USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 12
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In addition to the irrigating systems already in operation there are several others in contemplation
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and the construction of some of them is now in progress. The most important of these is what is known as the Laramie-Poudre project, which when completed will supply water to about 125,000 acres of land in the Northern parts of Larimer and Weld counties. Completed according to plans, this pro- ject will cost about five million dollars. A portion of its water supply will be taken from the Laramie river at a point high up in the mountains. As a means of diverting the water to the Cache la Poudre water shed, a tunnel two and one-fourth miles in length, is being driven through the divide that sep- arates the two streams, through which the water will flow into the Cache la Poudre river. It will be taken out at the company's headgate lower down the stream and thence carried out on to the land through irrigating canals and lateral ditches. Work on the tunnel is now in progress, more than half of it being completed. The Laramie-Poudre Reser- voirs & Irrigation company which has entered upon this stupendous project and is pushing it forward with surprising vigor, will supplement the supply derived from the Laramie river and its tributaries by an extensive system of reservoirs located on the Plains, several of which are already constructed and others in process of construction. These reser- voirs will catch and hold in check a portion of the spring flood waters of the various streams and also the surface flood waters which, during storms of rain, flow down the declivities in great volume.
With the advantages of a genial climate, a fertile soil and abundance of water for irrigation, good markets for the products of the farm and range, in addition to the various attractions afforded by the grand old mountains with their snow-capped peaks, awe-inspiring canons, rushing streams, beautiful parks and forests of timber, it is not surprising that thousands of the best people on earth are found happily and prosperously located within the borders of Larimer county. And yet there is room for more.
Society, Occupations and Pastimes
Society in the early days was on an altogether different basis from that of the present period. When the pioneers came to the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson valleys, there was no law by which the actions of men were governed in their relation to others, but it is not so certain, says a writer, that the code of the wilderness would not bear favorable comparison with that of modern times. When it comes to the personal relations of individ-
uals to each other, the account stands in favor of the wilderness. It has often been demonstrated in the history of the west that the existence of laws and the presence of lawyers to expound and of officers to en- force them, are not indispensable to a just and or- derly condition in thinly settled portions of a coun- try. It was the universal testimony of those familiar with the life of the frontiersman and with that of the pioneer, that crimes of all colors were never so few, and punishment for such as were committed so just, and swift and sure, as in these remote locali- ties where there were neither laws nor lawyers. Men trusted each other. Unless there were circum- stances to justify it the frontiersman was never known to invade the property, or rights of his neighbor, even though detection and discovery were impossible. A pioneer seldom locked his door when leaving home. He felt secure in the be- lief that unless in a case of extreme necessity, the contents of his home would not be disturbed. Each man was in a measure, a law unto himself, but here on the frontier more than in the older com- munities, far more, the precepts of the Golden Rule prevailed, and every man tried to treat his neigh- bor fairly. The pioneers, though assembled from widely differing communities in the east and reared under widely differing conditions had a true sense of justice and if they administered it oftentimes in a rough fashion, there was rarely any complaint that their judgments were wrong. "No court, or jury is called to adjudicate upon his disputes or abuses," says Gregg, "save his own conscience; and no powers are invoked to settle them save those with which the God of Nature has endowed him." It may be truly said that among the pioneers the personal relations of individuals to each other were as har- monious and just as they are under the most elab- orate social organizations.
Trapping, hunting and fishing were the prin- cipal occupations of the little colony at Laporte in 1858-9-tilling of the soil not being thought of- and horse races, foot races and target shooting the principal amusements. Society was in a primitive state, but human nature is the same the world over and likes to be amused. It was so with the pioneer. While their social gatherings, dances and parties lacked in refinement in dress and manner of those of the present day, they enjoyed them to the utmost, and it is not for us of these latter days to sneer at and ridicule them. Our masquerades and carnivals are the same thing over again, with a little more finery, daintier refreshments and fancier liquors. Horse racing is as popular all over the country
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in our day as it was with the first settlers, and Capt. John Smith's squaw wife was presented at the court of England with all the honors that accompany state presentations of today. Indeed, Pocahontas is the only American female honored by a place on American coins. It is surely no disgrace then, that many of the first settlers had Pocahontas wives. Indeed there was not a single white woman on the Poudre in 1858, and only one in 1859.
