USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume II > Part 9
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The first annual fair of the Southern Colorado Agricultural and Industrial Association was opened October 9, 1872, and continued four days. Its President was George M. Chilcott; Vice-President, Richard Gaines ; Secretary, Frank S. Pinckney; Treasurer, Wilbur F. Stone. It was a very creditable exhibit of the resources of the region, was well attended, widely advertised, and attracted some immigrants, which was the principal design.
September 30, 1872, articles of incorporation for the Denver & South Park Railway were signed by Bela M. Hughes, Joseph E. Bates, Charles B. Kountze, D. H. Moffat, Jr., Frederick A. Clark, Fred. Z. Salomon, Henry Crow, W. S. Cheesman, and John Evans, and filed with the County Recorder October I. The route defined was from Denver to a point in the South Park, to be fixed at a subsequent date. Like all local projects except the proposed High line to Central and Georgetown, that was built only on paper, it was to be a narrow or three foot gauge. The capital stock was placed at two millions and a half, and the term of its existence at fifty years.
Nine trustees were chosen, comprising the corporators named above, with Leonard H. Eicholtz and J. C. Rieff. This enterprise, like that of the Rio Grande at the outset, seemed to the superficial observer wholly chimerical. There was no visible prospect of securing traffic enough in that direction to pay the running expenses. Excepting Littleton, there was no settlement whatever on or near its route. It was by far the most
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expensive line thus far projected. There was scarcely an acre of ground under cultivation between Denver and Fairplay, along the projected line. It is true that in the Platte Cañon there were extensive belts of pine timber, and along the base of the mountains immense quantities of building stone, lime and gypsum, but none were opened, nor was there any considerable demand for such products. The best the public jour- nals could say in commendation of the enterprise was, that the South Park was an unsurpassed dairy section, while some of the intermediate valleys were susceptible of cultivation, and combined all the essential prerequisites for the production of butter and cheese. There were some mines, but they were comparatively undeveloped. It was a fine grazing region,-had been so from time immemorial. For centuries anterior to the " Pike's Peak immigration" it had been the favorite resort of every species of quadruped game, and the classic ground of the old hunters and trappers. California Gulch had been worked out, and Leadville was unknown, undreampt of.
Notwithstanding, these railway trail blazers who were given to building the roads first and developing the country afterward, persevered in their apparently unpromising work. By the time the road had been finished to Morrison, the panic of 1873 struck and overwhelmed them. It seems to have been the fate of every railway scheme undertaken by John Evans to meet with about all the trials and obstructions in the calendar.
The trustees elected as officers of the company John Evans, Pres- ident ; D. H. Moffat, Jr., Vice-President ; George W. Kassler, Secre- tary, and Charles B. Kountze, Treasurer.
In October, 1872, articles of incorporation of the Morrison Stone, Lime and Town Company were filed, and bore the signatures of John Evans, D. H. Moffat, Jr. and Henry Crow. Its purpose was the devel- opment of the resources in stone, lime, gypsum and other raw materials so lavishly diffused about that region. A town was laid out. The first division of the South Park railroad was built to Morrison, and there remained for some time.
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The splendid results achieved by Gen. Palmer and his skillful aids in establishing the practicability of the narrow gauge principle, attracted universal attention. It had become one of the most notable new railway enterprises of the Continent. But that it was still in the experimental stage was clearly indicated by the character of the locomotives, the lightness of the iron rails, and the rolling stock. The trains were but tiny affairs which suggested the idea that any ordinarily powerful gust of wind might lift them off the track and scatter them over the prairie.
But we started out to say that the attention given these efforts resulted in a convention of narrow gauge railway builders, in the city of St. Louis, on the 28th of June, 1872. It was a large and eminently respectable gathering, which took up and seriously considered all the questions involved. The managers of the Rio Grande, by means of their prominence, were looked to for the best light attainable.
