried.
They were sensitive about the agreement, and
resented the intrusion of squatters. There were
disputes, too, over the boundaries of the reser-
vations.

In the winter of 1875-6 affairs assumed a dan-
gerous aspect, and the Legislative Assembly of
Colorado Territory presented a memorial to Con-
gress, calling the attention of that body to the
grievances of the Utes, and asking that the pay-
ment be made, "in justice to the Utes, who have
faithfully kept their portion of the contract, and
have ever endeavored to live on friendly terms with
the whites; in justice to the citizens of the United
States residing in that section of Colorado, whose

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 231

lives and property are imperiled; and, finally, in
justice to our common country, whose honor should
be maintained inviolate, even in so small a matter
as a treaty with a tribe of savages."

The matter was referred to the Committee on
Indian Affairs, and there it rested. Payment was
delayed for years. In the meantime placer gold
was found in the TJte Reservation, and citizens
staked out claims in defiance of Ouray's protest.
Near by the mining-camp was a choice piece of
agricultural land, on which ranchers settled without
so much as asking leave of the Indians who owned it.
Already there were mutterings of an impending
storm, and soon afterward the cry resounded through
Colorado, "The Utes must go !" White men were
pushing westward, and they wished that the
Indians might be ousted so they could develop the
country. It was by an unexpected train of events
that they obtained their wish.

In the spring of 1878 Nathan C. Meeker, famil-
iarly known as "Father Meeker," was appointed
agent for the White River Utes. He had taken
an active part in the founding of Union Colony at
Greeley, and was a highly respected man. Un-
fortunately, he had never had any experience in
dealing with Indians, and the White River Utes
were hard to manage.

Meeker was a benevolent old gentleman who

232 THE MAKTXG OF COLORADO

wished well to everybody. It was his aim to make
the Indians self-supporting. He tried to teach
them how to garden and farm. He wanted to
educate and Christianize them. The Indian na-
ture changes slowly, and he was in a hurry to
civilize them.

It is a pity that Father Meeker made his experi-
ment on the wrong class of Indians. He certainly
meant well, and entered upon his self-imposed
labors with enthusiasm. He made the blunder of
supposing that he could improve them against their
will. The Utes had not emerged from the hunter
state, and were unwilling to learn to work. They
were not disposed to travel the white man's road.
They did not appreciate the agent's labors in their
behalf. Like Marcus Whitman of Oregon, Meeker
was a victim of misplaced confidence. It was a
mistake to send him to that agency.

The bucks strongly objected to Meeker's pro-
gram of field work; they preferred loafing, hunting,
and horse-racing. There were some eight or ten
men and youths from Greeley whom the agent had
engaged to do blacksmithing, ditching, plowing,
and other outdoor labors that he could not induce
the warriors to do. The latter were fond of horse-
racing, and were wrought up to a high pitch of ex-
citement when Meeker set men to plowing a part
of the land used for a race-track. They grumbled,

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 233

but the work went on until a bullet whizzed near
the driver's ears. Then the agent in alarm com-
plained to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

There were two factions among the White River
Utes, and Meeker sided with first one and then the
other. So the friction increased.

Before a year had passed Chief Jack demanded
Meeker's removal. Other Utes had disagree-
ments with the agent. One day Medicine Man
Johnson in a fit of anger assaulted Meeker in the
latter's house. The old man probably would have
been killed but for the timely arrival of the white
employees of the agency.

This was early in September, 1879. The agent
telegraphed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
that his life was in danger, and asked for soldiers
to protect him from the rebellious savages. Gov-
ernor Pitkin also was called upon for aid.

On September 24 Major T. T. Thornburgh,
commandant at Fort Steele in southern Wyoming,
started for the Ute agency. He had with him one
hundred sixty men, mostly cavalry. On the way they
were met by Jack and Colorow writh ten braves.
The chiefs denied the charge that the Indians had
been acting badly; they proposed that Thorn-
burgh writh an escort of five men accompany them
to the agency and investigate before the command
was permitted to enter the reservation. Remem-

234 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Bering the fate of Canby, he was afraid to trust
himself with them, and halted two days near the
northern edo;e of the reservation.

o

On the morning of the 29th the three companies
continued their march to Red Canon, a narrow
ravine in the northern part of Rio Blanco County,
about twenty-five miles northeast of the agency.
Where the winding trail crosses Milk Creek they
fell into an ambush. The road here is hemmed
in on either side by two ranges of bluffs, and on
these the warriors, numbering more than two hun-
dred fifty, had intrenched themselves. They had
dug out loopholes, and were not only concealed but
shielded from the fire of the cavalrymen. It was
a complete trap.

The troops had just forded the stream, and the
thirty-three wagons of the supply train were a
quarter of a mile in the rear. Lieutenant Cherry
discovered the presence of Indians on a ridge, and
with fifteen men he approached within two hundred
yards, intending to ask for a parley. He waved
his hat, and was answered with a murderous volley.

The fight had now begun in real earnest, and the
supply train was stampeded. No redskins were in
sight, but the reports of Winchesters and Sharp's ri-
fles rang out in all directions. The hostiles were
posted in several advantageous positions on both
sides of the canon, and they poured a cross fire into

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 235

the advancing column. They were desperate, and
the skirmish was a sharp one.

A horde of savages rushed down from the heights
and cut off the wagon train. Seeing this move,
Major Thornburgh at the head of twenty mounted
men wheeled and attacked them; exposed to a
galling fire from the bluffs, he gallantly dashed for-
ward to his death. The surviving soldiers valiantly
fought their way back to the wragons and began
fortifying, using wragons and boxes as a breastwork.
Thornburgh was struck by five or six balls, and
died immediately. Eleven of his followers were
killed, and forty wounded. The fallen command-
er's scalp was the only one taken. During the fight
twenty-three Utes were killed and several wounded.
Some sixteen more were killed in the course of the
next few days.

Under cover of darkness, the scout, Joe Rankin,
set out on horseback for relief. He made a wonder-
ful ride, covering the one hundred sixty miles to
Rawlins in twenty-eight hours. On the second
night of the ??ege another courier was sent out with
despatches. For six days the beleagured troops
stubbornly held their ground, until Colonel Wesley
Merritt's force of six hundred men arrived and
raised the dreadful siege. On the day after the
ambuscade the hostiles had vainly tried to dislodge
the brave soldiers from their breastwork by set-

230 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

ting fire to the dry grass and sagebrush to the
windward of their position. No water could be
obtained, but the men fought the flames hero-
ically and smothered them with sacks and blan-
kets. Their plight was pitiable in the extreme
when succor came. The veteran Indian fighter,
Colonel Merritt, was so affected by the sight of
the dead and wounded that he wept like a child.
Others gave way to tears. The redskins suddenly
vanished.

On the day of the attack on the agency Meeker
telegraphed Washington: "Indians propose to
fight if troops advance." He had communicated
with Captain Dodge, who was at Steamboat Springs
with a company of colored cavalry, and he expected
Thornburgh to bring the command within striking
distance before any consultation with the red men
should be held. His idea seems to have been to
overawe them with a show of force.

This wTas the last straw. The Utes believed
Meeker was their enemy. He wrould not comply
when they asked him to keep the troops outside
the reservation until a conference could be held.
Possibly it would have been better if Thornburgh
and Meeker had yielded to this demand of the
chiefs. They mistrusted the agent and decided to
checkmate his moves.

Douglass and a score or so of warriors were

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 237

camped near the agency. An Indian mounted
upon a fleet pony brought them word of the ambus-
cade. They kept the news a secret and prepared
for action. A buck sneaked in and stole the agency
rifles. Whiskey had been procured somewhere, and
the drunken savages suddenly fell upon the whites
without warning. It was about half-past one in
the afternoon, and the employees of the agency were
busy as usual, suspecting nothing till the firing
began. Meeker and his assistants were slain in
cold blood before they could lay hands on any
weapons to defend themselves. Only one escaped,
the bearer of messages for Thornburgh; this man
had left a short time before the massacre. There
were, besides, three freighters and two traders in
the vicinity who met death. In all, the victims of
the red men's vengeance numbered at least fifteen
or sixteen.

The agency buildings were pillaged and burned.
Mrs. Meeker, her daughter Josephine, and Mrs.
Price hid in an adobe building used for a milk-
house. While the Indians were busy taking out
goods, the ladies tried to escape to the sagebrush.
They were seen; a wild yell arose as the bucks
rushed after them. A volley was fired to frighten
the fleeing women. A stray ball hit Mrs. Meeker,
inflicting a slight flesh wound, and she fell to the
ground.

238 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

"Come to me," called out a brave to Miss Meeker.
44 No shoot you."

"No kill white squaw," another assured Mrs.
Trice, who was afraid of being burned. Her two
young children and the women were taken pris-
oners and kept in captivity until October 21.
While unharmed, they underwent many hardships
and privations.

At the time Ouray with his band was on a hunt-
ing expedition. As soon as he heard of the up-
rising he sent a letter to the White River chiefs,
telling them to stop fighting. The vindictive Utes,
having got rid of their obnoxious agent, were ready
for peace. The captives were given up, but the
tribesmen would not surrender the men guilty of
the attack on Thornburgh and the massacre of the
agency people. They were never punished.

Now the cry went up with redoubled energy,
"The Utes must go !" The final outcome of the
trouble w^as the removal of the White River bands
to the Uinta Reservation, in 1881. Ouray had
repeatedly declared that he would never leave the
mountains, but the death of the old chief in 1880
made the way clear for the removal of the Tabe-
quaches and Uncompahgres to a newr reservation
on Green River in Utah.

History repeats itself. As the tide of emigra-
tion rolled westward a century ago, the tribes of

TROUBLES WITH THE UTES 230

Ohio and Indiana had to move on. Then the red
men of the Mississippi valley were ousted, to make
way for the palefaces who coveted their lands.
The day of doom at last came for the plains savages.
Within the memory of living men the Indians of
Colorado were forced to leave their hunting-
grounds.

There is a pathetic side to it, and yet this migra-
tion of a lower race had to be. The red men were
not a class fitted to survive. Human nature being
what it is, the Indian had to go under. The abo-
rigines have gone, but their names cling to streams
and mountains, to towns and counties of our
commonwealth. Yam'pa, Saguache, Manitou,
Arapahoe and other expressive names remind us
of a people who once lived here, but are gone
forever.

CHAPTER XIII
THE MINES OF COLORADO

FOR many years Colorado has led all the states in
the production of the precious metals. Since 1900
its output of gold and silver has been upward of
one third or one fourth of the total annual product
of the mines of the United States. The industry is
widespread ; in twenty-four out of Colorado's fifty-
nine counties the mining of precious metals is
carried on extensively. Hollister writes:

"It was the commercial collapse of 1857, that
set many adventurous spirits in the then West
peering into the obscurity beyond them for a new
field of enterprise. A party of Cherokee Indians,
traveling overland to California in 1852, via the
Arkansas River and along the eastern base of the
Sierra Madre to the North Platte at Fort Laramie,
by some means found gold in the banks of Ralston
Creek, a small affluent of the Vasquez Fork of the
South Platte, emptying into it near its mouth; and
each year thereafter parties of Cherokees had gone
out and prospected the streams in the vicinity of
what is now Denver City. At last they were suc-
cessful; they obtained a few dollars' worth of the

240

THE MINES OF COLORADO 241

glittering dust, which they carried home late in
1857, exhibiting it freely as they passed through
Nebraska and Kansas.

