USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume III > Part 46
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It would be difficult to conceive a more inviting scene than is presented by Evergreen Lakes. It is a revelation of sylvan loveliness rarely witnessed. Three beautiful sheets of transparent water, separated from one another by slight peninsulas, surrounded by fragrant pines, through which serpentine driveways have been cut and graded for the passage of vehicles, the home of native finny tribes, the paradise of the fisherman; their shelving beaches covered with row boats for the enjoyment of visitors, and upon a promontory overlooking the entire scene, and from the upper balconies of which an extended view of the entire valley, with the city of Leadville and its treasure- laden hills, may be obtained, stands the Suburban Hotel, containing many well furnished rooms, sur- rounded by broad verandas, where lovers of royal nature may behold the wondrous panorama spread out before them. This hotel is under the management of Mr. J. Henry Hunt and family. Quite recently the lakes and their environs, forming a large tract, were
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
purchased by Dr. John Law and Ex-Governor James B. Grant, who propose making many expensive improvements. The place is incomparably rich in scenic effects. If these splendid attractions were situated within six miles of Denver or Pueblo, they would be of almost incalculable value as investments. Dr. Law using the waters of a fourth and somewhat larger lake, a few hundred yards to the south of those first mentioned, with equally attractive surroundings, has founded a private establishment for the propagation of game trout, whence the tables of hotels and dwellings, restaurants, etc., in the city are supplied.
In the third, but by no means the least important of these suburbs, at the mouth of Colorado Gulch, where in the early years of settlement-1863-'64, some gold placer claims were operated, are the Soda Springs over which (or near) stands the Mount Massive Hotel, a homelike, old fashioned retreat, conducted by Major H. H. De Mary. This snowy haired and bearded relic of thirty years' residence here, represented Lake County in the council or senate in the Fifth and Sixth Territorial legislatures, was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1865, and a State Senator in the first and only legislature held under the constitution then framed, voting for John Evans and Jerome B. Chaffee for United States Senators, and always one of the brightest and most genial members of these bodies. The cabin, situated near the hotel, where the writer, in company with N. S. Hurd, present State Commissioner of Insurance, met him in the summer of 1864, which he occupied in the years of gulch mining, is still his home. From the fine meadow lands of the Arkansas Valley he annually harvests large quantities of superior native grasses and timothy hay, which are sold at Leadville. His place is frequently sought by the people of the city, both for the pleasant entertainment it affords, and the curative waters of the admirable springs. The surroundings are very beautiful and inviting.
The Banks and Bankers of Leadville .- The first banking house opened in the city was called the Lake County Bank, established early in April, 1878, by Zollars, Eshelman & Co., who continued in business until April Ist, 1879, when they with others organized the First National Bank, the private concern being merged therein ; Mr. Eshelman, president; F. A. Raynolds (now of Canon City) vice-president, and Mr. Zollars, cashier. Subsequently Mr. Eshelman resigned and Mr. Raynolds became president. It was managed by a succession of officers until finally F. W. De Walt became the controlling power. January 22d, 1884, it closed its doors, owing its depositors nearly $400,000. De Walt fled to avoid arrest and the rage of a defrauded populace; was pursued by the officers of the law, arrested, tried in the United States Court at Denver, convicted and sentenced to a term of seven years in the penitentiary, five of which he had served when his attorneys discovered some technical defect in the proceedings under which he was sentenced, and he was released through a writ of habeas corpus, and at last accounts was still at liberty. The affairs of the bank were administered by Mr. J. Samuel Brown, as receiver, who has paid about forty per cent. of the liabilities in dividends to depositors.
Messrs. Trimble & Hunter instituted the Miners' Exchange Bank in April, 1878, only a few days later than the Lake County Bank. They continued it until October 3d, 1881, when they retired, and their business was merged into the Bank of Leadville, then in the zenith of its prosperity.
The Bank of Leadville began its career in October, 1878, in a corner of George E.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Gegg's drugstore, but soon after completed a substantial building at the corner of Harrison avenue and Chestnut street. Its capital was $50,000; H. A. W. Tabor pres- ident, August Rische vice-president, and George R. Fisher cashier. It at once attained great popularity, doing a very large business, overshadowing all rivals. Later, Tabor & Rische sold out their holdings, and an organization was effected with E. L. Campbell president and George R. Fisher cashier. Its prosperity came to a sudden termination on the 25th of July, 1883, by a complete failure, with about $450,000 of liabilities and practically no assets.
