THE PICTURESQUE REGION OF PIKE'S PEAK
"_And ever the spell of beauty came
And turned the drowsy world to flame._"
EMERSON
In the picturesque region of Pike's Peak there is grouped such an
array of scenic wonders as are unrivalled, within the limits of any
corresponding area, in the entire world. To this region Colorado
Springs is the gateway, and the poetic little city is already famous
as one of the world resorts whose charm is not exclusively restricted
to the summer. The winter is also alluring, for Colorado is the land
of perpetual sunshine. One turns off the steam heat and sits with open
windows in December. The air is electric, exhilarating. The cogwheel
road up Pike's Peak is stopped; but almost any of the other excursions
one can take as enjoyably as in summer. The East is, apparently, under
the delusion that the land is covered with snow up to the very summit
of Pike's Peak. On the contrary, the ground is bare and dry; the
birds are singing, the sun shines for all, and the everlasting hills
silhouette themselves against the blue sky in all their grandeur.
One easily slips into all the charm and fascination of Colorado days
through these resplendent winters, when there are two hours more of
light and sunshine in Colorado, on account of its altitude, than in any
state to the eastward. The climate of Colorado Springs has a perfection
that is remarked even in the Centennial State, where, in every part,
the climate is unsurpassed in sunshine and exhilaration. Especially,
however, is Colorado Springs a summer resort, as is Saratoga or Newport
or Bar Harbor. Its season is increasingly brilliant and crowded. People
come to stay a day and prolong it to a week, or come for a week and
prolong their stay to a month. The driving is fine, the motor cars are
abundant, the excursions are delightful, and the air is as curative and
exhilarating as is possible to conceive. The inner glories of the Rocky
Mountains, with their vast cañons and giant peaks; their waterfalls
dashing over precipices hundreds of feet in height; the fascinating
glens and mesas for camping excursions, or for scientific research and
study, are all reached by this gateway of Colorado Springs.
Pike's Peak, this stupendous continental monument, dominates the entire
region. The atmospheric effects around its summit offer a perpetual
panorama of kaleidoscopic changes of color and cloud-forms. Looking
out on the Peak from Colorado Springs, three miles from its base,
there are hours when it seems to be actually approaching with such
swift though stately measure that one involuntarily shrinks back from
the window in irrational alarm lest the grim monster shall bear down
upon it, with a force inevitable as Fate; disastrous as a colossal
iceberg wandering from Polar seas and sweeping down with irresistible
force against the side of a transatlantic liner. In a lightning flash
of instantaneous, unreasoning vision, one beholds in imagination the
impending destruction of a city. It becomes a thing endowed with
volition; a weird, uncanny monster, the abode of the gods who have
reared their monuments and established their pleasure-grounds in their
strange, fantastic garden at its foot.
Again, the Peak enfolds itself in clouds and, secure in this drapery,
retires altogether from sight, as if weary of being the object of
public view. It is as if the inmates of a house, feeling an invasion
of public interest, should turn off the lights, draw the curtains, and
close the shutters as a forcible intimation of their preference for
privacy and their decision to exclude the madding crowd. Sometimes
the Peak will flaunt itself in glorious apparel and gird itself
in strength. With light it will deck itself as with a garment. It
surprises a sunrise with the reflection of glory transfigured into
unspeakable resplendence. It is the royal monarch to which every
inhabitant of the Pike's Peak region, every sojourner in the land, must
pay his tribute. The day is fair or foul according as Pike's Peak shall
smile or frown. All the cycles of the eternal ages have left on its
summit their records,--the silent and hidden romance of the air. The
scientist alone may translate this aërial hieroglyphic.
"Omens and signs that fill the air
To him authentic witness bear."
This monumental peak of the continent shrouds in oblivion its mystic
past, and still the handwriting on the wall may be read by him who
holds the key to all this necromancy. The record of the ages is written
on parchment that will never crumble. The mysteries of the very
creation itself,--of all this vast and marvellous West,--of infinite
expanse of sea and of volcanic fires that swallowed up the waters and
crystallized them into granite and porphyry,--this very record of
Titanic processes is written, in mystic characters, in that far upper
air where the lofty Peak reigns in unapproachable majesty. For while
there are other peaks in the Rocky Mountains as high,--and Long's
Peak even exceeds it in altitude,--there is no other which rises so
distinctly alone and which so supremely dominates an infinite plateau
that extends, like the ocean, beyond the limit of vision.
[Illustration: SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK, COLORADO]
There is one glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, as
well as the glory of the sun, in this mountain region of Colorado
Springs. The sunsets over the mountains are marked by the most gorgeous
phenomena of color before whose intensity all the hues of a painter's
palette pale. The gates of the New Jerusalem seem to open. Great
masses of billowy clouds in deepest, burning gold hang in the air;
the rainbow hues of all the summers that have shone upon earth since
the first rainbow was set in the heavens, reflect themselves in a
thousand shimmering cloud-shapes. It is one of the definite things of
the tourist's day to watch from the western terrace of "The Antlers"
these unrivalled sunset effects; and when, later (still in compliance
with the unwritten laws that prevail in the Empire of Transcendent
Beauty), dinner is served at small tables on the terrace,--where the
flowers that form the centrepiece of each table, the gleam of exquisite
cut glass and silver, and the music from an orchestra hidden behind
the palms and tall roses that fling a thousand fragrances on the
enchanted air all blend as elements of the faëry scene whose background
is a panoramic picture of mountains and sky,--the visitor realizes an
atmosphere of enchantment that one might well cross a continent to gain.
Again, there is the glory of the night. A young moon glances shyly over
the mountain summit and swiftly retires to her mysterious realms on
the other side. Each ensuing night she ventures still further afield,
gazing still longer at the world she is visiting before she again wings
her flight down the western sky, pausing, for a tremulous moment,
on the very crest of the mountains ere she is lost to sight in the
vague distance beyond. The stars come and go in impressive troops and
processions. They float up from behind the mountains till one questions
as to whether the other side is not a vast realm of star-dust in
process of crystallizing into planets and stars. Has one, then, at
last arrived at the Land that is the forge of the gods who create it?
May one here surprise the very secrets of the Universe? Perhaps some
dim, mysterious under-world lies over that colossal range in which
celestial mechanism is at work sending forth and withdrawing the
shining planetary visitants, so continuous is the procession of stars
through all the hours of the night. Each star, as it rises over the
mountains or sets behind them, pauses for an instant on the crest for a
preliminary survey, or a parting glance, of the world it is entering or
leaving.
