USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Vol. I > Part 26
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On the 22d of October, 1861, the transcontinental, or Western Union Telegraph line was completed to San Francisco, and thereby well entered upon its mission of engirdling the world. The rejoicing citizens of the Pacific slope were thus placed in direct communication with New York and the country at large, and given the latest news fresh from the theater of the war. Up to this time, excepting that made by the Pony Express, the average time between the Missouri river and the Pacific coast was twenty-three days, so that when the intelligence from the battlefields reached that remote section of the country, it was something over three weeks old.
The first continuous message sent to New York read as follows :
"The Pacific to the Atlantic sends greeting ; and may both oceans be dry before a foot of all the land that lies between them shall belong to any other than one united country." A stalwart western sentiment clearly expressing the sturdy loyalty of a robust and patriotic people.
The Pacific Telegraph Company was organized for the purpose of connecting the then existing telegraph systems of the United States with the Pacific coast. Congress voted an annual subsidy, as proposed
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and persistently urged by Mr. Colfax, for a term of years, and its con- struction was begun from Nebraska City and Omaha as early as 1858, under the direction of Edward Creighton, president of the company. The line from Nebraska City to Omaha, and thence to Fort Kearney was constructed by Henry M. Porter, now of this city, and followed the wagon road westward to Columbus and Grand Island, Nebraska, to a point opposite old Fort Kearney, where it crossed the river, and thence followed the overland stage road on the south side of the Platte to Julesburg, where it crossed to the north side and took a northwest- erly course to Fort Laramie, and through the Wind river range to Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. Brigham Young secured large contracts for supplying poles and transportation on the Western division. The Californians built from the west to Salt Lake.
During the years 1861, 1862, and a part of 1863 Denver's only communication with the East was by the overland mail ; first weekly, then semi-weekly, and at last by herculean effort, daily, via Julesburg station,-situated on the south bank of the Platte, two hundred miles distant,-and if more speedy communication with the river, Chicago or New York were desired, by the telegraph wires from that point after the extension from Fort Kearney. The absorbing interest in the pro- gress of the war, and the important commercial and mining relations of the later period, gave rise to a clamorous demand for direct tele- graphic facilities, therefore early in the spring of 1863, Mr. Creighton came to Denver and extended his investigations to Central City, the seat of mining transactions, securing from the citizens of both places liberal subscriptions in aid of a branch line from Julesburg to the points named.
Mr. B. F. Woodward was engaged to take charge of the Denver office when the line should be completed, but owing to the sudden ill- ness and death of the foreman of construction at Julesburg where the men and materials had been collected, he was directed to superintend the building of the line. It was finished to Denver early in October 1863, and to Central City a month later.
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The first office was opened in a small room over the banking house of Warren Hussey & Co., on the corner of Holladay and Fifteenth, or F streets. Amos Steck, then mayor of the city, asked the privilege of celebrating the advent of this important enterprise by sending a dispatch to Mrs. Steck, then on a visit "back in the states." The request having been granted, he prepared his message, handed it to the operator and waited patiently for it to go, but owing to the wretched quality of the wire used, the line kept breaking and falling to pieces so that no dispatch could be sent over it, therefore His Honor spent the greater part of his time for the next three or four days in haunting the telegraph office, and as the delay lengthened, in expressing his opinion of the line in sententious apothegms remarkable for their energy and conciseness. Finally, at the end of a week the breaks were repaired and regular communication established. The president of the company, though an expert in constructing telegraphs, possessed little or no knowledge of electric currents, hence the frequent breakages perplexed him sorely. In the beginning he was strongly impressed with the conviction that the Rocky Mountains and the metals and min- erals among them, exerted an influence upon the subtle current which would forever obstruct, if it did not wholly prevent, the successful oper- ation of the wires, but virtuously abandoned this theory after it had been exploded by accomplished facts.
The first messages exchanged with Omaha and other cities to the eastward, were transmitted Oct. 10th, 1863. Mayor Steck congratulated Omaha on the happy consummation, and received assurances of "distin- guished consideration" in return. In 1865 the Pacific Telegraph com- pany was consolidated with the Western Union. In the same year the latter constructed a line from Denver to Fort Bridger, via Fort Collins and Virginia Dale, and thereafter Denver became an important repeating station on the main line. Mr. Woodward retained the man- agement of the Denver office until 1867, and then became division superintendent, with jurisdiction extending over Colorado, New Mexico and north to Cheyenne. In 1875 he took charge of the telegraph
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department of the Denver & Rio Grande railway, and continued in the position until 1884.
