USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume III > Part 47
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pioneers soon learned that the strong mineral soil-enriched by silica blown by every storm from the mountains-was practically inexhaustible, and wonderfully fertile. Apples, pears, peaches and grapes were successfully raised by the Arkansas Valley pioneers, for the first time in Colorado. Strawberries began to be cultivated in 1865 and brought three dollars per quart. Anson Rudd, W. A. Helm and Jesse Frazer were suc- cessful horticulturists in the valley. As early as 1847 Bent and St. Vrain had driven several thousand of Texas cattle into the valley to fatten on the plains, and in later days we find, south of Pueblo, the Hermosillo ranch of over 80,000 acres, owned by the Col- orado Cattle Company, composed of Eastern capitalists, where many thousand cattle grazed. This ranch is now practically owned by General Benjamin F. Butler. A stock association was formed at Pueblo as well as at Denver. As the value of irrigation became known, great companies were organized to build canals, which owing to the undulating country were readily constructed, and cultivation was made easy. Water supplied at the upper side of the land, was caused to flow gently from a trench or furrow, in which frequent breaks were made in the lower rim, thus slowly moistening the surface of a field, before a waste, but now in two or three days ready for the plow and certain to yield abundant harvest.
In 1883-'84 the Northern Colorado Irrigating Company began the construction of an enormous canal from near Pueblo to La Junta, taking water from the Arkansas. This canal was seventy miles in length, and sixty feet in width at the bottom. At the present time about one-sixth of Pueblo County is under ditch. The immense Bessemer ditch waters about 25,000 acres of mesa land, south of the Arkansas River, from a point five miles west to a point eighteen miles east of Pueblo City.
It is estimated that canals now under construction will place under cultivation nearly 400,000 additional acres in this valley. The most desirable government land has been taken up, but with the completion of new ditches excellent farming land is offered from ten to fifty dollars per acre. This region formed a part of the vast country in pre-historic days, occupied by the Aztecs and the Toltecs. When unknown
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races had passed away the Utes, Navajos, Pueblos, Apaches, Arapahoes and Cheyennes roved over Pueblo's site to die away before the advance of Spanish civilization. On earlier pages of this chronicle we have seen the Castilian commander lead into the Arkansas Valley the vanguard of white pioneers. Later we read of the coming of the Anglo-Saxon and the beginning of Indian warfare in Colorado. Then we are told of this region's slow progress under Mexican government after Spain had lost control, and in 1846-'48 of the war which ended with the cession of lands including that part of Colorado lying south of the Arkansas River, under the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo to the United States government.
Early History of Pueblo .- The word Pueblo in its original acceptance signified "people," but subsequently it came to be applied to the various town-dwelling tribes of New Spain, of which also an account has been given in the opening chapters of our first volume. At a still later period it became a generic term for a village, and finally the designation of a few particular towns. But the Pueblo under consideration never was an Indian, Spanish or Mexican settlement, though it had and still has a Mexican quarter. The Spanish conquerors of New Mexico established no towns, indeed, left no traces north of the Rio Grande del Norte, and it was not until after the province had been acquired by the government of the United States that settlement was permanently fixed in the valley of the Arkansas River. Bent's Forts were established above and below the confluence of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille with the Arkansas in 1826-'28. At a period very remote, the Rocky Mountain trappers made this particular point their favorite winter quarters, owing to the abundance of quadruped game in the immediate vicinity and the salubrity of the climate. Here congregated small bands of adventurers, for the most part employes of the American Fur Company, from the Green and Snake Rivers and even from the Columbia, together with a number of the guild known as "free trappers," under none but their individual control, as Kit Carson, Uncle Dick Wootten, Parson Bill Williams, Major Fitzpatrick and others, who brought their accu- mulation of furs to the traders, who in turn conveyed them to the city of St. Louis. Sometime afterward a regular trading post was founded, and an adobe fort called Nepesta (Indian name for the Arkansas) erected for protection against thieving nomads. About the year 1845 a small Mexican encampment was located by the scout and trapper Charles Autobees at the mouth of the Huerfano, which in 1861 became the county seat of Huerfano County; another settlement was made on the San Carlos or St. Charles River, where it joins the Arkansas; and a few acres of land were cultivated at the mouth of the Fontaine where a party of Mormons wintered after their dispersion from Nauvoo, and while en route to Salt Lake. Bancroft states that the first American fami- lies in Colorado were a part of this Mormon battalion of 1846, who with their wives and families lived at Pueblo from September to spring and summer of the following year, when they joined the Mormon migration to Salt Lake; and a number of persons later living in Utah were born at Pueblo in 1846-'47. Alexander Hicklin, popularly called "Zan," about this time made a settlement on the Greenhorn Creek, on a part of the Vijil and St. Vrain grant previously described in this history, which he became owner of through his wife, who was a daughter of Colonel Bent. He gathered Mexican peons about him who cultivated a vast tract of land and raised large numbers of stock. It was not unusual in those days for corn to bring ten or fifteen cents per pound,
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and the valley of the Arkansas was golden with corn, picturesquely and practically. In 1854 treacherous Indians attacked Fort Nepesta, massacred its inmates, pillaged and dismantled the building. The quadrangular foundations of the adobe walls are still visible on the west side of Union avenue, a few rods southeast of the depot of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway. Since most of the interesting annals of this region, its early settlements, Indian troubles and primitive organizations, have been related in previous volumes of this history, it is unnecessary to repeat them here.
