USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 29
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Though young in years, Wellington has given birth to two newspapers, the News and the Sun, the latter alone surviving. The Sun has changed hands several times, but is now owned and conducted by John E. Pope, an experienced newspaper man and practical printer, who is serving his clientage ably and well. It was founded in 1907, and has done much to advance the material, social and moral welfare of the far-famed Boxelder valley, of which Wellington is the commercial center.
In February, 1887, after Manhattan had be- come a booming mining camp with brilliant pros- pects, a newspaper called the Prospector was started
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to proclaim to the world the golden resources of its chosen home. The Prospector was published by the Manhattan Publishing company, of which Dr. M. A. Baker was president; I. R. Blevin, secretary, and F. A. McCarty, treasurer. The paper was short lived and passed out of existence within a year and the printing material was moved to Denver.
In 1906 Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Evans of Fort Col- lins launched the Beacon, a bright and sparkling literary weekly, which they continued to publish until 1909, when it was suspended. This completes the list of newspaper ventures in Larimer county, from which it appears that many were called and few chosen. The surviving papers are the Daily and Weekly Express; the Daily and Weekly Cour- ier, and the Daily and Weekly Review, all of Fort Collins; the Weekly Reporter and the Daily and Weekly Herald of Loveland ; the Weekly Bulletin of Berthoud, and the Weekly Sun of Wellington.
Postoffices in Larimer County
The first settlers in Larimer county remained without a postoffice and mail facilities until 1862, when the Overland Stage line was transferred from the North Platte route to the South Platte, the line following the latter stream from Julesburg to Den- ver, thence north through Larimer county via Lit- tle Thompson, Big Thompson, Laporte, Virginia Dale to the Laramie Plains, and thence west to a junction with the old North Platte route. That year postoffices were established at Mariana's, on the Big Thompson, and at Laporte. The office at Mar- iana's was called Namaqua. A Spaniard with an Indian wife was postmaster. G. R. Sanderson, who kept a store at Laporte, was the first postmaster at that place. Before that date settlers had to go to Denver or Fort Laramie for their mail. In 1864 a postoffice was established at Washburn's Crossing of the Big Thompson, and John E. Washburn was postmaster. It was known as the Big Thompson postoffice and retained that name until the Colorado Central Railroad was built in 1877, when it was changed to Loveland, which name it still bears. Soon after the soldiers established a military post at Fort Collins, in the fall of 1864, the troops were given mail facilities and a postoffice called Camp Collins. Joseph Mason was the first postmaster, the office being kept in his store, which stood where the City Drug store now stands. As the population in- creased and a demand grew up for them, other postoffices were established in different parts of the county where they would accommodate the greatest
number of people. At present there are twenty- four postoffices in the county, named as follows :
Bellvue, Berthoud, Boxelder, Bulger, Drake, Elk- horn, Estes Park, Fort Collins, Glendevey, Glen- eyre, Home, Laporte, Livermore, Logcabin. Long's Peak, Loveland, Masonville, Moraine Park, Pine- wood, St. Cloud, Timnath, Virginia Dale, Waverly and Wellington. One of these, Fort Collins, is a second-class office, and two others, Loveland and Berthoud, are third-class offices. All the others are in the fourth class. There are five Rural free delivery routes radiating from Fort Collins, two from Loveland, two from Berthoud, two from Wel- lington and one from Bellvue. The annual re- ceipts at the Fort Collins office for stamps, stamped envelopes, postal cards sold and for box rents ex- ceeds $30,000. The government has appropriated $135,000 for a federal building containing a post- office, work on which is expected to be started in 1911.