The Merchants' & Mechanics' Bank, a private partnership, began in the summer of 1879, Messrs. L. M. and L. J. Smith proprietors, and in 1880 incorporated under the same name, having induced a number of citizens of standing to take small amounts of their stock. This bank also failed in the latter part of January, 1884, with a total loss to its depositors of about $300,000.
The City Bank which began in June, 1880, was a private concern until 1883, when it was incorporated under the laws of Colorado, with a number of well known citizens as stockholders. This too was short lived, the assets purchased of the former owners proving worthless, and it soon became manifest to the successors that their new enter- prise was already insolvent. When fully convinced of this fact by an investigation of its affairs, a few of the stockholders deposited as a special fund an amount sufficient to pay all other depositors, and then arranged to close their doors as soon as these obligations should be paid. This is the one and only instance of a high sense of com- mercial honor that has been met with in the record of Leadville bank failures, and was attained by great sacrifice on the part of those who furnished the money for that pur- pose. To C. C. Davis and D. A. Cowell of Leadville and J. A. Hawkes of Circleville, is due all the honor. On the 19th of January its doors were closed under an assign- ment to Dr. D. H. Dougan, who was requested to administer on the estate. At that time it did not seem possible that anything would be realized from the wreck, but by a fortuitous combination of circumstances, the assignee was enabled to return to the special depositors the entire amount they had advanced with interest, and returned to the stockholders a dividend of 13 per cent. The business is not yet fully settled.
Sometime in 1879 there was opened with some pretentiousness the "Bank of Colorado," but within a month it suspended, and the few thousand dollars on deposit disappeared with the officers of the institution.
Thus we find that out of seven banks established between 1878 and 1883, not one survived, and all but one, that of Trimble & Hunter, went down in disaster, causing losses to depositors amounting to more than a million dollars, creating a series of mon- etary panics, destroying confidence, and well nigh ruining many worthy and honorable citizens. The most of these catastrophes were due to the rascality of the managers in charge.
The Carbonate Bank, which is now the leading financial institution of the city, enjoying to the fullest measure the confidence of the public through the character of its officers and directors, was opened as a State bank September 3d, 1883, with a capital of $50,000, which a month later was increased to $100,000. It was converted into a National bank in July, 1887, and on January Ist, 1888, increased its capital to $200,000. Trimble & Hunter, after the failures of January, 1884, decided to resume the
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
business of banking, the field at that time being occupied by the Carbonate Bank alone. Therefore, they began preparations, and in February of that year they again opened a banking house and at once succeeded to a fine business. The close confine- ment of the office soon became irksome to them, and on January Ist, 1888, they turned over their business to the Carbonate National Bank, with which they became identified as stockholders and directors.
The American National Bank opened January 7th, 1889, with a capital of $100,000 paid in. This organization has twenty-six stockholders, among them many prominent business men of the city; S. N. Dwight president, M. H. Williams vice-pres- ident, T. H. Lee assistant cashier.