It is still in the realms of doubt as to whether there may be
discovered a royal road to learning; but a royal road to the summit
of Pike's Peak, more than fourteen thousand feet above sea level, has
been, since 1890, an accomplished fact in the Manitou and Pike's Peak
cogwheel road, starting from Engleman's Glen, one of the famous resorts
of Manitou. This lovely town, that dreams away its summer at the base
of Pike's Peak guarded by precipitous mountain walls, is connected
with Colorado Springs by electric trolley, and the little journey of
four miles is one of the pleasure excursions of the region. The route
lies past the "Garden of the Gods," where the curious shapes of red
sandstone loom up like spectral forms in some Inferno.
Like Naples, Colorado Springs is the paradise of the tourist, offering
a new excursion for every day in the season; and there are few of
these whose route does not include lovely Manitou, which is also the
objective point from which to fare forth on this journey above the
clouds, into those mysterious realms where he who listens aright may
hear spoken the words which it is not lawful for man to utter. The
journey into aërial spaces opens in a defile of one of the deep cañons,
the train on the one hand clinging to the wall, while on the other one
looks down a vast precipice, at the foot of which dashes a river over
gigantic boulders. The route is diversified by the little stations on
the way,--Minnehaha, whose waterfall indeed laughs in the air, and is
given back in a thousand ghostly echoes; the Half-Way House, nestling
under the pinnacled rocks of Hell Gate--must one always pass through
the portals of Hades on his way to Paradise? Strange and grotesque
scenery companions the way. On the mountain-side one finds--of all
things--a newspaper office, where a souvenir daily paper is issued
with all the news of that new world above the clouds, Pike's Peak. The
ascent is very steep in places. The verdure of the foothills vanishes,
the trees cease to invade this upper air, and only the dwarfed aspen
shivers in the breeze as it clings to some barren rock. New vistas
open. The world of day and daylight duties is left behind. Gaunt,
spectral rocks in uncanny shapes haunt the way. The air grows chill;
car windows are closed, and warm wraps are at a premium. But the scene
below! The sensation of looking down on the clouds, the view of Lake
Moraine, an inland sea high in the mountains; the new sensations of the
rarefied air,--all these seem to initiate one into a new world. From
the summit, reached in a journey of ninety minutes, the view can only
be described as that of unspeakable awe and sublimity. An expanse of
sixty thousand miles is open to the gaze. To the west rise a thousand
towering peaks, snow clad, in a majesty of effect beyond power of
portrayal. To the east the vast plateaus stretch into infinite space.
Below, the sun shines on floating clouds in all gleams of color. In the
steel tower of the new Summit Hotel is a powerful telescope that brings
Denver, eighty miles distant, into near and distinct view. In Colorado
Springs, fourteen miles "as the crow flies," the telescopic view even
reveals the signs on the streets so they may be plainly read. In close
range of vision appear Pueblo, Cripple Creek, Victor, Goldfield,
Independence, and Manitou.
The surface of the top of Pike's Peak comprises several acres of level
land thickly strewn with large blocks of rough granite of varying
size,--blocks that are almost wholly in a regular rectangular shape,
as if prepared for some Titanic scheme of architecture. The highest
telegraph office in the world is located here, and the usual souvenir
shop of every summer resort offers its tempting remembrances, all of
which are closely associated with the _genus loci_, and are all a very
part of the Colorado productions. A powerful searchlight was placed
on Pike's Peak during the summer of 1906, adding the most picturesque
feature of night to all the surrounding country. Denver, Colorado
Springs, Pueblo, the Cripple Creek district, the deep cañons of the
Cheyenne range, the silvery expanse of Broadmoor, whose attractive
casino is a centre of evening gatherings,--all these points in the
great landscape are swept with the illumination from the highest
searchlight in the world to-day.
A century has passed since Major Zebulon Montgomery Pike first
discovered the shadowy crest of the mountain peak that immortalizes
his name. It was on November 13, 1806, that the attention of Major
Pike and his party was arrested by what at first looked to them as a
light blue cloud in the sky, toward which they marched for ten days
before arriving at the base of the mountain. The story of this journey
is one of the dramatic records in the national archives. Major Pike
and his men left St. Louis on July 15, 1806, on his trip to the Rocky
Mountains, or Mexican Mountains as he called them at the time. He
pronounced the country through which he travelled to be so devoid of
sustenance for human beings that it would serve as a barrier, for all
time, in the expansion of the United States. In vivid contrast are
the conditions to-day. Major Pike could now make his journey from St.
Louis to Pike's Peak over either of several grand trunk railways
equipped with all the modern luxuries of travel. Where he passed great
herds of buffalo, he would now see cattle grazing in equal numbers on
the prairies. The vast plains that paralyzed his imagination by their
desolate aspects are now dotted with prosperous farms or ranches. The
mountains that appealed to him only for their scenic grandeur have
been found to be the treasure vaults of nature that were only waiting
to be conquered by the hardy frontiersmen who followed him nearly half
a century later. The great white mountain that he declared could not
be ascended by a human being is now the objective point of a hundred
thousand tourists annually, who gayly climb the height in a swift trip
made in a luxurious Pullman observation car. The first attempt of the
Pike party to ascend the peak was a failure, and Major Pike expressed
his opinion that "no human being could ascend to its pinnacle." In 1819
Hon. John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, sent Major Long and a
party on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, then almost as unknown
as the Himalayas. This exploring party camped on the present site of
Colorado Springs, and on July 13 (1819) started to ascend the peak. On
the first day they made only two miles, as the ground was covered with
loose, crumbling granite. On the second day, however, they succeeded;
the first ascent of Pike's Peak thus having been made on July 14, 1819.
A chronicle of this ascent describes the point above which the timber
line disappears as one "of astonishing beauty and of great interest as
to its productions." The first woman to stand on the summit of Pike's
Peak was Mrs. James H. Holmes, in August of 1858.
General Zebulon Montgomery Pike achieved distinction both as an
explorer and a brave soldier. He was but twenty-seven years of age
when he was chosen to lead the most important military expedition of
the day, and eight years later, as Brigadier-General, he commanded the
troops that captured the British stronghold at York (now Toronto),
Canada, and here he met his death, which has been compared to that of
Nelson. The captured flag of the enemy was placed under the head of
the dying general to ease his pain. The cheers of his soldiers aroused
the young commander, and on being told that the fort was captured, he
closed his eyes with the words, "I die content."
In his notebook were found the maxims that had guided him through life,
dedicated to his son, among which were "Preserve your honor free from
blemish," and "Be always ready to die for your country."
