USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84
Much of the finest scenery of the Atlantic slope occurs in the wonderful chasms which the streams
[9]
HISTORY OF
LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
and convulsions of Nature have hewn in the sides of the mountains with perpendicular granite or sand- stone walls. Cache la Poudre, Big Thompson, Boulder, Cheyenne, Clear Creek, Grape Creek and other canons are famous for their remarkable scenery, and the Grand Canon of the Arkansas is even more impressive and wonderful. West of the main range the streams flow in the bottoms of yet more prodigious canons, with rock walls half a mile or more high, generally mostly precipitous, and sometimes even overhanging their bases. The Black and Grand canons of the Gunnison, the long gorge of the Uncompahgre, and the deep chasms in which the Dolores flows are remarkable for their extent and grandeur.
High up among the sunlit peaks many crystalline lakes reflect the clear sky and the granite spires above them, and send their bright waters plunging and murmuring down through rugged cañons to join other streams making for either the Atlantic or. the Pacific oceans. Near Georgetown is the deep emerald expanse of Green Lake, with Clear Lake above it and Elk Lake at the edge of the timber line. The Twin Lakes, fourteen miles from Leadville, lie at the base of the lofty Mount Elbert, 9,357 feet above the sea, and their unusual beauty has attracted a settlement of summer hotels and cottages on their shores. The five Evergreen lakes mirror the huge sides of Mount Massive; and the crag-bound Chi- cago lakes spread their transparent waters high up near the summits of Mount Evans, the uppermost of them being 11,434 feet above sea level, and perpet- ually frozen. Palmer lake, on the Divide, midway between Denver and Pueblo (7,238 feet high), has on its shore a pleasant health resort, villages and sanitariums. Nestled high up on the pine-clad slopes of Mount Cameron, in the Medicine Bow range, lies Chambers lake, one of Larimer county's boasted beauty spots. This lake is at an elevation of 9,000 feet above sea level, and is fed by Joe Wright, Trap and other small streams which head still higher up in the mountains, and its outlet is one of the sources of the Cache la Poudre river. It was named for a bold trapper and hunter named Cham- bers, who in the early part of the nineteenth century penetrated the wilderness at the headwaters of the Caché la Poudre in search of beaver and other fur- bearing animals. Joe Wright creek also owes its name to a trapper who spent a winter on the stream gathering peltries.
Large areas of white and yellow pine and cedar still remain on the mountains of Colorado. The ridges and mountains are covered with noble ever-
green trees, up to 9,000 feet, and thin and wind- blown trees for 3,000 feet higher, or up to timber line, above which the peaks are bleak rocks, with slight patches of grass and alpine flowers. The wild animals of the highlands include bears, wolves, pumas, wild cats, deer, elk, beaver and others. On the plains millions of prairie dogs dwell, with deer, antelopes, wolves, coyotes, hares and other game, yearly dwindling away.
The climate of this great mountain realm nat- urally has a wide diversity; from the high summer heat of the plains to the perpetual snows of the mountain ranges. The east and south winds are damp and cold; the west winds, though blowing across hundreds of miles of snowy ranges, are warm and dry. As a rule the nights are cool, even when the days reach 90 degrees. The foothills have hot summers, with cool nights, and mild winters, with snow seldom abiding long. The average mean tem- perature in winter is 30.3 degrees; spring, 48.7 de- grees ; summer, 69.7 degrees, and autumn, 50.7 de- grees. Changes are frequent and sometimes sharp, but the dryness of the atmosphere mitigates their se- verity. From November to April snow may come, but it very seldom remains for more than a few days at a time; and thence till the close of summer short rain showers refresh the country. More than 300 days in each year are either clear or partly clear. From July to November the sky is bright and cloudless, and the air is pure, sweet and exhilarat- ing. "An air more delicious to breathe cannot anywhere be found," says Bayard Taylor. This climate is favorable to health and vigor; and the pleasant region of the foothills is a great and beneficient sanitarium, especially for those who suffer from bronchial and pulmonary af- fections. These diseases are arrested in the dry, highland air, and many Eastern people now enjoy good health in Colorado who would have died had they remained in their old homes. It is impor- tant that invalids avoid high altitudes, and remain at the health resorts below the line of 7,500 feet. The electric air excites the nervous system of new- comers especially to a high tension, producing a sort of intoxication of good health, with keen appetites, perfect digestion and sound, refreshing sleep.