Absalom V. Hunter, vice president of the Carbonate National Bank, was born in Lincoln County, Missouri, November 24th, 1846; educated primarily in the public schools, supplemented by a course of instruction in the commercial college of Bryant & Stratton in St. Louis. At the age of eighteen he entered his father's commission house in the city last named, remaining four years. In the spring of 1868, and for three years afterward, officiated as bookkeeper in the drygoods house of Hicks & Terry, Clarksville, Missouri. His first visit to Colorado occurred in 1871, but it was of brief duration. He returned to St. Louis and in 1872 became clerk of a Mississippi steamer running between St. Louis and Keokuk, in which he was engaged but one year. In the spring of 1873 he revisited the Rocky Mountains, locating in Colorado Springs, engaging in the live stock trade. Soon afterward he was chosen cashier of the People's Bank of that place, where he soon acquired a general knowledge of banking. He took an active interest in the developments at Leadville at a very early period, and was one of the locators of the Winnemuc claim which was subsequently consolidated with the group known as the Little Pittsburg. In 1878 he sold his interest in this property and in association with Mr. George W. Trimble opened the Miners' Exchange Bank, the second of its class organized in the district, and the only one up to the establishment of the Carbonate, against which" no taint of dishonor or mismanagement attached. Mr. Hunter is known to be a scrupulously exact man of business, honorable but rigid, of keen perceptions, punctiliously careful, systematic and firm, demanding his just dues of all men to the last farthing, and conceding the same to others. He is not accounted a generous man by the public, and there are those who believe him to be hard and grasping, a merciless creditor, one who demands everything, but yields nothing of charitableness or generosity to his fellow men. Yet I have been told of good deeds performed in secret by him, wherein he has relieved many worthy people of distress, lifted many a despairing soul out of the slough of despond, brightened sorrowful homes by charities such as are seldom accomplished by men of more preten- tious assumptions, whose every beneficence, however slight, is widely advertised. There is nothing which will provoke him to deeper anger than to have any one of his acts of kindness mentioned in public, or to himself. He gives because it affords him a secret and sincere pleasure to do so, but he wants no one else to share it with him. I know another man, a resident of Denver, who has a like reputation, and who for like reason carries about with him manifold blessings from the downtrodden and poverty stricken whose lives he has brightened, but with whose deeper excellencies of heart only these are familiar. He too is connected with a bank, a great figure among men,
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
and somewhat of a politician withal. Through the directness and absolute exactness of his business transactions, Mr. Hunter, starting from an humble and obscure place in life, has become one of the wealthiest men in Lake County. His connection with the Carbonate National is to the people of that section an assured guarantee of its safety, which means much to those who have witnessed the crumbling of all its predecessors, and with them the wreck of their own fortunes.
Dr. David H. Dougan, president of the Carbonate National Bank, was born in Niles, Michigan, August 17th, 1845; acquired in the public schools of Richmond, Indiana, the ordinary rudiments of reading, spelling and writing, with the first princi- ples of arithmetic, the course terminating with his twelfth year. At the age of fifteen he was persuaded to enter a printing office where he remained two years, taking in the meantime a course of instruction in commercial bookkeeping, after which he was engaged as accountant and bookkeeper in a pork packing establishment. in the spring of 1861 he accepted the tender of a three years' contract as bookkeeper in the branch bank of the State of Indiana at Richmond, on the following terms: Salary first year, $200; second year, $350; third, $500. He remained with this institution two years, during which he made a thorough study of the banking business in all its branches, and then accepted a like position in the First National Bank of the same place at a consid- erable advance of salary, remaining nine years. Having a decided inclination for read- ing and study, he devoted the hours when off duty to an extended course of instructive training, taking up the Latin language under the tuition of a professor in one of the neighboring colleges. After eleven years of unremitting work in the banks, and hard study during the intervals, his health became seriously impaired through the con- traction of asthma, which compelled his resignation. Some two years previous, how- ever, at the suggestion of an elder brother, a practicing physician in his native town- Niles-he was induced to study medicine. Therefore, after retiring from the bank he at once entered Rush Medical College in Chicago, attending the lectures there until the spring of 1873. In the fail of that year he became a student in Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York, at that time the first of its class in the United States, whence he was graduated March Ist, 1874, when instead of joining his brother at Niles as originally intended, he located in Richmond, Indiana, the scene of his banking expe- rience, then a city of about 15,000 inhabitants. The second day after his arrival he was offered the compliment of a partnership with one of the leading physicians, which was gratefully accepted, and he at once entered upon the practice of his new profession, continuing .with excellent success until the autumn of 1875, when the increasing inroads of asthma forced him to seek relief from its tortures in the higher altitudes and dryer atmosphere of the far West. For more than three months he had been unable to lie down in his bed, taking rest sitting bolt upright in an easy chair. Reports of the benefits afforded by the climate of Colorado having reached him, he began to inves- tigate. A friend who had returned from Denver brought a printed copy of the proceed- ings had at a convention of asthmatics held in that city in 1874, which decided him to start westward. Upon his arrival he sought out Mr. F. J. B. Crane, one of the remark- able exemplifications of the restorative effects of our exhilarating air and almost con- stant sunshine. From Mr. Crane, R. E. Whitsitt, Dr. F. J. Bancroft and others, he was the recipient of numerous kindnesses which are still cherished among the brighter