The next event of importance was the discovery of gold upon the tributaries of the Platte River in what is now Northern Colorado. We are indebted to Ex-Governor Alva Adams for a rare and valuable pamphlet, which was published at Pacific City, Iowa, in 1859, giving a history of these gold discoveries. It is written by Luke Tierney and contains an appendix by Smith and Oakes, which is a "Guide to the Route." A mention of this early record is made here because of its general interest rather than because of its special relation to Pueblo County. At the time of its publication we see by its advertisements that Miles, Stocking & Co. offered their facilities for herding stock at St. Vrain's Fort, to emigrants; Antoine and Nicholas Janis offered their serv- ices as Mountain guides to all who would address them at St. Vrain's Fort, Colonia Territory; and Dr. John Evans, later Governor Evans of Colorado, was given as ref- erence by the Miners' Bank of Oreapolis, N. T. Luke Tierney started with two others from Kansas, joined a party of nineteen from Georgia, and on the 26th of April, 1858, reached the Santa Fé trail; on the next day they saw countless buffalo, and "from this point game of almost every species was almost daily in sight. Our men killed only the choicest, leaving the rest to roam over the plains. On the 28th we received a dispatch, written on a buffalo's shinbone, dated May 25th, stating that Beck's company (com- prising several Cherokee Indians and a few white men), whom we contemplated joining, were in advance of us. We camped that night on Turkey Creek. That night our three horses broke their lariats, and started for home." Two men were sent "in pursuit of the horses, without coats or provisions. They retraced their steps to Cotton- wood Creek (a distance of forty miles), when hearing no tidings of the horses, they gave * up the pursuit, * and arrived in camp, very much exhausted, having been without food for two days and nights, and traveled a distance of over eighty miles through rain and storm. They had been obliged to swim several large creeks. Their fatigue com- pelled them to throw their rifles into one of the streams." "On the 3d of June we were reinforced by Mr. Beck's company, our caravan then consisting of seventy men, fourteen wagons, thirty-three yoke of cattle, two horse teams, and about twenty ponies." "On the 12th of June we reached Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas River, about 500 miles from Leavenworth. The building is about 100 feet above high water mark, strong, massive, of oblong shape, 300 feet long and about 200 feet wide. It presents a beau- tiful appearance from without. The interior is divided into spacious apartments, in one of which were a few barrels of liquor, of which we partook, at a cost of one dollar per pint." June 16th they descried the snow-capped "Spanish Peaks," and on the 18th " we bade good-bye to the Arkansas; but before parting took a sufficiency of its waters to quench our thirst a distance of fifteen miles, where we came to a creek called Fontaine-qui-Bouille. From this point our course lay northward. We ascended hill after hill, until we reached a high elevation, when an interesting sight burst upon our
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vision, whether our eyes were turned to the east, west, north or south. To the south and west a flat, level plain, without shrub or tree, resembling a sea coast, extended to the mountains, a distance of fifty miles. Its surface was composed principally of a small red gravel somewhat similar to coral. Through the center ran the Arkansas River, with its shady cottonwoods on either bank, decked in midsummer verdure. About II o'clock we obtained a view of Pike's Peak. Here also we met with the first brown bears. On the 26th most of the men spent the day in prospecting. On their return to camp their spirits were very much depressed. For my own part I felt very much encouraged. A few particles of gold had been found during the day; but the prospects fell so far short of their sanguine expectations and feverish hopes that many began to show evident signs of disappointment and mortification. They no doubt expected to find lumps of gold, like hailstones, all over the surface." Disappointed, many of the party returned homeward, and the company of 104 men July 4th was reduced to thirteen, which prospected up the Platte, finding diggings which yielded "about ten dollars a day for each hand. The miners pronounced the ore taken out drifted gold. 