Colorado is generously favored with health-pro- moting medicated mineral and thermal springs, nearly all of which are provided with hotels and bath houses. Five miles west of Colorado Springs lies the famous health resort of Manitou, with its soda, iron, seltzer, and sulphur springs, attracting thousands of persons a year to the adjacent hotels.
[10]
HISTORY OF LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
Idaho springs rush from the base of Santa Fé moun- tain, near the headwaters of Clear creek. There are both hot and cold waters, used in various forms of baths, and the analysis show ingredients like those of Carlsbad springs. This locality is much visited by consumptives and those suffering from rheuma- tism, who find healing in the medicinal fountains. Canon City, near the picturesque Grape Creek Canon and the Royal Gorge, has soda springs and hot springs. The Boulder saline water enjoys a large sale throughout America and Europe. Springdale, ten miles northwest of Boulder, has tonic iron waters. There are valuable springs at Morrison, a fashionable mountain resort twenty miles from Den- ver, and near Bear Canon and the Garden of the Angels. The Haywood and Cottonwood springs, near Buena Vista, are visited by thousands of health-seekers. In the narrow Wagon Wheel Gap, where the Upper Rio Grande roars down through a palisaded cleft in the mountains, are hot and cold soda and sulphur springs, with large hotels and bath houses. The soda springs near Leadville are under the shadow of the Saguache range. Poncha hot springs, near Salida, form a group of fifty-five sources of clear, odorless and tasteless water, with hotels and bath houses and great numbers of yearly visitors. Pagosa springs, between the Sierra San Juan and the grassy plains of New Mexico, bubble up in a great rocky basin, and supply purgative alkaline waters of high medicinal value. They have a temperature of 140 degrees, and the steam from the basin can be seen for miles in cool weather. Glenwood springs are ten in number, pouring out every minute 8,000 gallons of warm water, power- fully medicated, alkaline, saline, sulphurous and chalybeate, some of them in hot, vaporous caves near the Grand river, and others provided with swim- ming pools and bath houses. Shaw's magnetic springs are near Del Norte, in the San Luis valley. Trimble's hot springs and the Pinkerton springs are near Durango. The hot sulphur springs, six in number, boil out from the base of a cliff at the head of Troublesome canon, in Middle Park, and are provided with baths. South Park contains a group of saline and alkaline springs, and also Hartzell's hot sulphur springs. Steamboat springs, in Routt county, form a group of eighty hot fountains at the foot of the Park range.
Prior to 1870 agriculture had not assumed com- manding proportions in Colorado, but since then it has advanced by leaps and bounds until at the pres- ent time, through the construction of vast irrigation systems, supplemented by water storage and the
bringing under cultivation of extensive areas of pro- ductive land, tilling of the soil has become the domi- nating industry of the state. At this time the value of the products of the farms, orchards and gardens is more than double the value of the mineral pro- ductions of the state, so that agriculture is now far in the lead of mining so far as net financial results are concerned. Though there is a steady increase year by year in the value of mineral products, agri- culture has taken the lead and bids fair to hold it for all time to come. The aridity of the soil has been overcome by artificial irrigation, by whose aid nearly 4,000,000 acres have been brought under profitable cultivation, with the area increasing every year. It is estimated by the State Engineer that there are 10,000,000 acres of land in the state which can be brought under cultivation through irrigation. The irrigating canals which have their heads in the perennial mountain streams, are tapped by smaller lateral ditches leading to the higher slopes of the farms, and minor ditches reach the fields, which are in turn gridironed by plow furrows. When the crops need water, the head-gates of the laterals are opened and crystal streams flow down the field ditches, and are admitted into the furrows by taking away a shovelful of earth from each one. In a brief space of time the land is thoroughly moistened and the growing crops refreshed as from a prolonged rain. The moisture is controlled absolutely by the farmer and he can apply it to those fields and crops which most need it, and at the same time withhold in from fields and crops that have already been sup- plied with all they need. The state is divided into five irrigation divisions, each in charge of an expe- rienced engineer, and the divisions are sub-divided into water districts, each supervised by a water com- missioner. These officials, under the supervision of the State Engineer, distribute the waters according to priority rights.