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
remembrances of his first introduction to this new land and its hospitable people. After a time in Denver, he located in the village of Alma, Park County, opened an office, and resumed the practice of his profession. A friend living in his native State who had meanwhile purchased the Russia mine near Alma, having unbounded confi- dence in Dr. Dougan's capabilities for the direction of business affairs, appointed him resident manager of that once famous property, at the time under consideration next to the Moose, the most valuable mine in the county. At the outbreak of the great hegira toward Leadville in 1878, the doctor catching the universal infection, joined the pro- cession and settled in the new center; rented an office, hung out his sign and calmly awaited results. Being wholly unknown, and the camp remarkably healthful, he sat in his office for twenty-nine days without receiving a professional call. By this time his small capital had been reduced to the last five dollar note, and as expenses accrued despite his poverty, the situation began to assume a threatening aspect. At last on the night of the twenty-ninth day, there came a messenger from the Iron-Silver mine de- manding his immediate attendance at the works of that company. The messenger was dispatched to a livery stable for a horse, and during his absence two other orders from different sources came, which proved the beginning of a very successful career in the Cloud City. On returning from the execution of the three original orders, he found his slate literally covered with appeals, and thenceforward there was no cessation of prac- tice. During the first year of his residence in Leadville, his business amounted to $12,000. Having become imbued with a strong desire to enter the field of local politics, more with the view of aiding the better element to secure control of municipal and county affairs which were being outrageously administered, as appears elsewhere in this chapter, than personal advancement, he was soon made the. leader of that ele- ment, and in 1881 was elected mayor of the city, being re-elected in 1882, during the most turbulent and extravagant epoch in its history. It is the general verdict of his fel- low citizens that the office was never so ably managed as during the two years of Dr. Dougan's administration. It was the beginning of its evolution from chaos to order,
an example of wise, honest, forceful government. Unhappily the mayor and the council were not always in accord upon matters affecting the public welfare, but no ordinance of the many introduced and passed which contained schemes of jobbery and corruption received his approval. On the other hand, all righteous laws were not only signed but rigidly enforced. His administration of this responsible office developed his extraordinary capabilities for the management of business affairs. He was equally distinguished as a physician, financier and political director, qualities rarely combined in one person. Moreover, he possessed marked attractiveness of person, manners and conversational powers, the ability and the courage to take and hold the leadership of men, which in the course of years have won for him exalted rank in the esteem of all classes.
In 1883 Mr. C. T. Limberg, manager of the Arkansas Valley Smelting Works resigned his office, and the directors in Kansas City immediately tendered Dr. Dougan the position, notwithstanding their apprisement that he possessed no practical knowledge of metal- lurgy or any other branch of the business. His medical practice was worth $12,000 per annum, of which fact, together with his extreme reluctance to engage in a pursuit with which he was wholly unfamiliar, he instantly advised them. Nevertheless they insisted,
Jeremiah , Lawin
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517
RESIDENCE OF JEREMIAH IRWIN, LEADVILLE, COLO.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
and the terms being arranged, he accepted and gave his entire attention to a complete mastery of the complicated details. It was not long before he became acquainted with the most intricate secrets of buying ores and their conversion into bullion. As to the finances, that was a department in which no coaching was required. While in charge of this great establishment he was awakened to the need of a strong, well organized and honestly conducted banking house, most of the banks having failed. Out of this grew the Carbonate Bank, of which he became the largest stockholder and president. In the spring of 1884 he resigned the management of the smelter and of the bank, and went to California with the intention of settling in that State, but attacks of asthma being renewed in that climate, he returned to Colorado in the fall of the same year, located in Denver, and again entered upon the practice of medicine. In the autumn of 1886 he returned to Leadville, was re-elected president of the Carbonate Bank, assum- ing full charge thereof, which has continued to the present date, making it by far the most successful institution that has been established in the city.
