DENVER AND THE MINES.
We reached Denver Sept. 5th, and remained there several days.
Approaching by the South Platte, you catch sight of the town a mile
or two away, when crossing a "divide," and are surprised at its
size and importance. Ten years before, there was not an inhabitant
there; but now she claimed seven thousand or more, and boasted with
reason, of two hundred and fifty houses erected that year. Moreover,
the new buildings were chiefly of brick or stone, while the old ones
were log or frame. At the junction of the South Platte and Cherry
Creek her streets are well-laid out, mostly at right-angles, and for
suburbs she has the boundless Plains. Apparently on a plateau, she
is nevertheless really a mountain city; for at St. Louis you are
only three hundred feet above the sea, at Omaha nine hundred feet,
while at Denver you have got up imperceptibly to four thousand feet
above the sea, or higher than our average Alleghanies. Her climate is
pure and dry, without rain or frost for many months in the year--the
paradise of consumptives--and for scenery, she has the ever-glorious
Rocky Mountains. Already she had six churches, two seminaries, two
daily papers, a banking-house with a business of twelve millions a
year, a U. S. Mint, a theatre, and hotels and saloons unnumbered,
though these last it was thought were diminishing. Until recently,
gambling-hells had also flourished openly on her streets, with
their usual concomitants of drunkenness and affrays. But some months
before, a Judge Gale--backed by a strong public opinion--had taken
hold of the gamblers, and squelched them effectually. Like other
"peculiar institutions," they died hard, raising large sums of money
to prolong their evil life--threatening some men and bribing, or
trying to bribe, others; but Judge Lynch came to the support of
Judge Gale, with 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,
in the most delightful and picturesque confusion. Some were astride
of Clear Creek, as if wading up stream. Others were propped up on
its edges, as if about to topple in. Others again were mounted on
lofty stilts, all along the mountain side, as if just ready to start
and walk away. About and through them all, following the general
course of Clear Creek, wound one long and narrow street--too narrow
for side-walks--and here in this bizarre place, walled in on all
sides by the Rocky Mountains, lived and flourished six thousand
souls, all apparently busy and well-to-do--with banks, schools,
churches, newspapers, telegraphs, theatres, and pretty much all the
institutions and destitutions of modern society. There only remained
one need, a railroad, and that was already in contemplation, down
Clear Creek to Golden City, and so away to Denver. This would bring
the ores and coal together at Golden City, for fuel was becoming
scarce among the mines; would save much of the cost of travel and
transportation by the wild mountain roads; and be a great blessing to
the mining regions every way.[5] After tea, we strolled through the
town for a mile or more, and found the streets full to overflowing.
The theatres were crowded, and the drinking and gambling-saloons
in full blast; yet the streets were comparatively orderly. The
population seemed of a better class than one would suppose, all
things considered. There were scarcely any women, it is true, and
what there were had better been elsewhere, as a rule; but the men
carried keen, clear-cut, energetic faces, that well explained the
enterprise and _elan_ of this audacious town. Of foreigners, there
were far fewer than one ordinarily meets east, and the Americans as
a rule were athletic and live men--fit to be the pioneers of empire.
The inevitable African, of course, cropped out here and there; but
usually he had risen from the dignity of a barber or a bootblack, to
be a merchant or a miner. Everybody talked of "feet," and "claims,"
and "dust;" and bets were made, and drinks paid for, in "ounces" and
parts of an ounce, as determined by the universal scales and weights.
Greenbacks were still taken, but they were regarded as a depreciated
currency, unworthy of the Mines and Mountains.
Indications of mining operations appeared first at Denver, where
gold was first discovered at the junction of the South Platte and
Cherry Creek. But the "diggings," or placer mines, here were soon
worked out, and then the miners naturally ascended Cherry Creek to
Clear Creek, and so into the heart of the mountains. All along
North Clear Creek, you see where the stream has been turned aside,
and its bed "panned" over, and as we approached Black Hawk we found
a few miners still humbly at work this way. But placer-mining in
Colorado had mostly been abandoned as no longer profitable, and now
the chief labor and capital were applied to the quartz mines--the
parents of the "diggings." These seemed to occur, more or less, all
through the Rocky Mountains, wherever quartz cropped out; but the
richest of them thus far had been found in the narrow defile about
Central City. The sides of the ranges there had been "prospected"
all over, until they seemed honey-combed or like pepper-boxes, so
ragged and torn were they with the process. Here and there they
were divided up into infinitesimal lots, rudely enclosed, embracing
a few hundred feet or so, denoting mining "claims." Many of these
had shafts sunk some distance, with a board up, proclaiming name
of mine and the ownership thereof, but others were without these.
