USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 49
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 49
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 49
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 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87
Following this exceptional summer was an equally exceptional winter, which began in October and was severely cold. The impoverished cattle on the plains perished by hundreds. Hay and grain brought twenty cents per pound, and fuel advanced a hundred per cent. Trains with supplies and machinery were snowed up en route, and some were lost. Others
13 Gilpin co. produced $2,240,000 in 1876, which it did not exceed for 9 years except in. 1878 and 1880. In the latter year the yield was $2,680,- 090,
490
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
were a year arriving. While these circumstances made gold more than usually a necessity, mining was interrupted by the cold. The spring brought no relief, the rains descending in floods, driving out of their claims the few miners who had returned to the mountains, and destroying the crops which had not entirely succumbed to the drought. On the 19th of April the waters of Plum and Cherry creeks suddenly rose, and sweeping through Denver, carried destruc- tion and death in their course. A million dollars worth of property, and twenty lives were lost.14 Sim- ilar, though less extensive damage was wrought by the storm in other portions of the territory. Follow- ing this sudden flood, was a heavy and continuous rainfall, which, with the melting snow in the moun- tains. caused a second slower rise, which overflowed the farming lands, and remaining up for a month ruined the crops, the young fruit trees, and in many instances changed the face of the county by deposit-
14 The storm which caused such devastation in Denver came from the south-east, and was a heavy fall of rain, followed by hail, which dammed the water from the mountains until its weight forced the barriers, filling up the valley, and carrying everything before it. Mixed with the water and hail was the sand which had accumulated in the bed of Cherry creek, giving it additional weight. The flood struck the town at 2 o'clock in the morning, and 12 hours afterward water was still rolling on in massive billows, which rose so high in their frantic course that a man standing on one bank would be momentarily hidden from sight on the other. A cupful of the liquid was found to be half sand. The fall of the creek through the town was 35 feet to the mile; above it was much greater. The city hall stood in the hitherto dry bed of the creek. It was utterly destroyed, and a safe containing the valua- bles of the city was never seen again. The office of the Rocky Mountain News was erected on piling on a little island in the creek bed. It had in it 5 print- ing presses, one weighing between 2 and 3 tons. All were swept away with the building, and so lost and covered up that they were not discovered for 9 or 10 years, when the heaviest press was found in the middle of Platte river, below the mouth of the creek. A portion of another press-the one Byers brought from Omaha in 1859-was found covered 10 feet deep with earth when the water company excavated for their first works at Denver. Against such power as this nothing could stand-houses, bridges, property of every kind disappeared forever. Five persons asleep in the News office were aroused only in time to spring from a window into an eddy formed by drift lodged for the moment against the building, from which they were drawn and rescued just as the office was carried away with all it contained, and the lot on which it stood. The pioneer saw mill of D. C. Oakes was carried away. Byers, besides losing all his town property, had his farm, which was in a bend of Platte river, destroyed by the cutting of a new chan- nel. Hist. Colo, MS., 48. Gibson, Arnold, Schlier, Lloyd, Stover, and other farmers were ruined. Reed, Palmer, and Barnes together lost 4,000 sheep, and so on. For a new country it was a great disaster.
491
FLOODS AND INDIAN TROUBLES.
ing sand to a considerable depth over it. The roads became impassable for weeks from the thorough sat- uration of the soil of the plains, and every kind of business was brought to a stand still.
This stagnation in the life giving industries was followed by an uprising among the Indians along the overland route, which added still further to the dis- tress already felt on account of interrupted communi- cation with the east. The situation called for a mili- tary force, which was organized about midsummer for ninety days' service, and sent out to open the closed communication with the east, which it effected. An account of these affairs is elsewhere given; I only remark here that Colorado, young and heavily taxed as she was, had already raised two regiments in defence of the government, which were then in the field, and that the 1,200 ninety days' men made the third. Had business been better it might have been more difficult to raise this last; but at all events matters could not mend until the embargo on trans- portation was raised. The vengeance meted out to the Indians reacted during the following winter, when again all communication was cut off for two months, the Platte route desolated for 250 miles, and again the territory raised 300 militiamen to open communication. 15 The dangers and losses to freight- ers greatly raised the charges on freight, as also the price of every commodity, and the result was that by the time the heavy milling machinery so long delayed was upon the ground the companies owing it had exhausted their treasuries These were the dark days of Colorado; yet never so dark that faith in her was lost by those best acquainted with her resources, Two things they waited for which came not far apart -a knowledge of the true methods of extracting gold and silver from refractory ores, and railroad commu- nication. I might add that confidence in the value
