History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 27

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080

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Great trunk lines of railway, forming commer- cial highways, become, therefore, an absolute na- tional necessity, which shrewd, far-seeing men were not slow to recognize nor tardy in devising means to meet. Without the two great railroads which traverse the entire State of Kansas, and the vast plains of Eastern Colorado, this State would fall far short of being the rich and prosperous com- monwealth that it now is.

What the Kansas Pacific is to the Northern and Central parts of the State, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé is to Southern Colorado and New Mexico. It is fast transforming barren wastes into fertile fields, and vast deserts into rich pastoral and agricultural domains, the abode of a numerous and prosperous people. It binds with " bands of iron

and ribs of steel " the rich mineral-producing re- gions of our country to the great manufacturing and agricultural sections of the East. It brings, every year, thousands of emigrants to swell the great, toiling army, who annually find homes within our borders. It transports immense quantities of food for their sustenance, and machinery for the extraction of the rich treasures which lie imbedded in our mountains. It is penetrating and opening up the vast pastoral and mineral regions of the Southwest, and now forms the eastern portion of the great southern highway from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.

The history of the road is briefly as follows : In 1859, five years after the organization of the Territory of Kansas, a Territorial charter was ob- tained for a company known as the Atchison & Topeka Railroad Company, whose main object- was at that time to build a road between Topeka and Atchison, the two principal towns of the Terri- tory.

The date of the charter is February 11, 1859, and the names of the incorporators as follows : S. C. Pomeroy, C. K. Holliday, Luther C. Challiss, Peter T. Abell, Milton C. Dickey, Asaph Allen, Samuel Dickson, Wilson L. Gordon, George S. Hillyer, Lorenzo D. Bird, Jeremiah Murphy, George H. Fairchild and F. L. Crane.

The capital stock of the company was placed at $1,500,000, " with power to increase from time to time." The charter required thirteen Directors, three of whom were to be residents of Kansas.

Beyond the organization of this Atchison & To- peka Railroad Company, that company did noth- ing toward forming the history of the present Santa Fé road, the outbreak of the rebellion caus- ing a suspension of the work, and, until 1863, the project lay dormant. Then, however, new stock-

Mr. Suchen

HISTORY OF COLORADO.

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holders got in, the name was changed to the Atch- ison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, and, in March of that year, the land grant was ob- tained. The act of Congress making that grant gave to the State of Kansas certain lands for the purpose of aiding in the construction of two rail- roads through the State. one of them being the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé.

On the 9th of February, 1864, the State of Kansas, by its Legislature, accepted the grant and turned it over to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company, and on the 1st of March, 1864, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the coun- ties on the line of the road to subscribe and to take stock in the new company, having already (Feb- ruary 23) passed a concurrent resolution asking Congress to grant to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company a subsidy similar to that which had been granted to the Union Pacific. This resolution failed to secure the subsidy, but the act of March 1 was successful in causing counties on the line to take stock in the railroad.

It was not until 1869 that the work was actu- ally begun on the building of the road, and then the first labor was put on a line from Topeka to Burlingame. The delay that had occurred in the meanwhile caused the necessity of going over much of the former work in organization, as, for instance, some of the county aid had expired by limitation, and a renewal of the vote had to be obtained.

But there was, by this time, a deeper earnest io the men who had the charter. Senator Pomeroy, Col. Holliday and Mr. Lakin had gone to New York and had secured able co-operation in New York, Boston and Cincinnati. The first advance made in this direction was in getting New York capitalists interested. Among the New York men were Carlos Pierce, Mayor George H. Opdyke, Henry Blood, and several others. Through Mr. Pierce, a number of Boston men were secured, among them C. W. Pierce, Henry Keyes, Alden Spear, I. T. Burr, Frank H. Peabody, O. W. Pea- body, and afterwards Joseph and Thomas Nicker-

son. Through T. J. Peter, the Cincinnati men were obtained-Thomas Sherlock, H. C. Lord, Capt. Sebastian, and others.

With this accession, then, work began in 1869, and the road from Topeka to Newton, with the Wichita Branch, was completed by July, 1871. Then work was begun on the stretch between To- peka and Atchison, and that track was completed in the spring of 1872. But it seemed an impos- sibility to construct the road in the ten years' limit of the land grant, and an attempt was made to get an extension of time. The effort failed, and the managers thereupon bent all their energies to the work of completing the road to the Western line of the State, in order to secure the grant.

