History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 80

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

USA > Colorado > History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado > Part 80

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).

596

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

feet in length, scapula or shoulder blade five and a half feet long, sacrum, or the part of the backbone over the hips-corresponding to the four vertebrae united in one forty inches. Vertebræ immediately in front of this measured in elevation two feet six inches, and the spread of the diapophises was three feet. " Prof. Hayden, the widely known chief of the United States Geological Survey, upon visiting this place and inspecting these and other parts of the animal, declared it his con- viction that the beast must have been fully a hundred feet in length. The thigh bone, measuring some six feet, stood over the hips eighteen to twenty feet. The animal was un- doubtedly shorter of front than of hind legs, and Prof. Marsh thinks it had the power to raise up like a kangaroo on its hind legs and browse off of the leaves of the trees from sixty to eighty feet in height. The Professor also gives it as his opinion that the " critter" fed entirely upon grass and leaves, the vertebræ of the neck being some twenty-one inches in length and the spread of the diapophises three feet, this being understood as cervical vertebræ. The skeleton is not completely exhumed, though between 7,500 and 8,000 pounds of bone have been shipped to Prof. Cope. A part of the jaw of a lælaps trihedrodon ten inches long and containing eight teeth, varying from five to eight inches in length, has also been shipped. Recently, a leg bone of this same animal was exhumed, and found to measure a little over four feet, and, with a portion of the head all crushed into small pieces, sent on to the Professor. A part of the femur of another animal has been found, it measuring six feet, but somewhat lighter than the others. The vertebræ are three feet six inches in ele- vation, showing a very tall but not so heavy a brute as the camerasaurus. When found, it was lying on the right side, with vertebræ and ribs of that side in place, the ribs measuring over six feet in length, and the prongs where they join the back fifteen inches in width. Many of the bones of the camerasaurus are mis- placed and broken up, quite a pile being found at the spot where several of the teeth of the trihedrodon were discovered, thus indicating the preying of the one upon the other. While the general estimate of the age of these petri-

factions among American geologists is seven million years, English scientists declare them fourteen million years old. Both the camara- suras and the trihedrodon were of the jurassic period, being found in beds which, according to Prof. Marsh, correspond with the Wealden beds of England. All this section of the country must have been a plain when so much of Colorado was covered by an ocean, and be- fore the mountains were formed. The fossils are found in rock long upheaved, its character now a sort of shale or marlite, which, upon being dug out and exposed to the air, crum- bles to pieces. In most instances, it is free from bone decay, the parts of animals taken out being remarkable for their clean and per- fect solidity. Marsh and Cope agree that the camarasuras was the largest and most bulky animal capable of progress on land of which we have any knowledge, it being very much larger than the mastodon, which was of a much later period.

" Prof. Mudge, with his party, worked about three-quarters of a mile distant from Prof. Cope's camp, and discovered portions of an animal of even more monstrous proportions than those already referred to, and of entirely different genus and species from either. The explorations of the Marsh and Cope parties attracted the attention of the entire scientific world, not only in the work here on Talbott Hill, but in the setting up of the gigantic skeletons at Yale College and the Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia. Animals quite as large as those above described are now (September 1, 1881) being exhumed.

THE CANON CITY COAL FIELD.

This comprises fifty square miles, commenc- ing on the south side of Arkansas River, opposite Canon City, and extending eastward nearly parallel with the mountains, and an average distance of four miles from them, nearly to Adobe Creek, about thirteen miles. The veins on the eastern portion of the basin crop out to the surface, showing general dip of thirty degrees to the northwest; on the western side, the vein rises unbroken to the mountains, to a point on Oak Creek, from thence northward to Alkali Gap are croppings nearly perpendicular, inclining eastward.

Jeans, B Deman

597

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

The deepest portion of the basin is supposed to be on a line two and a half miles west from the eastern line of croppings, though the western portion of the north line of the basin nearest Cañon City, shows veins two and a half to six feet in thickness, dipping toward the south. The first claim staked in this coal basin was by Hosea Hoopingarner, Jesse Frazer, Clark Harrington and John W. Leland, in April, 1860, at the present site of Coal Creek, which afterward belonged to J. T. Musser, who sold to C. C. I. Co., and was first worked by them by Mr. Depue, in 1871. Uncle Jesse Frazer mined out from the croppings the first coal mined in this now famous coal field. He had serious difficulty in attempting to take it by an ox team to the blacksmiths, Brimer & Larley, at Canon City, fording the river, which was too high, bounced his wagon along down against rocks, breaking a wheel, until he struck the head of a little island, where he succeeded in cutting the team loose, and saving himself and them.

