margin of this great area long before the first settlements were made on
Massachusetts Bay. Coronado pushed as far northeast as Kansas in 1541. The
towns which the Spanish established, many of them three centuries and more
ago, led to the brief romance of the old Santa Fé trail, and still give a
peculiar flavor to the story of the southern border. But save for a few
small towns whose lack of root in the soil is evidenced by the ruins of
their churches--churches so far forgotten that our own historians have
called them remains of prehistoric times--the Spanish invasion was an
invasion always, not a settlement, not an appropriation of even the margin
of the vast area we are considering.
[Illustration DENVER, COLORADO.]
Lewis and Clark went northwest to the Columbia in 1803; Pike went up the
Arkansas in 1806; and that young man's simple tale of the things he dared
and the sights he saw in his march from the Mississippi to the lone fort he
built on the banks of the Conejos in the San Luis Valley is charming and
adventurous. He was the American pioneer of the future Colorado. Wandering
trappers and hunters had preceded him; but none told what they had seen.
Long, with his expedition, in July, 1820, crossed the spot where Denver
now stands. Long was an explorer, not a pioneer. Pioneers are prophets, and
see the fences and barns that are to come. To Long all west of the
Missouri,
"agreeably to the best intelligence that can be had ... is
throughout uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture
for their subsistence.... This region, however," he says,
"viewed as a frontier, may prove of infinite importance to the
United States, inasmuch as it is calculated to serve as a barrier
to prevent too great an extension of our population westward, and
secure us against the machinations or incursions of an enemy, that
might otherwise be disposed to annoy us in that quarter."
This opinion, widely circulated, perhaps helped to defer the day of actual
occupation of that Great American Desert which, after Long's report, took
possession, on our maps, of nearly all the country whose history is
Denver's prehistoric days.
[Illustration "SMOKY" JONES.]
Then came Sublette and his like, and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the
Santa Fé trail, trappers, Indians; and these also, beginning about 1822,
would furnish material for romance, were the simple story thereof not
romance enough.
Bonneville in 1832 vanished from sight in the Northwest for three years;
and many others, among them Irving, Bonneville's historian, sought profit,
adventure, or knowledge in the new land. In '42, Frémont, the Pathfinder,
on his first expedition pushed out nearly to the site of Denver. And
Frémont's travels, the romantic note in them heightened by the presence of
Kit Carson, prince of pioneers,--what color they add to our chronicles of
exploration! Five times he set forth. Once he camped on the site of Denver,
with 160 lodges of Arapahoe Indians near by. Once he nearly perished with
all his party in the Sangre de Cristo range.
Kearney's military expedition to Santa Fé at the time of the Mexican War;
Gunnison's exploration for a railroad route to the Pacific, in 1853;
Marcy's incredible midwinter march from Fort Bridger, across the very
backbone of the continent, south to New Mexico; all these were great deeds,
and all served to add to that knowledge of the still wild West which
brought about its final conquest.
[Illustration THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER, THE PROPER CREST FOR THE COAT-OF-ARMS
OF THE WEST.]
To speak feelingly of the Mormon exodus, of that venture into the western
wilderness of a few men of our own blood and faith, is to be misunderstood.
Some day that flight of a few brave exiles for conscience sake, from
their brother men to the heart of a continent, where a relentless nature
seemed, with her isolation and her desolation, doubly equipped for
cruelty--some day that flight, worthily and justly told, will find a place
in history.[15]
The gold seekers of California, who crossed by thousands the land the
outline of whose human history we are trying to sketch, these have,
perhaps, received their due.
