Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast. James Fowler Rusling

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СКАЧАТЬ the counter-threat of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," and so gamblers ceased to rule in Denver. The happy change was freely commented on, and now that it had come, people wondered why they had endured the blacklegs so long. Denver was now evidently aspiring to better things—to "sweeter manners, purer laws." Her merchants and bankers were building themselves homes, sending east for their families, and settling down, as if to stay. Though not so law-abiding and Sabbath-loving, as our eastern cities, yet her churches were well-attended; and her Episcopal Bishop (Randall), we found scouring the country with all the earnestness and zeal of an old-time missionary, or Methodist itinerant. Band and gown, stole and chasuble, and other ritualistic millenary, he affected but little; but he preached Christ and Him crucified with a tenderness and power, that touched all hearts, and Colorado already had come to love and honor him. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," was his text for as sound and appropriate a discourse the Sabbath we were in Denver, as we had heard in a long while. Every sentence struck home, like a rapier or a bullet, at some sin most prevalent in Colorado, and Denver might well "make a note of it." Subsequently we heard of him in the mines and among the mountains, preaching in quartz-mills and by the roadside—wherever he could gather a handful of hearers—always engaged in the Master's work, and always leaving a deep impression behind him.

      Denver, with water and coal both near, yet had neither water nor gas works then, and scarcely a tree or shrub growing anywhere. Numerous trees had been planted, and much shrubbery; but the long and rainless summers had proven too much for them. The winter before, a company had been chartered to bring water from the mountains, for irrigating and other purposes, and they already had one ditch completed—three or four feet wide, by one or two deep—and were projecting others. This one irrigated several farms, turned a grist-mill or two, and then, with a branch to the fair-grounds, emptied into the Platte. But Denver must have such ditches, all around and through her, if she wants trees and shrubbery and then she may have streets and suburbs unsurpassed anywhere. Salt Lake, we afterwards found, had done this; and Denver will, when she has once been well scourged by fire. Then she was powerless against the fire-fiend, and a large conflagration well under way would have swept the town.[4]

      Though the largest town in Colorado, and of commanding influence there, yet Denver we found was not the capital, but Golden City instead—a hamlet of five hundred inhabitants or so, fifteen miles farther west, at the base of the mountains. The Territorial Legislature convened there every winter, as required by law; but immediately adjourned to Denver, where all business was really transacted, and where the governor and other territorial officers resided, when not absent in the states, as some often were. In location, Denver itself was, no doubt a geographical blunder, as the business of the country was really among the mines and mountains; but as gold had been first discovered here, it got the start, and bade fair to maintain its supremacy. The sharpest and shrewdest men in Colorado, we found were all settled here. All enterprises, of much pith and moment, began and ended here. All capital centred here. And Denver brains and Denver capital, it was plain to see, ruled and controlled our whole Rocky Mountain region, north to Dacotah and south to New Mexico.

      Denver had two real "sensations," while we were there—one, the alleged usurpation of Gov. Cumming, the other the arrival of Gen. Sherman. It seemed there had been a territorial election, for delegate to Congress, and the returns not being clear, Gov. Cumming assumed to give the certificate of election to Hunt, an Andrew Johnson man, rather than to Chilcott, a radical Republican—notwithstanding the Board of Canvassers decided otherwise. The governor claimed that the law and facts were with him, but the Board of Canvassers protested to the contrary, and popular opinion seemed to sustain them. There was a breezy time in Denver for awhile. The papers savagely denounced the governor's conduct, as an outrage and usurpation, and fell into a vein of coarse vituperation they seemed incapable of before. The saloons were filled with excited crowds at night; knots gathered on the streets by day; and presently, one morning out came the papers with the old-time suggestion of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," if His Excellency did not yield. An explosion was now hourly expected, but it did not come. Denver evidently had grown in grace. The mob-spirit of her early days could not be revived, and all good citizens rejoiced to see it. No doubt she liked Judge Lynch still; but she liked Eastern immigration and English capital better, and would do nothing to startle either. The governor wisely appeared in public but little, and for several nights found it convenient to sleep elsewhere than at home. Finally, it was given out, that the military were on his side, as in duty bound, and the storm presently blew over. Subsequently it appeared, that said military consisted of only two officers, without a single soldier; but His Excellency attributed his safety to them, all the same. General Sherman's arrival immediately after was just in the nick of time. It followed on the heels of the election imbroglio, and was a good salve to the public sore. All Denver turned out to welcome him and his distinguished brother (the Ohio Senator), and a cavalcade of horsemen and carriages met them miles away. Next night there was a reception, banquet, speeches, ball, etc. and hundreds assembled to do them honor. There was a lamentable lack of ladies; but brighter, keener men, you could find nowhere. What there were of ladies, were intelligent and sprightly, and all were richly attired and adorned; but Denver needed more of them. Everybody vied in doing Sherman honor, as a great soldier who had fought nobly for the country. They did not know his views yet on the Indian question, which a few months afterwards they denounced so severely. By an ambulance tour of two thousand miles, from post to post, through the heart of the Indian country, he was trying to study the Indian question for himself, as the great question of his Military Division; and yet Denver, fond of contracts, claimed to understand that questio vexata better than he!

      We left Denver one bright September morning for Central City and the Mines. A stage ran daily, but wanting to travel more leisurely we went by ambulance. Across the Platte, and over the Plains again for fifteen miles, brought us to the mountains and Golden City, just within the foothills. Clear Creek dashes through the "city," a broad swift stream, furnishing fine water-power for several mills already, with plenty to spare for more. Coal, iron, lead, copper and kaolin were said to exist in the mountains adjacent, and this water-power was therefore justly esteemed very valuable. Four or five miles farther on, the mountains seem to close up—a solid rampart—before you; but suddenly the road shifts and at Gate City, through a narrow rocky cañon you again pass on. The road here follows up a diminutive mountain stream, crossing and re-crossing its bed every few yards, and by a very sinuous course slowly makes its way forward between abrupt masses of red and purple rock, that everywhere seemed to block its progress. Farther on, the hills open out, and wild currant and gooseberry-bushes appear, with pines and firs here and there—many charred by former fires. The road gets wilder the farther you proceed, and the mountain views become more and more superb. You catch glimpses of the great Snowy Range from time to time; but after awhile you cross the first range, and then you have the great white-capped Sierra almost always before you. Three peaks there are especially superb—Old Chief, Squaw and Papoose—their white and glittering summits flashing gloriously in the sunshine. Sometimes we got long views of the Snowy Range, for miles on miles; and then again, deep down in some wild gorge, its rocky sides would suddenly expand, and there would stand these three grand peaks projected against the clear sky, framed in like a picture. A right "kingly spirit throned among the hills," Old Chief seemed to be keeping watch and ward over these Rocky Mountain fastnesses in solemn and solitary grandeur; but the Yankee and the miner had been too much for him.

      We dined en route, getting a good meal for seventy-five cents, and reached the Conner House at Central City, about 6 p. m., forty miles from Denver. What a strange place was this, and how surprising it all seemed! A busy, active, bustling town, with all the appliances of eastern civilization, in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains—our ultima thule but a few years ago! Or, rather, four towns—Black Hawk, Gregory Gulch, Mountain City, and Central City—all now grown into one. It never was any place for a town; but there had to be one there, and so American genius and pluck went to work and created it. Imagine a narrow, winding mountain-gorge, with Clear Creek flashing through it, with scarcely standing-room on either side for an antelope even, and you have about all Nature has done for a town-site there. Yet our miners had stuck mills, and stores, and saloons, and dwelling-houses, and churches here, almost everywhere, СКАЧАТЬ