Part 19

This analysis of El Moro coal was made from selected specimens; the average of ash in the coke will probably run up to twelve to fourteen per cent.

When we were at Cucharas once before (I have omitted to mention it in its proper place), we ran over to Walsenburg, a neat little settlement in Huerfano Park, and a headquarters for a large sheep industry, and visited the coal mines of this company near by. They own a large tract of land there, containing three seams of coal, four, nine, and five feet in thickness. Only the thickest of these has as yet been developed, sending out about seventy-five thousand tons annually. This coal analyses as follows, "No. 1" being the four-feet seam, "No. 2" the nine-feet seam:

No. 1. No. 2.

Water 3.23 2.97 Vol. Matter 40.93 40.08 Fixed Carbon 49.54 48.67 Ash 6.30 8.28 -------- -------- 100. 100.

Sulphur .62 .65

It was old traveled ground, for the major part of the distance between El Moro and Cañon City, on the Arkansas, forty miles above Pueblo; and as we were anxious to save all the time we could for the new regions in the west, where we were sure the most romantic experiences awaited, we decided for another night-run, disadvantageous as they were, compared with day journeys. The next morning after our visit to El Moro, therefore, found us at anchor in Cañon City.

"What is there to see about Cañon City?" Oh, quantities of things. Here is a list of what its _Record_ keeps "set up" as its "advantages, natural and otherwise:"

"Soda springs, iron springs, hot soda baths, wide streets, excellent town site, immense water power, exhaustless coal fields, good water works, best building stone, splendid lime rock, iron mines, mica mines, lead mines, silver mines, oil wells, irrigating ditches, abundance of shade trees, peaches, plums, pears, apples, walnuts, grapes, vegetables, grain, flowers, bees, fifteen thousand dollar school house, twenty thousand dollar court house, Masonic temple, city government, low taxes, streets sprinkled, seven churches, theatre hall, first-class dentists, two newspapers, excellent physicians, good teachers, brick and stone stores, excellent society, protection from cold winds, immense stocks of goods, railroad communication, good ranches, stock ranges, excellent hotels, military college, and kindergarten."

Most of these items describe themselves, but others are worth mention. Right at the mouth of the Grand Cañon, which suggested the name, this site early attracted to a permanent home many of the earliest wanderers whom the famous Pike's Peak immigration of 1859 brought to the country. Half a century before them, though, Major Zebulon Pike had made a station for part of his troops on this spot, whence he reconnoitered the surrounding mountains.

Basing their calculations upon the fact that their settlement, which from the first was called Cañon City, was the last place to which the big emigration and freight wagons could come from the plains, the pioneers had large hopes of their town as the one entrepôt and supply-point for the mountains. Merchants came here and crammed great sheds with stocks of goods sold at wholesale, while forwarders were busy in organizing ox-trains to carry supplies into the mountains.

Then came the War of the Rebellion. All travel along the southern trail across the plains was cut off by the Indians, and immigration ceased, particularly from the Southern states, whence had come into this part of Colorado a large portion of the early settlers. More from lack of anything else to do than because of strong convictions on the subject, some two hundred and fifty young men enlisted from here into the Union service and were sent to New Mexico on that campaign against Sibley, wherein Colorado's regiments distinguished themselves. While the war raged Colorado was at a standstill, and the settlers had hard shift to live, all goods having to come by the way of Denver, subject to great risk.

Then the war closed, emigration westward revived, and Cañon City, along with the rest of the region, took a new lease of life. A committee of Germans came from Chicago seeking a place for a colony of their compatriots, and were guided by Mr. Rudd until they hit upon the Wet Mountain Valley and located Walsenburg. A little later, hopes of a railway cheered the hearts of the southern Coloradoans. The Kansas Pacific Company sent engineers up the Arkansas to locate their road across the range. They surveyed to this point, estimated upon the cost of grading through the cañon, and over the range by two or three routes. Then they abandoned the locality and deflected to Denver. This was no sooner done than reports of the advance of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe came to cheer the citizens, but disappointment ensued until early in the last decade the Denver and Rio Grande staked out their narrow gauge, and had the cars running regularly hither by the Spring of 1874.

All this time the town was slowly progressing and its vicinity being taken up for ranches, claimed for coal lands, quarried for building-stone and lime, and prospected for the precious metals. In 1879 came a "boom." Leadville flashed into sight and the Rosita and Silver Cliff district sprang to the front to rival it in excitement. To both these centers of rushing crowd Cañon City was one point of ingress. The town suddenly became thronged with men and women who were straining every nerve to get into the new regions, and with the undertow of a returning army of men disgusted with their reception and ill-luck, or jubilant over quick success, or going east only to return with machinery or goods or more money and friends.