General Pike was buried with full military honors in the government
plot at Madison Barracks, New York. A modest shaft marks the resting
place of the heroic soldier-explorer, and on Cascade Avenue in Colorado
Springs, directly in front of "The Antlers," there is placed a statue
of the heroic discoverer of the mighty Peak which forever perpetuates
his name.
No adequate life of Pike has ever been written; but with the monumental
majesty of the mid-continental mountain peak that proclaims his name to
all future centuries, what room can there be for biographical record
or sculptured memorial? The archives of the Department of War, in
Washington, contain his diary, kept from day to day in this march from
St. Louis to Colorado. After his discovery of the Peak, Major Pike
returned to the place where now the city of Pueblo stands, continuing
his journey into the mountains, thence to New Mexico, where he was
captured by the Spaniards. Hardships of every description were suffered
by the party before being placed in captivity at Santa Fé; but even
the capture of his papers by the Spaniards at Santa Fé did not serve
to destroy the records of the astute young soldier, who had carefully
concealed duplicates of his papers in the barrel of his big flintlock
rifle, and he was afterward able to restore them to original form.
Major Pike was as tender and humane as he was brave. In the capture of
the party by the Spanish two of the men had to be abandoned and left to
their fate in the hills. They were given a small supply of provisions,
with the assurance that they would be rescued if the rest of the party
found a haven of safety and rest. Major Pike kept this promise and,
more nearly dead than alive, these men were brought into Santa Fé by
the Spanish soldiers.
Well might it have been of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, in his first eager
march toward this "blue cloud" that beckoned him on and proved to be
a vast mountain peak,--well might it have been this hero that Emerson
thus pictured in the lines:
"The free winds told him what they knew,
Discoursed of fortune as they blew;
Omens and signs that filled the air
To him authentic witness bear;
The birds brought auguries on their wings,
And carolled undeceiving things
Him to beckon, him to warn;
Well might then the poet scorn
To learn of scribe or courier
Things writ in vaster character;
And on his mind at dawn of day
Soft shadows of the evening lay."
In his diary, kept during the march from St. Louis, Major Pike thus
pictured his first impressions of Colorado:
"The scene was one of the most sublime and beautiful inland
prospects ever presented to man; the great lofty mountains, covered
with eternal snow, seemed to surround the luxuriant vale, crowned
with perennial flowers, like a terrestrial paradise."
The memory of this hero cannot but invest Colorado Springs with a
certain consecration of heroism that becomes, indeed, part of the
"omens and signs" that fill the air.
In the early autumn of 1906 Colorado Springs and Manitou celebrated the
centenary of the discovery of Pike's Peak with appropriate ceremonies.
One of the interesting features was the rendering of an "Ode" by a
chorus of one thousand voices, of which the words were written by
Charles J. Pike of New York, the well-known sculptor, a great-nephew of
General Pike, and for which the music was composed by Rubin Goldmark.
One of the noted excursions of the Pike's Peak region is the "Temple
Drive,"--a carriage road beginning in Manitou, traversing Williams
Cañon, and, climbing its west wall. The drive offers near views of
the Temple of Isis, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the Narrows, and
of St. Peter's Gate in the Cathedral Dome. It is fairly a drive in
elfland, and is as distinctive a feature of Colorado Springs life as
is the famous drive from Naples to Amalfi and Sorrento a feature of
the enchantment of Southern Italy. Manitou Park is easily reached by
motor or carriage drive from Colorado Springs through the picturesque
Ute Pass, and aside from its beauty it has an added interest in having
been presented to Colorado College by General William J. Palmer and Dr.
William A. Bell, to be used as the field laboratory of the new Colorado
School of Forestry. Manitou Park contains cottages and recreation
halls, so that all sorts of hospitalities and entertainments can be
there enjoyed.
[Illustration: WILLIAMS CAÑON, NEAR MANITOU, COLORADO]
Of the "Garden of the Gods" who can analyze the curious, mystic spell
of the place? A large tract of rolling mesas is covered with these
uncanny monsters of rocks in all weird and grotesque forms. The deep
red sandstone of their formation gives it the aspect, under a midday
sun or the slanting rays of a brilliant sunset, of being all on fire--a
kind of inferno, foreign to earth, and revealed, momentarily, from some
underworld of mystery.
Cheyenne Cañon is one of the most poetically touched places in all the
Pike's Peak region. Of Cheyenne mountain Helen Hunt Jackson wrote:
"By easy slope to west, as if it had
No thought, when first its soaring was begun,
Except to look devoutly to the sun,
It rises and has risen, until glad,
With light as with a garment it is clad,
Each dawn before the tardy plains have won
One ray, and after day has long been done
For us the light doth cling reluctant, sad to leave its brow."
Poets and artists have embodied it in song and essayed to transfer
it to canvas; but the grandeur of South Cheyenne Cañon eludes every
artist while it impresses the imagination of every visitor. It is fitly
approached through the "Pillars of Hercules,"--sheer perpendicular
walls of rock looking up over one thousand feet high, with a
passage-way of only forty feet. Once within the cañon and one might
as well have been translated to Mars so far as utter isolation can be
realized. In the dim green twilight from the lofty wooded cliffs toward
the Seven Falls one enters on "the twilight of the gods," not dark, but
a soft light, the sun shut out, the air vibrating with faint hints of
color, the colossal granite walls rising into the sky, the faint dash
of waterfalls heard splashing over hidden rocks and stones; a rill here
and there trickling down the mountain side; the far call of some lonely
bird heard far away in the upper air; and the soft, mysterious light,
the dim coolness and fragrance, the glimpse of blue sky just seen in
the narrow opening above--was anything ever so enchantingly poetic?
It is here one might well materialize his castle d'Espagne. Winding
up the cañon, one comes to "Seven Falls,"--a torrent of water rushing
down mighty cliffs on one side of a colossal amphitheatre, and the
precipitous cliffs show seven distinct terraces down which the foaming
torrent plunges.
In North Cheyenne and in Bear Creek Cañons the grandeur is repeated,
and in those the people find a vast free recreation ground. This
privilege is again one of the innumerable ones that are due to the
gifts and grace of General Palmer, who has had this sublime locality
made into a practicable resort, with pavilions where tea, coffee,
lemonade, ices, and sandwiches are served; a rustic hostelry, "Bruin
Inn," is also provided as a place of refuge and entertainment,
providing against any disasters in the sudden storms that are so
frequent in these cañon regions; and the bridle paths, the terraced
drives on the mountain walls, and the glades where games may be played,
all make South Cheyenne the most unique pleasure resort of that of any
city in the United States.