In the course of the proceedings a committee was appointed to report upon the peculiar merits of the system, and Col. W. H. Green- wood was made its chairman. The report submitted was lengthy, covering all the developed facts at that early stage of progression. The three feet gauge was recommended as a standard for the country at large, because it would secure uniformity, and was best adapted to the construction of through trunk lines from East to West, and from North to South. The system commended itself to the judgment of railway builders on account of its cheapness in comparison with the broad gauge, and its adaptability to rolling and mountainous regions ; because the cost of operation was twenty-five per cent. less than the broad gauge ; because the expenditure of power stands, or then stood, in the relation of about thirty-five to fifty-four in freight, and eleven to thirty in passen- ger tariffs. It was especially commended for use in the Southern States, and for the quick development of sparsely settled sections, because its smaller cost placed it within the means of such sections as could not well afford the more expensive gauge. In short, it was the deliberate opinion of these elated revolutionists that the reign of the broad gauge
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as the controlling power on this Continent would be broken by the rapid growth of the new idea.
Yet, after seventeen years of trial, while it has made more than ordinary progress, it has created no material diversion in railway affairs. The Colorado system is undoubtedly the most extensive and perfect of its class in the world, and while the same gauge has been adopted in Canada and in various parts of the United States, it has not superseded the standard in any country where the latter was wholly practicable, and even here, under the recent presidency of Mr. D. H. Moffat, the main line of the Rio Grande is being gradually changed to the standard.
In 1872 there were seventy-four narrow gauge railways in the United States, and five in Canada, the latter being, however, three feet six inches instead of three feet wide. There were at that time, including those in Colorado, something over one thousand miles of such roads under construction in the United States and Canada.
The incoming of railways caused the disappearance of the ad- mirable stage lines, which from the earliest settlement had enlivened the streets of the commercial and political metropolis. Rejoice as we may that they have been eliminated from the problem, never to be restored, the memory of their old-time impressiveness is a pleasant one to the pioneer whose association with and dependence upon them for mails, express matter, and more rapid locomotion than walking, and many other conveniences, endeared them to him. None who lived in the period from 1859 to 1870 will forget the gaudily painted and rather imposing Concord coaches, drawn by six splendid horses, guided by the most expert reinsmen in all the land, as they dashed through the then uncrowded and sparsely settled streets to or from the central station, where their burdens were received or deposited. Nor will those who survive him fail to cherish among the happier recollections of their lives the winning smiles and gentle presence of the managing agent, Mr. J. H. Jones, who from 1867 to the day of his death presided over the stage and express office. He was one of the noblest types of men that ever the Almighty set his seal upon ; a great, generous, sympathetic
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heart, filled with benevolence; with malice toward none, with charity for all, pursuing the right as God gave him to see the right, from the beginning to the end of his days; affable, refined and affectionate, pas- sionately attached to his family and more intimate friends ; possessing in a higher degree than I have elsewhere witnessed the graces and the sum total of all that constitutes our grandest ideal of perfect manhood. His mind was as clear as a silver toned bell, quick to grasp the con- ditions presented, and as quick to give his decision and to execute the strict letter of his duty. His views of men and events were broad and catholic, his manner under all, even the most trying circumstances, cour- teous and agreeable. We cannot imagine the nature of the man who, knowing him, could feel any sort of bitterness toward him. Yet when firmness was necessary, no man could be more positive and unyielding. His deportment among his fellow men during the most perplexing and wearying cares of his office was the very essence of kindness and good will. His inflexible fidelity to his employers and to the public interests, illustrates in some degree his fine administrative abilities, while his effi- cient mastery of the rude elements with which his lot was so frequently cast for so many years, gives further proof of his sterling qualities.
J. Harvey Jones was born in the Old Dominion of Virginia, whence, while still a young man, he removed to Missouri. In 1853 he was a freighter on the plains between the trading stations on the Missouri River and Salt Lake City. He came to Denver in 1867 as the agent of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, which then conducted a line of stages from Fort Kearney to Salt Lake City and California. For twenty-one years he was one of the most familiar and lovable figures in our city, and during all that time was seldom absent from his desk in the office.