"The report of a new land of gold in the West
spread like an epidemic through the country
drained by the Missouri River, and soon traveled
far beyond. These Indians appear to have gone
home and told their story on the confines of the
Gulf of Mexico, for Georgians were among the
first to seek the new gold country.

"On the 9th of February, 1858, W. G. Russell,
with a party of nine men, left the State of Georgia
with a view of prospecting the eastern slope of the
Sierra Madre along the heads of the South Platte,
from Pike's Peak to the Black Hills. They ar-
rived on the head of Cherry Creek about the 1st of
June. They prospected Cherry Creek, the Platte,
and its affluents as far north as Cache a la Poudre,
without finding anything satisfactory. They re-
turned to the Platte, and about five miles up a
small creek which puts into the Platte seven miles
south of the mouth of Cherry Creek, a fine pros-
pect one evening rewarded their labors and en-
livened their hopes. They dug large holes in the
wet sand, put their 'rockers' down in them, and
dipping in water with cups washed out in a few
days several hundred dollars' worth of gold. As
soon as they got to work, some of the party re-

242 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

turned to Kansas with the news. Pike's Peak was
the nearest notable natural object, and so the new
gold field — the Dorado of many feverish dreams-
took its name from that."

The coming of Green Russell in 1858 gave a
marked impetus to the quest of treasure-trove in

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THE GREAT MINING-DISTRICTS OF CENTRAL AND
SOUTHERN COLORADO

Colorado, although no gold to amount to anything
was found in the Rocky Mountains before the
spring of the following year.

To George A. Jackson, a Missourian who had
been to California, belongs the distinction of mak-
ing the first important discovery of placer gold,

THE MINES OF COLORADO 243

near the present site of Idaho Springs, in Clear
Creek County. While prospecting at the mouth
of Chicago Creek in January, 1859, he made what
he considered a valuable find.

When winter was over Jackson returned at the
head of a party of twenty-two men, who washed
out nineteen hundred dollars' worth of gold dust
during the first wreek of May.

About the same time numerous other parties
set out and prospected the streams and gulches in
the mountainous country some thirty or thirty-
five miles west of Denver. Among them was John
H. Gregory of Georgia, who was "grubstaked" by
David K. Wall, then a recent arrival in Golden.
With two men Gregory journeyed to the gulch
that bears his name, where he had seen indica-
tions of gold in the winter. On May 6 they shov-
eled away the ice and snow, and Gregory dug up
a panful of dirt. It panned out four dollars'
worth of colors. That night he could not sleep—
he was so dazed and excited by his good luck.
He and his companions staked out claims, and in
three days they had gold amounting to nearly one
thousand dollars.

Gregory was now a rich man. He sold his
claims for twenty-one thousand dollars and forth-
with engaged at prospecting for others at two
hundred dollars a day. The gold-bearing lode

244 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

that he discovered afterward yielded millions of
dollars. Gilpin County, where Gregory Gulch is
located, has been from that time a great producer of
the precious metals; its mines have been credited
with nearly ninety millions' worth. Clear Creek
County, the scene of Jackson's operations, has
passed the ninety-million mark. These pioneer
miners builded better than they knew.

The reports of the discoveries traveled fast and
far, causing a rush to Jackson's Diggings arid
Gregory Gulch. An immense army of men in-
vaded the Rockies, searching for the golden fleece.

Mining-camps sprang up in the valleys and on
the mountainsides. A party exploring in the foot-
hills and outlying spurs of the Front Range founded
a colony that grew into the town of Boulder. An-
other croAvd of gold-seekers established Fairplay.
Black Hawk, Central City, and other towns had
their rise at that time; they were at first only collec-
tions of canvas tents and covered wagons. Some
of them Avere deserted as soon as the gullies and
arroyos in the vicinity were denuded of auriferous
soil.

Fate now smiled on Green Russell, who "struck
it rich" in the gulch named after him. Others
made their fortunes out of the gold-bearing gravel
of Gilpin County.

The free gold cleaned up from Colorado's placers

THE MINES OF COLORADO 245

in 1858 was only a trifle; in 1859 it amounted to
more than six hundred thousand dollars' worth.
During the next four years over nine millions'
worth wras obtained. Placer mining wras becoming
less lucrative, and the mining industry was on the
wane until the era of lode-shaft mining began in
1868. Up to that year the total yield of Colorado
gold did not amount to thirty million dollars, while
that of Nevada was estimated at one hundred
millions, and the product of California's mines
aggregated nine hundred millions. As gold was at
a high premium in 1864, these estimates probably
are over the mark.

It was a simple process, that of obtaining the gold
dust mixed with sand and gravel, in the days of
primitive mining. Where there was a running
stream, a sluice box was used, or the pan. The
heavy particles of gold remained at the bottom
when the dirt had been washed away. These
shining grains had been disintegrated and worn
away from veins in the mountainsides. While the
principal uplift of the Rockies took place later than
that of the Appalachian Mountains, it occurred long
ago, very long ago. The mineral zones of the hills
and mountains are bisected by gold-bearing lodes
and veins that are gradually worn away by the action
of floods and freshets in arroyos. For hundreds of
thousands of years erosion has gone on, and the

'246

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

DOWN IN A GOLD MINE

minute particles of gold have been liberated and
deposited in the crevices of rocks or along the beds
of streams. It was this gold, which had been ac-
cumulating during the ages, that the early miners
gathered in

In course of time, as the gulches became "slicked
out," prospectors wrere led to seek the veins higher
up whence the free gold had come. Quartz-
mining developed naturally from placer mining.
The quantity of the yellow metal found on the sur-
face of auriferous ground was but a drop in the

THE MINES OF COLORADO 247

bucket compared with the gold ore in the rock-
ribbed hills and mountains.

Gold nuggets or lumps of gold are now seldom
found; the metal as it occurs in lodes is usually
mixed with baser minerals, or it is imbedded in
solid rock and has to be extracted by smelting
or milling processes. The building of smelters in
1868 gave a wonderful impetus to "lead" or lode
mining in Colorado. The outcropping veins were
followed underground, tunnels were dug, shafts
sunk, the rock was drilled and blasted, and the
broken pieces of ore hauled to the surface, thence
to be transported by pack-mules or in wagons to
the smelter. So, when the gold in gulches had be-
come exhausted, the bowels of the mountains were
made to yield up their precious treasure hidden
from sight.

At first stamp mills or arrastras were used to
grind up masses of rock containing free gold. Later
various methods were employed in extracting the
yellow metal in refractory ores. Then smelting
establishments were erected. The opening of the
first smelter, at Black Hawk in 1868, wras an epoch-
making event in Colorado's history.

Already silver had been mined to some extent in
the country around Georgetown and Silver Plume.
Improved machinery was used in developing deep
mines. So the mining industry grew. As yet there

248 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

were no railways in the territory, and so great was
the cost of transportation that only the richest ores
could be handled to advantage.

Smiley says: 'The gold-district of Colorado,
that is, the region in which gold is found in its
original place in the rocks, is about three hundred
miles long by one hundred wide, all in the center
and western mountainous part of the state.
Twenty counties rank as regular gold -producers.
The silver distribution is all within the same area,
but is not so general over it as the gold, the white
metal seeming to have had a disposition to concen-
trate in extraordinary richness in certain localities.
Much of the gold and silver ore carries lead and
copper in varying quantities."

The advent of the Union Pacific to Denver in
1870 and the building of various other railroads
thereafter in the heart of the territory gave a
mighty uplift to the mining industry.

The reputed rich finds of gold and silver in the
"San Juan Country" caused a rush to this produc-
tive region in the early seventies. Camps were
established at Ouray and Silverton. Placer claims
were staked out by hundreds and lode claims by
thousands. The development of these properties,
though some of them were exceedingly valuable,
was slow before the completion of railways to the
southwestern part of Colorado. For a score of

THE MINES OF COLORADO 249

years San Juan and the adjoining counties have
yielded up an enormous production of silver, gold,
lead, and copper.

As long ago as 1859 the pioneer gold-seekers
found their way to Lake County. From California
Gulch and other fields in this section more than
ten million dollars' worth of gold was taken be-
fore 1865. Then there was a decline.

Many of the men who came to the Pike's Peak
country had had no experience at mining, and they
went at it in a haphazard, wasteful way. From
working placer beds they turned their attention to
lodes and veins. Here, as elsewhere, rich ore
pockets were found only to be abandoned before
the miner had gone deep enough to determine
whether there were any pay streaks or not. Some
miners had to give up for lack of capital or on
account of the scarcity of water. Others lost their
all through blunders.

As the years passed, the need was felt for scien-
tific training, and the School of Mines was founded
at Golden. Here students are thoroughly ground-
ed in geology, metallurgy, and allied subjects per-
taining to mining. This technical institution,
established in 1874 by legislative enactment, is the
pride of the state; it has played an important part
in promoting the mineral industry.

In the seventies the United States Geological

250 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Surveying parties, under the direction of Pro-
fessor F. V. Hayden, did a good work in making
known the topographical and geological features
of the Rocky Mountains. The published reports
contain a wealth of information. Afterward
Emmons, Lakes, and other geologists made more
careful researches, which have been of inestimable
service to prospectors. The mining engineer, the
chemist, and the electrician all have had a share
in making a success of present-day mining.

It was not till 1874 that the value of lead-silver
ores was discovered. That year marks the open-
ing of a new era in the mining industry of Colo-
rado. The abundance of lead carbonates carrying
silver caused a boom in the almost deserted Cali-
fornia Gulch. A populous city sprang up that
was named Leadville from the argentiferous lead
ores found here. In a short time it became known
as one of the greatest mining camps in the world.
After the falling-ofT in the production of the Corn-
stock in Nevada, it became the most important
silver-producer in the whole West. In 1890 it
had given the nation nearly one hundred fifty
million dollars' worth of gold and silver.

Leadville nestles at the western base of the
Mosquito Range, on the upper edge of a gently-
sloping mesa. Nearly two miles above sea level,
it commands a fine view of the Arkansas valley and

THE MIXES OF COLORADO 251

of the Sawatch Mountains. The Mount of the
Holy Cross overshadows it, and thirty miles to the
north is Gore's Range (named in honor of a
British nobleman who came to the Rockies on a
hunting expedition in 1856).

For many years the "Carbonate City" has been
an important smelting center. Here is located one
of the largest smelters in the world. The slump
in silver in 1893 was followed by a period of de-
pression, but the enterprising citizens turned their
attention to gold, lead, and zinc. The silver-lead
deposits are found at no great depth on the western
slope of the Mosquito Range; they were formed
in the geological age before the mountain upheaval
at the close of the Cretaceous period. In 1900 the
city had a population of over twelve thousand.

With the rise of Leadville the day of small things
in mining was past. Areas bearing free gold had
been gleaned almost to the last ounce ; the gold pan
and the crude appliances of the pioneer were cast
aside. Placer mining gave way to the search for
lead-silver ores. Lake County stands next to
Teller as an ore-producing county. The annual
product has varied from ten to fifteen million
dollars. The principal value of the ores is in
silver, lead, and zinc rather than in gold. The
bulk of Colorado's supply of zinc comes from this
county.

THE MIXES OF COLORADO 253

The neighboring mining region of Aspen, in
Pitkin County, is related to that of Leadville.
Silver mining has been the great industry of this
camp. Ouray, San Juan, and Mineral counties
have also been large producers of the white metal.
During a period of eighteen years (1877-94) Colo-
rado's output of silver exceeded that of its gold.
It fairly earned the name, sometimes applied to
Nevada, of the " Silver State."

