THE OVERLAND STAGE LINE
In the past few months we had crawled many hundred miles with a slow
moving ox train. Several weeks had the writer spent with a few intimate
associates, while convoying a small horse-train.
Possibly a thousand miles had he covered on horseback, often quite
alone, with much opportunity for silent contemplation and an occasional
resultant desire for better company than himself. Nearly two weeks had
been passed in the heterogeneous but interesting companionship of the
boarding-house mule train, with its peculiar vicissitudes.
A time having arrived when return to the States seemed desirable, I
decided, like many travelers, to conclude the season of travel on the
highest scale of elegance possible, and incidentally to profit by the
experience of still another form of transportation. Having at command
the two hundred and fifty dollars required for the purchase of a ticket
to the Missouri River, and possibly a sufficient margin to pay for the
meals at the various stations, I booked by the swift-going Ben Holliday
coaches, patronized generally, as I was informed, only by the wealthy,
or by those whose business was sufficiently important to justify the
outlay.
To reach Denver, the first town on the route, required seven days and
six nights of continuous travel with no avoidable stops except for meals
and relays of horses. Naturally for this long ride the choice of seats
was a matter of much importance. Any human being, in whom there remains
any life whatever, desires now and then to change his position, also to
secure an occasional doze without the risk of having his neck broken by
a sudden jolt, while sleeping. The back seat with its ample head rest
was, therefore, the first choice. I was compelled to take the middle
seat, the least desirable. There being nine passengers, the three inside
seats were occupied each by three persons, opportunity, however, being
left for riding at times with the driver.
At exactly eight-thirty o'clock on the morning of Thursday, October
25th, the driver was on his seat of the coach in front of the Salt Lake
House. The baggage and mail had been carefully strapped into the boot on
the rear, and the passengers were in their assigned places within.
As was the invariable custom, a crowd of onlookers thronged the
sidewalk, to watch the outgoing coach. The spirited horses, such as
usually were selected for the runs into and out from stations where they
were much observed, were fresh and eager. A few grand flourishes of the
driver's whip ended by sending the lash out over the lead-horses with a
sharp crack, and the team was off in grand form. As the outfit speeded
down the street, it was a dress parade, advertising Ben Holliday's stage
line. The first mile of this travel may be compared with the alluring
picture advertisements with which modern railroad companies attract
summer tourists. The real thing in tourist travel is better seen when
one walks through a car crowded with weary, perspiring, dust-begrimed
recreation-seeking passengers, who bear little resemblance to the fine
and jauntily dressed figures paraded in the beautiful booklets. And so,
when an hour later we traveled slowly up the long ascending grade and
muddy roads in Parley's Canyon, which were saturated with melting snow,
our plight seemed to be in striking contrast with our spectacular start.
There was but one woman among the passengers, and she with her husband
occupied the front seat, facing me. Everybody "got acquainted" very
quickly, after the manner of the West, and each told of the many
prominent people in their home state, with whom they were intimate, and
by four o'clock, at which time the eating station known as Kimball's was
reached, each had become convinced that he was one of a party of
distinguished and agreeable travelers.
It was after dusk, when with a fresh team we were whirling down the
steep curves of Silver Creek Canyon with horses on a full run, urged on
by the Jehu on the box. We were making up lost time, for the roads had
been heavy. At our right we were following the tortuous brink of dizzy
precipices, the bottoms of which were lost to sight in the gloom of the
mountain shadows.
A passenger on the front seat, while holding tightly to the window
frame, pushed his head outside and called at the top of his voice, "For
Heaven's sake, driver, go slower." The only response was a renewed
cracking of the whip and a more rapid clatter of the horses' hoofs upon
the rocky road. As the coach plunged over an obstruction one passenger,
who was changing his position on the back seat, was lifted to the roof
of the coach by a sudden jolt and tumbled over the middle seat where he
lay spread out, grasping the passengers in front for support. The horses
speeded on just the same, for lost time must be made up on the down
grades. All the passengers had been accustomed to travel by stages, but
it was remarked that at the beginning of each journey of this character
the apparent perils of rapid night riding in the mountains were more
fully realized than after several days of tension. When the long
up-grade of Echo Canyon was reached, and for hours the progress was
slower, affairs again settled down to a peaceful condition. While some
passengers maintained a desultory conversation others dropped into
fitful dozes, usually brought to an end by a short, vigorous snore.