15 Bayle's Politics and Mining, MS., 4; Evans' Interview, MS., 16; Elbert's Pub. Men and Measures, MS., 9.
492
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
of agriculture, which was established after a few years of experimental farming, tended to give permanence to other enterprises. These years of waiting, from 1864 to 1867, were not lost. They proved the stuff of which not the mountains but the men were made. No more did they depend on freight teams to bring to them from the Missouri flour, corn, and potatoes. In a single season, 1866, Colorado became self-sup- porting; in 1867 she exported food to Montana, and contracted to supply the government posts ; and in 1868 made food cheaper than in the States.16
I have not yet given the actual history of the dis- covery of silver in Colorado. An assay made of ore from the Gregory lode in 1859 resulted in showing a yield of 162 ounces of silver per ton, and 102 ounces of gold ; the assayer being John Torry of the United States assay-office, New York, a notice of which was published,17 but does not seem to have attracted much
16 Says Bowles, in his letters to the Springfield Republican in 1868, after- ward published in a vol. entitled The Switzerland of America, 'At a rough estimate the agricultural wealth of Colorado last year was 1,000,000 bushels of corn, 500,000 of wheat, 500,000 of barley, oats, and vegetables, 50,000 head of cattle, and 75,000 to 100,000 of sheep.' Of the prolific qualities of the new soil he says: 'The irrigated gardens of the upper parts of Denver fairly riot in growth of fat vegetables, while the bottom-lands of the neighboring valleys are at least equally productive without irrigation. Think of cabbages weighing 50 to 60 pounds each! And potatoes from 5 to 6, onions 1 to 2 pounds, and beets 6 to 10.' Byers speaks of watermelons 'piled up on the top of one another,' so abundantly the vines were laden. Hist. Colo, MS., 43. Market prices for 1868, before harvest: barley, 3 cents a pound; corn, 32 to 43; corn-meal, 5 cents; oats, 3 cents; potatoes, 2 and 3 cents; wheat, 32 cents; tomatoes, fresh, 3 cents; cabbages, 1 cent; beef 12 to 15 cents; cheese, 20 to 22 cents; butter, 45 cents; flour, 7 to 9 cents; eggs, 50 to 60 cents a dozen. Formerly the simple freight on all these articles had been from 6 to 10 cents a pound. Concerning locations of farming lands at that period there were the Cache-la-Poudre valley on a branch of the Platte in Larimer co., which, besides grain, vegetables, and hay, produced from 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of butter; the Big Thompson valley, in the same country, which produced, besides grain, hay, and vegetables, 7,500 pounds of cheese; the Platte valley, between Denver and the Cache-la- Poudre, which produced, besides a large crop of grains, etc., 23,000 pounds of butter; the same valley, for 20 miles south of Denver, and Bear creek also had considerable cultivated land. In the main valley of the Arkansas about 6,000 acres were under cultivation; on the Fontaine-qui-Bouille, 6,000; on the St Charles, 1,500; in the Huerfano valley, 5,000; all of which com- prised about half of the land actually farmed in the territory in 1868.
17 In the Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 20, 1859. See also Clear Creek and Boulder Val. Hist., 278; King, U. S. Geol. Explor., iii. 588-62. I find in Aux's Mining in Colorado, MS., 4, that the author claims for himself and A. Miller the first discovery of a silver lode, in July, 1859. They found it near
493
SILVER LODES.
attention, probably owing to the shifting nature of the mining population, and the prevailing ignorance of silver mining. Nevertheless, the Ida mine, near Empire, in Clear creek county, was recorded as a silver lode by its discoverer, D. C. Daley, in Septem- ber 1860. It was assayed by Day of Central, and found to contain 100 ounces of silver per ton. Another lode was recorded October 4, 1860, called the Morning Sun Silver lode. A number of other locations was made of silver lodes by E. H. F. Pat- terson and others, and not infrequent mention was
made of these claims in the local prints. 18 They were found in Gilpin and Clear creek counties, but chiefly in the latter, about Georgetown. The Seaton mine was discovered in July 1861, by S. B. Womack and others, who mined it for gold only. It became one of the celebrated silver mines of the world. The existence of silver was not, however, authoritatively proved until several years later.