Stock-raising and stock-feeding have long been im- portant industries in the state. The grasses are nutritive and abundant, and horses, cattle and sheep thrive on dry alfalfa and native hay. The occupa- tion of the great plains by farmers has forced the large herds of cattle to new pastures elsewhere, and two-thirds of the live stock of the state are now on the farms, where agricultural and stock-raising in- terests are blended, as in the older states, and the animals are more carefully fed and looked after during the winter, thus minimizing the losses. Some of the finest cattle in the world are raised in Colo- rado-prize-winners at the international stock shows in Chicago. Wool growing is successfully carried
[11]
HISTORY OF LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
on in Colorado and yields handsome returns to the flock-masters. There are about 3,000,000 sheep in the state and from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 pounds of wool are marketed in the East each year. About one million lambs are fed in the state every year for the Eastern markets. This industry, besides yielding the feeders a good profit one year after another, aids materially in preserving the fertility and promoting the productiveness of the soil.
The early settlers of Colorado devoted almost their entire time and attention to mining, and enor- mous profits have since been realized from that in- dustry. The mountains west of the 105th meridian are branded with mineral veins of incalculable value, and the total bullion production of the state has reached the enormous sum of nearly $400,000,000. During the golden age of Colorado, silver mining was not much heeded, but between the years 1880 and 1893 it turned out annually four times as much silver as gold. Now, however, more than twice as much gold as silver is produced annually by the mines of Colorado.
The coal fields of the state cover 40,000 square miles, the measures running all the way from two to sixty feet in thickness. The output of coal rose from 8,000 tons in 1869 to nearly 12,000,000 tons in 1909. Much of the Colorado coal is bituminous, but large areas of pure anthracite have been opened at Crested Butte, New Castle and in Routt county. Lignite beds follow the eastern base of the moun- tains for 250 miles. Since the early '80s petroleum has been one of the important productions of the state, and the volume is steadily increasing.
Extensive quarrying industries have been built up in recent years and immense quantities of building and paving material and flagging for sidewalks and basement floors are annually wrenched from their resting places in the hills and made to perform serv- ice in advancing the onward march of civilization. Sandstones, granite and marble are found in great variety in the foothills. Marble occurs in white, black, pink and variegated colors in various portions of the state. Larimer county has inexhaustible quar- ries of red and gray sandstone; also of marble and granite. The walls of some of the finest buildings in Denver are constructed of Larimer county granite.
The State capitol in Denver is a handsome mod- ern building, of Colorado granite, erected at a cost of more than $2,000,000. The state institutions in- clude the Insane Asylum at Pueblo; the School for the Education of the Mute and Blind at Colorado Springs ; the Penitentiary at Canon City; the State Reformatory at Buena Vista; the State Industrial
School for boys at Golden; the State Industrial School for girls at Morrison, and the Soldiers' Home at Monte Vista.
The public schools of Colorado are of high grade, comparing favorably with those of the most ad- vanced of the older states. More than 3,000,000 acres of land have been set apart as an endowment for the public schools, and the State school in- come fund is yearly increasing in amount. One State Normal School has been in operation in Greeley for fifteen years, and another one, lo- cated on the Western slope, has been authorized by the Legislature. The University of Colorado, located at Boulder, was opened in 1877. The State School of Mines has a home at Golden, and the State Agricultural College at Fort Col- lins. These are all large, well equipped and flourishing institutions with a steadily increasing en- rollment of students. In addition to these State edu- cational institutions, there are the Presbyterian Col- lege of the Southwest at Del Norte, Westminster College at Denver (also a Presbyterian school), the Denver University, a Methodist institution; the Baptist Woman's College at Montclair, near Den- ver ; Colorado College at Colorado Springs, and the Jesuit College, north of Denver, all of them well supported. Wolf Hall is a flourishing Episcopal school at Denver. The National Government main- tains an Indian School at Grand Junction. Two United States military posts are maintained in Colo- rado, the chief of which is Fort Logan, near Den- ver. The other is Fort Lewis, near Durango, and guards the Ignacio Ute Reservation. The old frontier stronghold, Fort Lyons, in the Arkansas valley, was abandoned in 1890.