There was then less than a year left to complete the work, and there ensued some of the most rapid railroad building, even in this era of fast construc- tion. Here is the record of the work, as shown by the State report :

From Topeka to Peabody, a distance of 118 miles, completed by May 15, 1871.

From Peabody to Halstead, 26 miles, with a branch from Newton to Sedgwick, by July 14, 1871.

Then, on the stretch between Atchison and To- peka, the track was laid from Atchison to Cum- mings, 11 miles, by April 10, 1872; to Rock Creek, 35 miles, by April 24, and to Topeka, 50} miles, from Atchison, by May 25, 1872.

Building from Newton southward, the branch was completed to Valley Center by May 7, 1872, and to Wichita by May 13, 1872.

From Halstead westward, the main line was completed to Nickerson, June 17, 1872 ; to Ray- mond, June 26, 1872; to Pawnee Rock, August 5, 1872; to Garfield, past Larned, August 12, 1872; to Lakin, past Dodge City, September 19, 1872, and thence to the State line, by New Year's Day, of 1873, when Gov. Osborn rode over the line from Atchison to the Colorado boundary, and formally accepted the road, the company thus be- coming entitled to the entire land grant of about three million acres.

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HISTORY OF COLORADO.

The construction, however, continued. New branches were added in Kansas, and in 1875 and 1876 the branch between Kansas City and To- peka was added, while the western terminus was moved to Pueblo.

Then began the invasion of New Mexico. The Raton Mountains stood as a gateway hindering passage, but Raton Pass was crossed, and, during the past year, especially, work has been pushed with the greatest of energy, until last March, the connection was completed with the Southern Pa- cific at Deming, the importance of which to Colo- rado is not lightly to be estimated. Aside from all other considerations, it gives us a through line that will be free from the dangers of the Northern climate-dangers that have often caused, in Colo- rado, a scarcity of those California products which are so valuable a factor in the jobbing trade of Denver.

Leaving Kansas City, whose marvelous growth has kept pace with the development of the country to the west and southwest, thus demonstrating her favorable location and the enterprise of her citi- zens, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé passes along the valley of the Kansas River, through the rich fields and past the fertile farms of Eastern Kansas, till it reaches Topeka, the capital of the State, where is located the main office of the land department of the road, to which is due, in a great measure, the peopling of Southern Kansas with sturdy and industrious men, who have converted the old Santa Fe trail into a garden, and made " the wilderness to blossom as the rose." Here it unites with the line from Atchison, which follows the beautiful valley of the Grasshopper, in a south- westerly direction, to the common central point. From Topeka, the road continues southwesterly brough Emporia till it strikes the Arkansas River at Newton.

Between these points, numerous lines branch off to important towns to the north and south of the main line. From Newton, a branch line ex- tends south to the young, flourishing and enter- prising city of Wichita, and continuing thence

south, with branches to Arkansas City, Caldwell and Anthony.

From the Rocky Mountian Tourist we quote : "At Newton, we are at the end of the first division of the road. and at the entrance or gateway, so to speak, of the Arkansas Valley, the most glorious domain of rich, fertile and well-watered land on the Western Hemisphere. *

* Beyond, step * by step, the landscape leads you over swelling plain to vast distance, which melts by imperceptible gradations into the gracious sky, and impresses the heart with a conviction that just beyond your power of sight is a better, nobler clime-a lovely land where all is beautiful. The first sensation of the prospect is simply one of immensity. The sweep of the vast spaces is bounded only by the haze of distance. Opening out at Halsted, to a width of fully fifteen miles, the valley glows with universal vegetable profusion, the earth is carpeted with vernal green, and the prodigality of vegetation reigns supreme."

Extravagant and fanciful as this picture may seem, the truth remains, that the Arkansas Valley, at this point, and thence in a southeasterly course to the Mississippi, as well as for some distance up the river, presents a scene which, for wealth of vegetation, beauty of landscape and fertility of soil, is excelled by no part of our Western do- main.