To the task of catching toll from this careless, hurrying, fat-pocketed stream of humanity Cañon City set herself. The hotels charged big prices, lodging houses started up right and left, restaurants and boarding tents thrust out their signs every few steps, merchants urged your renewing your outfit at their replenished counters, and every form of wild amusement led to revelry and hideous headaches. Of all the wild towns it has been my fortune to see in the West, I think the Cañon City of those days was the worst. Ruffianism was the only fashionable thing, seemingly, and from the tangle-headed, dusty and drunken bull-whacker or the professional card-sharper to the staid old citizen, everybody had caught the spirit of a grand spree and the devil reigned.

But the railway was at last built through the cañon, the loud-swearing, quick-shooting teamsters followed their principals to the end of the track at Cleora, Salida, Buena Vista, and so on to Leadville itself; the gamblers and dance-houses and harlots followed; the host of railway laborers no longer made the village streets scenes of debauchery, and the town counted its gains, reckoned the loss its manners and morals had suffered, and returned to its normal quiet.

But its waking up had set its blood flowing faster and it has been a live town ever since, growing steadily, making public improvements, building houses and finding occupants faster than they could be put up, and all without any fictitious excitement.

It is for its coal mines--and these are half a dozen miles eastward--that Cañon City has the highest repute, however, and to these it owes much of its prosperity. They are the property of the ubiquitous Coal and Iron Company, who supply from here a large part of the fuel--and of the hardest and cleanest quality--used in the household all over the state. The railway consumes a great quantity too, for it has long been recognized as the best steam-maker. Two veins are now worked, one five feet and the other four feet in thickness. The mines are worked by slopes furnished with steam hoisters. The Coal Creek mine has been in operation for nine years. The company has recently opened two new slopes at Oak Creek, and are prepared to furnish 1,500 tons of coal per day from them. The total annual output of these mines is about 125,000 tons. The following are the analyses of these coals:

Water 4.50 6.15 Volatile Matter 34.20 36.03 Fixed Carbon 56.80 52.82 Ash 4.50 5.00 ----- ----- Total 100 100

Sulphur .65

Everybody will understand from this statement that this coal is worthless for coking, but most desirable as fuel. Our cook will swear to this, but declines to tell how much he stole at various times for culinary use.

Withal, Cañon City is a pretty town; one of the pleasantest places to live in in Colorado. Rows of large trees shade all the side-walks (and they are side-walks of planking, not mere gravel paths), and the ample spaces left about each house are filled with fruit trees, flowers and garden vegetables. To go into such a garden as one I visited in town is a surprise. A picturesquely built house, its adobe walls hidden by much climbing vinery, has its porch turned into a thickly-leaved bower by masses upon masses of clematis, whose white, thistly puffs of seed-down, each as large as a snow ball, are strung upon the green stem like monstrous beads. The garden, of which this cottage is the center, abounds in apple trees, pears, quince, plum, and peach trees, through whose spring blossoms thousands of bees go to and fro bearing burdens of honey to the neat store-houses under the shade. The lower part of the garden falls away, terrace fashion, to the river, and here are arbors of grapes, thickets of currant and gooseberry bushes, beds of asparagus, celery, and all sorts of good plants to make the pot-boiler happy. Down by the river stands a windmill, by which water is pumped to a reservoir, whence the whole garden and orchard can be irrigated and sprinkled.

This is only one of hundreds of gardens small and great where fruit and vegetables are raised for home use and for sale. Marvelous stories are told of the weight of the cabbages, of the girth of the beets, of the solidity of the turnips and strength of the onions that go hence. And as for apples, scores and scores of acres are being newly set out in apple trees, and almost square miles of "truck" fields will next year add their quota to the unsatisfied market. I was astonished when I saw how extensive and successful was the culture of fruit and garden sauce in and about Cañon City.

This comes from good soil and easy climate. They say some winters here are so mild that one hardly needs an overcoat at all; it must be remembered that though the elevation is high the latitude is low. I saw a field where clover had been cut three times a year for twelve years, yet showed no signs of running out; and as for alfalfa, they cut the crop quarterly.

The citizens think that their town is likely to prove a manufacturing center. I see no reason why it should not. The river falls there at a rate which furnishes a fine water power, already utilized to propel the public water-works. With the best of coal close by, and iron in abundance only a little way off, I should think the future would see machine shops and foundries placed at this point; while factories for woolen cloth, for making wooden-ware from pine and for various other industries adapted to the resources and market of the neighborhood, shoe factories and leather-work by machinery generally ought to be flourishing here some day, since hides ought to be tanned here instead of being sent wholly to the East.