One of the notable features in the social affairs of the Poudre was the weekly dog feast. This feature was introduced by the squaw wives of the settlers. A good, fat, healthy dog was slain each week, and the hair singed off over a fire made of dry grass. Then it was put into a kettle and boiled until tender. The meat somewhat resembled pork, and was considered a great delicacy. Some of the feasters, however, could never muster up courage enough to taste it, and as a result the dog feast soon became a relic of the past. In those days, the set- tlers had no calves, lambs or beeves to roast, no clams to bake, no oysters for church suppers, no terrapin, and they just had to boil dog or have no feast at all. It was no uncommon thing for them to be without flour for two or three weeks at a time. Then hoe-cakes were made of Government corn, brought all the way from Fort Laramie, and ground by female hands between common rocks. This is no fancy sketch, but the pure and unadulterated truth, as can be substantiated by the survivors of that early period.
Overland Stage and Indian Troubles
During the summer of 1862 the route of the Overland stage was changed from the North Platte to the South Platte. This change was made on ac- count of the many dangers from Indian raids on the coaches and stations and the difficulties exper- ienced in keeping the line open. The new road led by the way of Julesburg to Denver, thence along the base of the mountains to Laporte where it entered the mountains and thence via Virginia Dale, to the Laramie Plains and then due west, to a junc- tion with the old Overland trail. Speaking of this change Coutant's History of Wyoming says, "The transfer to the new line was so successfully accom- plished that not a mail was missed or a coach de- layed. The rolling stock, horses and other property of the stage company was transferred from the old to the new line with Company A of the Eleventh Ohio cavalry acting as escort. After escorting the stage stock to the new line of operations, the command
selected the site for Fort Halleck and constructed the buildings. The fort was located on the new Overland route and was garrisoned for some years by troops from the Eleventh Ohio. The official orders locating Fort Sanders in 1866 includes the abandonment of Fort Halleck.
"A description of the equipment of the Overland road by Ben Holladay may not prove uninteresting, considering the great disadvantages the stage comp- any labored under in providing it. The coaches, express wagons and rolling stock generally were all manufactured by the famous Concord Coach Manu- facturing company of Concord, New Hampshire. This company not only manufactured the rolling stock but supplied the material used in the repair shops along the line. The harnesses were made by the Hill Harness company of the same city. The material in everything was of the very best. The stations along the line averaged about ten miles apart, and every fifty miles was what was called a 'home station,' where the drivers changed and made their homes. There were also eating stations for passengers. The intermediate stopping places were called 'swing stations'; here only horses were changed, and at these were kept two men to take care of the stock. At every station was a large barn with accomodations for from thirty to fifty horses. The grain was supplied from Fort Kearney in Nebraska and Salt Lake. When there was a failure of crops, which sometimes happened, horse feed was shipped by wagon train from St. Louis. The main shops were located at Atchison, Kansas, Denver, Colorado, and Salt Lake, Utah, and there were re- pair shops on each division of 200 miles. Besides the repair shops, on each of these divisions was a traveling blacksmith shop. This consisted of a wagon fitted up with bellows and tools, drawn by a team of strong horses. The movable shop was kept going constantly from one end of the division to the other. There were also harness makers and menders, who traveled over each division with his tools and materials for repairing harness. The supplies for this long stretch of road-that is, the provisions used at the stations, were purchased in large quantities at St. Louis and sent out and dis- tributed among the division points, and from there they were sent to smaller stations as required. The company owned large transportation trains of ox and mule teams and these transported all supplies to stations, and on their return hauled wood to places along the line when it was needed. The first division on the main line was from Atchison to Fort Kearney; the second from Fort Kearney to Jules-
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burg; the third from Julesburg to Denver; the fourth from Denver to Fort Steele, by way of Vir- ginia Dale; the fifth from Fort Steele to Green river and the sixth from Green river to Salt Lake. Leav- ing Denver going west the stations in Colorado were Burlington, (Longmont), Namaqua, (Big Thompson), Laporte, Park and Virginia Dale. One of the superintendents was Major John Kerr, afterwards a well-known and much esteemed citi- zen of Berthoud, where he died several years ago."