The favorite mine in Colorado just then seemed to be the Gregory
Consolidated, near Central City. We went down into this some three
hundred feet, exploring its various galleries, and it seemed to be
all that was represented. The gold here was so much diffused through
the quartz as to be imperceptible to the eye, and was further mingled
badly with silver, copper, and sulphur. The company had erected no
mill as yet, but were contenting themselves with developing the
lode, and getting out "pay-ore." Their plan was to sink the main
shaft straight down on the lode, and every twenty feet or so follow
up the indications by lateral galleries, to see whether the vein
held out or not. So far it was doing well, and the ore continued
of an excellent quality. But it was so difficult to reduce, there
was no mill in Colorado that could save a fair proportion of the
gold; so that what ore they cared to work was shipped east, or to
Swansea, Wales, even, for reduction. The superintendent of the mine
was a sturdy young Englishman, once a humble miner with his pick and
candle, but afterwards sub-superintendent of a great silver mine in
Mexico, and now for two or three years here--a man of rare energy
and intelligence. No wonder the stock of the Gregory Consolidated
was steadily rising, with such a policy and such a superintendent.
Too many of the companies organized in the east were pursuing just
the contrary course. They were putting up mills at once at great
expense, with steam engines and stamps complete, and then when
they came to sink down upon their veins, lo! they had no "pay-ore"
there, or at least none worth working. A signal instance of this had
occurred a year or two before. A New York Wall street Company had
been organized, on a broad basis, and with great expectations. With
a West Point ex-army officer superintendent and plenty of capital,
their stock soon went soaring up like a rocket; but presently it came
down again like a stick--_a la_ their superintendent during the war.
He erected a splendid mill of dressed stone at a cost of thousands
of dollars, and went in wildly for all the latest and most improved
machinery; but when afterwards he came to test their lode thoroughly,
alas! he discovered they had only a poor sickly trace of ore, that
soon "petered out," and so that fine company of gold and silver
miners incontinently collapsed--or, as Mr. Mantilini would have said,
"went to the demnition bow-wows!" Machinery that cost the company
thirty-three thousand dollars in New York, was afterwards sold by the
Colorado sheriff for thirteen hundred dollars, to pay freight bills;
and other property in proportion. Other instances were reported
to us, but none quite so bad as this. But from the large number of
mills and mines standing idle--fully fifty per cent., it seemed--we
could well believe that mining machinery could be bought cheaper in
Colorado than New York, and that steam-engines and boilers were a
drug. A foundry-man beyond Golden City, we were told, found it more
profitable to buy up old machinery and recast it, than to work a rich
iron mine, though the former was scattered through the mountains and
the latter was just at his door.
The trouble with the Colorado ores was, they were refractory
sulphurets, which we had not yet learned how to reduce at a profit.
They assayed very readily two hundred and even three hundred
dollars per ton, or more; but when you came to mill them out in
large quantities, you were lucky if you got twenty-five or thirty
dollars per ton. The problem Colorado then wanted solved was how to
desulphurize these rich ores of hers at a profit. Various "processes"
were continually being tried at great expense, but none of them
seemed yet to be the "success" she desired. Stamp-mills, with
copper-plate and quicksilver amalgamators, seemed to be the process
in use generally, though not saving over twenty-five per cent. of the
precious metals usually. Many companies were using these and saving
their "talings," or refuse, with the expectation of yet realizing
goodly sums from working the "talings" over by some new process
by-and-bye. A "process" just introduced was saving from twenty-five
to fifty per cent. more from these "talings:" but it was too costly
for general use, or, perhaps, to pay. Individual mine-owners and
the lighter companies seemed mostly to have suspended, or like Mr.