'Fortune favors the brave,' and in the course of ten days afterward [northeast of Littleton-ED.] we discovered another mine which yielded from twelve to eighteen dollars a day to each hand. It was not our intention to work out these mines, or any others, at that time, but simply to open them, ascertain their richness, and the quality of gold, etc. Our business was to prospect the country and to trace these deposits of drifted gold to their source. * * To give an adequate description of the peril and sufferings of these adventurous spirits * * their pro- visions being exhausted, they were compelled to subsist on game. Their clothing, which was good when they set out for the mountains, was torn off their backs, and their skin and flesh mangled and torn by the brush and craggy surface of the rocks, when ascending and descending. They reached many places where it seemed impossible for anything save the feathered tribe to visit. Wild animals inhabit these mountains, and we killed black, brown and grizzly bears; we saw countless herds of elk and mountain sheep. One mountain ram was shot whose weight could not have been less than 500 pounds; and the hide of one brown bear was as large as that of a middling sized ox. The panthers and pumas (or American lions) often came in sight. In order to get some fresh meat for breakfast one morning our boys started in pursuit of game. Seeing a large deer about a hundred yards off, in the edge of a very dense thicket, they shot him. No sooner had it fallen than a lion seized it, and carried it to his jungle without difficulty. We were induced to prospect Fontaine-qui-Bouille and its tribu- taries, and from thence to the Arkansas. Crossing the Arkansas we proceeded to the Waufona; [Huerfano-ED.] thence to the Greenhorn Mountains."
" The main question yet remains unsolved, namely: The source whence this gold has drifted." A little farther on in this interesting pioneer diary we find this remarkable prophecy: "From the present flattering prospects of the gold mines, and the money panic in the States, the proximity of the gold region to the Western frontiers, and the facility with which they can be reached, I doubt not that by the Ist of June, 1859, we shall have a population here of 60,000. These adventurers will doubtless be hardy, industrious and energetic young men. By that time we can organize a Terri- tory or State, which for intelligence and wealth will be unparalleled. Hard times and
Aquilo Barn dollar
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money pressures are unknown here, and are likely to remain so. Many farms have already been opened. Several town sites have been located. Many houses have already been erected, and many others are rapidly progressing."
In the autumn of 1858 a small party of Americans in St. Louis, having knowledge of these discoveries from returning plainsmen, resolved to cross the desert. Pursuing the Arkansas route, they reached the mouth of the Fontaine in November. The party was composed of Josiah F. Smith, Otto Wineka, Frank Dorris, and George Lebaum. The spot selected for their camp was where the old Santa Fé trail crossed the Arkansas River, and where, in due course, they concluded to locate a town. Not long afterward they were joined by William H. Green, of Green Bay, Wis., George Peck, Robert Middleton, Anthony Thomas, William Kroenig, from La Junta, New Mexico, and George McDougal, the last a brother of Senator McDougal of California. He was a talented but eccentric and dissipated genius, disgusted with his state and the world in general, and passed some years with Autobees, the trapper, and others of his kind in the wilderness, a self-exiled wanderer. At length, these men united and laid off a town just east of the Fontaine, naming it Fountain City. Two men from Mis- souri, named Cooper and Wing drifted in with a small stock of goods. With them were two engineers named Shaffer and Brown, who surveyed and platted the site. Cooper and Wing built a large corral and opened a store. The settlers named, with some others who joined them during the winter, erected about thirty cabins, of logs, jackal and adobe. Most of the adobes were taken from the broken walls of Nepesta Fort, parts of which were then standing. The first white woman in the settlement was Mrs. Robert Middleton. Eighty lodges of Arapahoe Indians were near them for nearly three months of that winter, trading furs, dressed skins, and other commodities.