Oh! those old staging days! While we may rejoice that they have passed "to the long roll of the forgotten," what a procession of scenes. exciting and pleasant are recalled as we write of them. How delightful it was to see this genial director and his beautiful, sprightly children hovering about the coaches in the early morning, while they were being
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loaded for the East six hundred miles away, or for the mining camps among the snow-crowned mountain tops; the hardy, sun-browned, weather-beaten faces of the incomparable, drivers beaming down upon them, their hearts softened and refined by the innocent prattle of the children,-whom each would have periled his life to save a sorrow,-as they danced gleefully about the horses, or clambered up to the lofty perch in the box and chattered to them as they sat awaiting final orders.
But there were days when these coaches and their drivers were forced to rush wildly through the red flames of Indian wars, when they came in riddled with bullets, with now and then dead and wounded pas- sengers; when for hundreds of miles savage foes lay in ambush for them, bent upon their destruction; when armed guards sat upon the decks and fought off the red devils while the horses ran the gauntlet of their fierce onslaughts. And there were days, too, when tornadoes, cyclones and blizzards swept over and engulphed them ; when coaches and horses and drivers, covered with snow and sleet, wandered through days and nights out upon the trackless desert in the vain search for a thoroughfare and for shelter. Few, if any, of the drivers, no matter how fierce the trials that environed them, ever deserted their posts or failed to bring their precious consignments to a harbor of safety. Surely no tribute of honor and praise is too great for the work they did and the perils they encountered in the times that tried men's souls to the uttermost.
In becoming a center of railways Denver ceased to be a center of staging. First we had the C. O. C. and P. P. express; next Ben Hol- laday, succeeded by Wells-Fargo, and they in turn by John Hughes & Co., and finally by Spottswood, Bogue & Co., with the Smoky Hill, Butterfield line sandwiched between. The Western Stage Company also established a daily line of coaches from Omaha to Denver and thence to Central City in 1859. When the Colorado Central began running trains to Golden City, six-horse coaches ran daily from that terminus to Black Hawk, Central City, Idaho and Georgetown, via Virginia Cañon. A tri-weekly line plied between Denver and Fairplay,
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making the long trip over the rugged roads and high mountains in eighteen hours, stopping over night on the way. At Hamilton, in the South Park, stages ran tri-weekly to Breckenridge. A similar line was established between Colorado Springs and Fairplay via Manitou and Ute Pass. The Colorado stage company having these lines in charge ran a coach weekly between Fairplay and Canon City. From the former point to Granite, then a productive gold mining camp, a wagon conveyed passengers, mail and express once a week. From Central City to the silver mines about Caribou and Nederland, in Boulder County, M. F. Beebee, of Black Hawk, ran a regular line of coaches or wagons.
The Denver & Rio Grande railroad put an end to staging between this city and Pueblo. For some years Mr. A. Jacobs owned and operated the stage line between the two cities, and it bankrupted him for the want of patronage. From Pueblo, Barlow, Sanderson & Co. ran a tri-weekly coach up the Arkansas River to Canon City, tri-weekly down that stream to Fort Lyon, and daily southward to Trinidad, Cimarron, Fort Union, Las Vegas, Santa Fé and other towns in New Mexico. On some, indeed most parts of their lines, wild Mexican bronchos were employed, animals which, though strong and fleet and serviceable, were wholly untameable. I remember taking a trip over these lines in the
early days, when several brawny men were required to get the bronchos into harness, and when hitched to the coach, to hold them from running away with it before the driver could seat himself and secure a firm grip
on the reins. When he was ready he gave an Indian war whoop, the attendants let go, when the bronchos shot off like the wind, keeping up the headlong flight until well nigh exhausted. Stopping at Bent's Fort to change, it was with the greatest difficulty they were unhitched, but once loose the leaders darted off to the Arkansas bottoms, rearing, kicking and plunging as if actually insane, and as if nothing short of a rifle ball, well aimed, would ever again place them under control. At another place one of the infuriated beasts broke loose and fled up a mountain side, over rocks and through dense thickets, until stripped of his harness.