In the summer of 1864 Cooley and Short, while prospecting on Glazier mountain, discovered a lode which became known as the Cooley, ore from which being carefully assayed by Frank Dibdin, a metallur- gist, and other experts, was pronounced to be beyond doubt silver. Dibdin indeed seems to have estab- lished a fact which the Coloradans were slow to grasp, that theirs was a silver mining region, with much better prospects for a solid future than if their mines had been all gold mines. This was the first rift in the cloud of dullness which had at this period settled over the pregnant mountains. The first pay- ing silver lode was the Belmont, later the Johnson. discovered in September 1864, by R. W. Steel, James Huff, and Robert Layton. The first accurate assay of the Belmont gave $827.48 per ton. This inter-
Central City, and called it the Dalles; but thinking it worthless, after recording, abandoned it. Grasset relocated it, and sold to Tappan Brothers, who worked it for lead, which was sold to the government and condemmed as poisonous.
18 Rocky Mountain News, Nov. 2, 1860; Governor's Mess., in Western Mountaineer, Nov. 22, 1860.
494
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
ested eastern capitalists. C. S. Stowel erected the first mill in the argentiferous district in which George- town is situated, in 1866. For the reduction of the ore an ordinary blast furnace was provided, which failed, after several weeks of trial, to liquefy it so that the metal could be run off. When the owner, and even Dibdin himself, had exhausted their science and ingenuity in the effort, a negro named Lorenzo M. Bowman, from the lead mines in Missouri, offered his services, and, from a practical knowledge of the tem- perature to be attained, succeeded in smelting the ore. But, as I have before stated, these first efforts were unprofitable, and it was not until about 1868 that there was a marked improvement in quartz min- ing. Stamp mills, which had been for a time super- seded by a variety of experimental structures, began again about this time their continuous crunching and grinding upon the rocky gangue of the precious met- als, which has since never ceased, and promises to go on with increasing din forever.
The number of stamp mills running in the autumn of 1868, in Gilpin county, was thirty-eight, with an average of nineteen stamps to a mill,19 and the bul- lion shipment was $1,775,477, of which $123,730 was in silver. The number of mines in this county, in which development had begun in 1870, was over 170; of those in which hoisting apparatus was employed on account of depth, about a dozen. Clear creek county had at the time fewer mills, but between 300 and 350 mines, on which some work had been done. Boulder county had about 100 mines, with some improvements, and only two quartz mills. Summit county had no mills, and about 20 mines, not much developed. Lake county had 70 mines in one district, the Red mountain,2ª which assayed well, but were not yet improved to any extent.21
19 Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 3, 1869.
20 This district was discovered about the 1st of August, 1869.
21 Forty other miscellaneous mines are mentioned, 19 of which were in Gilpin, 14 in Clear creek, two in Park, two in Jefferson, and four in Lake county. See al o Denver Rocky Mountain Herald, Aug. 27, 1869.
495
THE SAN JUAN COUNTRY.
In another place I have mentioned that in 1860 a prospector named John Baker led an exploring party into that rugged, south-west portion of Colorado, vaguely known as the San Juan country, from which the company returned disappointed. The history of this expedition, on account of subsequent develop- ments, becomes a portion of the history of mining discovery.
Windham)
Uncompahgre Pk.
YOURAY
Rose's Cabin>
CT
PLATEAU
Mt.Sneffles
Hen&cn
Granite Falls
Mrgenta Falls
Placervilleo
«FORK MTSAnni
Gold Run
Tellurium"
Cristovan
Red Clouds
Pk. m
a
R
adst
Peab
Park
ent' Cr
dsville
Mt.Wilson%
Howar
stow
CONT
Clear Cr.
Trout Lake
S
I
E
Mt.Canby
130_1807
Trail
Lost Trail
S
A d'
N
Deep Creek
Haines Fork
Grande amidi
Crooked (Cr.
G
E:
R.
Pass
J
N
Pidgeon's Peak
D.
COALI
„Aeolus“
NEJOS
SAN JUAN MINING DISTRICT.
The San Juan country, as now known to the world, includes Las Animas district, situated on the upper waters of the Rio Animas with Baker park as a cen- tre ; Lake district, situated on the Uncompahgre slope ; and Summit district, situated on the eastern or Rio Grande slope of the continental divide. It is the wildest and most inaccessible region in Colorado, if not in North America. The mountain ranges, which are lofty, are broken and deflected from the main Cordillera del Sierra Madre, which bends to the south-west from the foot of South park. Crossing Saguache county it swerves still more to the west, until midway between the meridians 107° and 108° it bifurcates, the main ridge separating the head waters
W. Fork of the Dolores R.
SILVERTON
Mineral Cr-v
Mt.Kendall
Sultan Mt:
Highland
.Carr's
Mary
erman .......
