History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado, Part 2

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co. cn; Vickers, W. B. (William B.), 1838-
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 844

USA > Colorado > Arapahoe County > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 2
USA > Colorado > Denver County > Denver > History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado > Part 2

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Among these notable men was a grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Indepen- dence-Elbridge Gerry, of Connecticut. The pio- neer bore his grandfather's name, and never dishonored it by a mean or ignoble act. He was the soul of honor and hospitality. His door was always open alike to friend or stranger, and he never would accept money from any one for food or lodging.

"Kit" Carson was still more noted than Gerry, although all the early settlers knew the latter as intimately as the former. Carson has now (1879) been dead many years, but Gerry's death occurred only a few years ago. Carson's only monument is

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a lonely railway station on the Kansas Pacific road, once for a brief space a flourishing frontier town, but now nearly abandoned.

When civilization and fashion began to assert their sway in Colorado, some of the white-shirt aristocracy began to complain that certain white men shocked their sensitive souls by continuing to live with their Indian wives. Gerry was always wounded by any reference to himself in this vein. but refused to be moved by it from what he con- sidered his duty to his family. Said he:

"I married my wife when there wasn't a white woman within a thousand miles of me, and when I never expected to see a white woman here. My wife is as true and my children are as dear to me as those of any man alive, and I will die a thou- sand deaths before I will desert them."

From the day when Capt. John A. Sutter made known the existence of gold in California, a steady tide of travel set across the continent from east to west, and soon certain portions of what is now Colorado, notably the valley of the South Platte and some of its tributaries, became not only well known, but dotted by stations of the great over- land stage company.

It was not, however, until after the "Pike's Peak " exeitement of 1858-59, that attention was directed to the natural advantages and mineral wealth of Colorado, and the earliest discoveries of gold here were almost as accidental as those of California, only differing in the fact that fabulous stories of mineral wealth in the Rocky Mountains had prepared people to expect discoveries at any and every point in the mighty chain of peaks.

It is believed, however, that the stories of min- eral discoveries prior to 1858 are apocryphal, although apparently well authenticated. There was never a time after the acquisition of Southern Colorado and New Mexico at the close of the Mexican war, that this country was not inhabited by intelligent and educated white men, retired army officers and the like, who would have been quick to recognize the value and importance of such discoveries, and to profit by them personally,

if they did not spread the news abroad. Lupton, St. Vrain, Carson, Bent, Boone, Head, Wooten and others were domesticated in Colorado thirty years or more ago, and those sharp-witted gentle- men would have known when and where gold was found, had it been found before Green Russell and his party of Georgians stumbled upon the shining sand in the bed of Dry Creek in the summer of 1858.

Russell's party had looked in vain for gold dig- gings up and down the country from Canon City to the Cache la Poudre, and were returning home- ward when their patient search was rewarded. Russell returned to the States, carrying the news of his discovery, and also several hundred dollars' worth of gold dust, which were the first fruits of the now famous gold fields of Colorado.

Following closely upon the heels of the Russell party, came a Kansas delegation, which followed the Arkansas River route, and passed through Pueblo on or about the 4th of July. The place was pretty well deserted at that time, though once it had been a thriving trading-post. The Utes, with characteristic meanness, had so persecuted the white people there that they were compelled to leave; those, at least, who had escaped the worse fate of being murdered. The gold-seekers found the walls of the old fort standing, and some later comers, who established themselves there, built their houses of the adobes which had been used in the walls of the fort.

It does not appear that the early Pueblans paid much attention to prospecting. The mount- ains thereabout have never yielded any astonish- ing results in the line of precious metals, and probably the pioneers suffered themselves to become discouraged early in their search for gold. Although " Pike's Peak or bust" was the rallying ery of the early prospectors, gold has never been discovered in paying quantities in the vicinity of the Peak, and not until some years after the north- ern mines were yielding large returns was there any bullion produced south of the Pike's Peak range of mountains. The " Silver San Juan "

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country, which is, perhaps, the richest mineral region of the State, not excepting Leadville, dates back but a few years as a mining center.