Such, then, in broadest outline, is the background of Denver's history. It
is almost depressing to consider how little the outline holds of that
recognition element which makes "historic" for us a country, a scene, a
person, an event. Here is a wide and wonderful country; here have been done
great deeds by brave and true men. Coronado, Escalante, Pike, Lewis and
Clark, among explorers; Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, the Bents, Jim Baker,
among scouts, trappers, and traders; the names could be multiplied many
times. Their deeds are fit to provoke emulation or national pride. But
mention of either names or deeds stirs the emotions only of the few. This
is inevitable. They are not yet part of universal knowledge. They are not
yet types of men or actions, as are Ulysses, Agamemnon, Hampden, and the
voyage of the _Mayflower_. Things are not "historic" until later
generations have made them so. Perhaps the dominance of Old World types in
literature and art, together with the swift rush of affairs of the passing
day, will crowd much of the story of America's development out from the
domain of history as known to men at large. If so, the story of the taking
by our forebears and our brothers of the great West beyond the Mississippi
will always remain as little "historic," as barren in its emotional
content, as it is to-day. This were a pity, tho' perhaps best. But even
then it would seem proper to suggest, in the bare outline I have drawn, the
historic possibilities which lie back of, lead up to, explain, the Denver
of to-day.
[Illustration FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE IN DENVER.]
It is 1857; the country has become vaguely known, many have crossed it; the
Mormons have taken possession of the Salt Lake basin; from the mountains
across the plains there float back rumors of gold; and the region which has
been simply a desert to be crossed begins to be a region to be explored,
perhaps to be settled. Who first found gold it is idle to inquire. A party
of Cherokees from the gold regions of Georgia were perhaps the first to get
traces on the Platte. Certain men of Lawrence, Kansas, prophets perhaps,
boomers probably, certainly addicted to the town-site habit, and abounding
in hope, went up the Arkansas in 1858; tried to start a town on Monument
Creek under the shadow of Pike's Peak; wearied soon of waiting for a
population which did not come, and crossed the divide north to the Platte;
staked out a town, Montana, on that stream a few miles above the site of
Denver, and disbanded. Of this party a few moved down the Platte to the
mouth of Cherry Creek, and there in the bottom, among the cotton-woods,
just where the old military road crossed the creek, laid out the town of
St. Charles. Another party, from Iowa, in the same year, settled across the
creek on its west side and soon laid out a town and called it Auraria. Then
came another party over the divide from the Arkansas, found the St. Charles
town-site promoters were absent, saw the city that was to be, jumped the
site, and organized a company to build a town thereon to be called Denver
in honor of the then Governor of Kansas. And so, in the winter of 1858-59
Denver found itself, on what proved to be "Section 33 and the west half of
section 34, in township 3 south of range 68 west of the 6th principal
meridian." How fatal to the romantic element in the beginnings of the
Western city are the transit and the chain! What can there be of mystery or
poetry in "Sec. 33 and W. 1/2 of Sec. 34, Tp. 3 S. of R. 68 W. 6th P.M."?
Denver was a rival of Auraria. Her supremacy was settled early in 1859 by
thirty wagons which came up the Platte and unloaded their merchandise on
the Denver side of Cherry Creek. In the spring of 1859 a large company,
perhaps 1000, were already camped in and about the new towns. The Pike's
Peak excitement became intense. A new gold fever was on. Mr. William N.
Byers reached Denver April 21, 1859, with a printing outfit and issued the
first number of the first paper printed in Colorado, April 23d. On his way
across he met the returning tide. Report says 150,000 started that spring
across the plains; 50,000 turned back; 100,000 went on to the mountains;
not over 40,000 of them stayed. The early months of 1859 were troublous
times. Foolish, reckless gold seekers, led West on half-knowledge, tried to
lay the blame for their own folly on the shoulders of others. Gold in
paying quantities was as yet far from common. Horace Greeley crossed the
plains in July, looked over the ground with care, reported favorably on the
country in the _Tribune_, and, in good local phrase, "gave Denver the best
advertisement she ever had."
The city, now under way, attained little importance until after 1870. Rival
trade centres attracted attention. Mining camps scattered through the
mountains drew most of the population. After the Leadville excitement in
1878 and 1879, it rose in 1880 to 35,000, by fairly steady growth to
106,000 in 1890, was checked by the panic and hard times about 1893, and
yet rose to 133,000 in 1900.
[Illustration FACSIMILE LETTER FROM WM. N. BYERS, THE FOUNDER OF THE "ROCKY
MOUNTAIN NEWS."]