"Eureka
Handies
Burrows
LAKE
OLAKE CITY
Capitol City 1mm
CANNIBAL
Gd. Canon de las Animas
Cascade Cr.
496
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
of the Rio Grande and Rio Animas, and turning east- ward forms the so-called San Juan range. The other ridge continues in a south-west direction, becoming the Sierra San Miguel and the Sierra La Plata. It is as if the great spinal column of the continent had bent upon itself in some spasm of the earth, until the vertebra overlapped each other, the effect being unparalleled ruggedness, and sublimity more awful than beautiful. Here, indeed, is one of the continental summits, from which flow many- rivers, tributaries, and sources of the Colorado and Rio Grande, in rapid torrents, frequently interrupted by cataracts of con- siderable height. In the midst of a wild confusion of precipitous peaks and sharp ridges are a few small elevated valleys, or as the early trappers would have designated them " holes," but which are without much relevancy denominated parks by modern Coloradans, after the great parks of the country. Among these higher valleys is the historical Baker park, a simple widening of the bottom land of the Rio Animas at the north end of the cañon, for six or eight miles, to a width of one mile. Animas park, another widening of the Animas valley, is thirty or more miles further down the stream, and consequently at a less altitude, and being on the south side of the divide has a climate much warmer than the upper park. The lower val- leys of all the tributaries of the Las Animas are small, but of great fertility. They are the Navajo, Nutria or Piedra, Florida, Pinos, Plata, and Mancos, all flowing into the Rio San Juan. The higher portions of these valleys abound in yellow pine, and spruce, fir, and aspen are found on some of the slopes in the vicinity of Baker park. Below the cataracts, the streams abound in salmon-trout, and game is abundant. Such are the more prominent features of the San Juan country as it existed in 1860, and for a dozen years thereafter.22
22 San Juan and Other Sketches, MS , 12-17; Pitkin's Political Views, MS., 4; Out West, Dec .- Jan., 1873-4.
497
SAN JUAN EXPEDITION.
Baker was a mountaineer of note. He had heard from the Navajos and other Indians that the royal metal existed in the mysterious upper regions of the Sierra Madre, proof of which was exhibited in orna- ments and bullets of gold. More than these pre- tended revelations no one knew, when Baker deter- mined to prove the truth or falsity of the Arabian tales of the Navajos, who had frequently received bribes to disclose the new Golconda, but evaded mak- ing the promised disclosure. Finding at Pueblo a considerable number of prospectors who had passed an unprofitable season in looking for placer mines, and who yet had the courage for new undertakings, Baker raised a company variously stated at from 'a few' to 1,000 and even 5,000, who set out on their crusade as gayly as knights of old, albeit their banners were not silken, and their picks and shovels were not swords. Proceeding into New Mexico, they entered the San Juan valley ; from there, by the way of the Tierra Amarillo and Pagosa,23 they penetrated the country as far as the headwaters of the Rio de las Animas, where, in anticipation of the future populousness of the country, they laid out a town, calling it Animas City, which was seen longer on the maps than on the ground. Some placer diggings were found along the various streams and in the vicinity of Baker park, but nothing which promised to realize the exagger- ated expectations of the discoverers. Small garnets and rubies were also picked up, and indications were believed to be seen of diamonds.24 The main portion of the company went no further than Animas City, but a few penetrated to the Rio Grande del Norte. Reinforcements with provisions failed to arrive as expected, and the condition of the adventurers became critical. Anxious to avoid the long journey back
23 Pagosa is the Indian word for hot springs.
24 D. C. Collier of Central City visited the San Juan country the same season, with others, and offered to stake his reputation as a geologist and journalist on this being the richest and most extensive diamond field in the world, Out West, Dec .- Jan. 1873-4.
HIST. NEV. 32
498
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
through New Mexico, the company separated into squads, each of which sought according to its judgment a shorter way out of the maze of cañons and peaks than the one by which they came. Many perished by starvation, cold, and Indians, and those who sur- vived suffered the pangs of death many times over before they found egress from the imprisoning moun- tains 25 Baker lived to be a wealthy cattle-owner, and to organize an expedition to explore the grand cañon of Colorado. He was killed at the entrance to the cañon, with all his party save one, a man in the prime of life, who reached the outlet after days of indescribable suffering, with hair bleached like snow, and both hands and feet blistered, in which condition and insensible he was finally rescued. He had devoured his shoes, his leathern belt, and buckskin pouch. So suffered, and often so died, the vanguard of civilization on this continent. Before the inexora- ble laws of nature an heir of centuries of intellectual growth is no more than the jelly-fish to the sea, which casts it upon the sands to rot in the sun !