Micawber to be waiting for "something to turn up"--for the strong
companies to go on and find the much coveted "new process," when
they would resume operations. Another trouble evidently was the
great number of companies organized to sell stock east, rather than
to mine successfully. Companies, with a property worth a hundred
thousand dollars, had frequently issued stock for a million, and
of course could not expect to make regular dividends on such an
overplus. On a basis of a hundred thousand dollars, or real value,
with an experienced honest superintendent, they might have got along
well, if content to creep at first and walk afterwards. But as a rule
they had preferred to "water" their stock, after the most approved
Sangrado method; and the result, after a year or two's operations,
was disappointed stockholders and the old, old cry of "bogus" and
"wild-cat." Many of the companies, too, were heavily in debt, and
what was called in Colorado parlance "freezing out" was taking place
largely. That is to say, a company gives a mortgage for say twenty
thousand dollars on property worth perhaps a hundred thousand, or at
least represented by that amount of stock. When due it is not met,
the treasury being empty, and the stockholders discouraged from want
of dividends, or by "bear" reports about the mine; whereupon the
mortgage is foreclosed, and the "bear" directors buy the property in
for a song, thus "freezing out" the feebler and more timid brethren.
This operation may lack the essential feature of old-fashioned
honesty, but is no doubt a paying one--pecuniarily--for the new
owners, who can now well afford to go bravely on. "Others may sink;
but what's the odds, so we apples swim!"
No doubt Colorado is rich, immensely rich, in mineral
resources--gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, etc.,--but she was
scarcely making much decided headway as a mining community, so far
as could be seen, in 1866. Considerable of her population, indeed,
had gone off to Montana and Idaho, to the reputed rich gold-fields
there, and many of the rest were waiting patiently for the Pacific
Railroad and a market. Great results were anticipated from the
oncoming of the railroad, and it is to be hoped she has realized
them. Her yield of the precious metals in 1862, it was estimated by
good authority, amounted to ten millions of dollars; but in 1863 it
fell to eight millions, in 1864 to five millions, and in 1865 to four
millions. Ross Browne, in 1866, in his report of _Mineral Resources
of the United States_, with characteristic exaggeration, estimated
her yield for that year at seventeen millions; but more accurate
observers regarded this as a California joke, and pronounced his
estimate at least four or five times too high. The large yield in
1862 represented the maximum from gulch or placer mining, and the
soft outcroppings of the quartz veins. But in 1866 placer mining,
as I have said, had mostly ceased, and our quartz-miners had to go
down so deep, and then got only the hardest and most refractory
sulphurets, that the business greatly languished. Yet, it was plain
to be seen, the gold and the silver were all there, in inexhaustible
quantities, practically speaking; or as Mr. Lincoln once remarked,
in speaking of our western mines, "We there hold the Treasury of
the world!" All Colorado wanted, as elsewhere said, was the right
"process" to subdue these rebellious sulphurets and compel them
to release their imprisoned deities. Science surely holds the key
somewhere, and waits only the coming man to hand it over to him.
Millions of our countrymen are watching and praying for him. A half
a continent calls for him. And when this coming man does come, who
shall estimate the untold treasures he will here unlock and outpour
upon the world! He will but have to strike the naked rocks, and
abundant streams of wealth will gush forth. He will but have to
touch the rugged mountain sides, and gold and silver by the million
will obey his bidding--enough not only to pay our own National Debt,
but the National Debts of the world. Let Colorado, then, be of good
courage. The Pacific Railroad will cheapen supplies, and swell the
volume of her immigration. The Yankee hand and brain are busily at
work, conning over her knotty problem; and we may be sure, that the
right hour will bring the necessary man.