To persons only familiar with the freight and telegraphic tariffs of the present era, the prices which obtained in the times under consider- ation will appear ruinously extortionate. For example, the regular rate for a ten word dispatch from Denver to New York was nine dollars and ten cents, and sixty-three cents for each additional word-no discount for cash, and no accounts opened. To Boston the rate was nine dollars and twenty-five cents ; to Chicago and St. Louis seven dollars and fifty cents, and to Omaha four dollars. Gradually, in the process of years, these blood-curdling exactions were modified in this manner : To New York eight dollars, seven twenty-five, six, five, three fifty, two dollars, and in 1887 to one dollar, night messages seventy-five cents.
In corresponding ratio, during the summer of 1865, while the Indians were amusing themselves with our transportation, wagon freights rose to twenty-five cents per pound, and there were instances in which the merchants were compelled to pay as high as forty cents per pound. When such charges were applied to all classes, from corn, hay and flour to sugar, coffee, dry goods, iron, machinery, everything in fact, the cost of living in the Rocky Mountain region may be compre- hended, yet there are men who insist that those were the golden days of Colorado, because we had no railroads to cheapen prices, and the merchant could ask what he pleased for his goods. But the truthful historian is compelled to state that it came near bankrupting the country.
In the fall of 1867 the United States and Mexico Railway and Telegraph Company was organized, with Henry M. Porter, President ; Wm. N. Byers, Vice-President ; David H. Moffat, Jr., Treasurer, and B. F. Woodward, Superintendent. Its object was to construct a rail- way and telegraph line from Denver to the City of Mexico, via Pueblo, Trinidad, Las Vegas, Santa Fé, Durango, Zacatecas and the city of the Montezumas. The line was completed to Santa Fé the season fol- lowing. The existence of the railway corporation was maintained for 20
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some years by the bedding of cross ties here and there near Denver on the projected route-an ingenious but tolerated evasion of the statutes in such cases made and provided-and the filing from time to time of new incorporation papers when the law had been strained beyond further endurance. Thus possession was held until A. C. Hunt and General William J. Palmer came on to the scene and organized the Den- ver & Rio Grande Railway Company, of which Mr. Moffat is at this writing the president, and the system the greatest of its class in the world.
The summer of 1863 was marked by a protracted drouth which dried up the streams, and prevented the growth of crops in the limited area then cultivated. On the plains and east of the Missouri river it was even more destructive and disheartening, consequently prices advanced beyond all reasonable bounds. Earlier than usual, about the middle of October, one of the severest winters ever known in this latitude set in, with frequent heavy snows and very cold weather. Those who had stock on the ranges lost it; supply trains were blockaded, and many abandoned. It seemed impossible to maintain any sort of communication with the states. The stages, which under ordinary circumstances would push through when it was possible for any living force to face the bitter blasts, were delayed ; the drivers, bewildered and lost in the furious pouderies, wandered about wildly on the track- less prairies. In the mountain towns, at Black Hawk and Central City, hay, grain, fuel and provisions rose to famine prices, and it was but little better in Denver.
In the following spring the great masses of snow melted, flooded the mines and expelled the miners. Rains succeeding, torrents poured down the mountain slopes upon the hapless residents, sweeping in some cases, their homes from their foundations, and filling others with mud and debris. In the valleys many ranches were overwhelmed, covered with sand and well nigh destroyed. Added to these disasters were the rumblings of a general Indian war. Prices which had been exorbitant enough in the fall and winter, continued to advance under the alarming
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conditions. The frequent calls for troops induced our workingmen to enter the army, many enlisting with the view of being subsisted rather than from patriotic motives.