Early on the second morning, while the muddy ground was covered with
white frost, we rode up to the breakfast station at Bear River, and an
opportunity was given to relax the tense muscles of the legs, which had
been pinioned down for the greater part of twenty-four hours. What would
be their condition two weeks later?
Another night closed in upon us, accompanied by a cold, driving rain.
The passengers pulled their caps down over their eyes, drew their wraps
snugly about their bodies, and sank back into the most restful positions
possible. By common consent nearly all of the men extended their feet to
the opposite seat, to relieve their limbs from the continued
confinement. The husband of my _vis-à-vis_ negotiated for privileges on
a portion of my seat for the feet of his wife, with his assurance of her
full reciprocity, to which interchange I gratefully assented. The woman
said that she was dying to stretch. I was quite willing to save her life
by such an agreeable exchange of courtesy.
At intervals of twelve or fourteen miles the driver gave vent to a
series of war-whoops, which announced his approach to some little hut
where horses were to be exchanged. While this was being done by the dim
light of a lantern, some passenger was sure to put his head out of the
window and ask, "Where are we now?" The reply that it was Lone Tree or
Salt Wells, conveyed but little information, as the stations were
almost nowhere, being simply points in space marked by the stage company
for convenience. Little could be seen from the coach except the stable
and the vague outlines of some overshadowing hill behind it, and the men
with the horses barely visible in the soft glow of the lantern.
The drizzly autumn rain continued to fall until, in the gray dusk of the
early morning, while the other passengers seemed to be dozing, I became
conscious of a slowly increasing dip of the coach, which continued until
the vehicle rolled upon its side. Then came a brief period of profound
silence, as if all were pausing to learn if the evolution was really
complete, and if we were not now to roll further down into some deep
ravine. In the meantime we were holding firmly one to another, but no
sound of distress indicated that any one was injured.
The first voice that came to our ears was from the driver outside, who
uttered a few well-assorted oaths, which were addressed to himself, in a
low tone of voice, but were, however, an assurance to us that all was
well and that he was in his normal condition. It was somewhat difficult
for each passenger to extricate himself from the common mass of humanity
with which he was implicated, and to get the several members of his own
body clearly identified and segregated from those belonging to others.
One man, who was on the upper stratum, succeeded in escaping through the
door, which now opened skyward, and emerged upon what had become the top
of the coach, from which observatory he saw the driver standing quietly
by his horses, deep in meditation, awaiting developments.
We were on comparatively level ground. The upset had been caused by a
deep rut, and its ending was as gentle as could be wrought by human
hands. The passengers were lifted out one by one, and with their
combined assistance the vehicle was righted upon its wheels, and we
rolled on to the next station at Green River, where that swift stream
was forded. The bottoms of the Concord coaches were water tight, so that
very deep streams could be crossed with a fair prospect in many cases of
bringing the passengers through dry shod.
As a precautionary measure I took a seat on the top of the coach with a
fellow traveler. In the course of our morning ride he informed me that
the man in the coach, who was traveling with his alleged wife, was a
professional gambler and the proprietor of a resort where was played the
seductive game of poker, in which miners and frontiersmen make many
hazardous ventures. We had been impressed with the spontaneous
generosity with which, at every possible opportunity, he had proffered
to each passenger the contents of one of the black bottles which were
convenient in his satchel. It was offered as night came on as a
protection against chills, and again at the dawn of day as an appetizer
to stomachs already craving for food. Before fording any stream his
whiskey was recommended, with the suggestion that there was danger of
our coming in contact with water. After crossing the stream it was
poured out as a libation in pious thankfulness that all were safely
over. By the end of the third day he seemed oblivious of passing events.
After the storms had passed away and we were under bright skies and in a
clear, exhilarating atmosphere, I spent the greater part of my time upon
the top of the coach. The right of way was universally accorded to the
coaches, because they carried the United States mail. Even in the
canyons or other narrow roadways, other travelers, who were now and then
passed, invariably drove out of the road, if possible, as soon as they
saw the stage approaching. After the morning of the fifth day large
numbers of antelope and deer as well as a few elk were seen. As each
passenger had some sort of rifle, a fusillade of shots was often sent
somewhat at random toward the unsuspecting animals, but usually without
hurting them, for the stage was rarely halted for so trifling a reason
as to enable sportsmen to aim with precision.
On the sixth day of our ride we were crossing the high Laramie plains.