In the spring of 1859 an acequia was dug and water taken from the Fontaine for irrigating purposes, by Josiah Smith; land was plowed, seeded, and a crop matured. Corn and vegetables were sold to passing gold hunters at fabulous prices. Mr. Kroenig brought some live stock from New Mexico and engaged in trade. Immigrants poured in, the greater part however, en route to the gold mines. In April the vener- able Matthew Steele arrived with his family; Stephen Smith, a brother of Josiah, came out from the States, also William H. Young and Loren Jenks, whose wives were, after Mrs. Middleton, the first American mothers of the county. During the summer came Charles Peck from Salt Lake City, and became a permanent settler. In the winter of 1859-'60 Dr. Belt, Dr. Catterson, his brother Wesley Catterson, Silas Warren, Edward Cozzens (a cousin of the author of the celebrated "Sparrow Grass Papers"), Andrew C. Wright (for some unaccountable reason then and ever since known among his friends as Jack Wright, now and for many years a resident of Denver), and Albert Bercaw came, some from Denver, others from Missouri, established a rival town, and christened it Pueblo. These employed Messrs. Buell & Boyd, a firm of Denver sur. veyors, to survey and plat the same. As staked off, it extended from the river back two or three miles toward the Divide, and from the Fontaine on the east, to Buzzard's ranch on the west. When completed, mapped and picturesquely embellished by artistic pencils, it formed an extremely inviting prospect. Near the mouth of Dry Creek a mile west of the present Asylum for the Insane, appeared an extensive park, adorned
29 III.
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with serpentine drives and walks, fringed with rare shrubbery, and exotic flowers-the thick alkali dust of the virgin soil, gently but effectively subdued by the spray from a dozen beautiful fountains,-a dazzling dream on paper that was never even approxi- mated in fact.
A. C. Wright (Jack) built the first houses near the corner of Santa Fé avenue and First street; Aaron Sims erected a second adjoining Wright's, and Dr. Catterson another near the corner of the same avenue and First street. Thus the rival colony entered upon its career of greatness. It had acquired the condition precedent-a nucleus, a central rallying point. How it developed with the swiftly revolving years, remains to be disclosed.
In 1860, after severing his connection with Denver, Colonel Albert G. Boone went to Pueblo and erected an unpretentious tenement at the lower end of Santa Fè avenue, where was opened the first "general store," the stock consisting of Taos flour, Missouri bacon, condemned government coffee, plug tobacco, Mexican beans, piñon nuts, hickory shirts, chili-colorow and other costly but indispensable supplies. This stock was trans- ported across the Sangre de Cristo Range from Fort Garland, by Colonel John M. Francisco, then the sutler at that post.
The first family to be located in the new town was that of Aaron Sims. In 1859 Josiah Smith returned to the States, married, came back, abandoned Fountain City to its fate and with his bride, settled in Pueblo, constituting the second family in the place. Emory Young, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Young, was the first white child born south of the Divide in Colorado. Numerous desertions from the original town site of Fountain finally brought collapse and ruin, the remains worth having being merged in the strength of its more fortunate competitor. The new site situated along the bank of the river, boasted some five or six log cabins, covered with dirt and fitted up with loopholes from which bullets could be fired at marauding Utes or "Greasers."
About this time Wm. R. Fowler came to the settlement, "a man of fine address, Christian practices and orderly walk and conversation." He was soon selected as the "Judge," and for some time thereafter he was the law and court of the neighborhood. During his administration he married a couple, though without orders or authority, except that of public sanction. The first grocery (and this term on the frontier always meant a saloon and eating house) was opened in April, 1861, by Jack Allen and it soon became a place of famous resort. Dick Norton opened a second public house very soon afterward, and Dr. W. A. Catterson followed their example in the month following. The settlement became noted for its fast horses, and every Sunday at ten o'clock in the morning a race took place. "Judge " Fowler conceived the idea of organizing a church and Sabbath School; Jack Allen seconded the proposition-"for the 'Judge ' must have been right," and postponed the races from ten o'clock to two, thus accommodating the expected church-goers. Dr. Catterson tendered the use of his grocery for religious services, and the initial service was a novel affair. "Judge" Fowler read and dis- coursed and prayed with the fifteen or twenty who gathered together, and Jack Allen emphatically asserted that "he would stand by the new enterprise." Dr. Catterson said it would live to the honor of all present, but a few weeks after the inauguration saw its demission-as Jack Allen said, "it didn't pay as well as the races." When organized
Barndollar.