The event which saved the miners from despair was the rapid advance in the price of gold, which mounted to the highest point known in the history of the nation. This was followed by a sudden and almost frantic demand for gold mines and mining stocks. No matter whether they had any intrinsic value or not, the speculators wanted them, and as the hills about Black Hawk and Central City were liter- ally seamed with fissures, the supply became fully equal to the demand. Our armies in the east had been defeated. The country was in a state of consternation over the long series of disasters which befel the troops in Virginia and everywhere else except where Grant commanded. The war drained the Treasury at the rate of a million dollars a day, and as a natural consequence, government notes were turned out by the ream to meet these vast expenditures. Jay Gould and others engineered a corner and sent gold up to 172, and the average was about 145 throughout the year.
The sale of Colorado mines in New York began late in the fall of 1863, the first being the Ophir property on the Burroughs lode in Nevada district, subsequently managed by Mr. Ezra Humphrey, and later by Colonel George E. Randolph. As a matter of fact, only a few of the lode claims in Gilpin County were returning satisfactory profits. The surface decompositions containing free gold had been exhausted by constant working, and the resulting sulphurets could not be successfully manipulated by the stamp mills then employed. Outside of a few placers in Gilpin, Clear Creek, Park, Lake, and Summit counties, very little mining was done. But the interest manifested in New York, stimulated by the ascending scale of gold values, awakened a new spirit. So long as the owners of "prospects" could sell out at extravagant figures, what was the use of trying to work them? Under this state of feeling the principal business of every man was to sell what he had, or possessing nothing, to hunt up a hole that might be put on the market.
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But the principal difficulty, next to that of treating the refractory mineral, lay in the fact that when shafts had been sunk below three hundred feet, such quantities of water poured in as to render steam hoisting and pumping machinery a necessity. The work could not be carried on with the primitive appliances theretofore employed. Suitable machinery could only be had in Chicago, St. Louis or Pitts- burg, and the cost of its transportation was appalling.
As the year progressed the work of the County Clerk and Recorder multiplied to such an extent as to call for a large force of clerks who worked day and night upon the records of claims, abstracts of title, deeds of transfer, etc., etc. The incumbent, Mr. Bela S. Buell, returned a net income to the government Assessor of forty thousand dollars per annum, the largest in the territory except that of Governor Evans, and paid the tax upon that amount. Hundreds of telegraph dispatches passed over the wires between Central City and New York, relating to mining deals, that cost from fifty to three hundred dollars each.
The excitement was universal. Some of the titles were wholly, or in great part fraudulent, and in many cases the purchasers of mines were never able to find them.
The craze extended through the winter to the following April, when the bottom fell out, and the boom collapsed. The companies organized upon the more valuable properties, sent out vast quantities of machinery unfitted for the work to be done ; expensive buildings were erected before it was known whether the ore would pay, certainly prior to the development by which alone profits could be realized, had begun. An infinite variety of processes for treating the ores were invented by scientific cranks, warranted to extract every particle of gold from the rocks, sold to the credulous managers, and sent out to swell the tide of misfortune.
Some of the new companies wrought quite earnestly for a time, but gaining no profits, they shut down. When the crash came Gilpin County seemed completely prostrated. Its population diminished,
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money became scarce, all industry languished, some of the operators lost faith in the durability of the veins, and the future seemed unlighted by even a ray of hope. In the summer the Sioux, Arapahoes and Cheyennes confederated and ravaged the plains, breaking all our lines. In brief, the entire year was marked by disasters, a series of bloody tragedies and other memorable events. On the 19th of May frequent extraordinary storms along the divide at the head of Cherry Creek filled the channel of that erratic and repulsive stream with a flood of waters laden with driftwood, the ruins of dwellings, horses, cattle and sheep, swept in from the ranches. The raging torrent, plunging like the waves of the sea under the impulse of a powerful gale, swept down to the city, where, momentarily obstructed by several buildings erected in its bed, it left its banks and poured over into West Denver, submerging that quar- ter from a point above Arapahoe street to the Platte river. Many houses were torn from their foundations, and all were inundated. The scene of desolation and ruin which ensued has never been equaled by like cause in Colorado. Among the buildings which were wholly destroyed and carried in fragments down the Platte were the Methodist church, the office of the Rocky Mountain "News" and the City Hall. Great billows of muddy water, ten to fifteen feet in height rolled in upon them, and they were crushed like egg shells. East Denver suffered but little above Blake street, but at that point and below all the cellars and many of the first floors were deluged. Several lost everything they pos- sessed, even to the lots their houses stood upon. The probate, city and commissioner's court records, old dockets, and the city safe contain- ing maps and papers of great value, disappeared and were seen no more. Portions of the heavy machinery of the "News" office were carried down the river and never recovered. This destructive visitation obliterated the last remnant of sectional jealousy and rivalry between the two set- tlements, leaving not a shadow of doubt as to which would in the future reign supreme. It wiped out also for more than twenty years real estate values on the West side, for a large part of its population moved over to the higher ground on the east division. Henceforth there was to be
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no room for contest, and Denver proper rose to a plane of commercial vigor and prosperity, which, augmenting with the passing years, has made it one of the most beautiful and progressive cities between the Mississippi and the Pacific.