But if prospecting and other industrial pursuits were dull, Pueblo did not lack life or activity in the summer of 1858. Hon. Wilbur F. Stone, now one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State, and an able and versatile writer, some years ago prepared an historical sketch of Pueblo County, in which the incidents of those pioneer days are graphically depicted. The quiet humor of the sketch is quite irresistible, as is shown by the fol- lowing extract:

"Game was quite plenty in those early days, and the settlers frequently indulged in it during the winter, both for food and pastime. It consisted chiefly of deer, antelope, jack rabbits, monte and seven-up."

But while Pueblo was indulging in her "game" -a characteristic not wholly abandoned to this day-the diggings up north were being developed by parties of prospectors from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and other convenient localities, though the grand rush was postponed until the next spring, it being late in the fall before Russell had reached the States with his news and nuggets. The emigrants of the fall of 1858 suffered severely in crossing the plains, and, to make matters worse, the Indians early became alarmed at the threatened influx of white settlers, and begau to "discourage" immigration after their usual fashion, by theft, rapine and murder-arts in which they were and are adepts.

In those days a journey across the plains was far from plain or pleasant sailing. There were but few outposts of civilization, few personal comforts, and, apart from an occasional overland mail or returning California miner, no society worth speak- ing of-not counting Indians or buffalo as society. Now and then a Pike's Peak pilgrim, wending his weary way back to " America," met the advance guard of tender feet and established the now time honored custom of filling their ears with such sto- ries as only Coloradoans can tell-the California

colloquist being merely an old-fashioned hand- press as compared with the improved Hoe machin- ery propelling the parts of speech in a Colorado pioneer. The returning pilgrims almost invariably followed the Platte route, intersecting the overland at what was then known as the California Crossing, now Julesburg.

Few spots in Colorado are the center of more historie interest than this small hamlet in the extreme northeastern corner of the State. From the fall of 1858, when the first surge of emigra- tion swept westward into Colorado, until the Pacific Railroad passed by and left the place a mere wreck of its former self, Julesburg was widely known as the wickedest town in America, a reputation fairly won and well preserved, while it remained a railway terminus. To-day, it is one of the mildest and most quiet stations on the line of the Union Pacific road, except for two or three months of the late summer and fall, when it is busy with the bustle and excite- ment of shipping beef cattle from the surrounding plains.

From the California Crossing to the Cherry Creek Diggings was not many days' travel, and when half the distance was accomplished the grand mountains rose into view, affording one of the finest spectacles in the world. Every new traveler writing about the approach to these mountains went into greater ecstacy than the last, and all vied with each other in complimenting this Amer- ican Switzerland upon its surprising and surpass- ing beauty.

Of this mighty mountain view, Mr. Samuel Bowles, the lamented editor of the Springfield Republican, always a firm friend of Colorado, wrote as follows :

" All my many and various wanderings in the European Switzerland, three summers ago, spread before my eyes no panorama of mountain beauty surpassing, nay, none equaling that which burst upon my sight at sunrise upon the Plains, when fifty miles away from Denver; one which rises up before me now as I sit writing by the window

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in this city. From far south to far north, stretch- ing around in huge semicircle, rise the everlasting hills, one after another, tortuous, presenting every variety of form and surface, every shade of cover and color, up and on until we reach the broad, snow-covered range that marks the highest sum- mits, and till where Atlantic and Pacific meet and divide for their long journeys to their far distant shores. To the north rises the King of the Range, Long's Peak, whose top is 14,600 feet high ; to the south, giving source to the Arkansas and Colorado, looms up its brother, Pike's Peak, to the height of 13,400 feet. Those are the salient features of the belt before us, but the intervening and succeeding summits are scarcely less com- manding, and not much lower in height."

Mr. Bowles erred in his estimate of the altitude of both peaks, making the first too high and the second too low, but this does not mar the beauty of his glowing tribute to our Colorado mountains.

Bayard Taylor, whose world-wide experience of mountain scenery made him an excellent judge of such scenic effects, also admired our mountains above measure, and thought them incomparably finer than the Alps. Said he :

" I know no external picture of the Alps that can be placed beside it. If you could take away the valley of the Rhone, and unite the Alps of

Savoy with the Bernese Oberland, you might obtain a tolerable idea of this view of the Rocky Mountains. Pike's Peak would then represent the Jungfrau ; a nameless snowy giant in front of you, Monte Rosa, and Long's Peak, Mont Blanc.