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There are some among the early settlers, but chiefly confined to the rural districts, who entertain the profoundest contempt for railroads, telegraphs and all modern improvements ; who irreconcilably bemoan our decadence from the good old staging ways as a sufficient means of rapid transit, and ox trains for the conveyance of whisky and merchan- dise. They cannot endure the later civilization, having no respect for, nor part in it. The coming of the locomotive meant to them the utter annihilation of the old order of things, destruction of sacred idols and temples, the introduction and encouragement of vandalism. Not along the highways, but in the by-ways, remote and secluded places, these old hermits are still to be found, and if the occasional traveler who meets them will but lead up to the subject, they will recount marvelous tales of by-gone days when they were young and living forces in a land now peopled by men whose ways are not their ways. But one must accept these recollections with due allowance, for however honest in relating them in old age, their memories are not to be trusted for the retention of exact details. Nevertheless, they will be interesting.
In the summer of 1872 the money market in Denver, though evincing premonitory symptoms of the approaching panic of 1873, was reported easy, with interest rates at from eighteen to twenty per cent. per annum, on first-class commercial paper. Extortionate as these rates seem to us of the present day, they were considered quite liberal when compared with those of the previous decade, when they ranged between five and twenty-five per cent. a month, on substantial collateral. It is a fact that George W. Brown, who established one of the first banking houses in Denver, and was also one of the first Collectors of Internal Revenue appointed by President Lincoln, loaned money in small sums at twenty-five per cent. per month. Most of his contemporaries did the same. Money was money in those days, and the fortunate few who possessed it were able to secure any rate they chose to demand. For years the ruling rate on commercial paper at the regular banks was three per cent. per month, and from that to five per cent. Though the charges were extortionate, the risks were proportionately great, as there
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was no fixed value to property. Under the prevailing instability of things the man or bank which loaned money had to take serious chances.
The disgust of the old frontiersman, who exclaimed when he saw articles in a store marked "seven cents," for which he had been accus- tomed to paying a dime or a quarter, that the country was going to the devil now that the storekeepers were making change with copper coins, expressed the prevailing sentiment down to about 1870. It was some time, however, before nickels were introduced and decently accepted, but there we drew the line. The epoch when twenty-five cents was the smallest coin in circulation, when every one carried his little buckskin sack of gold dust ; when the lucky gulch miner after a surprising clean up could go to a saloon with a party of comrades, and after ordering the drinks scatter handfuls of gold about the barroom to show his opulence, passed away with the period of ox teaming and staging. Opportunities for fortunate strikes and sudden enrichment were not so frequent as they had been. The original prospectors who made the strikes had gathered the cream, and left their successors the skimmed milk for their portion. Merchants had to content themselves with smaller profits, the miner to work claims that yielded, under the wasteful methods in vogue, only ordinary wages. Farmers who had been receiving from three to six dollars a bushel for grain, had to sell in lower markets, and found themselves forced to diversify. their produce by the additions of the dairy, the poultry yard and the vegetable garden. In like manner lawyers and doctors were subjected to corresponding reductions in their fees, by the general shrinkage.
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CHAPTER V.
1872 -. FOUNDING OF MANUFACTURES IN DENVER-JOHN W. SMITH'S WOOLEN MILL- SINKING AN ARTESIAN WELL-THE DENVER HORSE RAILWAV- THE DENVER WATER COMPANY-CONTRACTS WITH THE CITY-BEET SUGAR-ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH ITS MANUFACTURE-WHY THEY FAILED-ORGANIZATION OF FREE MASONS AND ODD-FELLOWS-THEIR STRUGGLES TO SECURE A FOOTHOLD-RESURRECTION OF THE STATE MOVEMENT-J. B. CHAFFEE'S WORK IN CONGRESS-MEASURES PASSED FOR THE BENEFIT OF COLORADO.
There has never been a time since Denver became an incorporated city when there have not been vehement calls for the founding of great manufactories here. The press, the various trade organizations, and the people collectively, have been pushing these appeals out into the Union and over the Atlantic, as if the very life of the city depended upon the possession of a forest of smoking chimneys and clouds of work- ing men. For nearly thirty years this agitation has been steadily main- tained, and while Denver is still without great manufactories, some note- worthy advancement has been made in that direction, and it is largely due to persistent advertising of its advantages. No manufactures worth mentioning were established until after 1870. In that year, however, what was regarded as an important acquisition to our infantile in- dustries was brought about by the enterprise of John W. Smith, who in connection with John Winterbottom, founded a woolen mill. It mat- tered not to them that the wools produced were suited only to the fabri- cation of the coarsest goods, as blankets, carpets, etc; for such there was a brisk demand, which might and ought to be supplied by our own mills, therefore they put up a building, purchased the necessary ma- chinery, stocked their warehouses with the best grades of raw material to be obtained from our own wool growers, and made a beginning.