An act to enable the people of Colorado to form a state govern- ment passed Congress, and was approved March 21st, 1864. On the Sth of April Governor Evans issued a proclamation calling an election of representatives to a constitutional convention to be held on the first Monday in June following. The election was held and delegates chosen who met July 4th at 2 o'clock P. M., in Loveland's Hall, Golden City. O. A. Whittemore was chosen president, and shortly afterward the convention adjourned to Denver, where, on reassembling, Eli M. Ash- ley was elected permanent secretary. A constitution was framed dur- ing the session, and the adjournment took place July 11th. There- upon, the territorial central committee issued a call to the uncondi- tional Union men for the election of delegates to meet in convention at Denver, August 2d, for the purpose of nominating candidates for state officers, and for a Representative in Congress.
The following ticket was nominated :
For Congress-Col. John M. Chivington.
For Governor-Henry D. Towne.
For Lieutenant Governor-Anson Rudd.
For Auditor of State-Uriah B. Holloway.
For Treasurer of State-Hart H. Harris.
For Superintendent of Public Instruction-Mark C. White.
For Attorney General-John Q. Charles.
For Judges of the Supreme Court-Allen A. Bradford, Moses Hallett and William R. Gorsline.
For Clerk of the Supreme Court-Webster D. Anthony.
For Presidential Electors-A. L. Dunn, David H. Nichols and Samuel H. Elbert.
On the 13th, notification that the constitution must be submitted to the people on the second Tuesday in September, was sent from
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Washington. Henry D. Towne declined the nomination for Governor and Daniel Witter took his place, by appointment, at the head of the state ticket.
Public feeling against this movement was strong and decided from the beginning, on the ground of its prematurity. The people at large, more especially in the thinly settled agricultural districts and among the mining camps, dreaded the burdens of taxation which the insti- tution of a state government would inflict upon them, and as the entire population was known to be less than forty thousand, the opposition increased with the progress of the campaign. While there was no regu- larly organized resistance, it was found to be general in all the coun- ties except Arapahoe, and even there it had many positive and out- spoken opponents. Governor Evans and Henry M. Teller were named for the United States senate, as if their election were a fore- gone conclusion. The anti-state newspapers, deeply and in some cases vindictively prejudiced against Evans, made him the target of constant vituperation, and wholesale misrepresentation. In process of time it came to be understood that his candidacy for the senate would defeat the movement. The pressure became so strong that he was finally per- suaded to publish a card stating that he was not, and would not be a candidate for the office of United States Senator in the event of the adoption of the constitution. But his withdrawal failed to check the growing opposition. It was claimed also that the nominations for state officers were, some of them at least, highly objectionable, all the more because the constitution and the ticket were submitted conjointly to the popular vote with the evident purpose of compelling the people to accept both, and thus make a complete surrender of their independence. Bradford, who from the outset had identified himself with the opposition, soon after his nomination to the supreme bench published his decli- nation. He became the candidate of the anti-staters for territorial dele- gate to Congress, and was triumphantly elected. The constitution was defeated by a large majority. The people were not strong enough to support an independent commonwealth, and they knew it.
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Probably no more hotly contested campaign was ever conducted under the territorial system, noted throughout for tempestuous, acri- monious and unscrupulous proceedings by both parties. It was even asserted by the anti-state propaganda that Evans and his clan had instigated the Indian war for the express purpose of demonstrating the necessity of direct representation in Congress, and the added power of state organization ; that the Third Regiment of cavalry then being mobilized, had been raised to further the proceeding. The governor's proclamations and his patriotic efforts to avert the storm of war, were used as weapons against him. We shall see as our history develops, how far and in what manner the national government was responsible for the great loss of life and property which ensued, through the viola- tion of its treaties, the rascality of its agents, and its neglect to afford protection. While the negligence of the authorities at Washington was condoned by the argument that in the extremity of its peril it had no succor to give the western territories, and therefore compelled them to protect themselves, the results, nevertheless, were deplorable in the extreme.