Origin of Local Names
I have devoted much time and energy to an effort to ascertain, if possible, the origin of the names given to localities, streams, mountains, lakes, passes, etc., with greater or less success. In some instances I have been unable, after considerable research, to get the desired information, even from the oldest inhabitants, as in the case of Namaqua. No one living in the county has been able to tell me how that name originated, nor what it signifies. It is unquestionably of Indian origin, but how, when and by whom it was bestowed and what it means are among things which have escaped the memory (if they ever knew) of all the surviving pioneers. In several instances the origin of the names given to localities is indicated in the historical sketches of those localities, as in the case of Fort Collins, Love- land, Big Thompson, Livermore, Laporte, Virginia Dale, Stove Prairie and Buckhorn. In addition to these, the following list of names under separate captions, is presented in the belief that the history of their origin should be preserved for the benefit of future generations :
Naming of the Cache la Poudre River
The true story of how the Cache la Poudre river got its name was told me by the late Abner Loomis and printed in the Fort Collins Courier of February 8th, 1883. This story came to Mr. Loomis from first hand, having been told to him by his long time
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personal friend, the late Antoine Janis, the first white settler in Larimer county, who was a member of a party of freighters that was snow-bound near the present town of Bellvue, in November,. 1836. The story as it was printed in the Courier more than a quarter of a century ago, is substantially as fol- lows :
"A few rods distant from where the Bellvue school house now stands there is, or was, a deep artificial depression covering several feet each way in extent. From this hole in the ground the Caché la Poudre river, one of Colorado's largest and finest mountain streams, derives its name. The circum- stances connected with the origin of the name are as follows :
"In November, 1836, a large party of trappers and employes in the service of the American Fur company, while on their way from St. Louis to Green River, Wyoming, with a heavily loaded wag- on-train, camped for the night on the bank of the river near the locality mentioned. Antoine Janis, who was well known to all the early settlers of Northern Colorado, then a boy twelve years of age, was with the party, his father being captain of the caravan.
"During the night a severe snow storm set in and continued for several days, covering the ground with an immense body of snow, which, for the time being, prevented the further progress of the caravan. Fi- nally, after the storm had abated and the snow had settled some, the order was given to lighten the wagons and get ready to proceed. A large, deep pit, like a house cellar only much deeper, was dug a few rods south of the camp, and all that could be spared from each wagon was stored away in it. The pit was then skillfully filled and covered over with a pile of brush, which was set on fire and burned, giving the spot the appearance of having been a camping ground. This was done to deceive the pry- ing eyes of thieving Indians.
"The train, considerably lightened, then pursued its way over the mountains to its destination. Some of the teams returned later in the season, reopened the pit and loading the goods that had been safely cached, departed with them for Green River with- out the loss of a pound of freight.
"Included in the stores buried in the pit were several hundred pounds of powder. From this cir- cumstance comes the name Caché la Poudre, a French phrase signifying 'where the powder was hidden.' "
There have been several stories which pretended to give the origin of the name of the Cache la
Poudre river, but this is believed to be the true one, as it was related by an eye-witness of the cach- ing of the powder.
Definition of the Word "Cache"
In Chittenden's American Fur Trade, Volume I., page 41, we find the following lucid definition of the term "Cache," which possesses a local significance because of the name given to the principal river which rises in and flows eastward through Larimer county. The stream derives its name from an inci- dent, the nature of and reason for which are so clearly described by the author. He says :
"Of the many terms peculiar to the fur trade no one was of more common use than the 'cache.' It frequently happens that parties had to abandon tem- porarily the property they were carrying, with the intention of returning for it at a more convenient time, the property so abandoned being cached or concealed so as to prevent its loss or injury. The use of the word in this specific meaning is very old and, of course, came through the French, to whose language it belongs. The cache, as ordinarily pre- pared, consisted of a deep pit in the ground, in the construction of which the point of paramount im- portance was to avoid any trace of the work which might attract attention after it was completed. The size of the pit depended upon the quantity it was to hold and sometimes it was very spacious and con- tained wagons and other bulky material. The best site was in a dry soil, easily excavated, and in a sit- uation that afforded good facilities for concealment. The pit was lined with sticks and dry leaves, after which the goods were carefully disposed therein, and all perishable articles, such as provisions or fur, were protected with the utmost care. This was a vital matter, for it frequently happened that val- uable articles were found spoiled.
"The greatest difficulty in the preparation of a cache was the concealment after completion. From the sharp eyes of the sons of the prairie no trace however minute would escape. * * The conceal- ment consisted simply in removing all evidence of the cache-never by any sort of covering. The point was to leave the ground looking just as it did before. If in turf, the sod was scrupulously replaced. In other places it was usual to build a camp-fire over the cache and thus not only obliterate all evidence of the work, but divert attention as well. With all this care, caches were often discov- ered and 'raised' or 'lifted' by those who had no right to them. Wolves often dug them out and their
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work would discover them to the Indians. The trappers themselves, as a general thing, respected the cache of rival parties.