From Central City we crossed the range at an altitude of nine
thousand feet above the sea, and thence descended to Idaho, on South
Clear Creek. A fine hotel here, in good view of the Snowy range,
boasted itself the best in Colorado, and we found none better. Here
also were several fine mineral springs, that bubble up quite near to
each other, and yet are all of different temperatures. A bath-house
had been erected, where you might take a plunge in hot or cold
water, as you chose; the walks were romantic, with a possibility of
deer or bear; the sights, what with ravine, and ridge, and peak,
were magnificent; and Idaho, already something of a summer resort,
expected yet to become the Saratoga of Colorado. Up South Clear
Creek, above Idaho, were the new mining districts of Georgetown and
Mill City, then but recently discovered and reputed quite rich; but
we had not time to visit them. Down South Clear Creek, and thence
to Denver, is a wild and surprising ride of forty-five miles, that
well repays you. Much of the way Clear Creek roars and tumbles by
the roadside, with the rocky walls of its cañon towering far above
you; and when at length you cross the last range and prepare to
descend, you catch a distant view of Denver and the Plains, that has
few if any equals in all that region. The sun was fast declining,
as we rounded the last crag or shoulder of the range, and the
Plains--outstretched, illimitable, everlasting--were all before us,
flooded with light as far as the eye could reach, while the mountains
already in shade were everywhere projecting their lengthening
shadows across the foot-hills, like grim phantoms of the night. A
cloudless sky overarched the whole. Denver gleamed and sparkled in
the midst twenty miles away, the brightest jewel of the Plains; and
beyond, the Platte flashed onward to the east a thread of silver. It
was a superb and glorious scene, and for an hour afterward, as we
descended the range, we caught here and there exquisite views of it,
through the opening pine and fir trees, that transferred to canvas
would surely have made the fortune of any painter. With our Pacific
Railroad completed, our artists must take time to study up the Rocky
Mountains, with all their fine effects of light and shade--of wide
extent and far perspective, of clear atmosphere, blue sky, and purple
haze--and then their landscapes may well delight and charm the world.
Mining is, of course, the chief business of all that region, from
the Missouri to the Mountains, and the habits and customs of the
miner prevail everywhere. He digs and tunnels pretty much as he
wills--under roads, beneath houses, below towns--and all things,
more or less, are made subservient to his will. His free-and-easy
ways mark social and political life, and his slang--half Mexican,
half miner--is everywhere the language of the masses. A "square"
meal is his usual phrase for a full or first-rate one. A "shebang"
means any structure, from a hotel to a shanty. An "outfit" is a
very general term, meaning anything you may happen to have, from
a stamp-mill complete to a tooth-pick--a suit of clothes or a
revolver--a twelve-ox team or a velocipede. A "divide" means a ridge
or water-shed between two valleys or depressions. A "cañon" is
Mexican or Spanish for a deep defile or gorge in the mountains. A
"ranch," ditto, means a farm, or a sort of half-tavern and half-farm,
as the country needs there. To "vamose the ranch" means to clear out,
to depart, to cut stick, to absquatulate. A "corral," ditto, means an
enclosed horse or cattle-yard. To "corral" a man or stock, therefore,
means to corner him or it. To go down to "bed-rock," means the very
bottom of things. "Panned-out" means exhausted, used-up, bankrupt.
"Pay-streak" means a vein of gold or silver quartz, that it will
_pay_ to work. When it ceases to pay, it is said to "peter out." Said
a miner one day at dinner, at a hotel in Central City, to a traveller
from the east, "I say, stranger," pointing to a piece of meat by his
side, "is there a _pay-streak_ in that beef thar?" He wanted to know
if there was a piece of it worth eating or not. The short phrase
"You bet!" is pure Californice, and has followed our miners thence
eastward across the continent. We struck it first on the Missouri,
and thence found it used everywhere and among all classes, to express
by different intonations a great variety of meanings. For example,
meeting a man you remark:
"It is a fine day, my friend!"
He answers promptly and decidedly, "You _bet!_"
You continue, "It is a great country you have out here!"
He responds, "You BET _ye!_" sharp and quick.
"A good many mills standing idle, though!"
"Wa'll, yes, too many of them! You bet!" with a knowing shake of the
head.
"Miners making much now-a-days?"
"Oh, yes! Some of us, a heap! _You_ bet!" rather timid.
"Going back to the states one of these days?"
"When I make my pile! _You_ BET!" firm and decided.
"Get married then, I suppose?"
"Won't I? Just that! _You_ BET _ye_!" with his hat up, his eyes wide
open, and his face all aglow with honest pride and warm memory of
"The girl I left behind me!"
In Central City they told us a story of a miner, who was awakened one
night by a noise at his window, and found it to be a burglar trying
to get in. Slipping quietly out of bed, he waited patiently by the
window until the sash was well up, and the burglar tolerably in, when
he placed his revolver against the fellow's head, and sententiously
remarked, "Now you _git_!" The story ran, the burglar looking quietly
up surveyed the situation, with the cold steel against his brow, and
as sententiously replied, as he backed out and dropped to the ground,
"_You_ BET!"
FOOTNOTES:
[4] See Appendix.
[5] This road since built and now in operation.