Once established as the leading distributing point of the mining regions of
the New West the city's growth was assured, and followed in the main the
lines of many other Western cities. Peculiar to itself were a few incidents
due to its position, to ignorance of the climate, its isolation and the
difficulty of extending Eastern railways to so remote a point. Early in
1863 a great fire destroyed much of the business portion of the city. The
summer following, the plains were burned by a terrible drought. The
barrenness of the wide stretches about the city was intensified. To this
day the sun-burnt plains of midsummer sweep up to Denver's very door-yards,
mock at the blue sky above them, and speak unutterable things of hunger,
thirst, and death. In the early 60's it was easy to imagine that they
spoke in earnest. Then came a winter, cold beyond all experience. Many
suffered. Cattle died. The pride some had felt over the balminess of
previous winters was forgotten. With early spring, Cherry Creek, the
miserable, despised bed of sand which crept through the town, scorned as a
possible stream and used for building sites over all its wide bottom, rose
in fury, rolled down from the divide, swept away the cheap bridges that
simply served to aggravate the flood, killed twenty persons, and destroyed
nearly a million dollars' worth of property. Nor was this the end of
troubles. For in 1864 the Indians planned a general massacre, killed a few
people near Denver, destroyed stage stations, cut off communication with
the East, and left Denver unspeakably alarmed and with only six weeks'
supply of food.
[Illustration PROSPECTING PARTY, RICO, COLORADO, 1880.]
In these first years gold seemed the one excuse for the white man's
presence in Colorado. Several million dollars were taken out from easily
worked placer mines before 1863. The supply then seemed exhausted. All
efforts to get the gold from veins were ineffectual. Millions were spent by
the overzealous in machinery and mills not adapted to the country's needs.
But over this, as over all other obstacles, the triumph was sure; and by
1871 new and proper processes of mining and ore reducing had been
successfully adopted.
The fertility of Colorado soil under irrigation was not realized fully for
nearly a decade after the founding of Denver. But before 1870 the
agricultural possibilities were demonstrated; the cattle industry continued
to thrive; and the region north of Denver lying under the several streams
which issue from the mountains within sight of the city began to grow into
the garden spot it now is, and to lend stability to Denver's factors of
growth.
The Union Pacific reached the city via Cheyenne in June, 1870, and the
Kansas Pacific soon after. Of that wonderful railway to whose growth Denver
owes so much, the Denver & Rio Grande, the first rails were laid in 1871.
What is now Colorado was variously known in early days of its settlement as
"Pike's Peak," "Arapahoe County," "Jefferson Territory." The story of the
settlement of its governmental difficulties; its miners' and its people's
courts; its independent government; the dramatic career of that prophet of
the great divide, William Gilpin, first Governor of Colorado, in his
headstrong yet wise handling of difficult problems in the opening days of
the Civil War,--all this is full of interest, of excitement, of adventure,
is instructive to the student of institutions, and full of confirmation for
those who have faith in the civic genius of the American people.
[Illustration RICO, COLORADO, IN 1880. A TYPICAL MINING CAMP.]
The city of Denver lies fifteen miles east of the mountains on the Platte.
Its elevation is 5280 feet above sea level. It is the meeting point of nine
railroads. It has 165 miles of street railways. It is well paved and its
health is well cared for. In parks, churches, journals, schools, hospitals,
banks, and kindred institutions it is well supplied. Its manufactured
products, including smelter output, amount to over $50,000,000 a year.
[Illustration WILLIAM GILPIN.]