"These caches," continues the writer, "sometimes attained notoriety and have left their names in var- ious localities. Caché Valley, Utah, is an example. There are also numerous 'Cache Creeks' scattered throughout the West."
On Monday, August 1st, 1910, "Colorado Day," Caché la Poudre Chapter, Daughters of the Ameri- can Revolution, unveiled and dedicated a large gran- ite tablet to mark the spot where trappers, in 1836, cached a quantity of powder, from which incident the Cache la Poudre river takes its name. The cer- emonies took place on the lawn of the home of D. D. Doty, in Pleasant valley, on whose farm the powder was buried 74 years ago, and were interesting, in- structive and impressive. Appropriate introductory addresses were delivered by Hon. Fred W. Stover, judge of the county court, himself a son of a pio- neer, and Mrs. Frank Wheaton of Denver, Colo- rado, Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The tablet was then unveiled by the Misses Florence and Esther Gillette, daughters of Mrs. C. P. Gillette, Chaplain of the Colorado Chapter. The presentation address was delivered by Mrs. P. J. McHugh, and the address of acceptance on behalf of Larimer county by John J. Herring, county attorney. The tablet, suitably engraved, stands at the roadside, a few rods north of where the pit was dug, in Mr. Doty's field.
Another Name for Cache la Poudre River
In Major Stephen H. Long's report of his noted expedition to the Rocky Mountains, made in 1820, we find the following reference to what is believed to have been the Cache la Poudre river. He says : "On the 3rd of July we passed the mouths of three large creeks heading in the mountains and entering the Platte from the northwest. One of these, nearly opposite to where we were encamped, is called 'Pateros creek,' from a Frenchman of that name who is said to have been bewildered upon it, wander- ing about for twenty days almost without food. He was found by a band of Kiowas who frequented this part of the country, and restored to his companions, a party of hunters at that time camping on the Arkansas."
The three large creeks mentioned by Major Long must have been the Caché la Poudre, the Big Thompson and the St. Vrain, and it is altogether
probable that the one he called Pateros is now known as the Cache la Poudre. How long the stream had been known as Pateros creek before Maj. Long noticed it we have no means of deter- mining, as we are unable to find any other reference to it in reports of either former or subsequent expedi- tions. Neither does it appear how Long learned that it was called Pateros creek. The present name of Caché la Poudre was not bestowed upon the stream until some fifteen or sixteen years later. It appears, however, that the Caché la Poudre val- ley had been visited by white men hunters and trap- pers as much as one hundred years ago, and probably earlier than that period. The origin of the name Caché la Poudre is given elsewhere in this book.
Medicine Bow Mountains
The name Medicine Bow Mountains, a spur of the Continental Divide, and which forms the west- ern boundary of Larimer county, is derived from the Indians. Tradition says that the Northern tribes repaired annually to these mountains for the purpose of procuring a variety of ash timber from which they made their bows. With the Indians anything that is excellent for the purpose for which it was intended is called Good Medicine; hence this range of mountains came to be known as the place where they could get Good Medicine bows. Medicine Bow Mountains and Medicine Bow river naturally followed.
Naming of Cameron Pass
Cameron Pass, one of the notable depressions in the Medicine Bow range of mountains, was named in honor of Gen. R. A. Cameron, president of the Greeley Colony. Soon after locating the colony at Greeley, in 1870, General Cameron and Dr. Laws went up the Caché la Poudre river to Cham- ber's lake on a prospecting trip, and while in the mountains discovered the pass through the Medi- cine Bow Mountains which led into North Park, and afterwards named by the Union Pacific en- gineering department as Cameron Pass, in honor of General Cameron, and was entered on the map as such.