The Indian depredations on the Overland stage line in 1863, so intimately connected with the safety and success of that enterprise, in which Larimer county was deeply interested, a reference to them and the methods employed in preventing them and bringing the hostiles to terms, is not amiss here. Referring to and describing these events and their bloody results Coutant's history of Wyoming says:
"On the 13th of April Gen. Connor, then in command of the United States troops employed in protecting the stage line and emigrants, on their way west, telegraphed General Halleck from Camp Douglass: 'Unless immediately reinforced with cavalry, the Indians urged on by the Mormons will break up the Overland mail and make the emigrant road impassable.' General Halleck referred this dispatch to General Schofield, commanding the de- partment of the Missouri, and that officer ordered Colonel John M. Chivington to send a cavalry force to reinforce General Connor, and the Colonel, after some delay, ordered four companies of the First Colorado cavalry, under Major E. W. Wyn- coop, to proceed west on the Overland stage line as far as Fort Bridger and cooperate with General Connor's forces. Two of these companies were taken from Denver and Major Wyncoop was or- dered to proceed with these to Laporte, where two other companies were located. Arriving there, he found that these troops were not mounted and were indifferently armed and so necessarily considerable time was lost before the troops were ready for the march westward. In the meantime, General Con- nor's forces had met the hostile Utes twenty-five miles west of Salt Lake, and after a severe engage- ment, had driven them to the hills. A number of emigrants had been killed in that vicinity; also soldiers and stage drivers.
"The delay of Major Wyncoop's command re- sulted in permitting the Southern Utes to attack the Overland line on the Laramie Plains. On July 5th, these Indians attacked the stage company's stage station at Cooper Creek and ran off all the stock, and the same night they visited Medicine
Bow station and carried off all the provisions and stripped the keepers of the station, Hazard and Nicholas, of their clothing. The Indians, on being pursued by the soldiers took shelter in the hills. On the 10th the Indians ran off all the mules at Rock Creek station. These same hostiles ran off 250 head of horses a few miles from Fort Laramie. Extend- ing their route northward, they came upon 211 head of horses belonging to Reshaw and others. By this time the condition of affairs along the Overland route from Denver to the North Platte had become serious. Philip Mandel, the hay contractor on the stage line, had a number of encounters with Indians that season. He and his men went to the hay field armed with Winchesters and kept close at hand horses saddled, so as to fight or run as the occasion might require. These Indians belonged to the same tribe which had attacked the line beyond Salt Lake. General Connor, by urgent appeals, had secured reinforcements from California, composed of a battalion of the Second cavalry of that state."
Matters along the stage line from Virginia Dale west were badly demoralized that season. Virginia Dale became a place of refuge for a number of women and children who had been living at stations on the line west of that point. The depredations committed by the Indians at Cooper Creek and the Medicine Bow stations on July 5th and these points being in such close proximity, the station at Virginia Dale was kept in a state of fear of a visit from the hostiles for weeks afterwards. William S. Taylor, who was then station keeper at the Dale kept him- self advised as well as he could of the movements of the Indians and was prepared to give them a warm reception should they attempt to raid his station. One day word came down the line from the west that a strong party of Utes was on the way to raid the station and drive off the stock. His force of station tenders and their equipment not being sufficient to resist a large force of hostiles, he re- sorted to a stratagem which sufficed to relieve the situation. Calling his men together they constructed a rude barricade of logs and timbers at a narrow point which commanded the approach to the sta- tion. Taking down all the stove pipes in the house he mounted them on the barricade in such a manner as to make them look like formidable pieces of artil- lery, pointing up the road, all ready for use. The next day the savages made their appearance, but when they came in sight of that barricade and saw what they supposed were cannon pointing in their direction with men behind the guns ready to fire, they hurriedly whirled about and fled back toward
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the Laramie Plains in great haste. Mr. Taylor, in telling the story how he outwitted the hostiles, said he was not troubled by Indian scares after that.
