USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume IV > Part 115
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HISTORY OF COLORADO.
society of his family and greets his legion of up the material prosperity of his adopted friends with a hearty welcome. state.
YOUNG, W. H., was born in Brown county, Ohio, but raised in Adams county. He came of Revolutionery stoek, his grandfather serv- ing throughout that entire struggle together with two sons. Mr. Young's father enlisted in the war of 1812, and did duty as a faith- ful and gallant soldier under General William Henry Harrison. The subject of this sketch remained at home until 1848, when he en- gaged as a clerk on a steamboat, one of a line of packets plying between Cincinnati and Pittsburg. In 1851 he ran on another line which plied between St. Louis and New Orleans, but, taking the cholera during the summer of that year, he returned home. After recuperating and
spending some months in eastern cities, he went to St. Louis and engaged as a wharf broker. In July, 1852, he assisted in grading the railroad from St. Louis to Belleville, Ill., and also the first division of the railroad from Hannibal to Palmyra, Mo., completing the same in 1853. About this time, hearing glowing accounts of the gold mines in California, he, in company with Joseph Evans and Wm. Godfrey, went to Sacramento and visited a number of min- ing districts. Mr. Young's first venture was to purchase a river mining claim at Oroville for which he paid $10,000. This was as com- plete a fraud as was ever perpetrated, he losing all that he had paid. He then em- barked in the sawmill business, in Placer county, where he made some money. Re- turning to St. Louis, to arrange some land sales, he went home on a short visit, and from there to Washington, being present at the inauguration of President Buchanan, and from there to New York, where he intended taking ship for California. Meeting. how- ever, with some friends from that state, he accompanied them to Independence, Mo., for the purpose of purchasing cattle for the Cali- fornia market, but found upon their arrival, that the prices were too high, so abandoned the enterprise and went to Kansas, where he operated a mail line between Fort Scott and Kansas City, having A. B. Squires partner. After successfully running the busi- ness for some time, he, on account of im- paired health, sold his interest in the mail route and started for Pike's Peak, arriving on the present town site of Pueblo, April 17. 1859. Hlo began to farm in 1859 and the spring of 1860, and continued to follow agri- cultural pursuits until 1877, when he turned his attention to mining. This he followed some years, but is now living quietly at his home and enjoying the fruits of his long years of Industry and the companionship of his family. Mr. Young is a man of good prac- teal Judgment, and has done much to build quietly, enjoying the fruits of his labor.
YULE, George, was born in Banffshire. Scotland, June 20, 1838. In 1810 he was brought by his parents to the United States. The family settled in Ashland county, Ohio. In 1854 they moved to Keokuk county, Iowa. In the meantime George was educated In the publie schools. In 1862 he enlisted in the 40th Iowa infantry, and served throughout the war, being discharged as a second lieu- tenant. In August, 1865, he was mustered out of the service, and soon afterward came to Colorado, arriving in Denver in November that year. Ile located a ranch near that city, and resided thereon until 1874, when he went to Gunnison county on a prospecting trip. After the organization of the county, he be- came a resident; in 1878 was elected sheriff, and in 1880 was re-elected. After the ex- piration of this term in 1882 be located a ranch on Garfield creek, where he has since resided. This ranch is stocked with cattle. lle is also interested in mines in Gunulson county. Yule Creek, where the now somewhat celebrated marble beds are being opened in Gunnison county, bears his name. Mr. Yule is a member of the G. A. R. and present com- mander of Gen. Shields post, No. 78, of New- castle.
ZANG, Phillip, brewer, was born in Ba- varia, Germany, Feb. 15, 1826, and was educated in the common schools of that country. Ile learned the brewing trade and lived there until 1853, when he came to Amer- ica, arriving in Philadelphia June 26 of that year. December 26 following he went to Louisville, Ky., where he remained until Feb. 25, 1869, engaged in the brewery busi- ness. During this time he lost all that he had made, and concluded to come to Colorado. He arrived in Denver Sept. 5, 1869, and en- tered the employment of John Good to super- intend the Rocky Mountain brewery, which was the pioneer establishment of Its klid In Denver. In 1871 he became the proprietor of that enterprise and continued to operate it until June, 1\\9, when he sold his interest to an English syndicate. He bullt up a large trade and increased the capacity of his plant to the output of from three to four thousand barrels of beer per ammmm to the annual production of 120,000 barrels. Mr. Zang served one term in the city council. Mr. Zang has been financially successful, hls interests alone in his brewery amounting to $150,000; besides he owns considerable real estate in Denver. He is a healthy. well-pro- served gentleman, and one would not suspect from his appearance that he had passed hls sixty-eighth year. He is not now engaged In any active business, but passes the time
APPENDIX.
THE MANITOU GRAND CAVERNS.