Mineral County has a unique history. Prior to
1890 it was an unknown section; the railroad came
in 1891; in the winter of 1891-2 it was the scene
of the wildest excitement, caused by the big ship-
ment of high-grade ores from Creede; early in
1893 it was created a county. The ore of this
region is a fine-grained amethystine quartz, carry-
ing gold, silver, lead, and zinc. The main deposits
occur in strong fissure veins.

Ouray is the banner mining county in the south-
western part of the state. It was originally a part
of the Ute Reservation, and the mining camp that
grew up in 1876 was named in honor of the noble
Indian chief. In 1877 the county was created.
The completion of the Denver and Rio Grande
Railway from Montrose to Ouray in 1887 was
followed by a period of activity in mining, chiefly
in gold.

For a number of years in the past decade San

251 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Miguel County has almost equaled Ouray in the
production of gold and silver. Its output of the
white metal in 1905-7 exceeded that of Ouray
County. Telluride is the supplying and distribu-
ting point for the gold and silver area of the San
Miguel Mountains. This district now ranks third
as a producer of gold, yielding over three million
dollars' worth in 1907.

The Cripple Creek mining district lies to the
southwest of Pike's Peak, in Teller County. While
it includes about one hundred thirty square miles,
the noted mines are congregated in the hills and
valleys within an area six miles square. In 1890
it was a cow pasture; now it is the most important
gold camp in the United States. The story of its
rise reads more like a romance than history.
During the past ten years its output has varied
from twelve to eighteen millions a year, or nearly
two thirds of the aggregate of Colorado's gold. It
is a veritable Golconda. There are a hundred
different mines here, some of them having shafts
more than fifteen hundred feet deep. The fame
of Cripple Creek has been made by such mines as
the Portland, El Paso, Stratton's Independence,
Findlay, Elkton, Vindicator, Strong, Gold Coin,
Mary McKinney, and Isabella.

The district is divided into a dozen settlements ;
of these, Cripple Creek and Victor arc leading

THE MINES OF COLORADO

255

centers, and they are in almost every sense metro-
politan. The altitude of Cripple Creek is over
nine thousand feet; the temperature falls to the
freezing-point almost every night in July. In 1900
the town had a population of ten thousand.

UNITED STATES MINT AT DENVER

For half a century Colorado has been a contrib-
utor to the world's store of the precious metals.
During the fifty years from 1858 to 1907, the out-
put of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc aggre-
gated more than a billion dollars' worth. This
estimate is not based upon inflated reports, but
upon the carefully compiled figures of the State

256 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Bureau of Mines. The production of gold in this
period is in round numbers four hundred twenty-
five million dollars' worth, and that of silver is
slightly less. Two thirds of the eight hundred
odd millions has come from the bonanza camps
of Leadville and Cripple Creek.

In 1900 there were 40,000 men engaged in the
mining industry of Colorado; of these over one
third were working in the Leadville and Cripple
Creek districts. There are more than a hundred
mining camps in the state. With all the inventions
and mechanical appliances that have come into
vogue of late years, and with the increased knowl-
edge of experts who have made a life study of
mining, there is still a large element of uncertainty
in underground enterprises; nevertheless, mining
comes much nearer being a science to-day than it
was a decade ago.

The gold production of the world in 1906 was
four hundred million dollars' worth. Of this
total the Transvaal produced nearly one hundred
twenty millions. The United States ranked second
among the gold - producing countries, yielding
ninety-six millions. Of this grand total Colora-
do's share was nearly one fourth.

Denver is the leading mining center of the West.
It is the greatest ore market of the Rocky Moun-
tain States. Here are the large smelters. The

THE MINES OF COLORADO

257

PANNING GOLD

Queen City has more mining offices than Salt
Lake or San Francisco. Besides the laborers in
the mills and the employees of the United States
Mint, there is an army of men who get their living
directly or indirectly from the mines — capitalists,
promoters, assay ers, engineers, and others.

Colorado has other mineral resources of untold
value — lead, copper, zinc, iron, coal, marble, and
building stone.

One fourth of the total output of lead in the
United States is produced by Colorado. It is
obtained by the smelting of ores carrying gold and
silver. The yield of the past thirty-five years
amounts to one hundred forty million dollars' worth.

258 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

Copper has been obtained to the value of twenty-
two millions, and the output of zinc has brought
the mine-owners nearly as much during the past
five years. In Pitkin, Saguache, and other coun-
ties are large deposits of iron of superior quality.
The Leadville manganiferous ores are shipped to
the mills of South Chicago and to the steel works
of Pueblo. The output of manganiferous iron in
1 906 was worth half a million dollars.

Colorado stands fifth in rank of the coal-pro-
ducing states. Her coal fields embrace territory
to the extent of eighteen thousand square miles.
Every variety of coal is found, but the area of an-
thracite is small. Only a beginning has been made
in developing the quarries of the Centennial State,
which are rich in lava stones, sandstones, granite,
and marble. The search for the golden fleece still
goes on. The ore bodies of the Rockies are far
from being exhausted. For a long time to come
the ledges and quarries will yield up riches beyond
the wildest dreams of the Fifty-niners.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO

THE building of the first transcontinental railroad
was followed by the construction of a branch line
from Cheyenne to Denver. It was opened June
15, 1870, and in August the Kansas Pacific w^as
finished to the Queen City. September saw the
Colorado Central built to Golden. These were
the beginnings of railroad building in Colorado
Territory. In 1871 the Denver and Rio Grande
Company was at work laying tracks to connect
Denver with the towns of the plains and mountains.
The task of conquering the Rockies had begun.

In 1872 the Colorado Central wras extended to
Black Hawk; then to Central City. In 1877 a
road wras constructed to Georgetown. Afterward
these lines and others were merged into the Colo-
rado and Southern System.

Meanwhile the surveyors of the Atchison, To-
peka, and Santa Fe, following in the footsteps of
Captain John W. Gunnison, marked out a route
along the historic Sante Fe trail; and in 1876 the
road was finished to Pueblo. In 1882 the Burling-
ton Missouri entered Denver.

259

260 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

On the plains grading was comparatively easy.
The building of mountain roads was a different
matter; the construction engineers of the Denver
and Rio Grande encountered tremendous ob-
stacles, and it taxed their ingenuity to the utmost
to overcome them. Beginning with the line from
Denver to Colorado Springs, in 1871, the Rio
Grande has grown into a great system including
branch lines in Colorado and Utah, a great deal
of it being in mountainous country. The "Scenic
lane" passes over ranges two miles high, and
threads its way through canons a half mile deep.
In many places distances have been lessened by
driving tunnels through the mountains; the one
under Tennessee Pass, twenty-five hundred feet
long, saves a climb of four hundred feet.

It is a fact worthy of note that the surveyors and
the advance guard of workmen were not harassed
by Indians, as were the laborers on the Union
Pacific in the sixties. There was no interference
to speak of by the Utes. However much the red
man was opposed to it, he seemed to realize that
his feeble resistance wrould not avail to arrest the
onward progress of the iron horse.

Rome was not built in a day. More than thirty
years were consumed in constructing the main
lines and branches of the Rio Grande System.
For hundreds of miles where the grades were steep

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 261

the tracks were narrow gage. The undertaking
was a tremendous one. In marking out the routes
the construction engineers turned to account the
explorations of Fremont and Gunnison.

In the meantime the Colorado and Southern and
the Midland were engaged in extending their roads
through the picturesque backbone of the continent.
In some cases they followed the Indian trails
through the defiles of the mountains. Lastly, the
Denver, Northwestern, and Pacific, commonly
called "The Moffat Road," was started. These
railways are in the heart of the Rockies, and climb
stupendous heights. It required "a power of
work" to span chasms with bridges and blast
roadbeds out of the sides of the cliffs.

The Cordilleran Range in Colorado is literally
humped like a camel. The states to the north
have no such mountains. Nowhere else on this
continent, except in Alaska and Mexico, are there
peaks so high as Massive and Elbert. The trans-
continental lines to the north and south found
passes in Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico
ranging from seven thousand to nine thousand feet
in height, and the stations in the Sierras are no
higher. In Colorado the railways ascend to many
points above the clouds.

It is no easy matter to build mountain railroads.
The expenditures for bridges, trestles, tunnels,

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 203

loops, etc., are simply enormous. A well-known
case in point is the far-famed Georgetown Loop,
on the Colorado and Southern. As a railway of
standard gage can rise only a certain number of
feet in a mile, the line of track circles about in a
serpentine trail, gradually rising higher and higher
between Georgetown and Silver Plume. To make
the ascent of seven hundred feet and a distance of
only one mile by wagon road, the train climbs
around and around four and one tenth miles of rail,
crossing Clear Creek eighteen times. The track on
the high bridge is seventy-five feet above the track
under the bridge. The steepest grade is one hun-
dred ninety-five feet to the mile. The Loop cost
from $40,000 to $50,000 a mile. At Alpine Pass,
where the Southern surmounts the dome of the
Continent, the cost of the track was about $50,000
a mile. The average expenditure of some thirty
miles or more of the Moffat Road has been esti-
mated at $125,000 a mile. Owing to the con-
struction difficulties met in the Animas Canon,
the outlay for a mile of track north of Rockwood
aggregated about $140,000.

The Rio Grande crosses and recrosses the Con-
tinental Divide, making grades of two hundred
eleven feet to the mile, which is the limit for a
standard gage road. From Antonito to Chama
the track winds around the mountains, doubling

204 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

upon itself, until it makes a distance of sixty-four
miles. The air line between these two points is
about thirty-five miles. Instead of curving around
a mountain summit, it is sometimes better to
tunnel through it and make a short cut to the other
side. Thus Toltec Tunnel wras driven through
the granite for a distance of nearly a quarter of a
mile. So solid is the rock that no props are needed
to uphold the mass above. As the train rolls out
of the tunnel, it passes directly upon a bridge set
in the wall of stone, and this firm balcony of
masonry is all that keeps the passenger coaches
from falling fifteen hundred feet.

Another instance of marvelous engineering skill
is the hanging bridge in Royal Gorge, where the
canon is too narrow for both road and river. By
means of huge iron braces fastened to the w^alls of

o

the chasm (fifty feet wide at this point) an iron
bridge is held in suspension, and strong iron bars
depending therefrom hold the track in place at the
base of a cliff two thousand six hundred feet high.
Through the Black Canon of the Gunnison River
the road is built for miles on a shelf blasted out of
the rocky wall.

A daring piece of work was the building of the
first mile north of Rockwood in the Animas Canon.
The wrall in this defile of natural masonry was
smooth and vertical for almost a thousand feet

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 265

from its base. "From that height were seen hang-
ing spider-web-like ropes, down which men, seem-
ing not much larger than ants, were slowly de-
scending, while others, perched upon narrow
shelves in the face of the cliff, or in trifling niches
from which their only egress was by dangling ropes,
sighted through their theodolites from one ledge
to the other, and directed where to place the dabs
of paint indicating the intended roadbed. Simi-
larly suspended, the workmen followed the en-
gineers, drilling holes for blasting, and tumbling
down loose fragments, until they had won a foot-
hold for working in a less extraordinary manner.
Ten months of steady labor were spent on this
canon-cutting — months of work on the brink of
yawning abysses and in the midst of falling rocks-
yet not one serious accident occurred.

"Often it seemed as though another hair's
breadth or a straw's weight would have sent me
headlong over the edge," said the chief engineer.
The shelf of the roadbed was thus made, midway
between the top and bottom of the red granite
precipice, about five hundred feet above the
river.