What one may call the natural history of Denver's people is interesting
and, perhaps, explanatory of some things in its history. To it have come in
good measure the vigorous and energetic. They have brought with them the
ideas and customs of all parts of the United States. In the first two
decades, the formative period, about half of all comers were from the upper
Mississippi Valley, largely of New England descent; and one fourth each
from the extreme East and the South. Among these were many invalids. All
were young; and old men are still rare in Denver. Put these elements
together in a climate of sunshine and dry tonic air; separate them by six
hundred miles from all that is old and conventional; give them wide
opportunity of choice inoccupation,--agriculture, stock raising, mining of
precious metals, iron, coal, and stone, and the building of a city and a
State; let their city be--much as Paris is France--politically, socially,
and financially, the entire State, containing, as it does, nearly one third
of all the latter's population;--and you may look for, and you will find,
courage, swiftness of execution, easy adjustment of conflicting ideas and
habits, tolerance on all matters save those affecting general local
interests, where a certain natural State patriotism blooms into a fine
bigotry, quick adoption of all modern improvements in living, and a
readiness to try any promising social experiment. You would expect politics
to be continually threatened with reform; an occasional economic heresy to
get a passing boom; newspapers to be wide-awake, vituperative, and not
greatly influential. And you would expect to find Denver, as you do find
it, a brilliant, active, inspiring city, full of promise in itself and
possessed by a people who--being chiefly of American stock and wrought
upon by a climate which is the climate of the States intensified--in their
alertness and in their intensity perhaps speak of the American citizen as
this continent of ours will sometime mould him.
[Illustration THE CAPITOL, DENVER.]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[15] See chapter on Salt Lake City.
[Illustration]
SANTA FÉ
THE CITY OF THE HOLY FAITH
BY FREDERICK WEBB HODGE
There is probably no settlement within our domain over the history of which
so much mystery has hovered as the capital of New Mexico. Some historical
writers early claimed for the ancient city a reputation for antiquity
exceeding that of St. Augustine, Florida; others were content to give it
second place in point of age, and this position it really holds,
notwithstanding the strong but groundless belief, still somewhat prevalent,
that Santa Fé had a teeming aboriginal population when the Spaniards under
Coronado first made their appearance in New Mexico in 1540.
The actual founder of Santa Fé, so far as we can determine, was Juan de
Oñate, a wealthy resident of Zacatecas, who married Doña Isabel,
granddaughter of Hernan Cortés, and great-granddaughter of Montezuma, the
Aztec chief. In the autumn of 1595 Oñate was granted authority and
vice-regal support to raise an army and to explore and colonize New Mexico,
but the intrigues of his rivals caused many delays and it was not until
February, 1598, that, with a force of some four hundred colonists,
accompanied by eighty-three wagons and seven thousand cattle, he was ready
to proceed from the Rio Conchas in Chihuahua, bound for the Rio Grande del
Norte and New Mexico.
It is not essential to follow the little army in its northward journeying
up the river, across the terrible Jornada del Muerto,--where, as scores of
times later, the bones of some were left to whiten the trail. The new
country was formally taken possession of, for the fifth time at least, in
the name of the King of Spain, and on July 11, 1598, Oñate with his
vanguard reached the still inhabited Indian pueblo of San Juan, some
thirty miles northwest of the present Santa Fé.
[Illustration THE SO-CALLED "OLDEST HOUSE" IN SANTA FÉ.]
A month later work was begun with Indian aid on the construction of ditches
to supply water for a new settlement, the site for which had been selected
at the confluence of the Rio Chama with the Rio Grande, on the west bank of
the latter stream, where the hamlet of Chamita now stands. On August 23d
the erection of a chapel for this new town of San Francisco de los
Españoles was begun; it was finished September 7th, and on the following
day was consecrated.
This town, which was built on the site of the abandoned Tewa pueblo of
Yukewingge (or Yuqueyunque as Coronado's chroniclers called it in 1541),
was thus the first European settlement in New Mexico, and the second within
the limits of the United States. In 1599 the village became known as San
Gabriel, a name which it retained for several years.
The exact date of the founding of Santa Fé is not known, ignorance of the
fact probably being due to the destruction by the Indians of the local
Spanish archives in 1680. In October, 1604, Oñate started on a journey to
the head of the Gulf of California, returning to San Gabriel on April 25,
1605. The return route took the explorer past El Morro, or "Inscription
Rock," thirty-five miles east of Zuñi, where he carved his name on April
16th. It seems likely that the building of Santa Fé was begun shortly
afterward, although there is also good authority that San Gabriel remained
the only settlement of Europeans until 1608, in which year, it is said, the
Crown fixed the governmental regulations of the province and assigned a
salary of two thousand ducats a year to the Governor, who immediately
departed for Santa Fé. About this time Oñate was relieved by Governor Pedro
de Peralta.