Naming of the Laramie River
The Laramie river, perhaps the largest stream in Larimer county, heads in the Medicine Bow mountains, a short distance northwest of Chamber's lake. It flows almost directly north for about six
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miles and then bears northwesterly through one of the prettiest valleys in the state, crossing the state line into Wyoming nearly thirty miles northwest of its source. Thence it flows a northerly course and empties into the North Platte near Fort Laramie. The Laramie is fed by several important tributaries before it leaves Colorado, which have their sources in the Medicine Bow Mountains, among them being the West Branch, Spring Creek, Rawah, McIntyre, Legarde, Grace and other creeks. The main stream derives its name from the Jacques Laramie, a French Canadian, who came into the country in the employ of the Northwest Fur company when that organiza- tion first extended its operations to the waters of the upper Missouri. Laramie gathered about him a number of reliable trappers and trapped on the headwaters of the North Platte. About the year 1820 Laramie decided to trap on the Laramie river and its tributaries, notwithstanding the fact that it was well known among trappers as a dangerous country, for the reason that it was the battle ground of the Northern and Southern tribes, who were con- tinually at war with each other. Laramie's friends urged upon him the danger of penetrating the dis- puted country, but he calmed their fears by saying that he would go alone and throw himself upon the protection of the Indians, who were known to be friendly to him. At the next gathering at the ren- dezvous, Laramie, the heretofore central figure in the company, was absent. His friends, with fore- bodings of evil, organized a strong party and went up the Laramie river in search of a cabin which he informed them he would build. In two or three days they found the cabin and the lifeless body of their beloved partizan. There was every indica- tion that he had met death at the hands of the Indians. From that time on they spoke of the river on the banks of which Laramie had been murdered as Laramie's river, and later trappers in the country called it Laramie river. This is the origin of the name of Laramie river, from which comes Laramie Plains, Laramie Range, Laramie Peak, Fort Lar- amie, Laramie county, Wyoming, Laramie City and Little Laramie river.
How Chambers Lake Got Its Name
In the late fifties Robert Chambers and his son, Robert, came out from Iowa and built a cabin near the mouth of the Big Thompson canon. They engaged in trapping and hunting for a livlihood, operating on all the streams that head in the Med- icine Bow Mountains. In the fall of 1858 they
established a camp on the headwaters of the Cache la Poudre river and set about trapping for beaver and hunting bear for furs, meeting with good suc- cess. Their ammunition running low, Robert, the son, was dispatched to Laporte, then quite a settle- ment and trading point, for a supply of powder and lead. During his absence the Indians attacked the camp at the lake and succeeded in killing and scalping the lone occupant, but not until after a desperate fight. Chambers held the redskins in check while his supply of bullets held out and then he cut the ramrod of his gun into slugs and fired them at his assailants. But all in vain. He was at last overcome and cruelly slain and his body hor- ribly mutilated. The Indians burned the cabin and, taking the furs that had been gathered, fled into North Park. When the son returned with a supply of ammunition he found his father cold in death and the camp destroyed. He was so affected by the scene which met his eyes that he vowed vengeance on the Indians and determined to kill on sight every redskin that crossed his path-a vow that he kept and made good. He abandoned the mountains and returned to his father's lonely cabin on the Thompson. This is substantially the story as he told it to former County Commissioner W. P. Bosworth, in 1872, who related it to the writer.
After the Union Pacific road had been completed to Cheyenne, in 1867, young Chambers, while in Cheyenne, told one of the tie contractors of the road of the vast amount of tie timber to be found on the Cache la Poudre in the vicinity of the lake where his father had been killed. The contractor went there with a camp and tie outfit and cut and floated down the Laramie more than one million railroad ties for the Union and Denver Pacific railroads. The camp was established on the shore of the lake, which was given the name of Chambers in honor of the old trapper who lost his life in a struggle with the savages. Since then the locality has been known as Chambers lake, one of the most picturesque mountain landmarks in Northern Colo- rado.
Lone Pine Creek
A beautiful trout stream derives its name from a symmetrically formed, low branched pine tree which stood solitary and alone near the banks of of the stream on the Emerson ranch, three miles west of Livermore postoffice. For years this tree was a familiar landmark to travelers going to and from the mountains. The Lone Pine is a tributary of the North fork of the Cache la Poudre river,
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and heads high up among the timber and snows of Greenridge, a range of high hills which divide the waters of the Laramie river from those of the east- ern slope. In places the stream flows through deep, dark canons and then widens out into beautiful valleys, in which are now a number of fine homes and stock ranches.