With three other passengers I got on to the top of the coach. The driver
had six lively bronchos for his team. A stiff east gale was driving into
our faces. On a smooth down grade the whip was cracked a few times over
the horses' heads to urge them to the limit of their speed, and all were
on a keen gallop, which is the favorite gait of the broncho. The
passengers pulled their caps tightly upon their heads that they might
not be blown away.
"Gimme a match," said the driver, as with one hand he filled his pipe
with some of the weed that seemed to be loose in his overcoat pocket,
and then inserted the pipe stem between his teeth.
"You don't expect to light your pipe while facing this gale," exclaimed
a Hebrew, who sat behind the driver.
"Mebbe I can." This reply resulted in a proposed wager of five dollars
on condition that the pipe must be lighted with the first match used,
the driver to hold the six lines and the whip in his hands and to keep
the horses on a run.
"I'll cover it," said the driver. The money was placed in the hands of
a passenger. The lash again cracked over the horses, when the team
started with renewed vigor. The driver pulled his buckskin glove from
his right hand and quickly placed its fingers in his left hand, in which
he also held his lines and whip. Striking the match on the sole of his
boot he inserted it into the open glove into which he also poked the
bowl of his pipe, and in a moment the pipe was in successful operation.
He reached over to the stakeholder and closed upon the $10.00, which he
shoved into the pocket with the tobacco, remarking that it was dead
easy, and that he had won money the same way on nearly every trip.
At the next home-station, where our driver would ordinarily be exchanged
for another, it was found that because of delays no other driver was
there for relief, and although he had already been on the box for
several hours he must proceed with the stage.
He was not in a contented frame of mind, and therefore swore lustily as
he mounted the seat, and with six fresh bronchos rushed the team until
he reached Willow Springs. It appears that at the previous station he
had received from the generous passenger in the coach a flask of
whiskey, to aid him in keeping up his courage. Four fresh spirited
horses were now hitched to the coach for the next fifteen mile's drive.
The bleak gale caused all but the driver to go inside. The driver took a
fresh draught from the flask, mounted the box and applied the whip in so
brutal a manner that it became evident that he was drunk. One of the
lead horses led in a run and it was clear that the driver had lost
control both of himself and his team. While on one down hill course we
found ourselves continuously outside the road, bounding over stones,
with the horses in a panic and on a dead run. We were liable to be
dumped at any moment. The passengers were on their feet, calling through
the windows to the driver to stop. He was too drunk to reply audibly.
Being the youngest passenger and rather slender and supple I crawled
through the window over to the top of the swaying coach and slid down on
the seat by the driver before being observed by him. Instantly the reins
and whip were wrested from his lax grasp. No other act will enrage a
professional horseman so thoroughly as this. The driver made a dive for
the ribbons and swore that no man should take his horses. A single light
blow upon his head convinced him that he must submit. He knew that he
was helplessly drunk and his horses were running away. Having had some
experience in managing a four-in-hand I was soon able, by watching the
course, to turn them to the right up a hillside and bring them under
control for a sufficient time to enable some of the passengers to
escape. Some of them tried to pacify the rearing lead horses with kind
words. One strong man consented to mount the box and hold the drunken
driver in subjection until the outfit could be brought into the road.
The other passengers, except the gambler, walked for half a mile until
convinced that it would be safe to ride, when they returned to their
seats. The regular driver begged for the reins, but his guard held him
in custody until we were in sight of the home-station at Virginia Dale.
The intoxicated coachman had come somewhat to a consciousness of the
situation and in response to his pleadings he was permitted to drive the
last half mile of his run. All the passengers except the gambler
abandoned the coach and walked. He who remained was true to his
profession and said that he would gamble on the risk and ride. The
manager at Virginia Dale said that the driver would be discharged from
the service, but our opinion was that it would be only for the night.
On the seventh day we skirted along the eastern slope of the mountains
and now once more upon the plains we passed numerous herds of antelope
and elk. At night we arrived at the Planter's House in Denver.
It had been eight years since George A. Jackson, a trapper and companion
of Kit Carson, discovered gold in Cherry Creek near the present site of
that settlement. As Pike's Peak (discovered by Zebulon M. Pike in 1806)
was hardly a hundred miles distant and was the nearest object bearing a
name that had appeared on the maps at any time prior to the Cherry Creek
discovery, the diggings were first known as Pike's Peak Gold Mines.