When the stage line was transferred from the North Platte to the South Platte in 1862, nearly all of the tide of western emigration followed the route taken by the stage, as travelers felt greater security when under the protection afforded by the armed escort of the Overland coaches, with the result that hundreds of emigrant-trains and thous- ands of men, women and children came up the South Platte, and fording that stream just below the mouth of the Cache la Poudre river, following up the north side of the latter stream they pursued their course to the entrance to the mountains at Laporte. From this point they followed the stage road up past Virginia Dale and thence on northwest to the Laramie Plains.
In the month of February, 1865, Colonel W. O. Collins of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry, in whose honor Fort Collins was named, after a sharp fight at Mud Springs on the North Platte defeated and dispersed a party of 2,000 Indians that had come down from the north to raid the stage stations along the South Platte. Colonel Collins was an exper- ienced Indian fighter and he made excellent disposi- tion of his small force and won a signal victory over the enemy. Two of his soldiers were killed, sixteen wounded and ten badly frost-bitten. Colonel Collins with his command, returned to Fort Lara- mie on February 14th. Companies B and F of Colonel Collins' Eleventh Ohio cavalry, were then stationed at Fort Collins and took no part in the battle at Mud Springs.
On March 28th, 1865, General G. W. Dodge, Commander of the Department of the Missouri, consolidated the districts of Utah, Colorado and Nebraska into one district to be known as the Dis- trict of the Plains and assigned Brigadier General P. E. Connor to the command with headquarters at Denver. General Connor was a man of decided character, discreet, a splendid Indian fighter, and above all things loved the flag under which he fought. Had he been supported as he should have been and given the troops he needed, he would have given the marauding, blood thirsty Indians such a lesson as would have convinced them that it was better to remain at peace with the whites. First Lieutenant, Charles C. Hawley, Veteran battalion, First Colorado cavalry, was appointed acting ord- nance officer for the South and West sub-districts of the Plains, on General Connor's staff. Lieuten-
ant Hawley is now and has been for more than 45 years an honored resident of Fort Collins.
On the 10th of June, Captain Wilson, command- ing the post at Fort Collins, reported that Indians had robbed the stage station at Willow Springs, and that he had started out in pursuit with a force of twenty-five men, but owing to a bad storm coming on he was unable to get farther west than Virginia
MARGUERITE FALLS, MORAINE PARK PHOTO BY F. P. CLATWORTHY
Dale, but that he had sent word to Sergeant Lin- nell, commanding the detachment at Big Laramie, to send five men to guard Willow Springs station. A few days before this a dispatch from Major Norton of Sixth U. S. volunteers, dated at Vir- ginia Dale and addressed to General Connor, said:
"The stage from the West has just arrived at this station, having made but one change of horses from Fort Halleck. All stations have been abandoned by the stage company except Big Laramie. The stock has been concentrated at that place and Halleck. I learn from the passengers that fourteen horses were stolen from the latter place on the 4th inst. Unless the stage company reoccupy their stations I shall be
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obliged to make a different disposition of the escort for self-protection, if nothing else. There are large bodies of Indians on the road; the lowest accounts place them at from 600 to 800. I am on my way to Fort Halleck with Capt. Wilson and an escort of ten men." General Connor hastened to Fort Collins, where he found matters even in a worse condition than he supposed. Robert Spottswood, the superin- tendent of the stage line, had withdrawn all the stage stock east of Fort Halleck and declined to put it on again unless there was a guard of thirty men placed at each stage station. This was out of the question, so General Connor sent the mail through by wagons in charge of soldiers.