The railways of Colorado are famous for their bold engineering and their wonderful achievements in the passage of lofty mountains and unparalleled gorges. They were for the most part built in ad- vance of population, and the rapid growth of the state is in part due to their agency. Six great rail- way transportation lines cross the Plains and enter the state from the east, and they are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Missouri Pacific, the Rock Island & Pacific, the Kansas Pacific, the Burlington and the Union Pacific. In addition to these the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the Chicago & Northwestern operate through passen- ger car service from Chicago to Denver over the Union Pacific tracks, so that in reality one has the choice of eight lines in going east from Denver or in coming west. The first railroad built in Colorado was the Denver Pacific, extending from Denver
[12]
HISTORY OF
LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
north to Cheyenne, Wyoming, a distance of 106 miles. It was opened for traffic June 22nd, 1870. The Kansas Pacific was completed to Denver in August of that year. At the present time the total railway mileage of Colorado is 5,360.31. A tele- graph line was established from Omaha to Jules- burg, on its way across the continent, in 1861. Two years later, in October, 1863, a branch line was completed to Denver, thus putting the capital city of Colorado in direct communication by wire with the East. In 1865 the line was extended from Den- ver to Salt Lake, via Fort Collins and Virginia Dale, and Denver became the repeating station for California dispatches.
The cities of Colorado having a population of 3,000 and over are Aspen, Boulder, Canon City, Central City, Colorado Springs, Cripple Creek, Denver, Durango, Florence, Fort Collins, Grand Junction, Greeley, Leadville, Loveland, Pueblo, Sa- lida, Trinidad and Victor. Denver, founded in 1858, has a population rising 213,000. The United States census, taken this year (1910), will probably show a number of cities other than these given herewith that have populations exceeding 3,000. The population of Colorado in 1861 was 25,329, four-fifths of which were men. It is expected that the federal census for this year (1910) will show a population in Colorado of nearly, if not quite, one million.
The first Territorial Legislature, which met in Denver September 9th, 1861, divided the Territory into seventeen counties and three judicial districts. The names of the counties created at that time were Costilla, Conejos, Huerfano, Pueblo, Fremont, El Paso, Douglas, Arapahoe, Weld, Larimer, Boulder, Jefferson, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Park, Lake, Sum- mit. Laporte was named in the act as the county seat of Larimer county, and the county was assigned to the First judicial district, with Benjamin F. Hall as Judge. At present there are sixty counties in the state and nineteen judicial districts.
The first bank in Colorado was opened in 1862, and in 1865 the First National Bank of Denver came into existence.
The geological history of Colorado is concerned mainly with the gradual upheaval of the great conti- nental mountain range from beneath the sea. Be- ginning with the emergence of the Sierra Madre from the waste of waves, this uplifting of land ad- vanced northward ; and the Sierra San Juan of Colo- rado is probably the most ancient section of firm ground on this side of the Republic. Later the other ranges slowly appeared above the sea, the Sangre de Cristo and Sierra Mojada, and finally the front
range. For ages the waves of the ocean beat against the steep western declivities; and the more gradual eastern slopes were formed from the deposits washed down from the peaks into the shallow water on that side. The mountain walls enclosed many lakes of salt water, which finally drained off through the canons, leaving the broad basins of the parks for the homes of the coming empire.
"Colorado is the flower of a peculiarly Western civilization, in which is mingled the best blood of the North and the South, the virile sap of New England and the Carolinas-a truly American state."
Physical Features of Colorado
The physical features of Colorado, which, of course, includes Larimer County, are tersely pre- sented in the history of Colorado, written by Hubert Howe Bancroft, the eminent historian. He says:
"In the gradual upheaval of the continent from a deep sea submersion, the great Sierra Madre, or Northern range, of Old Mexico first divided the waters, and presented a wall to the ocean on the west side. The San Juan range of Colorado is an extension of the Sierra Madre, and the oldest land in this part of the continent. Then at intervals far apart rose the Sangre de Cristo range, the Mojada or Greenhorn range, and lastly the Colorado, called the Front range because it is first seen from the east; and northeast from this the shorter up- heavals of Wind River and the Black Hills, each, as it lies nearer or farther from the main Rocky range, being more or less recent.