In the following autumn of 1858 intelligence unaccompanied by any
particulars reached the States by the way of Omaha that gold had been
discovered at Pike's Peak. The news vividly colored by excitable men
spread like wild fire through the country. Early in the following spring
I saw a small train roll out with a party of adventurers whom I well
knew to be on the alluring quest for Pike's Peak gold. One wagon bore
the legend which later became familiar "Pike's Peak or bust." I saw
members of the party in the autumn of the same year after they had
returned "busted." Their hunt was like the storied search for the bag of
gold at the foot of the rainbow. Before the rumor of the discovery of
the precious metal had barely had time to rouse the average fortune
seeker George Scofield of Council Bluffs, who had been a successful
placer miner in California in 1849, joined with his neighbors, Samuel
Dillon, William Kuhn, George Ritter, and Joseph Wheeler and late in
1858, fitting out a four ox team with supplies, started immediately for
Pike's Peak. As they wandered among the foothills near the mountains the
snow began to fly. With the view of establishing winter quarters they
moved down to Cherry Creek and built the first log house erected in that
part of the territory. This was the beginning of Denver. This record
with the print of the house is furnished by Ira Scofield who was in at
the house warming. Thus was planted, in what was then Kansas territory,
another active aggressive center of population which was to open the
slumbering wealth of the hills, rouse the latent energies of the soil
and carve out the new state of Colorado. The rush of fortune-seekers,
the majority of whom went broke, brought to the Cherry Creek country a
legion of adventurers. The town, which at the beginning represented a
shifting, unstable population, was named Denver in honor of James W.
Denver, then Governor of Kansas territory.
[Illustration: FIRST HOUSE IN DENVER. BUILT ON CHERRY CREEK IN 1857, BY
GEORGE SCOFIELD]
After a brief sojourn in Denver I devoted a few days to a tour through
the new mining district back in the mountain gulches, and later through
South Park to Mount Lincoln, which at that time was said to be the
highest peak in the Rocky Mountain Range, and which I ascended on
horseback, finding it an easy task.
The petrified forest in South Park was then an interesting feature.
There were numerous stumps of trees of massive proportions; some of them
that I measured were eighteen feet in diameter. They stood near together
in a slight depression, at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet. They were
thoroughly petrified. The indication was that for a long period their
trunks had been submerged to a height of 15 or 20 feet above their bases
in a shallow lake of silicious waters, until the transformation to that
height was complete. The tops not having been submerged doubtless
decayed ages ago. With some labor I took home with me a large fragment
from one great petrified stump, the rings of which in some places were
clearly defined. On counting them across some level section it appeared,
by ascertaining the number of rings to the inch, that it had required at
least a thousand years for the tree to attain its growth. How many
thousand years it had stood in that barren valley since it had been
converted into stone no man can tell, but it is certain that the
destructive hands of thoughtless men, in the brief period of seven or
eight years after my visit, leveled all the stumps to the ground and
used portions thereof in various constructive works. In short, there is
little left of what should have been preserved intact as an interesting,
geological phenomenon. The fireplaces and chimneys in a ranch owned by a
Hollander, named Costello, where I once spent the night near this
ancient forest, were built from broken sections of these petrified
trees.
The Butterfield Overland Dispatch had been operating a line of stages by
the Smoky Hill route for several weeks, and I proceeded onward from
Denver by their coaches. As stated by Root in his volume _The Overland
Mail_, this company within eighteen months of its establishment, and on
account of financial difficulties brought on more or less by Indian
depredations, was forced into liquidation.
Evidence that the Indians were very busy in endeavoring to prevent the
running of these stages was unpleasantly convincing. On our first night
out we passed the smoking ruins of a station that had been burned by the
Indians within the preceding twenty-four hours. Discovering this
state of affairs, the passengers kept their guns close at hand. Nearly
all were provided with Spencer Carbines.
Having received advices that trouble of this nature was brewing, the
driver had taken on board a quantity of provisions to be used in an
emergency. This prophylactic measure proved exceedingly fortunate,
because at the home station next beyond the one that was burned, the
Indians had within a few hours appropriated everything of the nature of
supplies that could be found there, and had then moved on eastward. For
some strange reason this building was not then burned, nor were the
keepers killed. Our party consisted now of seven passengers, one of whom
was Governor Alfred Cumming. On entering the pillaged station we found a
slender, youthful-looking man, with his young wife and infant child.