The Ophir Loop in the San Miguel Mountains is
an intricate maze of meandering lines and abrupt
curves. Up the ascent of Marshall Pass, on the
serrated crest of North America, the train, with

200

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

UTE PASS PALISADES, NEAR MANITOU

two powerful engines attached, climbs grades of
two hundred eleven feet to the mile until the ridge
of the Saguache Range is attained, at a height of
more than two miles. Here the traveler gets a

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 267

remarkable view of majestic mountains in all
directions. To the west is the Pacific slope, and to
the east is the Atlantic slope in the valley of the
Arkansas.

Hagerman Pass, on the Midland, reaches a still
higher point. To the east, between Hagerman and
Leadville, is Busk Tunnel, two miles long, cut two
thousand feet below the mountain-top. A little
to the north is Hell Gate, which presented almost
insuperable obstacles to the construction engineer.
With the utmost difficulty the material was trans-
ported, on the backs of burros, up the steep moun-
tain trails. Men were lowered by ropes over the
brows of cliffs two thousand feet high, and there,
dangling like painters near the roof of a skyscrap-
er, they blasted a roadbed out of the rocky front
of the gorge. In Hell Gate Loop the train goes
around fourteen miles to make a descent of only
half a mile. The steep grades require three heavy
locomotives to haul freight trains.

The Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek Dis-
trict Railway, usually called the Short Line, stands
in a class by itself. It was purposely constructed
on high mountain-slopes, rather than in ravines and
valleys, in order that the largest number of scenic
attractions might be obtained. On the Short Line
the traveler looks down into Cheyenne Canon and
other gorges; he gazes across stretches of country

268 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

with wondrous heights and depths in every
direction.

Some details of construction are given to show
the difficulty of building a mountain railroad. For
a large part of the way the roadbed was cut out of
the granite on the east and south sides of Pike's
Peak. The track is forty-five miles long, while
the air line between Colorado Springs and Cripple
Creek is nineteen miles. The bends and windings
back and forth make up the extra distance. There
are spiral curves and horseshoe curves by the score,
spanning the yawning abysses and twisting around
the mountains. One of the most difficult engineer-
ing achievements on the line was effected between
Duffield and St. Peter's Dome, three miles of track
being laid to gain a distance of sixteen hundred
feet and an elevation of five hundred forty feet.

From Fountain Creek near Manitou the road
follows the Front Range of the Rockies to Summit,
a distance of nine miles by air line, with an ele-
vation of almost four thousand feet. Because of
the rugged and precipitous character of the country
the construction engineer found it necessary to
develop twenty-one miles of line between the two
points nine miles apart. He ran about one
hundred miles of preliminary lines in locating the
best line for the route.

Less difficulty was encountered in the undulating

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 269

surface of the western half of the line. Nine
tunnels were bored through granite and hard rock
formations, the longest tunnel being five hundred
thirty -two feet. While the roadbed was being
built immense masses of rock slid down the slope
upon it, greatly hindering the work. The highest
point on the line is Hoosier Pass, which affords a
magnificent panorama of mountains and valleys.
The two-and-a-half hours' ride over this high rail-
way presents a series of views of unexcelled beauty
and sublimity.

The Denver, Northwestern, and Pacific is said
to be the highest railway in North America. It
makes a short cut from Denver to Salt Lake,
traversing Middle Park and portions of north-
western Colorado. In the ranges of Colorado the
roadbed is hewn away from the crags a great deal
of the way; in the distance of thirty-five miles are
twenty-nine tunnels. Sixty-six miles west of Den-
ver trains pass through a tunnel over two and a
half miles long at an altitude of almost ten thousand
feet. In other places immense snow sheds serve
to protect the track, or it would be buried in snow
forty feet deep. The road crosses the Divide at
an elevation of over eleven thousand feet, the high-
est point reached by a standard gage railroad in
this country. It passes through some of the grand-
est scenery in the world.

270

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

CROSSING THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE IN COLORADO
Courtesy Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Ry.

The fame of Pike's Peak has gone to the ends
of the earth, and associated with its greatness is
the Cog Wheel Route, by which name the Manitou
and Pike's Peak Railway is best known. It was
built in 1889-90 to enable people to scale the peak
without undergoing the fatigue of climbing up the
trail. It is nine miles long, and in this distance it
overcomes an elevation of over seven thousand
feet. In the middle of the track are the two Abt
rack rails forming a ladder of notched teeth, to
which the cog- wheel clings. These rails are made
of the best Bessemer steel, and are eighty inches
long. The roadbed, from fifteen to twenty-two

THE RAILROADS OF COLORADO 271

feet wide, is for the most part of solid rock, and
the track is firmly anchored. The track is stand-
ard gage, like that on Mount Washington. The
locomotive pushes the car up and precedes it going
down.

A similar undertaking was the building of the
tourist line on the flanks of Gray's Peak to the top
of Mount McClellan, which is a near neighbor of
Torrey and Mount Evans. The Argentine Central
Railway was opened for traffic in the summer of
1906. It traverses the crest of the Continental
Divide, and snow-crowned pinnacles meet the
traveler's gaze on every hand. Long's, Pike's,
Blanca, the Mount of the Holy Cross, and other
lofty peaks in the different ranges of the Rockies
may be seen. The locomotive is specially con-
structed for the purpose, its pulling power being
double that of the ordinary engine of the same
weight.

CHAPTER XV

IRRIGATION IN COLORADO

EGYPT is the gift of the Nile. It is equally true
that agriculture in Colorado is the gift of its rivers,
which bring down from the mountains the waters
that make fruitful the plains and valleys. Before
1870 there was no farming to speak of in Colorado.
There was some gardening in the mountain valleys
and stock raising on the plains, but agriculture
was chiefly of the pastoral kind until the Union
Colony at Greeley attacked in earnest the problem
of irrigation. The founding of this colony in 1870
was the beginning of a new epoch in Colorado's
history. The conquest of the Great American
Desert was at hand.

Hitherto attempts at artificial watering of crops
had been made on a small scale, but the methods
employed were crude and results were small,
though encouraging. Nathan C. Meeker, the
founder of Union Colony, had great faith in irriga-
tion, with little practical knowledge of the subject,
and his fellow colonists also were in the dark as
to the amount of water needed and the means
of getting it. "As to irrigation," Father Meeker

272

IRRIGATION IN COLORADO 273

wrote in the Greeley Tribune (November 23, 1870),
"all of our people think it makes farming a scientific
instead of an uncertain pursuit." Some of them
were not so hopeful as Mr. Meeker, yet they went
ahead and after many blunders and failures they
made irrigation a success.

Italy's experiments in irrigation helped the colony
more than Utah's; the task was too big for the in-
dividual and had to be undertaken by the commu-
nity. One ditch after another was constructed, not
only in the Poudre valley, but elsewhere in the
Centennial State. So great were the engineering
difficulties in some instances that state aid or
corporate capital was required for the building of
canals and dams, the spanning of ravines with pipes
and flumes, and for other expensive works, such as
the cutting of tunnels through the rock.

As a result of the beginnings made by the Greeley
farmers, a vast system of irrigation has grown up in
the desert east of the Rockies. In the last decade
the area of irrigated lands has been greatly extended,
not only in the Poudre valley and the vicinity of
Denver but in other parts of Colorado. At present
the acreage under irrigation is greater than that in
any other state, California ranking next. It is a
noteworthy fact that of the total area of irrigated
lands in the United States in 1902 Colorado had
nearly one fifth.

274 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The inroads already made on arid Colorado have
brought the means of a livelihood to thousands of
families. When the Gunnison Tunnel shall have
been brought to successful completion, in 1900, a
host of settlers will be provided with farms in
the Uncompahgre valley. This is a government
enterprise, but in other parts of the state private
capital has been subscribed for the reclamation of
barren ground, and in a few years there will be an
increase of tens of thousands of irrigated farms.

o

These openings have already attracted many home-
seekers from eastern states and from foreign
countries.

Like other Rocky Mountain states, Colorado has
a dry climate. Its rainfall is deficient, being about
one half of what prevails in the states on the
Atlantic coast. In the farming regions of eastern
Colorado the rainfall varies from six to fifteen
inches per annum. In the Poudre valley the aver-
age rainfall is from eleven to twelve inches, two
thirds of it falling in the months from April to
August inclusive.

The mountains rob the plains of moisture. On
the top of Pike's Peak the yearly precipitation, in
the shape of snowT and rain, is nearly forty inches,
while at Denver it is fifteen inches. The moun-
tain snows melt in springtime and swell the waters
of the South Platte and Arkansas rivers, thus

IRRIGATION IX COLORADO 275

producing occasional floods in the Missouri and
Mississippi valleys. This enormous waste of water
can be prevented by storing it in reservoirs in the
Rocky Mountain region, to be used for irrigating
the prairies now insufficiently watered.

In the rain belt or the "Divide" (as the country
east of Palmer Lake is called) there is often
enough rainfall for raising good crops, but it is not
to be depended upon regularly, one season and
another. A wet year is apt to be followed by a
year of drought. Farmers of the Divide are now
realizing the advantages of irrigation, although it
is less necessary for successful agriculture here than
in other sections of eastern Colorado.

It is also to be remembered that the fall of rain
and snow is unevenly distributed. Much of the pre-
cipitation comes suddenly in cloudbursts, so called,
which swell dry creek beds into torrents. Soon
the overflow of water disappears and is for the most
part lost, unless saved by the forethought and de-
vices of man. Some system of irrigation (with
reservoirs, canals, dams, and ditches) is necessary
to meet the conditions of the case.

To irrigation is largely due the development of
the regions once supposed to be a wilderness al-
most as sterile as Sahara. It transforms the sage-
brush plain into fields of wheat and potatoes. It
makes the prairie tenfold more valuable for grazing.

276

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

It covers arid slopes with a luxuriant growth of
alfalfa, which is by far the best forage for horses
and cattle. It brings forth gardens and orchards,
which are in some places more profitable even than
field crops. In a word, irrigation makes farming a

IRRIGATING GRAIN, NEAR GREELEY

success in these arid wastes, for without it immense
areas would be barren — not because the soil is
unfertile, but because water is scarce. Irrigation
makes possible scientific agriculture in place of the
old-time haphazard style of farming.

In a sense farming is a success in the little moun-
tain valleys adjacent to streams, where the eleva-

IRRIGATION IX COLORADO 277

tion is not too high (from four thousand to six
thousand feet) . However, these green oases do not
raise enough vegetables and grains for home con-
sumption. The bulk of the farm products of Colo-
rado comes from irrigated tracts in the extensive
plains or parks watered by rivers and their
tributaries.

The water supply of the state comes chiefly from
the six principal streams — the South Platte River,
in northeastern Colorado; the x\rkansas River,
in southeastern Colorado; the Rio Grande and
San Juan rivers in the south, and the Grand and
Green rivers in the west. The Green River divides
into two main branches — the Yampa River in Routt
County and the White River in Rio Blanco County.
There are, therefore, six drainage basins in Colo-
rado, or seven, if the White River country be
considered one.

The South Platte drainage basin includes irri-
gated tracts in fourteen counties — roughly speaking,
the northeast quarter of the state. The Platte
basin embraces Denver and other populous cities,
and it contains the richest farming communities in
Colorado. Indeed, there are no better agricul-
tural sections to be found anywhere in the United
States than those around Greeley and Longmont.

The headwaters of the South Platte River are in
the mountains of the Park Range near Leadville.