[Illustration: SEVEN FALLS, CHEYENNE CAÑON, NEAR COLORADO SPRINGS,
COLORADO]
In all these cañons the massive, precipitous granite walls, which seem
to rise almost to the sky, are also rendered more arresting to the eye
by their richly variegated coloring. These ragged cliffs rise, too, in
pinnacles and towers and domes that proclaim their warfare with the
elements for ages innumerable. Visitors familiar with all the Alpine
gorges and with the Yosemite agree that in no one of these are there
such majesty of effects as in the Cheyenne cañons.
Manitou, the Indian name for the Great Spirit, is an alluring place in
a nook of the mountains at the foot of Pike's Peak, reminding one of
the Swiss-Alpine villages. Ute Pass; Williams Cañon, in which is the
noted "Cave of the Winds"; the famous "Temple Drive"; Cascade, Green
Mountain Falls and Glen Eyrie are all grouped near Manitou, and it is
here that the cogwheel road ascending Pike's Peak begins. The Mineral
Springs are approached in a pavilion with two or three large rooms;
the auditorium, where an orchestra plays every afternoon, seats some
two hundred people, who can listen to the music, sip their glasses of
mineral water, and chat with friends, all at one and the same time.
There is a foreign air about Manitou. The little town consists of one
street extending along the cañon, following its curves, with a few
cottages perched on terraces above, and the hotels, boarding-houses,
and the little shops, with the hawkers of curios at their street
stands, make up a picturesque spectacle. The shop windows glisten with
jewelry made from the native Colorado stones, the amethyst, opal,
topaz, emerald, tourmaline, and moonstone being found more or less
extensively in this state. The native ores are exposed; Indian wares,
from the bright Navajo rugs and blankets to the pottery, baskets, and
beaded work; photographs and picture cards of all kinds, and trinkets
galore, of almost every conceivable description, give a gala-day
aspect to the little mountain town. The surrounding peaks rise to the
height of six and eight thousand feet above the street, which looks
like a toy set in a region designed for the habitation of the gods.
American life, however, keeps the pace, and in this mountain defile
at the foot of Pike's Peak were the signs out announcing a "Psychic
Palmist," a "Scientific Palmist," and a "Thought Healer," by which it
will be inferred that an up-to-date civilization has by no means failed
to penetrate to Manitou. Each year the accommodations for travellers
multiply themselves. Each summer the demand increases. There is a
fascination about Manitou that throws its spell over every visitor and
sojourner.
The Grand Caverns are on the side of one of the picturesque mountains,
reached by a drive through the Ute Pass. Beyond Rainbow Falls, and
entering the vestibule of these caverns, the visitor finds himself
under a lofty dome from which stalactites hang, and in which is a pile
of stones being raised to the memory of General Grant, each visitor
adding one. No form of memorial to the great military commander,
whose character was at once so impressive and so simple, could be
more fitting than is this tribute. From the vestibule one wanders to
Alabaster Hall, where there are groups of snow-white columns of pure
alabaster. In a vast space sixty feet high, with a dome of Nature's
chiselling and two galleries that are curiously wrought by natural
forces, there is a natural grand organ, formed of stalactites, with
wonderful reverberations and with a rich, deep tremulous tone. To
reveal its marvels to visitors a skilled musician is employed, who
renders on it popular selections, to the amazement of all who are
present. Another feature of the Grand Caverns is the "jewel casket,"
where gems encased in limestone reflect the glow of a lamp. There is
also the "card room," with its columns and its pictorial effects;
the "Lovers' Lane" and the "Bridal Chamber," filled with translucent
formations in all curious shapes and hints of color.
The marvellous achievements of the engineer in encircling the
mountains with steel tracks on which cars climb to the summit are
seen, in perhaps their most remarkable degree of development in
conquering the problems of mountain engineering in Colorado. Of all
these achievements, one of the most conspicuous triumphs is that known
as the "Short Line" between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek, a
distance of only forty-five miles, and the time some two and a half
hours; but within these limits is comprised the most unspeakably
sublime panorama of mountain scenery. As the train begins to wind up
the mountains one looks down on the flaming, rose-red splendor of the
Garden of the Gods,--with its uncanny shapes, its domes and curious
formations. Climbing up, the vast plain below--a plain, even though
it is six thousand feet above sea level--looks like a sea of silver.
The railroad crosses Bear Creek Cañon on a narrow iron bridge and
threads its way again on the terraced trunk of the opposite mountain
up to Point Sublime,--a gigantic rock towering on a mountain crest. A
landscape unfolds that rivals Church's wonderful "Heart of the Andes"
in its fascination. Entering South Cheyenne, the beauty and grandeur of
the eastern end of the cañon are seen by following the narrow course
between its rugged granite sides hundreds of feet in height, reaching a
magnificent and most impressive climax at the wonderful Seven Falls. No
visit to the Pike's Peak region can be considered complete without this
trip through South Cheyenne Cañon.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S DOME, ON THE CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT LINE]
The usual feature of the situation as trains circle around the rim
of these cañons is that their beauty is seen from above. A short stroll
and one finds himself between walls towering a thousand feet above his
head. The beauty is all around and above. The tops of the mountains
seem very far away, and lost in clouds. But in the train the situation
is reversed; for, seated in a luxurious observation car of the "Short
Line," the tourist is carried above the peaks and cañon walls, which
from below seem inaccessible in their height, and from this startling
elevation one looks down on an underworld of strange and mysterious
forms. St. Peter's Dome, as it is called, looks down from its towering
height with the national colors flying from its summit,--a huge mass
of granite that seems to stand alone and to guard the secrets of the
depths below.