Hook & Moore Canon
Hook & Moore canon is really a glade or narrow valley lying between two rows of hogbacks, and ex- tends from a point a little north of Pleasant valley to Owl canon, a distance of about six miles. The county road from Fort Collins to Livermore and the mountain country beyond and also to the Lara- mie Plains follow this glade to Owl canon. It was named for H. M. Hook and James Moore, two stockmen who pastured cattle in the glade in 1864- 65. In 1867 Mr. Hook moved his cattle to Wyo- ming and was the first mayor of Cheyenne. In com- pany with a man named French, he conducted a store at Laporte in 1864-65. He was drowned in Green River in 1878. Soon after that his widow, who was a sister of Mrs. H. C. Peterson, and her children came to Fort Collins and resided here sev- eral years. Her daughter, Miss Nettie Hook, mar- ried F. E. Gifford, a hardware merchant, in 1884.
The old Cherokee Trail, over which the Over- land stage and emigrants passed in the early days, followed a glade southwest of and parallel with Hook & Moore glade, but in 1879 the road was
changed to Hook & Moore glade because it afforded better and easier grades.
Pingree Hill
The long, steep hill leading from the bottom of the canon of the Cache la Poudre river to the up- lands, up and down which all travel to and from Chambers lake and Cameron Pass must climb or descend, was named in honor of George W. Pin- gree, a hunter and trapper, who built a cabin on the river bank near where the Rustic hotel now stands, and spent his winters in the late 60's trap- ping beaver and hunting wild game. He cut a trail through the timber down the gulch from the summit to the river, a distance of three miles, and over it packed his supplies, furs and game. The descent from the summit to the river is 1,200 feet. Along late in the 60's, when the Union Pacific and Denver Pacific railroads were being built, tie contractors and lumbermen widened the trail and graded a road down the hill so that teams loaded with camp supplies could go over it, giving the name Pingree to the hill, by which name it has since been known.
Pingree, called "Ping" by the Indians, came West in 1846 and followed trapping and hunting. He was with Kit Carson for many years and during the Indian troubles of 1864-65 was with Col. John M. Chivington's command, participating in the battle of Sand Creek in November, 1864. The old scout and trapper is still living at Fort Lupton, well past four score years of age.
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Settlements, Towns and Cities
Laporte
L A (behold) Porte (gate), "behold the gate," is properly named. It is the gateway to all that mountainous region lying north of the South Platte river and extending from the Plains to the Continental Divide, em- bracing thousands of square miles of territory, and is counted as being among the localities where the very first white settlements were made in Colorado, and is also a point about which centers a great deal of historical interest. Indeed, it is claimed that Antoine Janis, who staked out a claim a little west of Laporte in 1844, and occupied it as a home until 1878, was the first permanent white settler in Colorado north of the Arkansas river. Trapping camps on the streams issuing from the eastern slope of the mountains had been estab- lished and occupied by white men during the trap- ping season thirty years before that time, but they were by no means permanent settlements. The occu- pants of these camps only lived in them but a few months during the year at best, and when trapping ceased to be profitable the camps were deserted and abandoned for all time. Away back in the early days, long before the gold hunters made their grand rush upon Colorado, a band of intrepid Canadian French mountaineers, hunters and trappers made Laporte headquarters for their fur catching and trading operations. They were here in 1847, when the Mormons, with their long trains, drawn by weary, footsore beasts, freighted with travel- stained, yet hopeful men, women and children, passed through on their way to a new home in the deepest recesses of the Rocky Mountain region, where they sought freedom to worship God in their own peculiar manner; they were here when the gold hunters came in 1858, and some of them and their half-breed descendants remained until years after Colorado was admitted into the Union as a sover- eign state. Their neighbors were the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, with whom they intermar- ried and with whom they maintained the utmost friendly and business relations. From 1858 to 1860 the community increased in numbers and in the lat- ter year a town company was organized, known as the Colona Town company, whose object was to
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