27S THE MAKING OF COLORADO

In its northward course it is fed by numerous
streams rising in the Front Range. Reservoirs
have been built in the mountains and foothills, and
on the plains. There is still some waste of water,
and if it were more carefully husbanded, larger
areas of fertile land could be cultivated.

"The most completely developed of the reservoir
systems is probably that on the Cache a la Pond re
River, a tributary of the South Platte. . . . Water
is held in the layers of sand and gravel which have
been deposited at various depths beneath the sur-
face of the plains. Investigations indicate that
this supply is large, and that considerable areas
of valuable land, located at too great an elevation
to be irrigated by gravity diversion of water, will
ultimately be reclaimed by utilizing the under-
flow."

In 1900 the drainage basin of the Arkansas River
included over one hundred eighty-five thousand
square miles. The headwaters of the Arkansas are
high up in the Park Range, north of Buena Vista.
In the spring it is swelled by the waters of its tribu-
taries, Fountain Creek, the St. Charles, and other
rivers of the plains. In summer the supply of water
is insufficient for the land under ditch, and a short-
age of crops results. The remedy lies in building
more reservoirs, in which water may be stored
against the dry months' sun to come. Bessemer

IRRIGATION IN COLORADO 270

ditch waters thirty thousand acres of mesa lands
near Pueblo. Here fruits and vegetables, as well
as field crops, are successfully cultivated.

"The average size of the farms in the Upper Ar-
kansas valley is very small, the majority of them
ranging from five to twenty acres. This land is
chiefly in orchards and the average value per acre
is the highest in the state. Where the valley
broadens, the canals become more extensive and
important, and the farms increase in size. Vast
fields of alfalfa stretch for miles along the big
ditches, producing winter forage and affording late
fall pasturage for herds of cattle and sheep that
graze on the free range in the spring and summer.
The acreage in wheat, oats, and corn is large, and
the yields are uniformly good. This valley is
especially adapted to the raising of sugar beets,
and the industry is growing in importance."

The Rio Grande basin has an area of over sev-
enty-five hundred square miles, lying to the south
and east of the Continental Divide. The Rio
Grande, rising in the San Juan Mountains, flows in
a southeasterly direction through the San Luis Park
or valley. The farmers here depend chiefly upon
artesian wells for irrigation, but the supply of arte-
sian water is often insufficient, and it is not so well
handled as is water from a gravity ditch. The
southern part of the valley is not so well provided

280 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

with water as is the central. Near the state line
the Rio Grande has a low channel in summer.

The San Juan basin lies southwest of the San
Juan Mountains. The rich valley lands in Archu-
leta and La Plata counties are supplied with wrater
by ditches from the San Juan River and its tribu-
taries, the Pinos, Las Animas, and La Plata rivers.
The area irrigated in the San Juan valley, while
not yet large, is growing.

The Grand River basin drains an extensive area
of plateaus and valleys in western Colorado. The
sources of the Grand River are in the mountains
in the central part of the state. It has several
tributaries — Eagle River, the Roaring Fork, the
Gunnison, and the Dolores. Much of the country
is rough, but there are many small valleys in the
Rockies that are under ditch, with an ample supply
of water. There are no reservoirs, however, and
at times water is scarce.

The Uncompahgre valley, in the vicinity of
Montrose, is irrigated from the Uncompahgre and
Cimarron rivers. The country that Captain Gun-
nison considered a barren waste now brings forth
grains and fruits in abundance. Large sections of
excellent farming lands in the valley are now
sparsely populated because of the lack of water.
The Gunnison Tunnel, when completed, will solve
the problem of getting water.

IRRIGATION IX COLORADO 281

A comparatively small district of the Monte-
zuma valley, lying north of the Ute reservation, is
under irrigation. Its climate, like that of the pro-
ductive valley northeast of Durango, is almost ideal,
and the soil is exceedingly fertile. As yet there are
no reservoirs, the water being conveyed only a short
distance from the Dolores River by means of ditches
and flumes. Early in the season streams are high;
in July water is low. By artificial storage abun-
dance of water would be available for agricultural
purposes. A project is under way to construct a
reservoir which will irrigate twenty thousand acres
in the upper part of the valley.

In the Grand River valley, west of Palisade, there
are some large irrigation ditches, which supply water
in abundance to farms and orchards near Grand
River. Although alfalfa, beets and other crops
are raised successfully, the region is best known as
a fruit country. "Water is furnished to bench
lands along the Grand River by a number of pump-
ing plants. These benches rise terracelike above
the valley of the stream and lie between the valley
and the plateau. Several pumping plants now in
successful operation at Grand Junction are operated
by water power."

The Green River basin has a narrow strip of
irrigated lands along the river in the western part
of Routt County. The valley of the Yampa River

282 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

is watered by ditches constructed by farmers and
ranchmen. A large part of Routt County away
from the river is uncultivated. The irrigated area
is small. The irrigated portion of the White River
country, in Rio Blanco County, is slight, owing to
the nature of the country and the lack of trans-
portation facilities. There is a considerable vol-
ume of water in White River, and projects are under
way for the extension of irrigation ditches. At
present the region is chiefly a grazing country.

Since 1880 twenty thousand miles of main irri-
gating canals have been constructed in the Cen-
tennial State, at a cost of fifteen million dollars.
Under these canals twenty-eight thousand farms,
with an acreage of two and a half millions, are being
cultivated. An additional four million acres might
be cultivated by means of supplemental reservoirs.

The advantages of irrigation farming are now
generally recognized, not only in the arid states of
the West, but in the humid East and South. When
water is abundant, irrigation is far ahead of rainfall
for cereals, forage, fruits, and vegetables. The
increased production soon brings back the original
outlay for canals and other works. The weather
here favors the growth of abundant crops, with the
element of moisture under control as it is in agricul-
ture by irrigation. There is a gain not only in
quantity but in quality.

CHAPTER XVI

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO

WHILE mining is the distinguishing industry of
Colorado, it is not the chief source of wealth. Of
late years the soil of the plains and mountain
valleys has produced more treasure annually than
the mines.

When Captain Pike crossed the plains a century
ago, he described the region between the Missouri
River and the Rockies as being "incapable of
cultivation." Later, Major Long and Dr. James
traversed the semi-arid portion of the Louisiana
Territory and declared it to be an uninhabitable
wilderness. The route of their expedition was
traced on a map, on which the most fertile part of
the West is marked "Great American Desert."
This so-called desert extended from Texas to South
Dakota, and included the eastern part of Colorado.
An agricultural country of unbounded possibilities
was characterized by these early explorers as the
perpetual abode of desolation. The error wTas per-
petuated in the school geographies, and the result
was a mistaken notion that retarded the settlement
of the West for many years.

2S3

284 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The discovery of gold brought the Pike's Peakers
by tens of thousands, and some of them began
gardening and farming in a small way. Bumper
crops of grain' and vegetables of mammoth pro-
portions were raised in the river bottoms, which
were irrigated with little trouble. Then ditches
were dug to water the uplands. The "barren
waste" was found to be wonderfully productive.
The melted snow in the running streams was made
to do duty in place of rain.

In 1866 at least fifty thousand acres were under
cultivation. At that time the Surveyor-General
estimated that there were two and a half million
acres of arable land in the territory. Forty
years have passed, and now there are said to
be over twenty -two million acres of arable land.
These constitute one third of the area of the
state.

Of the sixty-six odd millions of acres in Colo-
rado, less than three millions are under actual
cultivation. Limited as is the area available for
agriculture, it is forging to the front as a farming
state. Longmont is famous for its "thousand
waves of wheat." The Rocky Ford melons and
the Greeley potatoes are known throughout the
country, if not all over the world. The Grand
valley pears and apples are peerless among fruits.
Elberta peaches are as luscious as those of the

AGRICULTURE IX COLORADO 285

Michigan Peach Belt, and the Montrose honey has
no superior anywhere.

Geographers have had to revise their earlier
notions of the semi-arid district that was formerly
labeled "The Great American Desert." For one
thing, it is not true that Colorado is a rainless
country. Gannett says: "The plains to the east of
the mountains and the plateaus to the west have an
annual rainfall of less than twenty inches, decreas-
ing in some localities, especially in the western part,
to ten inches or even less. In the mountains the
rainfall is greater, exceeding thirty inches. The
distribution of rainfall throughout the year is
peculiar to the Rocky Mountain region; instead
of falling mainly in the winter time, as is the case
on the Pacific coast, the summer is the rainy season,
and instead of long storms the rain comes in the
form of showers. At Denver five sixths of the
annual precipitation falls from May to October,
inclusive, and in other parts of the State the pro-
portion in these months is from two thirds to nine
tenths of the total annual precipitation. The
cause of this phenomenon is that in winter the
ranges bordering the Pacific (this ocean being the
source of precipitation for the entire western
country) take practically all the moisture from
the vapor-laden winds coming off that ocean, while
in summer, owing to the fact that these ranges are

2SG THE MAKING OF COLORADO

relatively warmer, a part of the moisture is earned
over to the interior country."

Most of the fertile land of Colorado is found in
the valleys (so called), of which there are more
than a dozen of some prominence. The third of
the state east of the mountains would be naturally
described as plains or prairies; yet it embraces in
the north the South Platte valley and the Poudre
valley. The Arkansas valley occupies a stretch
of country two hundred miles long, in southeastern
Colorado; it is watered by the Arkansas River and
its tributaries. To the southwest lie the Wet
Mountain, Huerfano, and Stonewall valleys,
hemmed in by the Rockies. The San Luis valley
is enclosed by mountains in southern Colorado.
South of the San Juan Range is the San Juan
valley, which borders on the northwest the Aninuis
valley near Durango. In Montezuma county is
the great Montezuma valley or park, with the
lite Reservation to the south. Farther north are
Gypsum, the Paradox (or Shenandoah), the Un-
compahgre, the North Fork, the Eagle River, and
the Grand River valleys. In northwest Colorado,
which is a broken country better adapted to grazing
than crops, are the valleys of the Green River, the
Bear River, and the White River (in Rio Blanco
County).

Besides the valleys already named are others not

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO 287

so large. Nestling in the mountains are emerald
meadows that look like oases in the wilderness.
These fertile garden spots, sheltered by the Rockies,
grow vegetables in profusion, to say nothing of
fruits and the cereals. Some of these mountain
meadows or basins may be a half-mile wide and
several miles long, including ranches of from forty
to three hundred acres of highly productive land
that is usually planted to alfalfa, wheat, oats, and
garden truck. The mountain-slopes, too, are far
far from being valueless, agriculturally speaking.
Cattle, horses, sheep, and goats feed on high eleva-
tions. They find, however, only scattering patches
of verdure, the best soil having been washed by
erosion into the valleys and canons.

The Platte valley is known chiefly as a grazing
country, because of the abundance of the nutri-
tious grama or buffalo grass. It was once the
feedinp'-OTOund of enormous herds of bison. Then

c) o

came the days of the cattle kings and cowboys.
With the disappearance of the open range the vast
ranches, covered by thousands of cattle, were cut
up into small farms, and irrigation made general
farming possible. In some sections stock raising-
is still the paramount interest. The grama grass
makes the best beef in the world; but, because of
its scarcity, it is supplemented by beet tops and
alfalfa (especially in winter).

288 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The climate is conducive to stock growing.
Colorado is a land of sunshine; three hundred
days of the year are sunny, and the air is dry. A
majority of the winters are mild. On both sides
of the Platte River water is plentifully supplied to
farms by canals and laterals. The soil is rich and
brings forth excellent crops of alfalfa, wheat,
barley, potatoes, and sugar beets. As irrigation
has been extended, settlers have poured into Weld,
Morgan, Logan, Washington, and other counties.
They are for the most part Americans, intelligent
and well-to-do, and there is room for many more.
While they still fatten cattle and sheep for the
market, conditions are favorable for intensive
farming. More fruit might be grown, and honey
bees might be kept with profit.