[Illustration: APPROACHING DUFFIELD]
The ascent of St. Peter's Dome is a triumph of engineering skill. As
the train glides along, and glory succeeds to glory, vista to vista,
and cañon to cañon, in ever changing but constant charm, the dizzy
height is climbed apparently with so much ease that the traveller,
absorbed in the entrancing surroundings, reaches the top before he is
aware of it. It seems impossible that the track seen on the opposite
side of the cañon hundreds of feet above should be the path the train
is to follow; but a few turns, almost imperceptible, so smooth is
the roadbed, and one looks down on the place just passed with equal
wonder, and asks if that can be the track by which he has come. As
the train climbs the side or rounds the point of each mountain peak,
the matchless view of the plains is unfolded before the enraptured
gaze. All description is baffled; any attempt to reproduce in words
the glory of that scene is impossible. Every tourist in the Pike's
Peak region regards the "Short Line" trip as the very crown of the
summer's excursions, or, in the local phrase, one whose sublimity of
beauty "bankrupts the English language." These forty-five miles not
only condense within their limits the grandeur one might reasonably
anticipate during a transcontinental journey of three thousand miles,
but as an achievement of mountain engineering, railway experts in both
Europe and America have pronounced it the most substantially built and
the finest equipped mountain railroad in the world. It was opened in
1901, and, quite irrespective of any interest felt in visiting the gold
camps of Cripple Creek, the "Short Line" has become the great excursion
which all visitors to Colorado desire to make for the sublime effects
of the scenery. A prominent civil engineer in Colorado said, in answer
to some question regarding the problem of taking trains over mountain
ranges and peaks that, given the point to start from and the point to
reach, and sufficient capital, there was no difficulty in carrying a
railroad anywhere. The rest is, he said, only a question of time and
skill. The construction of the "Short Line" reveals the achievement
of carrying a railroad around the rims of cañons and over the tops of
mountains rather than that of following a trail through the bottom
of the cañons. As a scenic success this feat is unparalleled. The
bewildering magnificence, the incomparable sublimity, as the train
winds up St. Peter's Dome, are beyond the power of painter or poet
to picture. Leaving Colorado Springs, the tourist sees the strange
towering pinnacles of the Garden of the Gods, in their deep red
contrasting with the green background of trees; Manitou gleams from
its deep cañon; the towers and spires of Colorado Springs appear in
miniature from the far height, and the great expanse of the plateau
looks like the sea. It is difficult to realize that one is still gazing
upon land. The ascent is more like the experience in an aero-car than
in a railroad train, so swift is the upward journey. The first little
station on this route is Point Sublime, where the clouds and the
mountain peaks meet and mingle. North Cheyenne Cañon is seen far below,
and in the distance is fair Broadmoor with its Crescent Lake gleaming
like silver. The Silver Cascade Falls sparkle in the air hundreds of
feet up the crags. At Fair View the North and South Cheyenne Cañons
meet,--those two scenic gorges whose fame is world-wide,--and from one
point the traveller gazes down into each, the bottom depths so remote
as to be invisible. These precipices are wooded, so that the aspect
is that of sheer walls of green. St. Peter's Dome almost pierces the
sky, and as the train finally gains the summit a vista of incomparable
magnificence opens,--of cañons and peaks and towering rocks,--and
through one cañon is seen Pueblo, over fifty miles distant, but swept
up in nearer vision with a mirage-like effect in the air. It is a view
that might well enchain one. The Spanish Peaks cut the sky far away on
the horizon, and the beautiful range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
offers a view of wonderful beauty. The road passes Duffields, Summit,
Rosemont, and Cathedral Park, at each of which stations a house or
two, or a few tents, may be seen,--the homes of workmen or of summer
dwellers who find the most romantic and picturesque corners of the
universe none too good in which to set up their household gods for
the midsummer days. Nothing is more feasible than to live high up in
the mountains along the "Short Line." The two trains a day bring the
mails; all marketing and merchandise are easily procured; and the
air, the views, the marvellous spectacle of sunrise and sunset, the
perpetually changing panorama, simply make life a high festival. The
little station of Rosemont is a natural park, surrounded by three
towering peaks,--Mount Rosa, Big Chief, and San Luis. Clyde is a point
much frequented by picnickers. The "Cathedral Park" is an impressive
example of what the forces of nature can accomplish. Colossal rocks,
chiselled by erosion, twisted by tempests, worn by the storms of
innumerable ages, loom up in all conceivable shapes. They are of the
same order as some of the wonderful groups of rocks seen in the
Grand Cañon. Towers and arches and temples and shafts have been created
by Nature's irresistable forces, and to the strange fantastic form
is added color,--the same rich and varied hues that render the Grand
Cañon so wonderful in its color effects. This "Cathedral Park" is a
great pleasure resort for celebrations and picnics, both from Colorado
Springs, Colorado City, Broadmoor, and other places from below, and
also from Cripple Creek, Victor, and other towns in Cripple Creek
District.
[Illustration: PORTLAND AND INDEPENDENCE MINES, VICTOR, COLORADO]
The district of Cripple Creek includes a number of towns,--Victor,
Anaconda, Eclipse, Santa Rita, Goldfield, Independence, and others,
each centred about famous and productive mines. The first discovery
of gold here was made in 1891 by a ranchman, Mr. Womack, who took the
specimens of gold ore that he found to some scientific men in Colorado
Springs, who pronounced it the genuine thing, and capitalists became
interested to develop the mines. In 1891, the first year, the total
value of the gold produced was $200,000; 1905, the fourteenth year, the
value of the production was $47,630,107. The total value of the gold
produced in the fourteen years of the camp's existence, to December 31,
1905, was $141,395,087.
There are about three hundred properties in the camp which produce
with more or less regularity. Of this number the greatest proportion
are spasmodic shippers, making their production from the efforts of
leasers. There are thirty large mines in the district, each producing
$100,000 or more annually. Dividends paid by the mining companies in
1905 amounted to $1,707,000. Total dividends paid to December 31,
1905, $32,742,000. There are employed on an average some six thousand
three hundred men in the mines, and the monthly pay-roll runs to about
$652,189, exclusive of large salaries paid mine superintendents and
managers and clerks in offices. The lowest wage paid in the camp is
three dollars per day of eight hours, while many of the miners receive
more than that. The average wage per day paid for labor amounts to
$3.44. There are twelve towns in the district, with a population of
fifty thousand people. During the period of excitement the population
was about seventy thousand. The social life of the people is much the
same as in other towns.
There is a free school system, with an enrolment of nearly four
thousand pupils, with a hundred and eighteen teachers under a
superintendent with an assistant. There are thirty-four churches,
representing almost every variety of faith.
Cripple Creek, the largest of these, lies in a hollow of the mountains,
whose surrounding ranges are a thousand feet above the town. It
consists mostly of one long street, with minor cross-streets, and there
are little shops with chiffons, "smart" ribbons and laces, and all
sorts of articles of dress making gay the show windows, and one sees
women and children in all their pretty and stylish summer attire. There
are two daily papers and an "opera house." Cripple Creek is a rather
favorite point with dramatic companies, as the entire town, the entire
district, turns out, and the audiences do not lack in either enthusiasm
or numbers.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM BULL HILL, RICHEST GULCH IN THE WORLD]
Mr. William Caruthers, the district superintendent, estimates that
this region has become one of the greatest gold-producing regions in
the world; and in rapid development, and in the richness of its ores,
nothing like it has ever been known before. In fifteen years the cattle
ranges have been transformed into a populous district with fifty
thousand people, and with all the modern conveniences of Eastern cities.