They informed us that on that morning the Indians had closed in on their
station, and as they were hungry after their raidings of the preceding
night, the husband in desperation had welcomed them, and he with his
little wife had been cooking for them until all supplies were exhausted.
Their stock of provisions was replenished from the supply brought by our
coach, and with some assistance from our driver they wearily cooked our
breakfast, in which they were happy to share.
As all the operations were conducted in a single room, the Governor
conversed with the young woman while she was preparing the meal. In
reply to his questions she said that she and her husband had been alone
the greater part of the time during the Indian troubles, and in fact
since the station was built. She had no physician or nurse to assist her
at any time, but she and her husband had been able to care for the stage
passengers, who stopped for their meals, and had protected the
company's horses to the best of their ability, yet some of them had been
run off by the Indians.
The Governor interested the lady by unrolling a superb grizzly-bear
skin, which he was taking to Washington as a gift to the President.
At one of the stations I observed a circular cellar roofed with earth so
as to be fireproof, the sides being built up two or three feet above the
surface of the ground and provided with port holes. This cellar, or
fort, was connected with the station house by a subterranean passage,
extending under the roadway, forming a tunnel about seventy feet in
length. The cellar afforded a place of retreat, in case the station
should be fired, and an excellent defense against attack.
Our driver remarked that the Indians were not the only objects of dread.
He said that while bringing some passengers on a recent run out from
Denver, he observed that they conferred frankly with one another on the
best means for concealing their effects, as holdups were not infrequent.
A lady innocently informed her fellow travelers that she had concealed
$100 in her stocking and carried but $20 in her portemonnaie. The coach
was duly held up at dusk by highwaymen. The attack was so sudden that no
defense was made. Each passenger at the point of a revolver was made to
pay tribute while the driver was held at the muzzle of a rifle. The
woman trembling with fear delivered her portemonnaie and begged for her
life. A skinny-looking miner, whose contribution seemed to be
unsatisfactory, said to the active road agent of the gang, "If we can
rake up another $100 somewhere, will you let us off?" "Yes," said the
bandit, "if you will do it d--d quick."
"It's in that woman's stocking," said the apparently frightened miner.
The money was promptly secured, and the stage was permitted to proceed.
Some curses and threats were soon hurled at the ungallant miner. He
finally said, "Me and the woman will fix things up right in the
morning."
Sure enough, after the sun was well up the miner reached down his boot
leg and hauled out a package of $100 bank-notes, handing the lady from
it $200 in good money, and remarked that he was not so mean as he seemed
to be, but had thought on the spur of the moment that this was the
easiest way of saving all further unnecessary trouble. He had saved just
$4800 by his diplomacy.
Not all those reckless freebooters were lost to the world even after the
iron rails were laid. It may be of interest to catch a glimpse of one of
their later haunts and the home of a better class who had for a time
been exposed to their influence. The trains at the time in question were
running to Kit Carson. It seemed that the gamblers and adventurers of
the Southwest had concentered at this point and made its character
notorious. It was my fortune to spend a night in that settlement, while
_en route_ to Fort Lyon on the Santa Fe trail. The tavern was a big
saloon and was said to be the _rendezvous_ for many men who had served
their apprenticeship on the road, and was the resort of other experts
from the States.
"Can't give you a bed until after midnight," said the proprietor in
reply to my request for a room.
The only comfortable waiting place was the billiard room, which afforded
shelter until two o'clock in the morning, up to which time whiskey,
gambling, and swearing were blended in just and equal proportions. The
room having furnished nearly all the revenue to be expected for that
night, I was informed that I could sleep upon a billiard table
temporarily unused. It then appeared that the billiard tables regularly
served this double purpose. Enveloped in a blanket I appropriated the
softest spot to be found, and as one by one the abandoned tables were
occupied by guests, I became reconciled to my fate.
The next night found me at Las Animas, in a so-called hotel, the
partitions of which were made of canvas. Voices could easily be heard
from room to room. When I was retiring, the proprietor informed me of
the death of an old resident who had been in the colony more than a
year, and was therefore an old settler. A little later the same now
familiar voice was recognized in another room, as he declared to his
wife, "I don't know what in the devil to do about that funeral. They say
they are going to get a minister."
"Why, what about it, Jim," replied the woman.
"Wall, they expect me to run it, and if they have a minister I suppose
they will want a Bible, and I don't know where in Hell to get one."
