DEVELOPMENT OF CREEDE--SAW A CITY SPRING UP ALMOST IN A DAY--AN
HUNDRED GAMBLERS CAME THERE, TOO.
Now let the weary prospector sit down and rest. His dream has been
realized; his prophecy fulfilled.
The opening of the Amethyst vein called for the extension of the Denver
& Rio Grande Railway Company’s track from Wagon Wheel Gap, a distance
of ten miles.
About this time, President Moffat and the General Manager got into an
entanglement with the directory and both resigned. Mr. George Coppell,
chairman of the board, came out from New York and took charge of the
property.
Mr. Moffat and others interested, urged the management to extend the
rails to the new camp. Among those interested in the extension was
Senator Wolcott, counsel for the company; but it is as difficult for a
New York capitalist to appreciate the importance of a silver camp as it
is for him to appreciate the value of a silver dollar, so Mr. Coppell
refused to build the line.
Mr. Moffat then put up thirty-six thousand dollars to build the
extension, agreeing to let the railroad company repay him in freight.
Soon after this Mr. E. T. Jeffrey was elected president and general
manager of the road. Probably no man in America could have taken up the
tools laid down by Moffat and Smith and continue the good work begun
by them, with so little friction as did the present president of the
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company. To fill the places vacated by
these popular officials was no light task. The grand stand was packed
and the voters held the bleachers, when President Jeffrey went to the
bat.
Colorado said “Play ball,” and in the first inning he won the respect
of the other players and the applause of the people. He has been
successful because he deserved success.
Three months after the completion of the line to Creede, each train
brought to the camp from two hundred to three hundred people, all the
side-tracks were blocked with freight and a ceaseless stream of silver
was flowing into the treasury of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad
Company. The lucky prospector built a cozy cabin in the new camp and
saw a city spring up almost in a day. Just where the trains pulled in,
you might see him sitting by the cottage door, smoking a cigar, while
the little old dog who had just finished a remarkably good breakfast,
trotted stiff-legged up and down the porch and wondered why they didn’t
go out any more and hunt in the hills.
THE RISE AND FALL OF CREEDE.
A thousand burdened burros filled
The narrow, winding, wriggling trail.
An hundred settlers came to build
Each day new houses in the vale.
An hundred gamblers came to feed
On these same settlers--this was Creede.
Slanting Annie, Gambler Joe
And Robert Ford; Sapolio--
Or Soapy Smith, as he was known--
Ran games peculiarly their own;
And everything was open wide
And men drank absinth on the side.
* * * * *
And now the Faro bank is closed,
And Mr. Faro’s gone away
To seek new fields--it is supposed--
More verdant fields. The gamblers say
The man who worked the shell and ball
Has gone back to the Capital.
The winter winds blow bleak and chill,
The quaking, quivering aspen waves
About the summit of the hill;
Above the unrecorded graves
Where halt, abandoned burros feed
And coyotes call--and this is Creede.
Lone graves! whose head-boards bear no name,
Whose silent owners lived like brutes
And died as doggedly, but game,--
And most of them died in their boots.
We mind among the unwrit names
The man who murdered Jesse James.
We saw him murdered--saw him fall,
And saw his mad assassin gloat
Above him. Heard his moans and all,
And saw the shot holes in his throat.
And men moved on and gave no heed
To life or death--and this is Creede.
Slanting Annie, Gambler Joe
And Missouri Bob are sleeping there;
But slippery, sly Sapolio,
Who seems to shun the Golden Stair,
Has turned his time to loftier tricks--
He’s doing Denver politics.