The electric trolley system connects all the towns in Cripple Creek
district and passes near all the large mines. This trolley line is
owned and controlled by the "Short Line," and is greatly sought for
pleasure excursions both by visitors and residents.
Electric cars convey the miners up and down the hills to their
respective mines. The class of laborers is said to be greatly improved
of late years, and Mr. Caruthers informs the questioner that no
problematic characters are longer tolerated in Cripple Creek. It
has ceased to be the paradise of those who, for various unspecified
personal reasons, were unable to keep their residence in other cities,
or had left their own particular country for their country's good.
When such characters appear, Mr. Caruthers and his staff guide them
with unerring certainty to the railroad track, with the assurance that
these intruders are wanted in Colorado Springs, and that, although
there may be no parlor-car train, with all luxuries warranted, leaving
at that moment for their migrating convenience, yet the steel track is
before them, and it leads directly to Pike's Peak Avenue (the leading
business street of Colorado Springs), and they are advised at once to
fare forth on this mountain thoroughfare. The persuasion given by Mr.
Caruthers and his assistants is of such an order that it is usually
accepted without remonstrance, and the objectionable specimens of
humanity realize that their climb of several thousand feet up to the
famous gold camps was by way of being a superfluous expenditure of
energy on their part.
The special entertainment in Cripple Creek is to make the electric
circle tour, on electric trolley cars, between Cripple Creek and
Victor, going on the "low line" one way, and the "high line" the other.
The high line is almost even with the summit of Pike's Peak, that
looms up within neighborly distance, and the splendor of the Sangre de
Cristo range adds a bewildering beauty to the matchless panorama. On
this round trip--a trolley ride probably not equalled in the entire
world--one gets quite near many of the famous mines, whose machinery
offers a curious feature in the landscape.
Taking the trip in the late brilliant afternoon sunshine along this
mountain crest, offers the spectacle of an entire landscape all in a
deep rose-pink, gleaming, in contrast with the dark green of the cedar
forests, like a transformation scene on a stage.
The tourist who regards this life as a probationary period, to
be employed, as largely as possible, in festas and entertaining
experiences, may add a unique one to his repertoire, should he be so
favored by the gods; and sojourning in neighborly proximity to the
"Garden of the Gods," why should they not bestir themselves in his
favor? At all events, if he has contrived to invoke their interest, and
finds himself invited by Mr. MacWatters (the courteous and vigilant
General Passenger Agent of the "Short Line") to make the return journey
from Cripple Creek, down below the clouds to Colorado Springs in a
hand car, he will enjoy an experience to be treasured forever. For the
hand car runs down of its own accord, by the law of gravitation, and
is provided with an air-brake to regulate its momentum. To complete
the enchantment of conditions,--and it need not be said that in a
Land of Enchantment conditions conform to the prevailing spirit and
of course are enchanting,--to complete these, let it be a _partie
carrée_, with Mrs. MacWatters, and with Ellis Meredith, the well-known
Colorado author, to make up the number; for the keenest political
writer in Colorado is a woman, and this woman is Ellis Meredith. It
is a name partly real, partly a literary _nom-de-plume_, and which
is the one and the other need not be chronicled here. The name of
Ellis Meredith has flown widely on the wings of fame as the author of
a most interesting story, "The Master-Knot of Human Fate," which made
an unusual impression on critical readers. "The Master-Knot" is an
imaginative romance, whose scene is laid on one of the peaks of the
Rocky Mountains. It presupposes an extraordinary if not an impossible
situation, and on this builds up a story, brilliant, thoughtful,
tantalizing in its undercurrent of suggestive interest, and altogether
unique.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL'S SLIDE, CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT LINE]
In her connection with a leading Denver journal Miss Meredith wields
a trenchant pen, and one reading these strong and able articles could
hardly realize that the same writer is the author of poems,--delicate,
exquisite, tender,--and of prose romance which is increasingly sought
by all lovers of the art of fiction. With such a party of friends as
these, what words can interpret the necromancy of this sunset journey
winding down the heights of majestic mountains, amid a forest of
towering peaks, and colossal rocks looming up like giant spectres
through the early twilight that gathers when the sun sinks behind some
lofty pinnacle! The rose of afterglow burned in the east, reflecting
its color over the Cheyenne cañons, and even changing the granite
precipice of the "Devil's Slide"--a thousand feet of precipitous
rock, through which the steel track is cut--with a reflection of its
rose and amber. Cathedral Park took on a new majesty in the deepening
haze. At the foot of one of its tall spires is an ice cavern, which
holds its perpetual supply all summer. The solid roadbed, uniformly
ballasted with disintegrated granite, built on solid rock for its
entire extent, and totally devoid of dust, gives to the hand car the
ease and smoothness of a motor on level ground. No one can wonder
that this road, built originally to convey coal and other supplies
to Cripple Creek, and to bring the ore from the mines to the mills
and smelters (a transportation it serves daily), has also, by its
phenomenal fascinations, achieved a great passenger traffic made up of
the tourists and visitors to Colorado. Even travellers going through to
the Pacific Coast make the detour from La Junta to Colorado Springs to
enjoy the "Short Line," just as they go from Williams to Bright Angel
Trail for the Grand Cañon. With this aërial journey through a sunset
fairyland, where the mysterious cañons and gorges lay in shadow and the
Colorado sunshine painted pinnacles and towers in liquid gold, what
wonder that our poet, discovering her lyre, offered the following "Ode"
to the "Short Line":
"There's the splendor that was Grecian;
There's the glory that was Rome;
But we know a brighter splendor,
And we find it here at home.
Not the Alps or Himalayas,
Not old Neptune's foaming brine,
Can surpass the wealth of beauty
Of this state of yours and mine.
"All the fairy-tales and legends
Of the time that's passed away;
All the scientific wonders
That amaze the world to-day;
All the artist can imagine,
All the engineer design,
Are excelled in magic beauty
On the Cripple Creek Short Line.
"Oh, those mountains pierce the heavens
Till its radiance glistens through,
And the clouds in golden glory
Float across its field of blue;
And the soul that may be weary
Feels the harmony divine
Of this wonder-tour of Nature
On the Cripple Creek Short Line.
"There are minarets and towers;
There are stately domes and fair;
There are lordly, snow-capped mountains,
There are lovely valleys there;
And no ancient moated castle,
Frowning down upon the Rhine,
Looks on scenes of greater beauty
Than the Cripple Creek Short Line.
"There's a vision and a grandeur
When the plains come into view,
And one seems to see the ocean
In the misty rim of blue;
And the eyes of landlocked sailors
With unbidden teardrops shine,
As they see the far-off billows
From the Cripple Creek Short Line.