The Poudre valley is more thickly populated
than the Platte between La Salle and Julesburg.
When Father Meeker and the Union colonists
came to Greeley in the spring of 1870, settlers in
the valley were few and far between. The site of
the "Forest City" was then a cactus plain, the
home of prairie dogs and wolves. Only a mile
or so from town, antelopes came down to the
river to drink, and herds of buffalo could be found
not far away on the plains. However, Meeker
saw the opportunities for farming successfully if
the country wrere irrigated. "The whole region,"

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO 289

he wrote in the Greeley Tribune (November 30,
1870), "from the Cache la Poudre south to Denver
is perhaps the best watered and the most desirable
locality for all purposes — fruit, farming, or stock
raising — in America."

Time has justified the faith of the colonists and
proved the wisdom of their selection; the Poudre
valley is indeed the garden spot of Colorado. While
it is not a great fruit country, large crops of beets,
cabbages, and onions are raised. Wheat is a
staple; when not injured by hailstorms, it yields
from thirty to sixty bushels an acre. The nights
are too cold to admit of the growing of corn.
Alfalfa, with three crops or cuttings a season, has
been the salvation of the country. It is valuable
not only for forage but as a fertilizer. Its roots
run deep into the soil and bring up nourishment
from a depth of ten or fifteen feet. Its luxiuriant
stubble, when plowed under in the rotation of
crops, enriches the land and makes the following
crop an exceptional one. Alfalfa, sometimes called
lucerne, was introduced in the early sixties. It
had previously been grown in South America,
Mexico, Utah, and California; the Mexicans seem
to have been chiefly instrumental in making it a
common crop throughout the states and territories
of the Southwest.

The Greeley country is most noted for potatoes.

290

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The potato belt embraces a district that is, roughly
speaking, about twenty miles square. It includes
on the east the towns of La Salle, Evans, Kersey,
Greeley, Eaton, and Ault; and on the west, Fort
Collins and Loveland. There is something in the

BEET-SUGAR FACTORY AT LONGMONT

soil and air that makes potatoes flourish around
Greeley. They do well in other parts of Colorado,
but nowrhere else are they raised so extensively.
Potato fields of from thirty to sixty acres may often
be seen in Pleasant valley, and a quarter-section is
not unknown. The yield runs from two hundred
to five hundred bushels an acre on good ground.
Potatoes do best on alfalfa land. White Pearls

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO 291

and Oliios are the kinds most commonly planted.
Pioneer agriculturists of Colorado got as high as
one hundred bushels an acre with natural rainfall,
but by artificial watering the crop is doubled and
trebled. As to quality, the Greeley potato is said
to be the finest in the world; its dimensions are
phenomenal, tubers being sometimes four by six
inches. Two dozen have been known to make a
bushel. The crop in the Poudre valley varies
from four to five million bushels a year. The
harvesting of the potatoes consumes five or six
weeks in autumn, and some ten thousand extra
workers are needed then.

In the sixties there was a small settlement around
Fort Collins. It was only a military post or camp,
not a fort. The town was laid out in 1871 and has
grown to be a flourishing city, with a large sugar-
beet plant. The beet crop is perhaps the best.
Beet pulp has turned out to be a first-class food
for fattening pigs and lambs. Wheat, alfalfa, and
fruit are raised with marked success. Similar
conditions prevail in the neighborhood of Long-
mont and Loveland. Sheltered by the foothills,
these sections surpass Greeley in growing apples,
pears, cherries, and other fruits. Honey, too, is
a valuable product. Wheat and barley yield big-
crops.

The Divide or rain belt east of Palmer Lake used

292 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

to be considered a good farming country before
irrigation had wrought a marvelous transformation
in arid Colorado. It still has good crops in some
years, but it is more of a dairy country than one
adapted to the growing of grain. The ground is
rolling and much of it wooded. Around Elbert is
a potato belt, some twenty miles long and ten wide.
The potatoes are of fine quality; the farmers fur-
nish seed for the Greeley ranchers.

The watercourses of this region are dry the
greater part of the year, and yet irrigation might
be practised to a slight extent. Storms come up
suddenly, and the creeks are raging torrents for
several hours; a part of the flood could be saved
and stored for use when needed. An inch of water
added now and then would make a vast difference
in the yield of grain, potatoes, or hay. Old
settlers declare there is more rain now than there
was thirty years ago. The precipitation varies
from twelve to seventeen inches. In Lincoln, Kit
Carson, and Cheyenne counties, "dry farming"
has lately been something of a success. The
Campbell system of soil culture is coming into
vogue with promising results. The Divide is
sparsely populated.

The Arkansas valley is larger even than that of
the Platte. It is a stretch of open country two
hundred mile's long, containing between one million

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO 293

and two million acres, of which some four hun-
dred thousand acres are improved and cultivated.
The mild climate makes it better adapted to corn
than most other parts of the Centennial State.
The yield of wheat in some places almost equals
that of the wheat belt around Longmont, and
other cereals do well. Potatoes, tomatoes, and
other vegetables are successfully grown. Otero
County is famed for its cantaloupes. In the or-
chards around Florence and Canon City apples,
peaches, grapes and other fruits flourish. The
Arkansas valley is renowned for its sugar beets, and
it rivals northern Colorado as a stock country.
Pueblo, the Pittsburgh of the West, is fast becom-
ing a livestock center. The pork-packing industry
is growing.

The San Luis Park is the largest of the upland
valleys of Colorado. It is two hundred miles
long and from forty to seventy miles wide, having
an area greater than that of Connecticut. Its
altitude is about seven thousand five hundred feet
above sea level. The temperature here in summer
is cooler than that of the Platte valley, in northern
Colorado. The three counties — Saguache, Cos-
tilla, and Conejos — which make up the San Luis
valley, are thinly settled, averaging perhaps three
inhabitants to the square mile.

Leaving the foothills (where one may run across

294 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

deer and bear), the traveler finds himself in the
historic town of Garland, with its one-story adobe
houses. Ranches stretch away on all sides, the
land being level or gently sloping. It is mostly
pasture, or sagebrush, with no living thing in sight
for miles and miles except rabbits and prairie dogs.
If irrigated, it would be highly productive, for the
ground is rich.

The valley was formerly a vast lake, and the
sediment washed down from the mountains forms
the soil, of varying thickness. Not more than half
of the arable land is cultivated. Along the rivers
and their tributaries water is easily and inexpen-
sively obtained for irrigation, but there are wide
expanses of fine farming land not easily irrigated
except by the reservoir system. On some ranches
artesian wells afford abundant supplies of water.
The wrells are of varying depth, from fifty to
four hundred feet; the water is absolutely pure,
being filtered in running through deep layers of
sand and gravel. Often the artesian water supply
is insufficient for irrigating a forty-acre tract. From
all sources in the Rio Grande Drainage basin
water was artificially applied to three hundred
thousand acres in 1902.

Where water is plentiful in the San Luis valley,
nature is lavish of the fruits of the earth. Old
residents tell of extraordinary crops of oats, barley,

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO

295

wheat, and potatoes. There are two crops of
alfalfa, each cutting three tons to the acre. Sugar
beets grow abundantly. Peas are a great feed
crop; lambs and pigs are turned loose into the
fields and do the harvesting. Hogs are raised and
fattened here more cheaply than in the corn districts

A BEET FIELD NEAR FORT COLLINS

of Kansas and Nebraska. Stock raising bids fair
to become the leading industry.

The Animas valley lies northeast of Durango.
It is fifteen miles long and its width is two miles or
less. Where the land may be irrigated by river
water, it produces good crops of timothy, alfalfa,
wheat, and oats. In the sheltered slopes and
basins are orchards where apples, pears, apricots,

296 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

prunes, cherries, currants, and berries are grown
successfully. As in the San Luis valley, the season
is too short for melons and vegetables. Fall Creek
valley and other agricultural regions of limited
extent are found in the La Plata Mountains. To
the south is the great San Juan valley, which is
well adapted to general fanning and stock raising.

The Montezuma valley is the most favored part
of southwestern Colorado. Owing to the lack of
reservoirs, the artificial water supply is small.
Experiments made in the irrigated country around
Cortez show the land to be especially valuable for
the growing of grain and fruit. The district is an
excellent one for sugar beets. An area of twelve
thousand acres wras under cultivation in 1907.
Extensive tracts of sagebrush lands might be re-
claimed at no great expense; above eighty thousand
acres are uncultivated for lack of irrigation canals
and reservoirs. In addition to its other natural
advantages, the Montezuma valley has plenty of
timber and fine building stone.

The Uncompahgre valley wTas thrown open for
settlement in 1881, the Indians having been removed
to another reservation. The famous chief Ouray
recognized the agricultural possibilities of this
valley, which includes about one hundred fifty
thousand acres in Montrose and Delta counties.
Although the Utes called it the Valley of Foun-

AGRICULTURE IX COLORADO 297

tains, the white settlers soon began to suffer for
lack of water, and many of them abandoned their
claims. It is sparsely populated away from the
rivers. Captain Gunnison traversed the valley in
1853, and he reported it unfit for cultivation. It
has since been amply demonstrated that the soil
is exceedingly fertile. Unlike prairie sod, the
sagebrush land is easily plowed after it is cleared
of grease- wood, and the task of removing the latter
is one of slight difficulty.

The average altitude of this region is about
fifty-five hundred feet. The one thing lacking is
water, for there is little rain on the western slope,
ten inches or less. In other respects the climate is
nearly perfect. Almost ideal conditions prevail
for general farming and fruit growing where enough
water is present. Large crops of wheat, oats, and
alfalfa are raised. The valley is famous for its
garden products and its small fruits. It is also a
magnificent country for cattle and sheep, which find
pasture on the high plateaus and timbered hills.

In 1901 Mr. A. L. Fellows with a party of sur-
veyors explored the Gunnison River Canon, and
he satisfied himself that a tunnel could be driven
through the granite ridge of the Mesa Verde and
thus abundant supplies of water could be brought
to the valley, whose elevation is lower than the
river. As an engineering feat the Gunnison Tunnel

298 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

is unique among the irrigation projects of the
United States government. It was begun in 1905,
and nearly completed in the fall of 1908. The
tunnel is about six miles long, and it penetrates
the mesa at a depth of twenty-one hundred feet.
Through this natural barrier the water of the
Gunnison River is diverted into the Uncompahgre
valley, reclaiming one hundred thousand acres.
The tract of arid land thus irrigated is about nine
miles wide and thirty miles long. The exit of the
tunnel is eight miles from Montrose. The cost
of this irrigation enterprise was over two million
dollars.

The valley of the Grand River extends from
Palisade westward to the state line. It is from
twenty-five to thirty miles long, and fifteen miles
wide (or less in places). While the Grand valley
has a great reputation for its fruit, it is admirably
adapted to general farming. Sugar beets are
raised extensively for the sugar factory at Grand
Junction. The most valuable crops of the section
are apples and peaches, which rank among the
best in the w^orld. The valley was first settled in
the fall of 1881, after the removal of the Utes to
Utah. The people are almost entirely Americans,
from Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota, Ne-
braska, Kansas, and the Southern States.