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by the Territorial legislature in 1861-'62, the county of Pueblo included the immense tract subsequently organized as Bent County, and all of the later Huerfano and Las Animas Counties.
For a temporary government, to endure until the next ensuing general election, Governor Gilpin appointed as county commissioners, O. H. P. Baxter, Richard L. Wootten, and William Chapman ; sheriff, Henry Way; county clerk, Stephen Smith. At the election following Smith was retained in his position, Chapman chosen probate judge and John B. Rice, sheriff. The first district judge was Hon. Allen A. Bradford, (subsequently twice elected Territorial delegate in Congress, in 1864 and re-elected 1868) who held the initial term in the old Boone house, in December, 1862.
The earliest recorded proceeding of the county commissioners is dated February 17th, 1862. R. L. Wootten was chosen chairman and it was resolved to proceed to stake out and locate the county seat of Pueblo County. A location was chosen, beginning on the Arkansas River "140 paces from the bridge owned by A. F. Bercaw," this being the southeast corner, then "running due north 200 rods, thence west one half mile, thence south to the Arkansas, thence down said river to J. D. Jenks' claim, thence east to the Arkansas, at or near the old Pueblo fort, thence down said river to place of begin- ning." They also staked out a location for a courthouse "near Eastman's ditch." The clerk was directed to issue three notices for proposals for building the courthouse of "hewd logs, twenty-four feet long by eighteen feet wide ;" one window was to be put in each side of this house, and "one door in one end." "Said house should be ten feet high between floor and ceiling, with good hewd joists three feet apart. Roof of split puncheons and well covered with three inches of morter and four inches of dirt ; also a spout to carry off water from the roof." The commissioners gave indication of possess- ing aesthetic natures, for they also required " a log above. the eaves of the roof, to hide the dirt on the roof." One hundred and fifty dollars was then and there appropriated to build this house of justice and record, and a survey ordered "to be made at the first opportunity." March Ist, the contract for the building was awarded to Mr. Eastman at $300, and it was further required that a desk be furnished the clerk.
All persons "retailing any kind of goods or liquors" were ordered to pay ten dollars per quarter into the county treasury, "also all persons hawking any kind of goods or wares, except vegetables, shall pay five dollars per month-and further also fresh meat or anything not raised in Colorado Territory." The first Pueblo officers put them- selves on record as home protectionists.
June Ist, 1862, the commissioners resolved " to straighten the public road from the river bottoms at John Gill's ranch and running out on the sand fluffs to the slough three miles from Pueblo." O. H. P. Baxter was notified " to plow one furrow through on said road " or " else pilot through from said Gill's claim, one train of wagons to where the road runs around the said slough." At this date A. G. Boone was president of the meeting, with O. H. P. Baxter and W. H. Young, commissioners. W. H. Chapman was probate judge, and John Howard became his successor in 1863. Howard was the first disciple of Blackstone to hang out a shingle in Pueblo and "was an easy going chap, whose greatest weakness was a love for undiluted whisky." P. H. Ways, the sheriff, was succeeded by J. A. Hill, and Aaron Sims was county treasurer. John M. Espey was justice of the peace in 1862.
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In this year John A. Thatcher, a man of remarkable talent for the conduct of business affairs, and at the current epoch (1890) one of the wealthiest citizens of Col- orado, arrived at the lower end of Santa Fé avenue, the principal thoroughfare then and now, with trousers legs in boots, dusty and somewhat shabbily appareled, sturdily endeav- oring to encourage, by a vigorous display of his own nervous activity, a like spirit in the ox team he was driving. His dilapidated wagon contained a small stock of goods from Denver, with which he opened a store in a cabin of cottonwood logs with dirt floor and roof, situated near the old brewery on Second street. The consignment being quickly disposed of, he renewed it from the same source, and thus laid the foundation of a princely fortune.
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