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CHAPTER XXI.
1864-INVASION OF THE SOUTH PARK BY TEXAN GUERRILLAS-THEIR PURSUIT, CAP- TURE AND SUMMARY EXECUTION-TITLES TO MINING PROPERTY-GOVERNOR EVANS BEGINS A MOVEMENT FOR THE EQUITABLE ADJUSTMENT OF MINERS' RIGHTS-PROCEEDINGS IN WASHINGTON TO EXTRACT REVENUE FROM THE MINES BY DIRECT TAXATION-THE VARIOUS SCHEMES PROPOSED-GEORGE W. JULIAN'S BILL-FERNANDO WOOD'S RESOLUTION TO EXPEL THE MINERS-THE INCEPTION OF A LONG SERIES OF INDIAN WARS-REVIEW OF THE EVENTS WHICH CULMI- NATED IN THE BATTLE OF SAND CREEK-MAJOR WYNKOOP'S VISIT TO BLACK KETTLE'S CAMP-RESCUE OF WHITE PRISONERS-GOVERNOR EVANS' CORRESPOND- ENCE WITH THE AUTHORITIES IN WASHINGTON.
About the 26th of July, 1864, a band of Texan guerrillas acting independently, that is to say, without authority of either the civil or military branch of the Confederate government, led by a desperado named Jim Reynolds, who in 1860 was a laborer in the rich placer mines of Park County, but went south at the outbreak of hostilities, crossed the border and entered southern Colorado. Reynolds and one or two others of the party knew the country thoroughly, and raised the expedition solely for the purpose of plundering those who were gather- ing large quantities of gold from the mines. The original band, when it left Texas, numbered twenty-two men, as rough, uncouth, and brutal renegades as ever entered upon a mission of evil-doing. It was dis- covered from an account book and diary subsequently captured, that they left Rabbit Ear Creek, Texas (date not mentioned), and the same day captured a merchandise train of seven wagons drawn by mules, and later a train of fourteen ox wagons, which they robbed of everything valuable that could be of immediate use or be carried away.
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It was reported that in one or both these trains they found large sums in silver dollars which were "cached" or buried for future use. They reached the Arkansas river at Fort Lyon and, unseen by the troops stationed there, followed its course upward, passing Pueblo and Cañon City en route to the South Park. Their first exploit there was the cap- ture of Major H. H. DeMary, of Colorado Gulch, and James Mc- Laughlin who occupied a ranch in the Park, whom they robbed and held close prisoners until the stage station on the regular mail route was reached. Here they struck Billy McClellan's coach going from the mines to Denver, carrying mail and express matter, the latter including considerable quantities of gold, and gold amalgam. The leader rode up to Abner Williamson, the driver, and presenting a revolver, ordered him to get down and surrender. Williamson, though a brave man, find- ing himself surrounded, with no opportunity for fight or flight, obeyed orders, but with a deliberation that exasperated the ruffians to coercive measures. Fortunately there were no passengers. McClellan, the pro- prietor and manager of the line, was relieved of his watch and money. The express box contained about three thousand dollars in gold, to secure which, it was chopped open with an ax. The mail sacks contained many letters inclosing greenbacks. These were rifled and their con- tents appropriated. They next disabled the coach by chopping out the spokes of the wheels. Intelligence of these bold outrages sped to the surrounding camps and ranches, and in a short time parties of mount- aineers started in pursuit of the outlaws, fully resolved to make short work of them when found. A company of miners and others from Summit County, led by Dick Sparks, was first in the field, who after a long search discovered the marauders in camp at the head of Deer Creek, a wild, secluded spot, where they had halted for the night. Sparks and his comrades having first secured the horses of the band, stealthily approached the camp by crawling on their hands and knees. When at the proper distance the signal was given to fire, each man having been directed to pick his robber and kill him if possible. But in the nervous excitement which prevailed, only a few shots went to the mark intended.
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