Delta and Paonia are the centers of fruit-growing

AGRICULTURE IN COLORADO 299

sections as famous as the Grand Junction or the
Fruita districts. The country is ideal for fruit
growing. In appearance and flavor the apples,
pears, peaches, prunes, grapes, and apricots equal
those of California.

Northwestern Colorado is rich in natural re-
sources, which have been only partly developed for
lack of transportation facilities. It is thinly
settled. Only a small fraction of the arable area
is under cultivation. At present it is chiefly a
pastoral country, but ranchers are pouring into
the Snake River valley and other portions suited
for agriculture. Here is an empire that the rail-
road will open to civilization.

Sugar beets are now the banner crop of Colorado,
outstripping alfalfa and wheat. Within a decade
the beet-sugar industry has grown into prodigious
magnitude. Colorado leads all the states of the
Union in the production of beet sugar, making
enough sugar for its own population and for the
people of Kansas and Iowa.

CHAPTER XVII

CONSTITUTION AND CAPITOL

BY THE Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, it was
stipulated that the part of Colorado east of the
Rockies and north of the Arkansas River should
belong to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. In 1861
the Indian title was extinguished by the Treaty of
Fort Wise. Two years before this the pioneer
settlers organized themselves into a provisional
government and named the country the Territory
of Jefferson, whose limits comprehended a larger
area than Colorado has to-day. At the same time
the Pike's Peak region was by most of the inhab-
itants outside of Denver considered a part of
Kansas, and it was known as Arapahoe County,
Kansas Territory.

The old order of things passed away February
28, 1861, when the Territory of Colorado was
organized out of parts of Utah, New Mexico,
Kansas, and Nebraska, with an area of 103,948
square miles. The name is from the Spanish,
meaning "colored red." The number of inhab-
itants was estimated to be from 50,000 to 60,000.
Colorado had then, as now, a large floating popu-

300

CONSTITUTION AND CAPITOL

301

THE STATE CAPITOL AT DENVER

lation. The United States marshal who took the
census in the summer of 1861 found only 25,331
persons. According to the United States census
of 1870, there were in that year 39,864 permanent
residents in the territory; so there was no sub-
stantial increase during the first decade of its
history. It is likely that some miners in the moun-
tains were missed in both censuses.

On March 22, 1861, President Lincoln appointed
William Gilpin of Missouri territorial governor.
Gilpin had traveled extensively through the Rocky
Mountain country, and had great faith in its
future. He had also distinguished himself in the
Mexican War. He was a man of affairs, although

302 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

a dreamer. One of his pet schemes was that of
building a railroad from Denver to Alaska. To
his credit it should be said that he was a strong
Union man, and took an active part in crushing
out the Rebellion in the Southwest. In a year
he was succeeded by John Evans, of Evanston,
Illinois.

In 1861 there were only thirteen counties in
Colorado Territory — Boulder, Weld, Larimer,
Arapahoe, Douglas, Pueblo, Gilpin, Clear Creek,
Summit, Park, Lake, Conejos, and Costilla.

The first session of the Legislature was held at
Denver in the fall of 1861 ; it lasted fifty-nine days.
The second session began July 7, 1862, at Colorado
City. The Assembly met there only four days,
then adjourned to meet in Denver the following
week. The third session was begun at Golden on
February 1, 1864; soon afterward the Legislature
adjourned to Denver. Although the seat of
government remained at Denver, the Assembly
convened at Golden for several years; the last
meeting there was in December, 1867, when it
adjourned to Denver. The eighth session was
held in the City of the Plains. So there were three
territorial capitals in the period of seven years.
From that time Denver was the permanent capital
of the territory, and later became that of the
state.

CONSTITUTION AND CAPITOL 303

After repeated efforts to secure statehood, Colo-
rado was admitted to the Union August 1, 1876.
It acquired the nickname of the "Centennial State,"
because that year was the one hundredth anni-
versary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence. The first State Legislature met
November 1, 1876.

Colorado was the thirty-eighth state. At the

time of its admission it was divided into twentv-six

«/

counties — Arapahoe, Bent, Boulder, Clear Creek,
Conejos, Costilla, Douglas, El Paso, Elbert, Fre-
mont, Gilpin, Grand, Huerfano, Hinsdale, Jeffer-
son, Lake, La Plata, Larimer, Las Animas, Park,
Pueblo, Rio Grande, Saguache, San Juan, Summit,
and Weld. From time to time other counties
were created; in 1902 there were fifty-nine.

In 1876 the principal towns were Denver,
Golden, Boulder, Black Hawk, Georgetown, Breck-
enridge, Idaho Springs, Greeley, Colorado City,
Colorado Springs, Central City, Fairplay, Fort Col-
lins, Longmont, Las Animas, Canon City, Pueblo,
anb! Trinidad. Other places that have achieved
prominence are Loveland, Fort Morgan, Brush,
Sterling, La Junta, Rocky Ford, Florence, Walsen-
burg, Buena Vista, Alamosa, Durango, Silverton,
Ouray, Montrose, Telluride, Aspen, Leadville,
Gunnison, Salida, Grand Junction, Glenwood
Springs, Goldfield, Victor, and Cripple Creek.

304

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The population of Colorado in 1880 was 194,327;
in 1890 it had increased to 412,198; and in 1900 it
was 539,700. It is the most populous of the Rocky
Mountain States. In 1908 the number of in-
habitants was estimated at 700,000.

By the Constitution of 1876, which is still in

force, the General
Assembly consists of
two legislative bod-
ies. There are thir-
ty-five members of
the Senate, elected
for four years; one
half of them retire
every two years.
There are sixty-five
members of the
House of Represent-
atives, elected for
two years. All citi-
zens of the United
States who are twen-
ty-five years of age
and residents for one

year in the district for which they seek election are
eligible to either House. The sessions are biennial
and last ninety days. Legislators receive seven
dollars a day, besides mileage, during the session.

THE COLUMBINE

Colorado's State Flower

CONSTITUTION AND CAPITOL 305

The Legislature meets on the first Wednesday of
January after election.

State elections are held on the first Tuesday in
October of even years. A six-months' residence
in the state is a prerequisite to voting. In 1893
the people voted to extend the right of suffrage
to women. Women are eligible to school-district
offices.

The governor is elected for two years. His
term of office begins in January, on the opening
day of the Legislature. His salary is five thousand
dollars a year. The other state officials are elected
for two years.

The state sends two Senators and three Repre-
sentatives to the Federal Congress.

In 1861 the first Assembly of Colorado Territory
passed a resolution relative to a territorial seal, which
later, in becoming the state seal, was slightly
changed. The first General Assembly in 1877
passed the following act :

Section 1 . That the seal of the State shall be two and
one half inches in diameter, with the following device in-
scribed thereon : An heraldic shield, bearing in chief, or upon
the upper portion of the same, upon a red ground, three
snow-capped mountains; above, .surrounding clouds; upon
the lower part thereof, upon a golden ground, a miner's badge,
as prescribed by the rules of heraldry ; as a crest above the
shield, the eye of God, being golden rays proceeding from

306 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

the lines of a triangle; below the crest and above the shield,
as a scroll, the Roman fasces, bearing upon a band of red,
white and blue, the words, "Union and Constitution"; below
the whole, this motto: " Nil sine Numine"; the whole to be
surrounded by the words "State of Colorado," and the
figures "1876."

The bundle of fasces suggests the sentiment:
"United, we stand; divided, we fall." The three
snow-crowned mountains represent the principal
Colorado ranges. The Latin motto means, "Noth-
ing without Divinity."

In 1890 the children of the commonwealth took
part in choosing the blue Rocky Mountain colum-
bine (Ayuilegia coerulea) for the state flower. The
beautiful conifer named blue spruce, which grows
extensively in the Rockies, is the state tree. The
third Friday in April is Arbor Day. Flag Day
was first celebrated in Denver June 14, 1894.

CHAPTER XVIII

STATE AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

IT is the province of the state to care for the help-
less and unfortunate. The state restrains the
vicious and confines the criminal. It also builds
and sustains schools and libraries for the uplifting
of the community.

Colorado's State Home for Dependent and
Neglected Children was established by act of the
Legislature in 1895. It is situated in South
Denver. The headquarters of the State Bureau of
Child and Animal Protection are in Denver.

The Institute for the Blind and Mute dates
back to 1874. The State Legislature has liber-
ally provided for the school, which is located at
Colorado Springs. The Deaf Mute Institute is
open to persons between the ages of four and twenty-
two; it is free only to Coloradoans.

In 1879 the State Legislature established the
Asylum for the Insane. The buildings, in Pueblo,
are commodious and comfortable.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, near Monte
Vista, was founded in 1889. The site of one hundred
twenty acres was donated by citizens of the town.

307

TILE MAKING OF COLORADO

MAIN BUILDING <)!• THK STATE I'MVERSITY, BOULDKIl

The Industrial School for Boys was opened, at
Golden, in June, 1882. The object is to reclaim
and educate lads who have started on the down-
ward road. They are kept at work and receive
instruction in manual training. The school has
been highly successful in building up the character
of the inmates and in fitting them to be useful
in life.

The State Industrial School for (iirls is a similar
institution, intended io reform uavvvard girls and

i. " O

make them self -respecting members of society.

O i/

It was founded in 1887, and is located at Morrison,

STATE AM) Pl'HLIC INSTITUTIONS

300

GUGGENHEIM HALL, COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES

The Penitentiary is at Canon City, where it was
established by act of the Territorial Legislature in
1868. In connection with it is maintained the
State Reformatory, at Buena Vista, for men and
boys convicted of their first criminal offenses.
The idea is to separate them from hardened char-
acters, and to give them a chance to turn over a
new leaf.

Colorado has expended generous sums upon its
State University, which was opened in 1877, at
Boulder. The public-spirited citizens of the place
had donated the site, and on it stood a solitary

310

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

brick building, erected at a cost of forty thousand
dollars. In 1907 there were fourteen buildings,
modern in their appointments and finely equipped.
At the start there were forty-four students and two
instructors. In 1907-8 the enrollment was nearly
a thousand; the professors, lecturers, and assist-

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, GREELEY

ants numbered one hundred five. The number of
degrees conferred by the university up to that
year was one thousand seventeen. This institu-
tion has played an important part in developing
higher education in the West. Its influence ex-
tends far beyond the limits of the commonwealth.
The Chautauquas are held here in summer.
In 1874 the territorv founded another institution

STATE AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 311

that is justly famed, the School of Mines, at Golden.
For a score of years it suffered for want of funds ;
later it was aided by private munificence, and has
grown into a strong school. It has turned out stu-
dents well grounded in the technical details of
mining, and has been a potent factor in the devel-
opment of the mineral industry in the Rocky
Mountains. It offers courses in practical
chemistry, engineering, mining, metallurgy, and
geology.

The State Normal School was opened, at Gree-
ley, in 1890. About five thousand students have
attended the institution, which up to 1907 had
graduated eleven hundred sixty-seven men and
women. Among these were many who had taken
college and high-school courses. By pursuing the
courses in pedagogy they have grown to larger
stature of manhood and womanhood; they have
acquired skill in imparting knowledge. The in-
fluence of the Normal School has been felt through-
out the state; it has resulted in improving the
methods of instruction, and in adding dignity to
the teacher's calling. The school has a faculty of
thirty specialists. The library contains thirty
thousand volumes.