"The longer slope and greater accessibility of the mountains on the eastern acclivity has come from the gradual wash and spreading out of the detrition of these elevations in comparatively shallow water, while yet the ocean thundered at the western base of the northern range. The salt water enclosed by the barrier of the Rocky Mountains, and subdivided afterward by the later upheavals into lesser seas, were carried off through the canons which their own mighty force, aided by other activities of Nature, and by some of her weaknesses, opened for them. For uncounted ages the fresh water of the land flowed into these inland seas, and purged them of their saline flavor, washing the salts and alkalies into the bed of the ocean on the west, where after the emergence of the Sierra Nevada, and the eleva- tion of the intervening mountains of the great basin, they largely remained, having no outlet. Gradual elevation and evaporation, with glacial action, com-
[13]
HISTORY OF
LARIMER COUNTY, COLORADO
pleted the general shaping of the country. Subse- quent elemental and volcanic action has left it with four parallel mountain ranges, from which shoot 132 peaks, ranging from 12,000 to 14,500 feet above the sea level, and from 9,000 to 10,000 feet above the general level of the State, with many lesser ones; with large elevated valleys, called parks, walled about with majestic heights, covered with luxuriant grasses, threaded by streams of the purest water, beautified by lakes and dotted with groups of trees, with narrow, fertile valleys skirting numerous small rivers, fringed with cottonwood and willows; with nobler rivers rushing through rents in the solid mountains thousands of feet in depth, and decorated by time and weather, with carvings such as no human agency could ever have designed, their wild imagery softened by blended tones of color in harmony with the blue sky, the purple gray shadows and the clinging moss and herbage; with forests of pine, fir, spruce, aspen and other trees, covering the mountain sides up to a height of 10,000 or 12,000 feet; with wastes of sand at the western base of the Snowy range, or main chain, and arid mesas in the southeast, where everything is stunted except enormous cacti, with grassy plains sloping to the east, made gay with an indigenous flower, and other grassy slopes extending to the mountains toward the west, each with its own dis- tinctive features. It is, above all, a mountainous country, and with all its streams, which are numer- ous, it is a dry one. In the summer many of its seeming water courses are merely arroyas-dry creek beds; others contain some water flowing in channels cut twenty or more feet down through yellow clay to a bed of shale, and still others run through canons with narrow bottoms supporting rich grass, willow, thorn, cherry, currant and plum trees. Sloping up from these may be a stretch of rolling country covered sparsely with low, spread- ing cedars, or a tableland with colonies of prairie dogs scattered over it, and moving upon it (in the early days) herds of wild horses, buffaloes, deer and antelope. Up in the mountains are meadows, hav- ing in their midst beaver dams, overgrown with aspens and little brooks trickling from them. Sev- eral other fur-bearing animals are here also. In still other localities are fine trout streams, and game about them is abundant, elk, mountain sheep, bears, lynxes, wolves, panthers, pumas, wildcats, grouse, pheasants, ptarmigans and birds of various kinds having their habitat there."
Numerous canons open on to the Plains from the mountains in Larimer County, the more important
of which are the canons of the Big Thompson and . Caché la Poudre rivers, which were cut through the hills for the waters to flow in the early infancy of this world. So many aspects have these canons that any mood may be satisfied in regarding their varied features. Their walls have a width between them ranging from one to two hundred feet, the rock being stratified, and continuing for miles. In places they rise one, two and three thousand feet, with level summits, surmounted by second walls of prodigious height. But then figures represent only height and depth; they convey no impression of the gorges themselves, which sometimes narrow down to the width of the stream, and all is gloom and grandeur, and again they broaden out into beautiful parks and meadows with waterfalls dashing down between inclosing walls, trees growing out of the clefts, huge rocks grouped fantastically about, curious plants sheltering in their shadows, and the brilliant, strong current of the stream darting down in swift green chutes between the spume-flecked boulders, dancing in creamy eddies, struggling to tumble headlong down some sparkling cataract, making the prismatic air resound with the soft tinkle as of merry laughter. Again, they surge along in half shadows, rushing as if blinded against massive abutments of rock, to be dashed into spray, gliding thereafter more smoothly, as if rebuked for their previous haste, but always full of light, life and motion. The grandeur, beauty and variety of the views these canons make doubly interesting the re- flection that through these gorges poured the waters of that great primal sea which spread over Eastern. Colorado. No pen can fully describe and no brush adequately picture the sublimity and exquisite charm of these great rents in the mountains. Every turn of the stream presents a new view until the eye tires and the brain wearies beholding them. Up through these narrow gorges roads have been blasted out of the solid rock in many places, over which carriages and automobiles pass to and fro, giving sight-seers an opportunity at the smallest expenditure of physical exercise to penetrate their sublime recesses and feast their eyes on the grandeurs and beauties there presented.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.