In the State prison, which is situated here, there is already a shoe-factory, but most of the prisoners are engaged in quarrying and cutting stone. The quarries are in the side hill, and the stone is a yellowish sand-rock, very good for building. The fine-appearing prison-buildings and the lofty wall which encloses them are built of this stone, as can readily be seen from the car-windows. Much stone, in the rough and shaped, is shipped from these quarries to Denver and elsewhere, and the railway makes extensive use of it.

Just outside of the foot hills, where the sand stone is procured, are the "hog-backs"--elongated ridges of white lime-rock. These, also, are being leveled to supply the lime-kilns and also to be sent to Leadville, Argo and elsewhere for the use of the smelting furnaces as flux. Something like two hundred car-loads a week, I am told, go to Leadville alone; but the competition of lime-ledges near Robinson and elsewhere north of Leadville is likely to diminish this shipment in future to that point. Possibly, though, if the newly discovered silver prospects over the hills near Blackburn turn out to be of any value, a home demand may make up for Leadville's discrepancies. Finally, petroleum seems to have been found here in quantities which will ultimately prove highly remunerative. Wells are being bored, and unexpectedly good results are obtained, so that high hopes are entertained that to her list of productions Colorado shall add in profitable quantities this wonderful substance--mineral oil--and the spirit of speculation and industry be given a new channel for its activity.

XVIII

IN THE WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY.

For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer morn. * * * * * * * * And one a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain. --TENNYSON.

Cañon City was by no means a bad place to stay, and we would have prolonged our visit to the benefit of our table, had not the railway yard been so busy a one that there was no rest for our cars, which were pulled about, here and there, by the necessities of train-forming, in a way we were far from enjoying, so we decided to go on. At the last minute, nevertheless, this happy-go-lucky crowd concluded that they were extremely anxious first to take a run over into the Wet Mountain valley. One gentleman, of uncertain influence, raised his voice against it, but was silenced so quickly it made his head swim. He had endeavored to point out that it would be more instructive to go down to the great coal mines, a few miles below; and far more fun to ascend Signal mountain and "see what we should see." He tried skillfully to arouse some enthusiasm by telling how, though it seemed within rifle-shot, it was really eighteen miles away; how it can be seen from the plains not only, but also from South Park and the peaks that surround; how, in consequence, the Utes chose it as one of their telegraph stations, and the early pioneers bound for Pike's Peak, saw from their camps the wavering smoke by day, or the signal fires at night, upon its summit, through which the Indians informed their companions of the invaders' movements. Thus it came to be known as Signal mountain, but in this gentleman's humble opinion the old Spanish name of "Pisgalo Peak" was better. All this was listened to with a sort of consolatory attention; nevertheless the speaker was compelled, not only to resign his plan, but to give orders otherwise.

Grown strong in the lap of the Wet Mountain valley, Grape creek assaults the red walls of rock that bar its progress to the Arkansas at the mouth of the Grand Cañon. The profusion of wild vines its waters nourish, makes its name a natural one, and they adorn its course as few streams in the West are garnished. These are particularly abundant along the rocky lower part of the stream, growing luxuriantly upon the arbors the great cottonwoods afford, and under the shelter of the warm, red walls, relieving the ruggedness of their abrupt slopes, "as if nature found she had done her work too roughly, and then veiled it with flowers and clinging vines."

"The entrance to Grape Creek cañon," writes an acquaintance, who was there a little in advance of us, "for over a mile, follows the windings of the clear flowing creek, with gently sloping hills on either side covered with low spruce and piñon, and with grass plats and brilliant flowers in season far up their slopes, and the Spanish lance and bush cactus present their bristling points wherever a little soil affords them sustenance.... About seven miles from the mouth of the creek a small branch cañon comes in from the right. It was once a deep cleft, with perpendicular sides, created in some convulsion of nature, but it has been gradually filled up with débris and broken rock until a sloping and not difficult path is made, by the sides of which a luxuriant vegetation has taken root, and the wild rose and clematis blooms with the humble blue-bell among the mossy bowlders. Climbing this path for a few hundred feet a side cleft is seen at the right, which seems to terminate in a solid wall. Following it to the breast, however, you find at the left a passage made by a water channel, with steps which ladies can easily pass with a little help, and we enter a narrow passage between high rocky walls. Turning again to the right, we follow this perhaps two hundred feet, and looking to the left we find before and above us the lofty arched dome of the "Temple." About twenty-five feet above where we are standing is a platform, perhaps fifty feet in width and six or eight feet in depth, over which projects far above the arching roof. Though the auditorium in front is rather narrow for a large audience, the platform is grand, and may be reached without great difficulty. Music sounds finely as it rolls down from the overhanging sounding-board of stone. From the platform deep cavernous recesses are seen at the sides, which time has wrought, but which are invisible from below. Moreover, the action of water slowly percolating through the back walls, carrying lime and spar in solution, has coated them with crystals, which gleam in sparkling beauty when the sunlight touches them early in the day. Farther up the cañon the rocks do not rise to so great heights, and the vista opens out into pleasant winding valleys well covered with grass, but there are several very interesting points where the action of internal convulsions upon the granite and syenite in elder ages, when they came hot from the crucible of nature, have rolled and twisted and kneaded the great rock-masses into most curious and notable shapes."

