Tales of the Colorado Pioneers. Alice Polk Hill
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the country had been explored as early as 1540 by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico to glean information respecting the northern possessions claimed
A RETROSPECT. 21
by that sovereign. Tradition tells us that he went in search of the seven cities of Cibolla, that were supposed to be situated in a peaceful, luxurious sort of “Happy Valley of Rassalas,” enclosed by huge mountains of solid gold. History, however, gives no record of his having discovered the key to the suspected treasure vaults.
The name Colorado has been by some mistakenly sup¬ posed to be a corruption of Coronado; but, on the con¬ trary, it is a common Spanish word, from the verb colorar, to color, usually to color red, and means colored red, ruddy. It is a name frequently applied to rivers, mountains and localities in Spanish America, where the prevalence of red rocks and soil constitutes a characteristic physical feature of many portions of the country.
This portion of our continent was a sealed book for nearly three centuries after Coronado; and was generally designated the Great American Desert. In 1803 the United States purchased from France the immense territory known as Louisiana, the price being fifteen millions of dollars—one of the largest real estate transactions on record.
In 1806, Captain Zebulon Pike was sent with a party of Government explorers to ascertain the resources of this new acquisition. They camped where Pueblo now stands. On the day of their arrival the Captain and a few of his company started out with the idea of scaling the Big Mountain, as they called it, and returning the same evening. When night closed around them they found themselves at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, and the next day toiled to the top of it. On reaching the summit, the Big Mountain appeared to be as far away as when they first began. The enterprise resulted in igno-
22 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
minious defeat. They returned to their camp almost famished, and with their feet frozen; thereby, possibly, adding to the vernacular of the West the term “ tender¬ foot.”
Their mistake in the distance, caused by the rarified atmosphere, probably originated the story of the two men who started to walk to the mountains from Denver before breakfast. After tramping what seemed to them an unconscionable distance, one suggested to the other to proceed slowly, while he returned to Denver for a carriage. When overtaken by the friend, in the carriage, the pedes¬ trian was sitting on the bank of a clear running brook, scarcely more than a step in breadth, deliberately taking off his clothes. On being asked why he did not step across, he replied: “I’ve got the dead-wood on this thing now; you don’t catch me making a fool of myself by trying to straddle this stream. It looks but a step, but it may be a mile for all I know; so I shall just take off my clothes and prepare for swimming.”
Every one who has ever heard of Colorado or set foot in it tells that story.
But to return to Pike. He did not take to himself the credit of being the first explorer of Western Louisiana, but accords the honor to one James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky. Pursley, with amazing generosity, credits it to Pike. The politeness of these gentlemen is without a parallel in history. Had they known the importance the country was destined to assume, half a century later, it would, no doubt, have taken coffee and pistols to decide the question of precedence.
Pike subsequently indulged quite heavily in a kind of appropriation peculiar to the West, called “land-grab¬ bing.” He crossed the Sangre de Cristo Range into the
A RETROSPECT. 23
San Luis Valley, and built a fort on the Rio Grande del Norte, claiming the land in the name of the United States, for which he was taken prisoner by the Spanish soldiers,
but afterwards released. It is
the Indians with howitzers
strapped on the backs of don-
keys. When the fire was
touched to them and the pow-
der began to fizz, the donkeys
whirled ’round and ’round
like a mammoth Japanese
pin wheel, while the men hugged
mother earth so closely as to
leave a deep imprint of their
forms, which can be seen to
this day, by the aid of a dou¬
ble, back-action microscope of
extraordinary power. This
is supposed to be true, be¬
cause you can generally tell where one has been lying.
And then the ebbing wave of time threw a mist over the country for fourteen years more. In 1820, Col. Long was sent out to explore. He discovered Long’s Peak, which was named for him. At least this is the historical supposition, but a Colorado barnacle tells me that this peak is so called “ because it takes long to climb it.”
The curtain went down, and was rung up again in 1843, when General John C. Fremont passed through on his way to the Pacific. Soon after the great migration to California commenced, and Colorado became the gateway to the land of gold, her own treasure still sleeping, to startle the continent when its morning should come.
24 TALES OF THE COLORADO PIONEERS.
In 1858, gold was discovered near the present site of Denver, and with the discovery began the first chapter in the history of Colorado.
__________
CHAPTER III.
DENVER IN ’59.
From records and statistics of the past twenty-five years, and conversations with the pioneers, I gathered the fol¬ lowing stories :
In 1859, immigration rolled into the country with al¬ most unexampled rapidity. Stretching far out over the plains, was an apparently interminable procession of white- topped wagons, moving, it seemed, at a snail’s pace, many bearing the inscription, “Lightning Express,” “Pike’s Peak or Bust,” “Root Hog or Die,” “From Pike County to Pike’s Peak,” etc. Strange vehicles of all sorts crawled on the trail to the golden shrine. One pushed a wheelbarrow laden with supplies, and, it is said, took a boarder to help defray expenses. Another packed an ox with tools and provisions, and when weary and foot-sore from walking, swung himself to the creature’s tail as an aid to locomotion. Many made the journey in pairs, with handcarts, alternately pushing and riding.
Denver seemed a second Babel. The arrival of teams, the loud cracking of whips, shouting of voices, and the sound of the builder’s hammer, made “confusion worse confounded ” of tongues and matter. Dwellings and bus¬ iness blocks—shanties—rose with marvelous rapidity.
DENVER IN ’ 59. 25
The prevailing style has been graphically pictured by the pioneer poet, Greenleaf:
“Inspect we this, built ‘fifty-eight,’ by one of bluest blood;
The logs are all square-hewn, and chinked and plastered o’er with mud;
The roof of poles, o’erspread with brush and what you’d call dirt-shingles;
Its chimney square—stones, sticks and mud artistically mingles.
The earth had been well hardened down to constitute a floor;
They hadn’t got to windows yet—’twas lighted from the door.
’Twas furnished in Auraria style, and that the very best,
Comprising four three-legged stools, a table and a chest;
The