The prospects of the new capital during its infancy were not promising.
Although the Franciscan missionaries manifested such zeal that by 1617
eleven churches had been established in New Mexico and fourteen thousand
natives are said to have been baptized, there were only forty-eight
soldiers and colonists in the entire province. On January 3, 1617, the King
was petitioned to grant succor to the settlement, and by royal decree of
May 20, 1620, his Majesty ordered the Viceroy to render the necessary aid,
with the result that by 1630 it was recorded by Fray Alonso de Benavides
that the town contained 250 Spaniards (some fifty of whom were armed), in
addition to seven hundred Indians, "so that, between Spaniards,
half-breeds, and Indians, there must be a thousand souls." The expense of
the garrison was not borne by the Crown, but by means derived from an
_encomienda_, or trusteeship over the Indians, who paid an annual tribute
of a vara of cotton cloth and a fanega of corn per family in return for
their teaching and "civilization."
As at San Gabriel, among the first structures reared in the new town was a
chapel. The first edifice of this character was an unpretentious affair, a
mere hut, which served its purpose until 1622, when Benavides, having
become Father Custodian of the province, commenced to build a new church
and monastery which, after its completion in 1627, "would shine in
whatsoever place." This is believed to have been the Parroquia, which stood
on the site of the present cathedral; indeed, some of the walls of the old
building are incorporated in the present structure. The chapel of San
Miguel, greatly modified in recent years, dates from the middle of the
seventeenth century; while the Capilla de los Soldados, which formerly
faced the plaza, opposite the Palace, with its grand altar tablet erected
by Governor Francisco Antonio Marin del Valle in 1761, probably dates from
about 1730.
[Illustration FORT MARCY AND THE PARROQUIA IN 1846.]
As already mentioned, there is no ground for the belief that Santa Fé was
established at a populous Indian pueblo,--the "capital" of all the village
dwellers of New Mexico,--the only excuse for such belief, still popular in
New Mexico, being that, in prehistoric times, the town was the site of at
least one Indian pueblo.
Of the history of Santa Fé between Benavides's time (1622-1630) and the
year 1680 not much is known. More than a dozen governors served the kingdom
of Spain in the administration of the affairs of the colony during this
period, and knowledge of the geography was somewhat increased by
expeditions from the seat of government into parts little known. The Pueblo
Indians, always friendly when well treated, cherished the religion of their
fathers, which the Spaniards tried in every way to supplant, so that
comparatively little progress was made in this rich missionary field aside
from the erection of massive churches of stone and adobe and the baptism of
many of the natives. Jealousy arose between the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, and so bitter became the feeling that the friars were accused
of inciting a rebellion of the Indians in 1642, which resulted in the
killing of Governor Luis Rosas. Henceforward the hatred of the natives for
the whites became deeper and deeper; many of the natives were hanged from
time to time for alleged religious offences, and in 1675 many others were
whipped and imprisoned. From this time affairs assumed such a serious
aspect that the sedentary tribes, under the leadership of Popé, a native of
San Juan pueblo, finally determined to throw off the Spanish yoke by
effecting an organization that is still noteworthy in Indian annals.
[Illustration SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION.]
Popé was a medicine-man of no mean capacity. His story of the wrongs of his
people fell on eager ears, and it was not long ere his plan to exterminate
the Spaniards received support from all the northerly Pueblo tribes. The
day of reckoning was to have been August 13th, while the mystic means of
communication was a knotted yucca cord which was dispatched by fleet
runners to the outlying tribes. Although all were enjoined to the
strictest secrecy, treachery lurked in the Indian ranks, and before the
time allotted for the outbreak the Spaniards became aware of its approach
through neophytes loyal to their cause. Popé saw that immediate action was
necessary to the fulfilment of his designs; news that the secret had been
divulged was heralded afar in true Indian fashion, and on August 10th,
three days before the time originally fixed, more than four hundred of the
twenty-five hundred settlers, soldiers, and friars were cruelly massacred.