Tosuch scenes of surpassing beauty were the early settlers of Colorado invited, but, inasmuch as most of them came for gold rather than mountain scen- ery, more interest was felt in reaching the moun- tains than in beholding them afar off. The "light air" which was thenceforth to form one of the most striking of many Colorado peculiarities, had already given rise to numerous fictions touching its decep- tive qualities. The story of the man who started to walk from Denver to the mountains before breakfast, was already old, in fact, it was founded upon Capt Pike's fruitless effort to reach Pike's Peak during the day on which he first sighted it.

Among the pleasant memories of the early days was the abundance of game, as already noted in the reference to ancient Pueblo. The Platte Val- ley was even better provided in this respect than the Arkansas, and, at first, neither buffalo nor ante- lope seemed to be much alarmed at the approach of man, though the latter, more alert and intelli- gent than their lumbering companions, soon found that a distant acquaintance with mankind was most profitable though yielding less information.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY DISCOVERIES OF GOLD.

B UT we must not linger too long en route or the impatient reader will sympathize with the impa- tient pilgrim, anxious to reach the "golden sands," achieve a fortune and retrace his steps, for few, if any, pilgrims expected to remain in the new gold- fields longer than was absolutely necessary. Events showed, however, that their ideas of necessity varied very widely, according to pluck and energy. Some of them started back inside of twenty-four hours, cursing the country and declaring that there

was no gold here, nor anything else worth living for. Others began mining operations, but, meet- ing with only partial or indifferent success, and finding that hard work offered no more attrae- tions in Colorado than elsewhere, concluded that they would do their hard work back East among friends and relations. Others still persevered, despite all discouragements, and to these brave men the country is indebted for its marvelous outcome.

Yours Truly Evans

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All honor to the pioneers. Whether they saw the end from the beginning, or whether they builded "better than they knew," their labor involved the highest type of moral courage.

The discoveries of gold in 1858 were confined to the plains entirely, and mainly to the tributaries of the Platte in the vicinity of Denver.

In January, 1859, although the winter was cold, the snow deep and circumstances very dis- couraging, the enterprising prospectors ventured into the mountains, and gold was discovered in several localities, among them South Boulder Creek, where the diggings were christened " Dead- wood." The original Deadwood failed, however, to create the excitement which has recently been created by its namesake in the Black Hills of Dakota.

Meanwhile, the politicians had not been idle. Auraria, now known as West Denver, was laid out early in November, and soon became the center of population, though numerous towns and "cities" sprang into existence about the same time. Of course, these incipient cities looked first to some form of government, and, as this whole country was then within the dominion of Kansas, a new county was constituted and called Arapahoe, after the neighboring tribe of Indians. On the 6th of November, the first election was held. It was a double-barreled affair, a Delegate to Congress and a Representative in the Kansas Legislature being elected at the same time. H. J. Graham went to Washington, and A. J. Smith to Topeka. Gra- ham's instructions were to get "Pike's Peak " set apart as an independent Territory, to be called Jefferson. He was a man of great energy and fair ability, but he must have been looked upon in Washington as a wild sort of lunatic, for the coun- try was then so new that nobody east of the Mis- souri River attached any importance to the scheme of its proposed permanent settlement. Those who had faith in the country remained in it; those who lacked faith went back to the States and denounced it as a miserable fraud. Graham found himself without influence at the National

Capital, and the only thing he gained by his trip, besides the fleeting honor of being our first Repre- sentative iu Congress, was the privilege of paying his own expenses.

Smith was slightly more successful at Topeka. He was recognized to the extent of sanctioning the new county organization, and so Colorado was launched into political existence as Arapahoe County, Kansas.

The year 1859 was one of great moment to Col- orado. Though in effect but a repetition of 1858, it was on a scale so much larger as to eclipse the latter, and to assume for itself all the importance of the date of actual discovery and settlement, so that, in the minds of most people, Colorado dates from 1859, rather than from the preceding year.