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In September, 1870, the mill was put in operation. The building stood on the south side of Larimer street in West Denver, near the Mill Ditch. They manufactured blankets, yarns and coarse flannels, and were prepared to turn out cassimeres, satinets, jeans, etc., if required. Sixteen hands were employed, and the concern seemed in a fair way to accomplish the ambition of its proprietors, when the dull times of 1872, followed by the panic of 1873, came on and crushed it. Thus began and ended the first and only attempt to found woolen mills in the Rocky Mountain region.
But in the years succeeding this failure rapid improvement was made in the quantity and quality of our domestic wools. In 1870 the export amounted to about one million pounds; in 1871 it had more than doubled. In 1888 the export was estimated at ten million pounds. The climate, because of its dryness, and the short, nutritious, native grasses, are especially favorable to wool growing. The fine opportu- nities presented caused many to invest heavily in the business. Thor- oughbred stock soon took the place of less valuable Mexican breeds, and to-day few States produce finer wools than Colorado.
As an inducement to manufacturers, and at the same time with a view to effecting a solution of the vexed problem of additional water supply for the city, in the summer of 1870 a company was organized to bore for artesian water. The site selected for the experiment was a point on the heights southeast of the city, perhaps the most unfavorable that could have been chosen. Gen. Palmer, Gov. Hunt, Gen. John Pierce, and others, were the directors of the movement. Fifty or more subscribers paid fifty dollars each into the general fund, the machinery was bought and placed. At a depth of about two hundred and fifty feet water was found, but it rose only to the height of eighty feet in the well. Thereafter the drill passed through soft soapstone and clay shales, when much trouble was experienced from caving. Under great difficulties the well was sunk to a depth of four hundred and fifty feet, when it became necessary to insert tubing, which could only be obtained in the East. Two hundred and fifty feet was ordered and inserted, but
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it failed to cure the difficulty. After repeated trials and failures the scheme was abandoned. Ten years later the problem of artesian water supply, which has been of incalculable benefit to the people for domestic uses, and as an important aid to the development of the manu- facturing interest, reached its solution through a fortunate accident on the heights of North Denver, as will appear in its proper order.
Following the general course of improvements, all matters of his- torical interest should be noted, since they are parts of the great mosaic, and may be valuable for reference, if nothing else. Hence we note the fact that the charter of the Denver Horse Railway was granted by the Territorial Legislature in 1865, before Congress filed its objections to private charters, when any project, however wild or visionary, could be incorporated by a special act. When the bill was introduced, and during the regular course of legislation upon it, the proposition became the butt of much broad and boisterous humor. The absurdity of the idea rendered it attractive to the legislative wits, hence many a joke was passed upon it. The little hamlet, for it was scarcely more, seemed about as likely to need a ship canal as a street railway. But the pro- moters had faith, not only that the town would develop the need, but that the charter then being tossed and kicked about the chambers, would one day be an exceedingly valuable franchise. So they endured the wicked jibes, pushed it through to approval, and bided their time.
In 1871 Col. L. C. Ellsworth came from Chicago with a party of wealthy friends, who purchased the charter and built two miles of road, completing the same December 12th of that year.
The original corporators were Wilson Stinson, D. J. Martin, Lewis N. Tappan, Edward C. Strode, Robert M. Clark, Alfred H. Miles, Moses Hallett, Luther Kountze, Amos Steck, Freeman B. Crocker, C. H. Mclaughlin, J. S. Waters and M. M. De Lano. The term of existence of the charter was fixed at thirty-five years. The first Presi- dent of the company was Amos Steck, with David A. Cheever as Secretary. Moses Hallett succeeded Steck and held the office two years.
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