The explorations of the past year show that, on the fifty square miles comprised in this basin, there are almost exhaustless stores of .this superior fuel. The developments being made are on the most extensive and perma- nent scale, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad having built an expensive branch railroad, said to have cost over half a million of dollars, from Pueblo, tapping their lands at Rockvale, on Oak Creek, where the Canon City Coal Company have sunk and thoroughly timbered a working shaft, 9x22 feet, to the coal, and which is worked by immense en- gines, with capacity for hoisting 1,000 tons per day. They are working a smaller shaft, a mile down the creek, and are preparing for opening other collieries by inclines and hori- zontal workings. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway have also built a branch railroad up Oak Creek, within one mile of Rockvale, where the Canon City Imp't Company are opening, in a most approved manner, inclines both to the east and west. The market, has not heretofore, been fully supplied with Cañon City coal, but it is probable that in the future the demand will be met, and that this inter- est alone will, directly and indirectly, double the present population of the county. The

mines of Coal Creek were opened in a sys- tematic manner, in 1872, by the direction of W. P. Mellen, deceased, then President of the Canon City Imp't Company; by R. N. Clark, M. E .; Mr. Alex Thornton was also in charge for a time. George Hadden, Esq., has been Superintendent for the past five years.

The Canon City coal, according to analysis by Prof. Cox, State Chemist of Indiana, shows 56.80 per cent fixed carbon, 34.20 gas and 9 per cent ash and water. The Out West mag- azine, in giving its characteristics, says: "It is hard and coherent-most valuable qualities in a country where even the granite and por- phyry give way to the disintegrating influ- ences of the atmosphere."'

Again we quote from the Tourist: "Our way is southward ten miles or more to the Canon City Imp't Company's mines, stopping at the Iron Spring, a little over three miles from town. It is up a short, dry gulch, lead- ing off from the road, and quite peculiar, in- asmuch as the water springs from and has worn its tiny channel up the very edge of a long, thin ridge that juts out into the gulch. Over the face of the ridge the water has scat- tered its iron sediment with lavish freedom, but only in this is there anything that, to the eye, indicates aught but spotless purity in the wonderful clearness in the spring. To the taste, however, the iron at once asserts itself,and the water is so strongly surcharged with it as to render it the healthiest of beverages. We drink our fill, and are off for the coal mines. An hour, and we are bowling along in a coal truck attached to a blind mule, through a vein of solid coal, something over five feet in diameter. It is a weird ride, this mile or more into the inky bowels of the earth, the faint shadows from our diminutive lamps causing a ghastly effect, not at all lessened by the blackness of the coal on either side and overhead. Every few feet we peer into the dusky depths of the apparently unending series of sidechambers, catching quick glimpses of the little fire-bugs, as the miners look to be, as we pass so swiftly on. We see not the forms of the men, their faces, nor their hands, only the lampwick's sickly flaring from the unseen hats. Every now and then piles of powder in canisters almost block up the entrance to

598

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

the chambers, and, at one point, we are shown the very fuse that sent a poor miner to his death but a day or two before. But still the old blind mule trots on, and the passing through and the rapid closing behind us of the heavy oak door, that preserves the little of wholesome air left in the drift, is as if it barred us forevermore from the world behind. The ride in appears an age; the ride out of but a moment's time in comparison. There are eighty-six side-chambers, or rooms, as the miners know them, in the main entry, fifty- seven in another entry, and in all, four miles of track upon which the coal is carried to the outer world. The veins average five feet two inches. A hundred miners are at work, and the yield averages 400 tons per day. The gigantic solid lump of coal, eight feet, nine inches long, six feet across and four feet four inches high, that attracted so great atten- tion at the Centennial, being beyond all comparison the greatest single piece of coal on exhibition, was taken from this mine. It weighed seven tons, and was cut and brought out of the mine in three days. Canon City coal is unquestionably the finest bituminous coal in the world, and is so extensively used throughout the West as to require the run- ning of special trains for coal alone, on the Denver & Rio Grande road, which has its own track to the mines. The supply is be- yond all human calculation, for the valley of the Arkansas is one vast coal bed for mile upon mile. On the return trip, we make quite a detour to the east, to spend a little time at the gypsum' beds of twelve feet in thickness.