"There's a strength and there's a refuge
In the everlasting hills;
There's a gleam of joy and gladness
In the leaping sparkling rills;
There's a benediction sweeter
Than the murmur of the pine,
And it falls on all who travel
O'er the Cripple Creek Short Line."
[Illustration: COLORADO SPRINGS AND TUNNEL NO. 6, CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT
LINE]
Ellis Meredith has often pictured in song the charm and romance of
Colorado with the vividness and power that characterize her poems which
are essentially those of insight and imagination; but in the opinion of
many of her admirers she has hardly laid at the shrine of the muses any
more felicitous votive offering than this little impromptu.
A summer in Colorado Springs is one that is set in the heart of
fascinating attractions. Nor is the Pike's Peak region a summer land
alone, for the autumn is even more beautiful, and the winters are all
crystal and sunshine and full of exquisite exhilaration and delight in
mountain regions that take on new forms of interest. Colorado Springs
is not merely--nor even mostly--an excursion city for pleasure-seekers;
it is a city of permanent homes, whose residential advantages attract
and create its phenomenal growth.
To open one's eyes on the purple line of the Rocky Mountains, with
Pike's Peak towering into the sky, in a luminous crystal air that makes
even existence a delight, is an alluring experience. To look over
the beautiful city of Colorado Springs, with its broad streets and
boulevards, and lines of trees on either side; its electric lights,
electric cars, well-built brick blocks, churches, schools, and free
public library; its interesting and enterprising journalism; to come
in contact with the intelligence and refinement of the people,--is to
realize that this is no provincial Western town, but instead, a gay and
fashionable city, with the aspect of a summer watering place. Manitou,
which lies six miles away at the very base of Pike's Peak, and Colorado
Springs are connected by electric cars running along the mountain
line, and there is a great social interchange. It is simply a whirl of
social life in the late summer, and the rapidity with which the guest
is expected to flit from one garden party, and tea, and reception to
another, within a given time, reminds him of a London season. In the
morning every fashionable woman drives to Prospect Lake, and from her
bathing in its blue waters to the informal "hop" at night, she is on a
perpetual round of gayety if she so desire.
The wide range and freedom of life in Colorado Springs is equally
enjoyable. The artist, the thinker, the writer, finds an ideal
environment in which to pursue his work. This beautiful residence
city, founded by General Palmer in 1871, has now a population of some
thirty thousand, and although lying at the foot of Pike's Peak, it is
yet on an elevation of six thousand feet above the level of the sea.
Adjoining Colorado Springs is Colorado City, a manufacturing town
of five thousand inhabitants, and Manitou, the little town at the
immediate base of Pike's Peak, with some two thousand residents, to
which, in the summer, is added an equal number of visitors, who bestow
themselves in the attractive hotels and boarding-houses or who occupy
cottages or camps in the foothills. Colorado Springs was founded in a
wise and beneficent spirit. Every deed in the town contains a clause
prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, and by the terms of the
contract any violation of this agreement renders the deed null and void
and the property reverts to the city. Education is made compulsory,
and on this basis of temperance, education, and morality the town
is founded. It is laid out with generous ideas and with unfailing
allegiance to municipal ideals of taste. The avenues are one hundred
and forty feet wide and the streets are all one hundred feet wide.
Lying midway between Denver and Pueblo, the two largest cities of the
state, Colorado Springs is within two hours of the former and one hour
of the latter.
Colorado College, a co-educational institution, is largely endowed,
and it has from eight to nine hundred students. Rev. Samuel A. Eliot,
D.D., of Boston, the president of the Unitarian Association, was
invited to deliver the Commencement Address at this college in 1905,
and on this occasion Dr. Eliot said:
"Nothing can surpass the academic dignity of a commencement at a
Western State University. The perfection of the discipline would
make our elegant, but often distressed, 'master of ceremonies' at
Harvard green with envy. At our Eastern Colleges there are still
individual idiosyncrasies and perverse prejudices and traditions
of simpler days to be considered. There are some old-fashioned
members of the faculty who just won't wear the academic gown or
the appropriately colored hood, and there are always some reckless
seniors who will wear tan shoes or a straw hat. Not so in Kansas
and Colorado, in Iowa and Nebraska. There every professor and every
senior wears his uniform as if he were used to it; each one knows
his place and his part and performs it impressively. The academic
procession, headed by the regents in their gowns and followed by
the members of the various faculties with their characteristic
hoods and stripes, and by the senior classes of the college and the
various professional schools, is perfect in its orderly procedure,
and the commencement exercises themselves are carried through with
a solemnity which is sometimes awesome. I caught myself almost
wishing that some senior would forget to take off his Oxford cap
at the proper time or trip on his gown as he came up the steps of
the platform to get his sheepskin, but no such accident marred the
impressiveness of the occasion."
Dr. Eliot playfully touches a fact in the social as well as in the
academic life of the West in these remarks. The informalities so
frequently experienced in recognized social life in the Eastern cities
are seldom encountered in the corresponding circles of life in the
West, all observance of times and seasons, as calling hours, ceremonial
invitations, and driving being quite strictly relegated to their
true place in the annals of etiquette. In his Commencement address
before Colorado College in 1905 Dr. Eliot said, regarding the several
educational schools of Colorado:
"Thus in Colorado the State University is at Boulder, the
Agricultural College at Fort Collins, the Normal School at Greeley,
the School of Mines at Golden, and so on. The result is not only
an injudicious diffusion of energy, but real waste and sometimes
deplorable rivalry. Doubtless it is now too late to rectify this
mistake. Provincial jealousies and a sense of local ownership are
too strong to permit of desirable concentration, and these states
are probably permanently burdened with the necessity of sustaining
half a dozen institutions which must often duplicate equipment and
courses of instruction."
Leading authorities in the Centennial State do not wholly agree with
this view. The distribution of an educational centre in one city and
part of the state and another in a different part, contributes to the
building up of different cities and to a certain concentration on the
part of the students on the special subjects pursued. President Slocum
of Colorado College, President Baker of the State University, President
Snyder of the State Normal College in Greeley, with other college
presidents and their colleagues and faculties, are devoting their lives
to the interests of higher education in its broadest and most complete
sense; and with their own splendid equipments in learning, their
patience and ability in research, their zeal for teaching, and their
intense interest in the problems of university life in a new state,
they are making a record of the most impressive quality. They are the
great pathfinders of the educational future.
Colorado has the advantage of a larger percentage of American
population than any other of the Western inland states, there being
only twenty per cent of foreign admixture in the entire six hundred and
fifty thousand people,--a fact that is especially to be considered in
educational progress.