This really wonderful combination of attractions, mysteriously created in nature's laboratory, through how many centuries of time only experienced geologists can determine. was discovered in the winter of 1880-81 by Mr. George W. Snider, nnder cirenmstanees which have been related in our biographical department. They are situated near the apex of a foothill of the lower Rocky Mountain Range, a short distance from the base of Pike's Peak, one and a half miles above Manitou. At the entrance stands the office building, where guests are registered, lamps prepared and guides to the labyrinthine depths furnished. The first chamber, the Rotunda, or vestibule, is entered by a narrow tunnel, the ceiling of which is adorned with sparkling stalactites and strange formations, the floor studded with stalag- mites. In this chamber the admirers of General Ulysses S. Grant have formed a pyramid to his memory, composed of fragments of rock. Passing throngh the Narrows, visitors are ushered into "Concert Hall," a room nearly five hundred feet long, where high up toward the dome is a formation of large stalactites, resembling the pipes of an organ, where sits the organist. A flaming torch beside him lights up a scene as weird and spectral as that revealed to our dear old friend, Rip Van Winkle, in the ghostly solitudes of the Kaatskills, on that memorable night when Gretchen drove him out into the storm. Thongh the nodding spectres are not visible, yon instinctively feel their presence, and eagerly look for them in the neigh- boring crags. The musician flourishes his baton and the recital begins. The tones are like tinkling silver bells, soft, sweet and entrancing to the ear. Round about you in the great hall are groups that resemble statuary, not like figures chiseled by modern artists, but in de- signs altogether new and strange. As the imagination runs riot here, you may fancy them to be phantoms conjured by sprites, fairies, gnomes or brownies that lived upon air and amused themselves by indulgence in all sorts of pranks according to their constantly chang- ing humors, leaving works completed or incomplete, of a quaint fashioning, that are at once a puzzle and bewilderment to the beholders of our time. The scene is so wild and fantastic, you may indulge your faney to the uttermost, but the cause cannot be fathomed unless you comprehend the secrets of nature. The next vision presented is the "Jewel Casket." not so large nor so attractive as the wonders just mentioned, nevertheless extremely interesting from the fact that it contains beautiful specimens of crystal, stalactites, stalagmites and other natural creations of the centuries, which you are permitted to see but not to take away. Next you enter "Alabaster Hall," terminating in a picturesque and highly ornamented alcove called "Stalactite Hall," where are found fossils, petrified teeth and bones of wild animals that long ago took refuge and perished there. On all sides are stalactitic and stalagmitie creations jutting up from the floor, and pendant from the vanlted ceiling and sides in vast. profusion, beautiful and grotesque shapes, intermingled, as if an attempt had been made to fashion an audience chamber by gnomes and fairies, but, before the plan could be completed, some great convulsion had swept away the builders and stopped the design.
The next seene is the "Opera House," still more marvelons than anything previously witnessed in these subterranean chasms. It is amphitheatrical in form, with a concave eeil- ing fifty to sixty feet in height; the galleries in semicircles, as if great audiences were to be seated there, in full view of the dramatie stage and its fantastic players. The floor or par- quet is comparatively level, beautitied by quaint pictures of cauliflowers, lilies, etc., while the walls seem to be draped with curtains of crystal, the ceilings gorgeonsly brilliant with jewels. Next, you enter and pass through "Lover's Lane." The nomenclature of these
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APPENDIX.
caverns, it will be seen, has been selected and applied with a clever artistic appreciation, at onee romantie, and in each instance appropriate, so that you really imagine yourself for the time being in the homes of genii, hobgoblins and spirits of a long buried past, and you instinctively recall the stories of the Arabian Nights. If you are blessed with little ones who are constantly teasing yon to tell them stories, by fishing out the old oft-told tales and fitting them into these wierd chambers, you can be quite as deeply interested as your wee list- eners in the recital. Beyond "Lover's Lane" is "Grandma's ( 'hurn, " and near by something that reminds you of a flock of erystallized sheep and lambs that some fairy had turned to stone and left them, silent and motionless, for countless ages, to delight the children of our day. There are so many queer figures in these various halls, lanes and galleries, we cannot under- take to enumerate them all. Having feasted your eyes upon them. the guide leads you back to the first vestibule, whence you are taken by a new route through the "Denver and Rio Grande Tunnel" into a chamber where a petrified cascade is pointed out, a sheet of crystal so formed as to resemble a sheet of water falling over a declivity, that by some sort of magic was arrested and turned into translucent alabaster. Then you pass into the "Bridal ('ham- ber," where the sprites may have held their wedding festivals, when the good are crowned with blessings and happiness forever after. It is a veritable museum of marvels, just as it should be, lavishly decorated, bejeweled and otherwise fitted to the purpose of such joyous consummations; a dazzling array that only needs red and blue and yellow lights to form grand transformation splendors, which in spectacular plays of the present day precede the fall of the curtain.