Continuing westward, the road passes along the northern bank of the Arkansas River, through Hutchinson, Sterling, Larned, Kinsley and other thriving young towns, to Dodge City, the center of the cattle-shipping interests of Southwest Kan- sas, Northern Texas and Eastern Colorado, and thence on to the State Line between Kansas and Colorado, a short distance beyond which it crosses to the southern, or, at this point, the southwestern shore, whence its course lies along the south bank of the river until it nears Pueblo, when it recrosses to the northern shore.

About midway between the State line and Pu- eblo, it passes Fort Lyon, near the prosperous and growing town of Las Animas.

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HISTORY OF COLORADO.

At this point we copy again :

" With Fort Lyon on our immediate right, and Las Animas but a mile away, we catch, between the two points, our first glimpse of the mountains, the outlines of the Greenhorn Range being plainly discernible, although fully ninety miles distant. On particularly clear days, and when the peaks are snow-capped, with the rich evergreen foliage densely covering the sides of the mountains, the contrast is exquisitely effective; and later in the season, when the range is covered with snow, and stands out bold against the soft, graded light be- yond, one would scarcely believe the distance twenty miles. At times, when the intervening plains are hidden 'neath one of the wondrously deceptive mirages characteristic of this elevation, the mountains appear to double their height, the hoary-headed old peaks extending so far heaven- ward as to realize one's most enthusiastic dreams of towering grandeur. As we pass on beyond Las Animas, we strain our eyes forward, catching, for a moment, faint outlines of higher mountains, so dark in the blue of the lessening distance as to cause hesitation as to their being real substance or mere formations of rapidly changing clouds. A few moments, and we are satisfied of the fact that the shadowy outlines are stationary, and we real- ize one fond ambition, that of beholding Pike's Peak, though it may be one hundred miles away. A few miles more and the symmetrical pyramids known as the Spanish Peaks, steal out from the clouds, entwining their snowy heads, and bid us welcome to the confines of the Spanish Range, over which they have, for unknown centuries, stood faithful sentinels. Nearing Pueblo, the southern hills, which will soon be mountains, shift rapidly their wavy outlines, and the thick forest growth becomes more and more distinct. Stretching far away to the left, perfectly outlined in its charac- teristic smoky blue, appears the Greenhorn Range. As we approach, the smoky whiteness of the en- veloping haze is dissipated and gives place to a more pronounced blue; the billowy hills roll more sharply clear to the eye; the irregular lines of the

foliage stand out distinct, and here and there shaggy and disheveled pines cut the sky-line upon the summit ridge.

" At Pueblo, we have merely reached the foot- stool, as it were, of the greatness, the sublimity and immensity of the rock-ribbed heights of Colo- rado. By and by, when we shall go from for- ests of luxuriant splendor to mountains of un- utterable barrenness and grandeur, from still lake to roaring cataract, from verdure and cultivation into galleries of nature's strangest fantasies, with- out the slightest hint of what the next transition may be, then we shall confess that each picture has a hundred phases rivaling each other in beauty and interest, and that all that is exquisitely per- fect in mountain scenery, in lake, river and valley scenery, is garnered here."

Pueblo, the present western terminus of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad in Colo- rado, and the point where that line connects north, south and west with the Denver & Rio Grande, making it a railroad center despite the fact that it has but two principal railways, is the commercial, political and social metropolis of Southern Colorado. Though not a handsome town, owing to the mixed order of its architecture and the absence of shade trees, except on the mesa of South Pueblo, it atones for its lack of beauty by abundant enter- prise, great hospitality, and true Western spirit. The location of the town is commanding in a com- mercial view, holding the key to the trade of the West and South. Its future is foreshadowed by its past. It has grown steadily since 1859, and has never failed to advance with the prosperity of the rest of the State. It was never in a better position than it is to-day ; Leadville and Silver Cliff are connected with Pueblo by iron rails, and, though Denver has a strong lead to-day, it is not impossible that Pueblo will some day prove a suc- cessful rival.

From La Junta, near Las Animas, the Colo- rado and New Mexico Division of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad passes in a south- westerly direction up the Las Animas Valley to

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HISTORY OF COLORADO.