RICH SILVER AND COPPER MINES ARE OPENED.

On Grape Creek, at Dora, Titusville, Soda Springs and three miles below the Iron Mountains, the El Plomo belt of silver ore commences. and shows well-defined veins for several miles. The El Plomo Mine is more developed than any other, having a tunnel about fifty feet, showing regular wall rocks, and three to five feet of solid mineral. It assays from a few ounces up to fifty ounces silver, and always a good trace of gold. It is thought by many, that, were this line above timber line, instead of within nine miles of

Canon City, and few rods from a railroad, it would be developed to fully test its value. The formation is an old granite, and the region about is permeated by numerous veins of rich copper ore. The finishing of the rail- road to Wet Mountain Valley, Silver Cliff, etc., will, in all probability, prove what the writer has contended for the last eight years, viz., that in these foothills, on Grape and Oak Creek, but a few miles from Cañon, there will eventually be worked some of as good paying mines as there are in the State. They may not be as rich as some others, but considering their locality, they will pay as good dividends . as any.

MILES AND MOUNTAINS OF MAGNETIC IRON.

One portion of the Iron Belt is east of Messrs. Beckwith Bros.' " Texas Creek Ranch." This magnetic iron is very pure, being about 70 per cent pure iron. The Iron Mountain is ten miles easterly, on Pine Creek, a tribu- tary of Grape Creek, by way of which stream it is only twelve miles from Canon City. The solid black ore nearly crosses the hills of that region, which should be called Black Hills of Colorado. It is found to be a good flux in the. treatment of argentiferous galena ores, hav- ing been shipped considerable distances for that purpose. Several times since the discov- ery of this great factor in the wealth of the world, works have been talked of, and news- paper men have called Canon City the "Future Pittsburgh of the West," etc., yet the muck- mills, nail-mills, furnaces, rolling-mills, and other works have only existed in their imagina- tion and our iron must be classed as among our undeveloped resources. But with the devel- opment of our mountain system of railroads, will come the necessity of manufacturing our own iron, thereby saving freight from the East. The motive power is here, free, and the coal can be had for the expense of digging. Grape Creek cuts through the Sierra Mojada Range, and enters the Arkansas one mile above Cañon City, opposite the gate of the mountains.

IRRIGATION.

In the methods of irrigation, our farmers consider they have learned much through ex- perience. First, that ground plowed in the

599

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

fall, and thoroughly irrigated as late as may be, pulverized by freezing and thawing dur- ing winter, and is in perfect condition for early seeding in the spring, and, as a rule, yields one-third larger increase than spring plowing on ground not irrigated in early win- ter. That where ground cannot be plowed in the fall, it should have the water late in the fall, and will be in fine condition for early plowing and seeding. The advantages of early March seeding are that the crop gets ahead of the ravages of young grasshoppers and ripens before flying ones come in, should they be about. Another is, that the spring snows are usually sufficient to keep the ground moist, and to bring up the young plant, and to keep it growing until the main acequas can be well cleaned out and the water put in. It is a great disadvantage to be obliged to rut in the crop in ground not irrigated in the fall, because it often happens that there is not rain or snow sufficient to bring up the crop which must be irrigated to bring it up, and a good stand is nearly out of the question, besides makes the starting of the crop late and irrigation season longer, for when irriga- tion of a crop once is commenced, it must be continued until the grain is ready for the reaper. The matter of lateral ditches is of great importance; the plan, formerly, was to draw from a main ditch, by small ditches at right angles, and, in turning the water out on the ground, was next to impossible to keep it from putting back into the little ditches, unless their banks were built so permanent as to be a great obstacle to reaping. Now, most of our farmers have only one right-angle ditch from the main ditch, with which they run water into ditches running parallel with the main ditch, which is always laid out with the gen- eral lay of surface, so as to secure only fall required for running the water. Then the water is, of course, let out onto the land, by little gates or breaks in the lower bank, where required, and it never can get back into the ditch. Great pains are being taken to get the ground level on the benches, or terraces, be tween these parallel ditches; this is accom- plished by putting strawy manure, or straw, across all places where the water is inclined to settle or run, and extending the same on

the sides, as far as the water is inclined to cut and run. The wash, from the higher ground, soon fills all these low spots, and sometimes, in a single season, quite an uneven field is made sufficiently level to save the bulk of the hard labor of irrigating. Giving the straw back to the land, with the addition of all the manure possible, returns a great income for the expenditure, notwithstanding the soil is composed from the rich wash of the mountain sides. The propriety of irrigatiug on Sunday is thought to be the most serious theological point on which the men and women of Colo- rado disagree, the men generally contending it is right to give the crops and soil drink whenever dry, while the ladies are superstitious about hoisting the gates on Sunday.