The State Agricultural College at Fort Collins
ranks foremost among the schools intended to
place farming on a scientific footing. Here agri-

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

MCCLELLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, PUEBLO
culture and horticulture are thoroughly studied.
Experiments are made in cultivating plants, in
growing crops, and in raising stock. Success in
farming now depends as much upon head work
as hand work. A grounding in the principles of
botany, chemistry, and other practical subjects
affords an invaluable preparation for the everyday
labors of the ranch. The professors of the Agri-
cultural College have traveled through the state,
holding Farmers' Institutes; to these must be
attributed in part the recent advance in agriculture
and horticulture for which Colorado is known
not only throughout this country but all over the
world .

The State Board of Horticulture, organized in

STATE AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 313

1880, lias been active in promoting fruit culture
and forestry.

The Public Library of Denver grew out of the
Mercantile Library conducted by the Chamber of
Commerce. It was steadily augmented, and in
1893 its name was changed to that of City Library.
In April, 1907, the cornerstone of the new building
was laid. Of the total cost, over three hundred
thousand dollars, Andrew Carnegie donated two
hundred thousand dollars. In 1908 the library
had a collection of more than a hundred thousand
volumes, besides several thousand pamphlets.

Pueblo is not wholly given over to steel works
and smelters. The city has a w^ell-appointed
Public Library, named after a generous citizen,
Andrew McClelland. In 1907 it contained twenty-
five thousand books. The library was built of
Colorado limestone, at a cost of seventy-five
thousand dollars. It was opened in January,
1904.

CHAPTER XIX

EDUCATION IN COLORADO

IN THE caravans that crossed the plains in 1859
and the early sixties were numerous college gradu-
ates, and a large proportion of them remained.
Some of them stayed in Denver; others penetrated
the wilds of the Rockies in search of gold. As time
passed, their booklore was partially forgotten, but
the traditions of culture clung to them. They prized
knowledge for its own sake, and wished the rising
generation to have the advantages that they them-
selves had left behind in the States. So the move-
ment to found schools of advanced education met
with a ready response.

In the dark days of the Civil War were laid
the foundations of the institution that is now the
University of Denver. The echoes of the can-
nonading around Atlanta had hardly died away
before Colorado Seminary was opened at Denver
under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. It was "the pioneer school of higher
learning in this State." In 1880 the University of
Denver was organized. In 1907 it had a faculty
of forty professors and assistants ; there were twelve

314

EDUCATION IN COLORADO

315

OFFICE OF THE DENVER POST

buildings; all the properties and endowments
amounted to seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.
In the quarter-century between 1882 and 1907 the
institution conferred over fifteen hundred degrees.

310 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

The collegiate departments and the observatory are
located at University Park; the departments of
medicine, dentistry, law, music, and the Saturday
College for teachers are in Denver.

Conspicuous among the Roman Catholic schools
is the Loretto Academy, which dates back to 18(>4.
The Jesuit College was opened in 1887.

Wolfe Hall, in Denver, was established by the
Episcopalians. It is a boarding school for girls.
Colorado College, at Colorado Springs, was
established by the Congregationalists in 1874.
The Colorado Woman's College, at Montclair,
was built by the Baptists in 1891-2. Westmin-
ster University, founded by the Presbyterians in
the early nineties, was opened in the fall of 1907.
The panic of 1893, due to the demonetization of
silver, arrested the progress of the enterprise, as
was the case at Montclair. Westminster is situ-
ated near Denver, and is called the " Princeton of
the West."

The Young Men's Christian Association is, in
a sense, an educational institution; its members
have the privileges of entering classes and attend-
ing lectures. The new building in Denver was
finished in the fall of 1907; its cost was three hun-
dred sixty thousand dollars.

The national government supports an Indian
school at Grand Junction.

EDUCATION IX COLORADO

317

In 1859 the first school kept in the territory
\vas opened in "a small log cabin covered with
poles, brush, and dirt." The organized public
school system of Colorado had its beginning in
1861. Before this Denver had three private
schools. Boulder had a public school in 1860.

THE Y. M. C. A. BUILDING, DENVER

During the first decade of the territory's his-
tory educational work advanced slowly. The
population consisted for the most part of men
without families. There were few children to
attend school in the mining towns or in the settle-
ments on the Divide and in the Arkansas valley.

Of Colorado's forty thousand people in 1870 less
than seven thousand were of school age, and only

318 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

half of these were in the public schools. Nearly
five hundred boys and girls attended private
schools. There were one hundred ten pub-
lic schools in the territory that year. At that
time Denver, Central City, Black Hawk, and
several other towns had graded schools. There
was not as yet a high school in the territory,
although some of the high-school branches were
taught in Denver, Canon City, and other towns.

Central City boasted of a two-story stone school
building, with cherry and iron furniture, but it was
an exception in 1870. Denver had then only one
schoolhouse; the other two schools were held in
rented quarters that were more or less unsuitable
for the purpose. More than a score of the school-
houses in the territory were log structures; others
were frame buildings or adobe. The exterior was
unsightly, and the interior uninviting. They were
poorly furnished and uncomfortable. They were
usually supplied with pine benches, a stove, a
broom, and a water pail. Occasionally a small,
almost useless, blackboard could be seen ; rarer yet
were such helps as charts, maps, and dictionaries.
There was no uniformity of text-books. The pu-
pils brought the books they had used in the East
— Sanders's spellers, McGuffey's readers, Mitchell's
geographies, and Ray's or Robinson's arithmetics.

In the pioneer days and later men teachers were

JEDUCATION IN COLORADO 319

irT*' the - majority. Examinations were generally
oral and by no means easy. "I don't see but you
ask as hard questions as they do in the States,"
remarked one applicant for a certificate. As a
rule the instructors were capable and conscientious ;
almost without exception they realized the nobility
and responsibility of their position. But they
were seldom engaged for a longer term than three
or four months. Educational interests suffered
more or less until Colorado had trained teachers
and a normal school.

Schools were kept open from four to nine
months in a year. Here and there a schoolmaster
boarded around, but this was out of the question
in some of the sparsely settled country districts,
where a permanent boarding place was necessary.
If a teacher was a married man, he sometimes put
up a tent near the schoolhouse and lived there.
Instructors received from thirty to one hundred
seventy-five dollars a month. In the early days of
placer mining those in the mountain towns were
paid in gold dust, which was the money of the
country.

The frontier period lasted well into the seven-
ties, and in certain sections for a long time after
Colorado had been admitted as a state. Although
a grant of three million acres was made for the
support of public schools, these were by no means

320

THE MAKING OF COLORADO

A COLORADO PANTHER

common on the plains. The story is told of an
isolated rancher who was the only resident in the
district. He elected himself director and engaged
his eldest daughter to teach the younger children
of the family.

The district was not invariably two miles square.
The boundary on one side might be a mile from
the schoolhouse; on the other side it might extend
indefinitely. The children rode horses or burros
four or five miles to school. These animals were
staked out to feed on the open prairie; when one
broke loose, his owner had a long tramp home
that evening.

EDUCATION IN COLORADO 321

Now and then a blizzard made a memorable
episode in the history of some school in north-
eastern Colorado. The forenoon might be calm
and bright; in the afternoon clouds would swiftly
gather. Suddenly, almost without warning, the
storm struck the schoolhouse like a sledge hammer.
School was abruptly dismissed; teacher and pupils
made their way home as quickly as possible through
the blinding snow, keeping together lest they be
lost. A period of bitter cold followed, and maybe
there was no school again for a week.

Sometimes the monotony of school would be
broken by the sight of a band of Indians straggling
past in single file, braves, squaws and pappooses
riding ponies on a slow walk. These nomads
wandered through Colorado pretty much as they
pleased until 1880.

In the schools of the mountain regions attend-
ance was irregular in the winter season, for the
roads and trails were frequently blocked by deep
snow. Pupils walking a distance were often
tardy. Sometimes they encountered wild animals.
It is related that a boy of thirteen years on the way
to school one morning came face to face with a
large cougar that took refuge in a tree. Perched
on a limb a dozen feet from the ground, the creature
growled and glared at him. Without any other
weapon than a big jack knife, the boy approached,

322 THE MAKING OF COLORADO

not realizing his danger. The knife with open
blade was tied fast to a pole, and he jabbed it into
the side of the snarling brute, which sprang to the
ground. The plucky lad then despatched the
mountain lion with a few blows over its head.

"Why are you so late, Johnny?" the teacher
asked of a pupil who appeared at school long after
ten o'clock.

"Oh, teacher," the boy breathlessly exclaimed,
"a bear treed me. It just passed by the school-
house and went up the trail."

Glancing out of the window, the schoolma'am
saw Bruin ambling up the slope, and Johnny's
tardiness was excused.

Since 1870 Colorado has made satisfactory
progress in education. In that year colonies were
founded at Greeley and in the Wet Mountain val-
ley. The next year another colony was located
at Longmont. These settlers and a host of others
brought their families, and more schools were
necessary. The twenty-one counties of 1870 had
68 schoolhouses and 132 teachers. The fifty-nine
counties of 1906 had 2,010 schoolhouses, and the
total enrollment of pupils was 144,007; there were
91 high schools, with an attendance of 10,392.
The teachers numbered 4,600, of whom 2,722 were
in graded schools.

GOVERNORS OF COLORADO

TERRITORIAL

1 WILLIAM GILPIN ............ • 1861-1862

2 JOHN EVANS ...... .1862-1865

3 ALEXANDER CUMMINGS .... • 1865-1867

4 A. CAMERON HUNT . . • 1867-1869

5 EDWARD McCooK . -

(5 SAMUEL H. ELBERT . - 1873-1874

7 EDWARD McCooK .....

8 JOHN L. ROUTT . 1875-1876

STATE

1 JOHN L. ROUTT . • 1876-1870

2 FREDERICK W. PITKIN . 1879-1SS-
.3 JAMES B. GRANT . .

4 BENJAMIN H. EATON ...... • 1885-1887

5 ALVA ADAMS ........ • 1887-1889

0 JOB A. COOPER ......... • ISS9-1S91

7 JOHN L. ROIITT ....... 1S91-1893

S DAVID A. WAITE .....

9 ALBERT W. MC!NTYRE ...... 1895-1897

10 AI.VA ADAMS ...... • 1897'1899

11 CHARLES S. THOMAS ......

12 JAMES B. ORMAN . ........ • 1901-1903

13 JAMES H. PEABODY . - • 1903-1905

14 ALVA ADAMS (sixty-six days) .

15 JAMES H. PEABODY (one day)

16 JESSE F. MCDONALD

17 HENRY A. BUCHTEL ....... • •

323

NOTABLE COLORADO DATES

1806 Pike's expedition 1o (he Rocky Mountains.

1820 Long's expedition.

1842 Fremont's first expedition.

1853 Gunnison's expedition.

1858 Discovery of gold and founding of Denver.

1860 Discovery of silver

1861 Colorado Territory organized, with thirteen counties and a

population of 25,331; capital at Colorado City.

1862 Capital changed to Golden.

1864 A majority of Colorado voters oppose statehood

1867 Capital changed to Denver.

1868 Smelter opened at Black Hawk.
1870 Two railroads built to Denver.
1874 Discovery of cliff dwellings.
1876 Colorado admitted as a state.

1881 Grand River valley opened for settlement.

1890 Gold discovered at Cripple Creek.

1891 Pike's Peak railroad opened.

1902 Arapahoe County divided into Adams, Arapahoe, and Denver
counties.

1904 Gunnison Tunnel begun.

1905 Adams inaugurated January 10; election contest follows, and

on March 16 the Legislature declares Peabody elected; the
next day he resigns, and is succeeded by Lieutenant Gover-
nor McDonald.

1906 Pike centennial celebration.

1 907 Cripple Creek Drainage Canal begun.

324