The student of geology, however wide and varied his experience and knowledge, finds in these eaverns some extremely interesting revelations of nature's handiwork, many of them not set down in the books. To the unseientifie mind, it is a succession of wonders: to young children a never ending delight, incomprehensible, but on that account all the more fascinat- ing, for it shows them where the giants that dwelt in caves and caverns might have lived, and thousands of brownies danced and sang, thus imparting new value and pleasure to their story books and to Grandma's fairy tales.
THE SEVEN-THIRTY AND STEVENS MINES.
Located above Georgetown, Clear Creek county, the Seven-Thirty Mine was discovered in 1867, and has been a constant producer of high grade ore for the past twenty years. It is impossible to ascertain the total output during these years, but H. M. Griffin, the present. owner, has on file receipts for over 1.000,000 ounces in silver, besides some gold and much lead.
Various adjoining mines, owned by companies or individuals, have gradually been ab- sorbed by Mr. Griffin until the Seven-Thirty group now numbers between fifty and sixty separate mines held by deed from the United States goverment.
A central system of development is being carried out by sinking a main shaft in Brown Guleh, from which drifts or galleries have been run on the different veins.
This shaft has attained a depth of five hundred feet, and is constantly being pushed down. The drifts from it aggregate several miles in length.
The surface workings on the main vein extend a distance of a mile. The length on known veins covered by the patents is between fifteen and twenty miles. It is intended to sink the main shaft down to connect with a lower tunnel, which will materially aid the development of the mines, giving, as it would, ample natural ventilation, immense water power, and connection with the Colorado Central Division of the Union Pacific railway at the mouth of the tunnel.
The sinking of the main shaft to the level of the railroad will open up stopeing ground on the main vein 1,500 to 2,500 feet high, and on some of the other veins a much greater depth. It is estimated by competent engineers that on the vein chiefly opened there are between the present workings and the lower tunnel level) nineteen times as much ground as has already been stoped. If this is no richer than that now being worked it wouldl yield $19,000,000.
APPENDIX.
It is also estimated that the present stopes contain 1,000,000 ounces of silver ready for concentrating, and the dump a like amount.
Mines immediately adjoining this property have produced $10,000,000, all of which came from a depth lower than the present depth of the main shaft on the Seven-Thirty.
A limited foree of one hundred men is at present employed upon the property. As the shaft progresses the force will no doubt be largely increased.
The ore is mainly galena, carrying gray copper, native silver, sulphide of silver and ruby; and frequently runs from 500 to 1,000 ounces per ton.
The Stevens Mine was discovered in 1865, and has thus been yielding ore for nearly a quarter of a century.
The present property embraces thirty claims, held by government patent, and is a con- solidation of the properties of three companies and a number of individual claims in one ownership, with underground workings a mile or two in length.
The vein chiefly opened crops out on the precipitous sides of MeClellan mountain, near Gray's Peak, at an altitude of 12,000 feet, and it was here the first work was done, the ore being rolled down the mountain in raw hide sacks and shipped by ox teams 500 miles across the Great American Desert, which was then covered with buffaloes and hostile Indians. An aerial wire tramway now connects these upper workings with the wagon-road.
The middle workings are opened by a tunnel 400 feet long, connected with the road by a trestle tramway 1,050 feet long, and still lower down this vein has been cut by a tunnel a thousand feet long on a level with the road, where compressed air drills are now opening up large bodies of ore at a depth of 1,000 feet below the surface.
The production of this one vein has been continuous and large, but no accounts of it are now obtainable. The present owner has, however, certificates of $250,000 worth of ore sold, showing gold, silver and lead, free from refractory substances, and of very desirable grade for smelting.
THE DELAWARE BLOCK, LEADVILLE, COLO.
Built in 1885 by the C'allaway Brothers, who were leading queensware merchants in Den - ver and Leadville. It is a fine three-story building of briek, of good architectural design, 50x150, on the corner of Seventh street and Harrison avenue, opposite the Vendome Hotel. The first floor is occupied by a large and fine dry-goods store, the upper stories by offices and sleeping apartments. Its eost was $50,000, and is one of the finest buildings in the city. Callaway Brothers were large merchants in Denver, owning the finest store of its class in the state. They established a branch in Leadville in 1880; the Denver house was opened in 1878; W. F. came in 1866; George F. in 1875; and have ever since resided in Denver. They retired from business in 1890, having made a fortune in legitimate business and by profitable invest- ments in real estate. They also built the Callaway block, on Harrison-avenue. between Sixth and Seventh streets, occupied by their china store.
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