Trinidad, the metropolis of the extreme southern part of the State. Here it met the forces of the Rio Grande Company, and a race for precedence occurred, both roads making a simultaneous dash for the possession of the pass over the Raton Mountains into New Mexico. In this, the Santa Fé was victorious, and at once entered upon the stupendous engineering task of climbing up through the Raton Canon and surmounting the great natural obstacles of the Raton Pass, nearly eight thousand feet above the sea level, from which it descends the southern slope, through Willow Canon, and out upon the plains of New Mexico. From Trinidad to the summit of the pass the distance is a little over fifteen miles, and the grade, in some places, 185 feet to the mile. At last, after surmounting the stupendous engi- neering difficulties in its course, cutting its way through the solid rock, building riprap to protect embankments, throwing iron bridges across the canon, the road reaches the foot of the crest of the divide, up whose steep sides no human machinery can climb. Through this obstacle it was decided to run a tunnel two thousand feet to the opposite side ; but, in the meantime, a temporary means must he devised, and, accordingly, a switch-back was constructed. "By it, the cars will leave what will be the direct line, and are carried over a steep inclined track running diagonally up the hill ; thence, reversing their direction, they shoot up an- other incline ; then, reversing again, they climb to the summit, thus zigzaging up the steep they can- not directly scale. Even by this indirect route, the

enormons grade of 316.8 feet per mile is attained. Circling around the summit of the pass, the road descends on the New Mexico side in a similar manner, and reaches a point where the direct line comes out of the tunnel, after having achieved the two thousand feet of what will hereafter be the tunneled distance by going nearly three miles around." The tunnel is now completed and the cost of hauling a train from one side of the mountain to the other is but about one-fourth what it was before. Beyond the Raton Mount- ains, the engineering difficulties were com- paratively slight, and during the summer of 1880, the road has been completed through Las Vegas to Calisteo, whence a short "stub " extends northward to the ancient city of Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, the main line continuing on through Albuquerque and So- corro to Fort Thorn, whence two branches extend, one southeast down the Rio Grande River to El Paso del Norte, in Mexico, and the other south- west to Deming, where it connects with the Southern Pacific for California, continuing its own proposed line, however, directly south through the Mexican State of Sonora, to Guaymas on the Gulf of California. From Albuquerque, the pro- posed line of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad extends westward through Arizona and California to the Pacific Ocean.

From this brief sketch it will be seen that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway is a most important factor in the development of our country, and one whose future prospects are most flattering.

R. L. Dill

PART III.

HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.

BY R. G. DILL.

T THE history of Lake County is necessarily fragmentary and incomplete. When the California Gulch excitement was at its height, the gold-seekers were too intent upon the ob- ject of their endeavors to pay any attention to the proper keeping of records, and the only organization having the semblance of legality was that formed by the miners themselves for the purpose of self-protection. Even after the county had been legally organized, there was so little of the ordinary work of a public char- acter to be performed that the officers found little to do and were not particular whether that was done or not, as the inhabitants were of that class of men, who, if they wanted any- thing done for their own convenience, did it, and saved themselves the trouble of going through the formula of legal authority.

The provisional government under the miner's code was in force from the discovery of gold until the spring of 1861. At that time the county was regularly organized by proc- lamation of Gov. Gilpin. A set of officers were appointed, but they did not ent any very important figure in public affairs, as the popu- lation was composed entirely of miners, and miner's law had full sway, and was sufficient for all demands for the protection of society. In the fall of 1861 an election was held, at which were chosen Capt. Breece, Alexander McPherson and William Snyder as County Commissioners, Eli Bair as Sheriff, and Col. Austin as Probate Judge. The records were simply those of mining claims, no other prop-

erty being considered worth taking up, and were kept by the Recorder of the mining dis- trict. During the summer and fall of 1861, the rebellion was the canse of considerable excite- ment. The first Union troops from Colorado were recruited in Lake County soon after the news of the war was received. There was no military organization, but parties of men would agree to join the army, and, banding together, would start off for the nearest recruiting sta- tion. Recruiting was not confined to the Unionists. A large number of Southerners were in the gulch, and several parties left to join the Confederate army. Confederate agents also visited the camp to purchase arms.