The outcome of the San Juan expedition deterred further exploration for several years ; and in the mean- time mining affairs fluctuated in the older districts, as I have described. In 1868, by a treaty made with the Utes, they were allowed the exclusive use of all that portion of Colorado west of the 107th meridian, and south of 40° 15' north latitude, or, in brief, four fifths of the whole territory west of the main sierra, including the San Juan country.
At this period the boundary between New Mexico and Colorado was not clearly defined, but the mining district of Moreño, believed to belong to the former, was coveted by the latter, and the Colorado legisla- ture memorialized congress to annex it to their terri- tory, hearing of which the New Mexico legislature,
25 Adam Augustine and David McShane, residing later in Monument val- ley, were members of this expedition, as were also Charles Jones of Gilpin co., and Charles Hall of Salt-works, South park.
499
BOUNDARIES.
in February 1868, addressed to that body a counter memorial. Congress does not appear to have con- cerned itself much about either, and in the meantime the boundary line was being surveyed westward from the north-east corner of New Mexico on the 37th parallel to the north-west corner, which survey was reported as completed in 1868-9.26 It found several
26 See Sec. Int. Rept, 39, 41, 2. This report gives an interesting description of the route with the various streams and valleys crossed, and mentions the abandoned cliff-dwellings in the valley of the Rio Mancos. A. D. Wilson of the Hayden geological survey, while pursuing his labors in the topographical corps, discovered a stone building 'about the size of the patent-office at Washington.' It stood upon the banks of the Rio de las Animas, and con- tained about 500 rooms. A part of the wall left standing indicated a height of 4 stories. A number of the rooms, fairly preserved, had loop-hole windows but no doors. They had evidently been entered by ladders, which were drawn in by the occupants. The floors were of cedar logs, the spaces between the logs being filled neatly by smaller poles and twigs, covered by a car- pet of cedar bark. The ends of the timber were hewed and frayed, as if severed by a dull instrument; in the vicinity were hatchets and saws made of sandstone slivers, two feet long, worn to a smooth edge. A few hundred yards from this 'casa grande ' was a second large ruin, and between them rows of small dwellings made of cobble-stones laid in adobe, which on account of the shape of the stones were in a more advanced state of destruction than the larger buildings. The ruins of this ancient town were overgrown with juniper, and piñon, the latter a dwarf, wide-spreading pine, which bears beneath the scales of its cones together with nutritious nuts. From the size of the dead and the living trees, and their position on heaps of crumbling stone, a long time must have elapsed since the buildings fell. The preserva- tion of the wooden parts does not militate against their antiquity. In Asia, cedar lasts for thousands of years. The cedars of the south-west Colorado region do not rot even in groves. The winds and whirling sands carve the dead trees into fantastic forms, drill holes through their trunks, and gradually, after ages of resistance, wear them away into dust, which is scattered abroad, atom by atom. Subsequent investigation showed the casas grandes of Wilson to be on the northern edge of an immense settlement, which once extended far down into New Mexico, covering several thousand square miles, and comprising also portions of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. The most south- ern ruins exhibit the best architectural designs. The region is remote from civilization. From Fort Garland, which is west of the Rocky mountains and east of the Rio Grande del Norte, in latitude 37° 23' north, longitude 27° 20' west, the route leads across a trackless desert, where no shrubbery is found but sage-brush and grease-wood, and no animal life except rattlesnakes, horned-toads, lizards, and tarantulas. Patches of alkali whiten the sands, and the sun beats down on all with a blistering heat. The streams coming from the rocky range flow through deep canons, often thousands of feet below the surface-that is, when they flow at all, which they do not all the year-and springs are of rare occurrence, even in the cañons The country sought lies in a triangle between the Rio Mancos, La Plata, and Rio San Juan, and around the triangle is a net-work of ravines crusted with ruins. The San Juan and La Plata have some width of bottom-lands between their sides, but the Rio Mancos runs between walls closely approaching each other. On the rocky terraces of the more open cañons are multitudes of ruins; even in the wilder and narrower ravines are single houses or groups of two or three perched on the face of the dizzy cliff, so far above the valley that the naked eye can distinguish them merely as specks. Above them the rocks
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.