RAILROAD HISTORY OF THE COUNTY.

The first organized effort to secure a rail- road was in the fall of 1867, when Rev. B. M. Adams, B. F. Rockafellow and Thomas Macon, were appointed a committee to make arrange- ments to confer with Col. A. G. Boone, then about to visit Washington to confer with his old-time friend, John D. Perry, President of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, relative to the advantages of the Arkansas Valley Trans-con- tinental Route. The result filled us with hope which never flagged, as Col. Boone, after sev- eral interviews, wrote: "The President is much interested in the advantages claimed by our route, and has promised to order engi- neers, on their return from surveys across the continent, to report on the route by Poncha Pass and Canon City."

Gen. William J. Palmer and Col. W. H. Greenwood, Chief Engineers, were then on their way to the Pacific, and agreeably to President Perry's promise, he ordered a com- petent engineer, Maj. Calhoun, who, accom- panied by Maj. Head, in the spring of 1868, viewed out the route down the river, giving a most favorable report. In August, 1868, the citizens were electrified by the appearance, in their midst, of Lieut. Miller and a party of live railroad engineers, young Gus Wright, of Chicago, being one of their number. Their report, as to distances, grades and country, were very favorable to this route. Lieut. Miller himself was so favorably impressed,

600

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

and so sure the route would be adopted, that he staked a claim at the forks of the South Arkansas, which, he said, would be the junc- tion of the railroad system of the mountain region, as subsequent facts proved his fore- sight.

His report being favorable, Col. William H. Greenwood, the Chief of the Kansas Pacific Surveys to the Pacific, soon followed, and, ac- companied by George Rockafellow, made the first thorough examination of the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, with a view to railroad building. Upon Col. Greenwood's return to St. Louis, he recommended and urged the managers of the Kansas Pacific to deflect at Ellsworth from their line located toward Denver, and cross to and adopt the Arkansas River Route to its headwaters, and by San Luis Valley, intersect their thirty-fifth paral- lel route. His foresight mapped out a rail- road way that encompassed nearly all of the immense mineral-bearing territory of South Colorado. The San Juan country was en- shrouded with mystery. Charley Hall, and the few adventurous spirits at the salt-works, who had penetrated it to that date, after suf- fering dreadful hardships-being obliged to eat their pack-animals and buffalo skins-only waited for a more propitious time to arrive to verify their belief in the great richness of the country. California Gulch was then only known for its gold, and the quiet of Oro, and A. S. Weston's cozy hotel on the present site of Leadville, which was not disturbed by more than a score of freighters a month, and they on their way to H. A. W. Tabor's store. For even in that day he furnished grub-stakes to many an unlucky prospector, which custom no doubt led him to furnish Rische the grub- stake which has made him famous every- where. The Tabor of that day, as the Gov. Tabor of the present, was the leading spirit of the gulch, a shining example of persever- ance in selecting a point with "advantages," and sticking to it till it won. Doc Burts and Tom Wells' Gulch and placer mines, Bob Berry's tunnel and Capt. Breece's prospect holes on a thousand hills, were then all the talk; yet, a cursory trip to the mines and Tennessee Pass satisfied Col. Greenwood that there was great wealth in those mountains,

and if the Kansas Pacific Railroad had fol- lowed his advice, they would not to-day he the tail to Jay Gould's kite. The Kansas Pacific aimed for what they saw in sight-Denver -- which was, commercially speaking, Colorado, as she held nearly the entire trade.

About the time of its completion to Denver, Gen. William J. Palmer, Chief Engineer, and Col. William H. Greenwood, Assistant and Manager of construction, left the Kansas Pacific and organized the scheme of building the Denver & Rio Grande, with ex-Gov. A. C. Hunt and Gen. D. C. Dodge, in 1870, the first narrow-gauge railroad of any importance in America. The first-named gentlemen made private investments in Cañon, and their land companies were extensive purchasers. Fre- mont County, thus assured of the good faith of the railroad, voted them the first $50,000 railroad bonds that were offered the company. Through some technicality they were lost in the courts. Gen. Palmer, in the meantime, meet- ing with great success in raising money to build a road from Denver to Pueblo, and Coal Branch to Labran, which was completed October 30, 1872, conceived the plan of abandoning this as the main route, and to push for the city of Old Mexico by Santa Fe and El Paso. Seeing no hope through the Denver & Rio Grande, we, on January 6, 1873, held our first public meeting looking toward securing the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Speeches were made by Gov. Anson Rudd, Dr. J. L. Prentiss, W. R. Fowler and others, and a committee, consisting of B. F. Rockafellow, James Clel- land and Capt. B. F. Allen, were appointed to draw up resolutions.