The high school building in Colorado Springs; the court house, costing
a half-million dollars; the new city library of Colorado stone; the
thirty-five miles of electric railway; a water system costing over a
million of dollars; the admirable telephone system,--these and the fine
architectural art would render it a desirable residence city even aside
from the group of scenic wonders which has made it famous all over the
world.
General William J. Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs, is one of
the great benefactors of the state of Colorado. "General Palmer has
always been a builder for the future," says a local authority. "His
remarkable foresight was best exemplified in the construction of the
Rio Grande railroad,--the road which made Colorado famous. Colorado
Springs is another monument to his prophetic vision. With an ample
fortune he has retired from business life, but is busier than ever with
his many philanthropies, all of which have an eye to the future.
"At great expense he has abolished Bear Creek toll-gate, and has
constructed a wonderful carriage road through this beautiful cañon, and
will give it to the people as a permanent blessing."
This Bear Creek Cañon lies north of Cheyenne Cañon--about five miles
from Colorado Springs. The road winds back and forth in a zigzag
elevation, with new vistas of enchantment at every turn,--towering
mountains, the Garden of the Gods,--that strange, weird spectacle, St.
Peter's Dome, Phantom Falls, Silver Cascade, Helen Hunt Falls, and
other points of romantic beauty.
Colorado Springs has a great park system at a cost already of three
hundred thousand dollars, and with the buildings and other features
projected the cost will be hardly less than half a million. There are
to be floral gardens, an Italian sunken basin with a fountain rising
in streams, after the fashion of the fountains of Versailles,--and an
art gallery is soon to be added to this lovely and enterprising city.
Already the city has Palmer Park,--comprising eight hundred acres,
donated by the generous and beneficent General Palmer,--a park that
contains Austin's Bluffs, from which a magnificent view is obtained.
It is to General Palmer that all the charming extension of terraced
drives and walks in North Cheyenne Cañon is due,--the road often
terraced on the side of the mountain; and here and there little
refreshment stands, where a sandwich, a glass of lemonade, a cup of
tea may be had, are found in these wild altitudes. In Palmer Park
one portion has been appropriately named Statuary Park, from the
multitude of strange forms and figures that Nature has chiselled in
the sandstone. Gray's Peak, like a dim shadow on the far horizon to
the north, and the faint, beautiful outline of the Spanish Peaks to
the south, are seen from this park, while the massive portals of the
"Garden of the Gods" in their burning red are near, and at one side the
rose pink rocks of Blair Athol.
General Palmer's residence in Glen Eyrie is one of the poetic places
of the world. The romantic environment of mountain cañons, towers,
and domes of the fantastic sandstone shapes, and overhanging rocks
that loom up thousands of feet on a mountain side, impart a wild charm
that no words can picture. The architectural effects have been kept in
artistic correspondence with the romantic scenery.
Monument Valley Park is the latest of General Palmer's munificent gifts
to Colorado Springs. It was a tract of low waste land some two miles
in length and covering an area of two hundred or more acres, but its
transformation into the present beautiful park is the realization of
an Aladdin's dream. An artistic stone drinking-fountain; a wide vista
of trees relieved by a low Italian basin with fountains; Monument
Creek, made to be sixty feet wide between its banks; the creation of
artificial lakes; and there are included in the scheme conservatories,
rustic pavilions, and botanical gardens. This park is one of the most
extensive improvements in decorative effect, that is known in any city.
Monument Park is distinctive from Monument Valley Park, the former
lying some ten miles from the city, and it is picturesque beyond words.
The "Garden of the Gods" has achieved world-wide fame. The "Gateway,"
the "Cathedral Spires," "Balanced Rock," and other singular formations
fascinate the visitor and draw him back again and again. A local writer
thus describes the majestic "Gateway":
"Two immense slabs of red sandstone, soft and beautiful in their
coloring, tower over three hundred feet high on either side and
seem to challenge the right of the stranger to enter the sacred
portals. Napoleon, at the Pyramids, sought to impress his soldiers
with the thought that from that eminence four thousand years
looked down upon them. But from here geological ages of untold
length look down upon the beholder. In close proximity may be
found limestone, gypsum, white sandstone, and red sandstone,
each representing a different geological era, and each, in all
probability, representing millions of years in its formation."
The "Garden of the Gods" represents one of those inexplicable epochs
of Nature's creations as does, only in a more marvellous degree,
the Grand Cañon and the Petrified Forest. A scientist says of these
grotesque shapes that "their strangely garish colors, red and yellow
and white, in enormous masses, lofty buttresses, towers and pinnacles,
besides formations of lesser size, in fantastic shapes, that readily
lend themselves to the imagination, are sedimentary strata, which once
lay horizontally upon the mountain's breast, but that some gigantic
convulsion of nature threw them into their present perpendicular
attitude, with their roots, as it were, extending hundreds of feet
underground. The erosion of water, when this was all the Gulf of
Mexico, accounts for the shaping.
"The gateway to the Garden is really the grandest feature, rising
perpendicularly on either side twice the height of Niagara, and framing
in rich terra cotta a most entrancing picture of the blue and tawny
peak, apparently only a little way on the other side."
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF THE GODS, COLORADO SPRINGS,
COLORADO]
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL SPIRES, GARDEN OF THE GODS, COLORADO SPRINGS,
COLORADO]
Any writer on Colorado Springs is embarrassed by the fact that the
great founder and benefactor of the city has requested that his name
is not to be recorded in connection with his great and constant gifts
to the municipality; and while it is far from the desire of any one
to disregard the expressed wish of a man whose modesty is as great as
is his munificent generosity, it is yet impossible to tell the story
of Colorado Springs without perpetual references to her distinguished
citizen, her great and noble benefactor and founder. It is not too
much to say that there is probably not, in the history of the United
States, all instance parallel to the story of General Palmer and
Colorado Springs. Yet beyond this bare mention, in which one even thus
records that which General Palmer has wished to have had left without
reference, one is under bonds not to go. The Recording Angel may not
be so plastic to the expressed preferences of the wise founder and the
munificent benefactor of the charming city; and the vast and generous
gifts, the noble character of the citizen whose life and example is
the most priceless legacy that he could bequeath to Colorado Springs,
however priceless are his long series of gifts,--these are inevitably
inscribed in that eternal record not made with hands, on whose pages
must ever remain, in shining letters, the honored name of General
William J. Palmer, whose energy and whose lofty spirit have invested
this beautiful centre of the picturesque region of Pike's Peak with the
spell of an enchanted city lying fair in a Land of Enchantment.