It has already been stated that discoveries of gold were made in the mountains as early as Jan- uary of this year, but the great excitement of the season did not begin until May, when Gregory Gulch was first prospected by the famous Jolin H. Gregory, whose name it bears. Gregory does not appear to have been a Pike's Peak pilgrim. It is said that he left Georgia for the far-away gold mines of British Columbia, and that he passed by Colorado during the excitement of 1858, going as far north as Fort Laramie, where chance or acci- dent induced him to spend the winter. Instead of continuing his northwest journey in the spring, he turned back and inspected the Colorado dig- gings critically, and, without any unbounded faith in their paying qualities. He reached Golden, a mere hamlet then, and, still dissatisfied, pushed on through the now famous Clear Creek Canon to where the town of Black Hawk now stands. He was alone, and nearly perished in a severe snow- storm which came on and found him without shelter.

Painfully, he fought his way back to the valley, and laid in a fresh stock of provisions and warmer clothing, and again set out for the Clear Creek country, convinced, from his previous observations, that it was a treasure-house of precious metals. His enthusiasm enlisted the services of one man to

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accompany him-Wilkes Defrees, of South Bend, Ind.

Of their toilsome journey, and of the discover- ies they made, it is perhaps best to speak in the light of results, compared with which their first prospecting seems tame and commonplace. For more than twenty years already, and giving prom- ise of twenty times twenty years to come, Gregory Gulch and the surrounding country has yielded its rich treasures of gold and silver, and to-day it is inereasing in wealth and importance as a mining center. Where poor Gregory so nearly perished in the snow, stands three populous eities and hun- dreds of valuable mines; the smoke of smelters' and reduction works hang over them day and night continually, and active mining operations and kindred industries make of the narrow valley a very bee-hive, not only of action but of accumu- lation.

Within the narrow limits of this review, there is not room for the chronological succession of events which effected this wonderful transforma- tion, but a hasty resumé of the history of Gregory Gulch will be useful as showing how our mining industries struggled through the earlier years of their existence. A not inapt comparison might be found in the induction of an infant into the means and mysteries of human life.

It has already been stated that the discoveries of gold in Colorado were made by men ignorant of seientifie mining, ignorant, too, of the laws of nature which might have shed some light, at least, on the possibilities of these discoveries. Geolo- gists could have foretold many things which these men learned by the hardest experience, and often at the sacrifice of their fortunes. Even gulch and placer mining, the simplest study of mineralogy, was almost a sealed book to the pioneers, and of the reduction of ores they were profoundly igno- rant. As depth was gained on their lode claims, the increasing richness of the ore was, under the circumstances, more than neutralized by its refract- ory nature. Rude appliances for treating ore, such as had served the early miners while their

work lay near the surface, and while the quartz was partially decomposed, utterly failed as depth was gained, and, for a time, the mining industries of Colorado came almost to a stand-still.

It seems singular, now that mining has been reduced to an exact science in Colorado, as well as in older countries, that so long a time should have elapsed, and so many grave errors should have been committed, before this most reasonable and certain result was attained. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true that at one time, and at a very important period of her history as a mining center, Colorado swallowed up more Eastern capital than the sum of her_ annual bullion product. Rich ores were treated only to be ruined. The precious metals could not be extracted and separated from the mass of worthless material. The tailings and refuse of the mills were more valuable than what was saved from them. Mining companies were formed in the East, which sent out agents and operators taken from all walks of life except the one business of which they should have been mas- ters. The monuments of this folly are still visible everywhere in our mountains, in the shape of abandoned buildings, wasting water-powers, and many other easy and expeditious methods of get- ting rid of the "company's" money. Fitz-John Porter's " Folly," at Black Hawk, now figures as a railway depot, an immense stone structure, eosting thousands of dollars, but never utilized by its pro- jectors. Other "Folly" buildings, costing other thousands, have never been utilized at all.

But though results were thus unsatisfactory, the same could not truthfully be said of business. It was flush times in Colorado. Money and work were plenty, and thousands found employment at remunerative wages. The plaeers were yielding up their rich treasures, and little or no skill was required to find and save the gold thus deposited.