They reported the following, which was adopted without a dissenting voice:

WHEREAS, our county abounds in superior iron, coal, oil and precious minerals, building material and mineral springs; possesses unrivaled water- power, agricultural and pastoral advantages, and is accessible to the mining regions of Lake and Park Counties; therefore be it

Resolved, That we, the citizens of Fremont County, deem it of the greatest importance that we should seek an Eastern railroad connection, and that we cordially invite the Atchison & Topeka Railroad to investigate the advantages referred to in this preamble, etc., etc,

In speaking on the question, Hon. Thomas Macon said, "that no man with sense enough

HON JAMES B.ORMAN'S RESIDENCE ON THE MESA,SOUTH PUEBLO, COLO.

RESIDENCE OF HON J.N.CARLILE. ON THE MESA, SOUTH PUEBLO, COLO.

603

HISTORY OF FREMONT COUNTY.

to cross the plains could oppose railroads, and particularly a road with so fair a record as the Atchison & Topeka," etc.

Our efforts at that time not indicating the speedy Eastern connection sought, we were forced to make renewed efforts to get the Den- ver & Rio Grande road, which, having aban- doned this as their main line, and commenced construction south of Pueblo, demanded $100,- 000 in county bonds. These were voted in the latter part of 1873 by only two majority, after a very bitter canvass, which, for some time, caused religious and political divisions on the stand taken by citizens concerning the question of "Bonds" or " No Bonds." The County Commissioners refused to issue the bonds voted, making allegations to suit their sympathies and prejudices in the case.

Finally, on demand of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, Canon City, August 6, 1874, voted $50,000 in bonds, and the citizens deeded property which the railroad sold for $25,000, when the eight miles, from Labran to Canon, graded by Col. Greenwood and his personal friends in the winter of 1872-73, was completed to Canon City July 1, 1875. A settlement of these bonds was effected in the latter part of 1880.

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad not joining with the town, at that time, in the hearty support expected, the company giving such full evidence of abandonment of route westward, by advice of Engineer H. R. Hol- brook, a local railroad company, called the Cañon City & Saguache Railroad, was organ- ized, but did not do the work required by law for the first year. On February 15, 1877, the Canon City & San Juan Railroad was organ- ized. They immediately commenced surveys and location, plats of which were filed with the Secretary of the Interior, as required by act of Congress.

The officers were Ebenezer T. Alling, Pres- - ident; B. F. Rockafellow, Secretary; James Clelland, Treasurer, and H. R. Holbrook, Chief Engineer. Mr. Alling having decided to open a branch store at Ouray, resigned, when Frederick A. Raynolds was elected in his place. After the Directors of the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fe elected Col. William B. Strong, Vice President and General Man-

ager, Western people became satisfied that vigorous measures would soon be put on foot, and they were not long left in doubt. The successful movement, ably seconded by Chief Engineer A. A. Robinson and his assistant, Col. W. R. Morley, which resulted in his gaining and holding possession of Raton Pass, the gateway to the best route to the Pacific Coast, secured only one of the points of advantage, with which he sought the devel- opment of the mightiest empire in the New World. He urged upon President Nickerson the necessity of securing the vast mineral country of Southwestern Colorado, by taking possession of its gateway-the Grand Canon of the Arkansas. Not receiving sufficient en- couragement, and feeling confident that valu- able time was being lost, he telegraphed President Thomas Nickerson "that prompt, decisive action, followed by vigorous measures, were necessary in that direction, or all would be lost," receiving the reply "to take such steps as he thought necessary, he at once started from headquarters at Topeka, west, knowing that it would not do for him to look Grand Canonward in person. He met Chief Engineer A. A. Robinson at Raton Pass, where it was arranged that the work of taking possession of the Grand Canon should be en- trusted to Engineer H. R. Holbrook, who was in charge of the work commenced from La Junta to Trinidad, and a courier was sent to him with orders, while Col. Morley went by rail to relieve him.

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.

History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, Part 80

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