After the California Gulch excitement died away, and the population began to decrease, there was little if any stir for years. The officers of the county were elected as a matter of form. Granite was selected as the county seat, and a court-house erected, but things moved along so smoothly that Lake County might as well have been out of the world for all that was known of it. After the first year of the gold excitement the population de- creased so rapidly that, in 1866, there were but 150 permanent residents in the county. For several years after the organization of the county, the Commissioners did not have a single meeting. During ten years there was not a single law-suit. During the same time there was not a death, except among infants. During fifteen years there was not a single

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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.

murder or other act of violence. From 1866 there were several years during which there was not a whisky-shop within the limits of the county. The community, if not the climate, was purely Arcadian, and the simplicity of the lives of the people would have satisfied the dreamers of Brooke Farm. The discovery of the Printer Boy Mine in 1868 caused a little ripple of excitement, and some slight increase in the population took place. From that time the county grew steadily in population; through the immigration of a farming and stock-raising community to the lower part of the county, until, in 1876, there were from 800 to 900 people in the county. From that date the history of Leadville was the history of Lake County.

In 1875 and 1876, the county acquired con- siderable notoriety from the occurrence of a number of outrages and homicides, the result of the determination of the people to protect themselves and their property. By that time the cattle interest had become an important source of wealth to the community. The nar- row valley of the Arkansas afforded excellent opportunities for the successful operation of stock-thieves, the mountains on either side and the numerous gulches and ravines rendering it easy for the thieves to conceal themselves and their booty. In 1875, the evil had grown to such proportions that it became absolutely un- bearable, and an organization of citizens was effected to rid themselves of the presence of the thieves. The latter, however, were so numerous and of so desperate a character, that the task, though it was finally accomplished, was by no means an easy one. Several men were killed before the gang of thieves was finally driven out, and the County Judge was killed while sitting in the court-house, by which

side, has never been discovered. The carbonate excitement coming so soon after these occur- rences caused them to be forgotten, but during their continuance Lake County was, in other parts of the State, regarded as the center of lawlessness and crime. For fifteen years before, however, there had been not the slight- est disturbance, and that stern measures were necessary no one conversant with the facts can dispute. A community which exists fifteen years without making any but the most trifling historical incidents cannot have been composed of desperadoes.

The rapid growth of population in and around Leadville and the concentration of im- portant interests in that city made it desirable that the county should be divided, and accord- ingly the Legislature of 1879 created the new county of Chaffee from the southern part of Lake, making Granite, the county seat of old Lake County, the county seat of Chaffee County. At the fall election of 1880, the county seat of the new county was changed to Buena Vista.

The officers of Lake County are Joseph Pearce, Nelson Hallock, Alexander Bengley, Henry Kelly, and Peter Jennings, County Commissioners ; Joseph H. Wells, Clerk and Recorder ; L. R. Tucker, Sheriff ; E. T. Rose, County Assessor ; R. H. Stanley, County Treasurer ; J. D. Ward, District Judge ; Charles Taylor, Clerk of the District Court ; A. T. Gunnell, County Judge ; William Ray- mond, Clerk of the County Court.

The population of the county is in the neigh- borhood of 25,000, nearly two-thirds being residents of Leadville, and all being either di- rectly or indirectly interested in mining pur- suits.

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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.

LEADVILLE-ITS DISCOVERY AND EARLY HISTORY.

TN one sense the history of the discovery of gold in Cherry Creek is the history of the discovery of Colorado in all its breadth, for the throngs of adventurers who, attracted by the wonderful stories of the wealth of that now classic stream in Denver's story, soon dis- covered that for many of them there was no wealth in its sands, and from thence scattered in every direction. Many of them were charmed with the nomadic life of which they had had some experience in crossing the plains ; others had no ties to bind them to any particu- lar location, and full of life and hope and en- ergy, claimed the " whole boundless continent " as theirs, from which to wrest the treasures held in store for those who have the courage to seek it in nature's storehouses ; others had left home against the pleadings of anxious and loving fathers, mothers, wives or children, and finding their resplendent dreams of sudden wealth turning to bitter ashes on their lips, were ashamed to turn back without further effort ; others had expended their all in reach- ing the fancied El Dorado, and could not re- turn ; and still others, and by no means a few, had left their country for their country's good, and had no greater dangers to fear from the savage wilderness than from the stern grasp of the law in the haunts of civilization. This is the usual make-up of the pioneers of every land ; the honest adventurer, the half-starved failure, the crime-stained outlaw, all find a desirable hiding-place in the newly discovered countries, far away from the scenes of their early life.

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History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 27

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 1080

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 1080