It will be seen from the foregoing account of Indian troubles that while the settlers of the Caché la Poudre Valley escaped serious inroads and losses by the Indians, they were in the danger zone and liable at any time during the period of those troubles to be raided with loss of life and property. They had numerous scares and a few horses were stolen by the redskins, but we are unable to learn that any settlers in the valley lost their lives at the hands of the Indians. The Platte valley near Greeley did not get off so well. On the 24th of August, 1868, a small band of Indians stampeded the herd of John Brush, driving off all the horses, twenty-four in number, and killing four head of cattle. Some of them dashed upon William Brush and two of his men, killing all three. Each was shot three times, and in addition tomahawked and scalped. Horses were stolen from other residents in that vicinity. About dusk on the 27th, a party of sixty-four citi- zens, under the lead of D. B. Baily, started in pur- suit of the marauders, coming up with them at sun- rise on the morning of the 28th, within ten miles of a small settlement on the Platte called Latham. The Indians discovered their pursuers, hastily mounted and began circling around them after their usual form of attack, but were soon driven off, retreating towards the Kiowa. William and John Brush were brothers of Hon. J. L. Brush of Greeley, who is a member of the present State Board of Agriculture.
Development of Irrigation in Colorado
Agriculture by irrigation is comparatively a new feature in American farming. Unknown to the early Plains travelers, they all united in declaring the great arid region west of the Missouri a desert which could never become the home of civilized man, says a recent writer. But among those who
became the first settlers of Colorado there were many who knew of irrigation in New Mexico, where for over 200 years it had been practiced by the Spaniards, and in California, where it had been adopted from Mexico, and in Utah, where it was being successfully inaugurated by the Mormons. They believed that irrigated crops could be grown in Colorado. The first attempts were made in a small way along Clear creek, the Platte river, and Boulder creek, mostly with vegetable gardens and small grains. The fact was established that the soil was fertile, and would produce with abundance. The first ditches were small affairs and constructed in an inexpensive manner. They covered the first bottom land only. They were built and owned by companies of farmers, each one of which had land under the ditch. At this time the idea prevailed. that the uplands could not be farmed. Down as late as 1874, probably, a majority of the farmers of the state held this notion, and as a consequence the agriculture of the state was confined to the valleys proper. But it was at last discovered that the soil of the bluffs and of the second and third bottoms was as rich and productive as that of the lower land, and farming began to push out from the im- mediate vicinity of the streams. This new departure involved a change in the manner and methods of building ditches; and at this point the big canal corporations came into existence. It was the con- struction of these great irrigating canals in Northern Colorado, in the San Luis valley, and in the valleys of the Arkansas and Grand, that brought thousands of acres of land under water and opened it to settle- ment and cultivation. This gave rise to the sale of what are known as water rights. It was argued that the construction of an irrigating ditch increased the value of all land to which it could furnish water, and hence the land owner was in equity bound to pay at least a portion of this appreciation to the canal company. Many of these irrigation companies have been land companies as well-buying the land in large tracts, constructing the canal, and then selling the land with water rights attached. It is un- doubtedly true that the highest interest of farmers is in the ownership of their own canals; but it is also a fact that the great canals, which have required mil- lions of capital to construct would never have been built if the sale of water rights had not have been permitted.
According to the State Engineer's reports, there are, in round numbers, 15,000 miles of main irrigat- ing canals in the state. Their cost may be approxi- mately estimated at $50,000,000, but considering the
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value of their franchise in accordance with the de- crees of the Courts, it may safely be asserted that the irrigating canals of the State represent at least $100,000,000.
The ultimate extension of the irrigated area of the state eastward toward the Kansas and Nebraska border is not to be doubted. With the development of the reservoir system to its extreme limits, their extension will be hastened. Another fact which assures an enlargement of the irrigated area is the return of water by seepage to the streams. Not- withstanding the large appropriations made from the Platte and its tributaries, the volume of water as measured 150 miles from the mountains is sub- stantially the same as at the canon. How is this accounted for? The great basin of the Platte has been irrigated for forty-five years. It has become thoroughly saturated with water-a vast under- ground reservoir, as it were, from which the river is fed. Thus the water which is used on the farms, say at Fort Collins, finds it way back by seepage into the river and is used again at Greeley. This same fact will also be demonstrated in the San Luis valley, and in the Arkansas valley, in the course of time, as neither of these sections have been irrigated as long as the district of Northern Colorado.
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