True to the instincts of their kind, the pros- peetors spread over the whole country in their search for gold. The Indians became alarmed at the encroachments of the miners, and many detached parties of the latter were killed during

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1860-61. The first party which penetrated into Middle Park was decimated by the hostile savages, but this did not prevent others from following in their footsteps, and very important discoveries of placer mines were made, not only along the bed of the Platte and its tributaries, but also across the Mosquito Range, in the Arkansas Valley. Among the latter was the celebrated find near the present site of Leadville, in California Gulch, of which

more will be written in another chapter devoted to the history of Leadville.

Though thousands of pilgrims crossed the plains in 1859, few, comparatively, of their number win- tered in the country, fearing the severity of the weather and a possible scarcity of provisions. By chance, neither fear was well founded. The win- ter was very mild, and trains loaded with goods of all kinds came through safely in midwinter.

CHAPTER III.

JOURNALISM IN COLORADO.

V ERY early in the season of 1859, the printing- press took root in Rocky Mountain soil, where it has flourished since second to scareely any other industry. What Colorado owes to her live, enter- prising and intelligent newspaper press, no one can tell; but, if the State is debtor to the press, the obligation is mutual, for never were newspapers so liberally patronized as those of Denver and the State at large.

By universal consent, Hon. William N. Byers, founder, and for a long time editor of the Rocky Mountain News, has been called the pioneer and father of Colorado's journalism, though in a late address to the Colorado State Press Association, he modestly disclaimed part of this honor in favor of an erratic but large-hearted printer named Jack Merrick. It seems that Merrick started for Pike's Peak with a newspaper outfit, in advance of the Byers party, which consisted of Thomas Gibson, then and now of Omaha, and Dr. George C. Monell, of the same place. Merrick reached Denver first, and to that extent was the pioneer publisher, but the superior energy of the Byers party enabled them to get out the first paper ever published in the Rocky Mountains. It bears date April 22, 1859. Merrick issued a paper on the same day, but later. Both were rather rude spee- imens of typography, especially as compared with the elegantly printed sheets now circulating in the

State, and the Cherry Creek Pioneer-the name by which Merrick's journal was heralded-was unique in that it was the one lone, solitary issue from his press. Before Jack could collect himself together sufficiently to get out another number, Gibson, of the News, had bargained for his sorry little outfit and consolidated it with that of the News. The latter paper was published with tolerable regularity all that summer, though sometimes under the most discouraging circumstances, and more than once upon brown paper or half-sheets of regular print. The nearest post office was at Fort Laramie, 220 miles distant, and the mails arrived there at very irregular intervals. The News, how- ever, was never dependent on its exchanges for original matter, and got along very well without telegraphic dispatches. It was devoted to build- ing up the country, and it gave nearly all its space to reports of mining matters, new strikes, and pictures of the glowing future of Colorado. For all these utterances, and especially for the latter, it was cursed by returning disheartened pilgrims, who poured their own stories into the willing ears of Eastern editors, and soon earned for the Rocky Mountain News the reputation of being edited by one of the most capable and dangerous liars in the country.

Looking back over his twenty years of labor for Colorado in the face of every possible

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discouragement, the veteran editor can afford to smile at these ancient assaults upon his veracity as a scribe. More than he predicted of the coun- try has been verified.

The second newspaper venture in Colorado was at Mountain City, a mining camp, situated just above the present town of Black Hawk, but not quite as far up the gulch as where Central stands. This was the Gold Reporter, and was published by Thomas Gibson, who had sold his interest in the News to John L. Dailey, now Treasurer of Arapa- hoe County. Gibson published the Reporter only during the summer of 1859. In November, the material was removed to Golden, and a very credit- able newspaper, called the Mountaineer, was printed by the Boston Company which started the town. The idea, at that time, was that Golden should supersede Denver as the metropolis of the mountains, and this newspaper venture was in pur- suance of that sacredly cherished purpose. The lamented A. D. Richardson was one of the earlier editors of the Mountaineer, and Col. Thomas W. Knox, almost as widely known as a successful journalist, was another. Capt. George West, the veteran editor of the Golden Transcript, which succeeded the Mountaineer, was also connected with the latter publication until the war broke out, when he enlisted.

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History of the city of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado, Part 2

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co. cn; Vickers, W. B. (William B.), 1838- Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: O.L. Baskin & Co. cn; Vickers, W. B. (William B.), 1838-
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 844