George W. Trimble, cashier of the bank just named, was born in Pike County, Missouri, in September, 1850; received a commercial education, and at the age of eighteen removed to the city of St. Louis, engaging as bookkeeper in the Broadway Cattle Yards, where he remained until 1872, when he became a resident of Colorado Springs, entering the People's Bank of that place as cashier. In April, 1878, he went to Leadville, and with Mr. A. V. Hunter established the Miners' Exchange Bank as hereinbefore recited, was elected treasurer of the Highland Chief and Glass-Pendery Mining Companies, and owned an interest in the Winnemuc. When the Denver National Bank was founded in 1884 Mr. Trimble became one of its larger stockholders, and has held a membership in its board of directors thence to the present time. He is a quiet, reticent, unassuming man, the possessor of an ample fortune, a very pleasant home in Leadville, and is accounted one of the shrewdest financiers of that city.
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HISTORY OF PUEBLO COUNTY.
PUEBLO COUNTY.
GEOLOGICAL FEATURES -- WATER COURSES-THE ARKANSAS VALLEY-AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE-PRIMITIVE EXPLORERS AND SETTLERS-A SCRAP OF ORIG- INAL HISTORY-OLD NEPESTA FORT-FOUNTAIN CITY AND PUEBLO-COUNTY ORGANIZATION-JOHN A. THATCHER-SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES-NEWSPAPERS- INTERESTING STATISTICS.
Pueblo County, adjoining El Paso on the south, is in latitude 38° 28' north, and longitude 27° 30' west from Washington. It embraces an area of land about fifty miles from east to west, and about the same distance from north to south. The rampart range of the Rocky Mountains extends north and south along its western boundary, gradually sloping toward the east. The western portion of Pueblo County, of Mesozoic age, is chiefly of the Colorado cretaceous formation. In the northwest portion we find the Dakota group and variegated and red beds of the Jura-triassic with a small area of the Silurian. In the western border just before coming to the meta- morphic granite of the Rockies, we again find the Dakota group and the red beds of the Juras. In the southwest portion bordering upon the Dakota group and the Jura-triassic we find Rhyolite rocks.
Although minerals have been found in the west and south, they have not as yet been largely mined, yet good copper, silver and lead veins have been discovered.
Pueblo County is drained by the Arkansas River flowing through its very center from east to west. This, the second in size of Colorado's rivers, has for its principal tributaries in Pueblo County, the Fontaine-qui-Bouille, the St. Charles and the Huer- fano Rivers. Black Squirrel Creek, Muddy Creek, Mustang Creek, Willow Springs and Chico, together with numerous smaller and intermittent streams, cut up the country. These water courses furnish an ample supply for irrigating purposes, and generally are very well timbered in their valleys. The mountain slopes are covered with a heavy growth of pines and the tablelands between the streams afford excellent pasturage both summer and winter. The rainy season during the spring and early summer causes a short, luxuriant growth of nutritious grasses. In the later summer this growth dries and is cured so that none of its food properties are lost. Under this economical pro- vision of nature, beef and mutton may be fattened without care or stall-feeding. These wild grasses-the buffalo, gramma and blue stem-constitute seventy-five per cent. of the grass products of the plains and are found by practical tests to be from fifty to one hundred per cent. more nutritious than any tame grass, clover or other plants.
The Arkansas Valley is notable as lying in a lower plain than the valley of any
andrew Webhelland
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HISTORY OF PUEBLO COUNTY.
other river debouching from the Rocky Mountains on the east. The stream lies at an altitude of from 3,500 to 4,500 feet, and within its limits, the climate is milder than in any other section of Colorado. The winters are mild and open, and the summers long and salubrious. In. this valley wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn and vegetables of almost every variety, flourish. Climate and soil are excellently adapted to the culture of fruits, particularly of the delicate and small varieties. The soil is a light, sandy loam. Pueblo is a plains-land county-the surface composed of two-thirds prairie or mesa land, and one-third of undulating stretches along the foothills. A large part of the land is in bottoms, capable of easy and cheap irrigation. Agriculture and stock raising in the past were the principal pursuits of the inhabitants. And the traveler would, in earlier times, first see in Pueblo County, large ranches on which Mexican tenants performed the labor. On some of these ranches from 1,000 to 1,500 acres were under cultivation, and the tenants with their families constituted hamlets or villages, containing some hundred or more inhabitants. To the early settlers this land presented only a worthless thorn apple; a rare but pleasant flavored plum; small, acid gooseberries, of little value; an inferior cherry; currants of black, yellow and red varieties; wild grapes; with raspberries, strawberries, and whortleberries in abundance. But the
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