These beauties passed all too rapidly, the green expanse of the Wet Mountain valley opened before us. It seemed to merit its name, for the Sangre de Cristo, walling in its western side, was the abode of contending hosts of rain and snow, whose pale, dense phalanxes lent new sublimity to the noble battle-ground they had chosen; but the real "Wet Mountains,"--the old "Sierra Mojada" of the Spaniards, the "Green Horn" range of the dwellers on its eastern outlook--are the ragged range eastward.

The Wet Mountain valley has long been settled by ranchmen, and extensive herds pasture on its wide-sweeping hillsides. Grape creek, flowing from Promontory bluff and the hills to the southward, which separate this valley from Huerfano park and the drainage of the Cucharas, waters the center of the valley, and its banks are lined with meadows and farms. Each winter sees hay alone sent from these meadows to the value of not less than $150,000. Oats and barley, especially, do well, and most of the roots are grown successfully; very fine potatoes were transferred from those fields to our boiler, so that we have the best evidence of their excellence. The improved appearance of the numerous ranches, which in one or two places are agglomerated into hamlets, shows their prosperity, and the whole picture of the valley is one of the most pleasing in Colorado,--not only in point of natural beauty, but for its commercial and human interest, for Rosita is one of the oldest towns in Colorado.

"A legend runs," _vide_ H. H., "that there was once another 'Little Rose,' a beautiful woman of Mexico, who had a Frenchman for a lover. When she died her lover lost his wits, and journeyed aimlessly away to the north; he rambled on and on till he came to this beautiful little nook, nestled among mountains, and overlooking a green valley a thousand feet below it. Here he exclaimed, 'Beautiful as Rosita!' and settled himself to live and die on the spot. A simpler and better authenticated explanation of the name is, that, when the miners first came, six years ago, into the gulches where the town of Rosita now lies, they found several fine springs of water, each spring in a thicket of wild roses. As they went to and fro from their huts to the springs, they found in the dainty blossoms a certain air of greeting, as of old inhabitants welcoming newcomers. It seemed no more than courteous that the town should be called after the name of the oldest and most aristocratic settler,--a kind of recognition which does not always result in so pleasing a name as Rosita (Tompkinsville, for instance, or Jenkins' Gulch). Little Rose, then, it became, and Little Rose it will remain."

But the metropolis of the valley, and the terminus of the railway at present is the newer town of Silver Cliff, a town which saw one of the "biggest booms" on record. The story goes that the first known discovery of silver here was in July, 1877, by the Edwards brothers, who had previously been running saw-mills on Texas and Grape creeks. Returning one warm evening from one of the mills to Rosita, Mr. R. J. Edwards stopped in the shade of a low bluff, jet-stained reddish rock, which stood out from the slope of a hill on the western side of the valley seven miles north of his destination. The peculiar appearance of the rock moving his curiosity, he procured an assay of it, when, to his astonishment, he was told that it ran twenty-four ounces in silver to the ton. In a few days the entire population of Rosita had migrated to the rock which they agreed to call the Silver Cliff, and were digging holes and testing for gold, since it was thought there was more of that than of the less valuable mineral to be obtained. But their efforts came to nothing; and as quick to be discouraged as they were to have their hopes aroused, the mercurial crowd vanished, and the black striped rocks enjoyed their previous solitude through all the next autumn and winter.

Then (this was in the spring of 1878) some sensible prospectors tried for silver and located the "Racine Boy" and various other properties right on the brow of the cliff, which have since proved of great value. This was the signal for a second rush, but the new comers, who dug holes everywhere and anywhere, like an immense colony of prairie badgers, each thought himself sure of millions, and held his bit of ground at so high a price that nobody would buy at all. This resulted in a panic, the effect of which was really for the prosperity of the critical camp, since capital now took hold and deep developments proceeded on some properties that had proved their worth.

It did not take long to evince the fact that ninety out of every hundred of the holes scattered so indiscriminately over the velvety knolls of Round mountain and the smooth, hard plain near by, were of no value; and also, on the other hand, to show enough paying mines to make it appear that the ore (at any rate that near the surface) all lay in a particular "belt," apparently culminating in the exposed ledges that had first attracted the miner's eyes.