"You ain't going there to hunt for one, are you?" said the woman.
"I guess I could find one there as easy as I could in Las Animas," was
the response.
"But say! Didn't they have one when Hat Morrow was buried?"
"I reckon they did, and I'll go right over and find out. If I'm to run
the job, I'd like to do it in style."
The man was soon heard to pass out and close the door.
I did not learn the result of the landlord's quest for a Bible, but I
was led to believe that in their hearts there was a latent feeling of
reverence for that Book, which an emergency would awaken. The minister,
however, may have brought a Bible with him.
On our second day out from Denver our coach was stopped fully half an
hour, not by bandits but by a herd of buffalo uncountable in number,
which, in a solid body as closely massed as a flock of sheep, crossed
the road moving southward on their annual migration. From that time for
the two succeeding days there was not a moment when there were not many
thousands of buffalo within range of our view. The hills in every
direction as far as the eye could reach were dotted with those great,
dark-moving objects. It would require no marksmanship at 50 or 100 yards
to send our Spencer bullets into the mass without singling out any
particular animal. Three buffaloes were left wounded by shots from a
passenger who fired at short range from the coach into the first herd we
encountered.
The prairies of eastern Kansas, from which the buffalo had been driven,
were more fertile and produced grass more luxuriantly than the ranges
farther west. When we crossed those eastern plains on our return trip,
they had become dry from the frosts and late drouth. As we were sitting
on the outside of the coach with the driver one night, we observed an
increasing glow in the southeast, which betokened an approaching prairie
fire that was being driven northward before a brisk southern breeze. The
leaping flames soon became visible and their rapid progress was
alarming. We considered the advisability of halting and protecting
ourselves for a time with a back fire, which is the common practice when
travelers are threatened by such a danger. We certainly could not
safely advance. The remedy was easy. Yielding the reins to another, the
driver jumped to the ground and applied a lighted match to the little
clumps of dry grass on each side of the road. On the leeward side the
flames soon gained headway and sped off to the northward widening as
they advanced. On the other side they crept slowly toward the oncoming
greater conflagration which was approaching with a crackling and subdued
roar and lighted up the country in every direction. Beyond us they swept
across the road, but when they met the back fire, which advanced but
slowly against the wind the two lines of flame melted together into one
and died, leaving only the few hot, black ashes, which quickly cooled.
For hours the northern sky was luminous from the reflection of the
receding flames, which crossed our trail and swept onward, possibly
until checked at the shore of some far away stream.
Thus over that broad uncultivated expanse of fertile prairie those awe
inspiring fires were sweeping, as they doubtless had often done in
centuries past, unheeded except by the wild dwellers of the plains or in
later years by a few stray travelers. And this was Kansas, the first and
at this time the only trans-Missouri territory that had been welcomed to
the sisterhood of states, except those on our western tide-water that
were accessible by navigation.
Although its eastern border near the river had been settled somewhat
through the stimulus of the intense ante-bellum struggle to make it a
free commonwealth, its western and central territory was still
unoccupied. There in the dawn of its infant life this great state lay
sleeping, awaiting the coming of the day when the farmer would turn its
virgin soil, plant it with seed, and reap the abundant harvest. But
those prairies, then remote from commercial or mining centers, have no
navigable waters, and the planter cannot thrive unless there first be
furnished some means for transporting his crops to market. Until these
should be provided, Kansas and all those embryo states must slumber on
undeveloped. The ox- and mule-trains between the Missouri and the mines
or western coast would follow the trails, as they had done in the years
gone by, leaving but little tribute on their way.
A decade had passed since Thomas H. Benton in a speech at the St. Louis
Court House, in advocacy of a railroad to the Pacific, suddenly pointed
toward the West and declared with dramatic emphasis, "There is East,
there is India." In his prophetic vision he doubtless saw where the East
may be said to meet the West, on the further shore of the broad Pacific,
but as the logical result of railroad transportation he also prophesied
the development of our own western domain, all of which would be needed
for future generations. Horace Greeley also anticipated this awakening.
At the time when the great prairie fires occurred, to which reference
has just been made, three years had elapsed since the bill had been
passed by Congress providing for the building of the Pacific railroad,
and the work was already inaugurated, both from Omaha and Kansas City,
pushing out into the unsettled territory. In the following year the work
progressed rapidly from both initial points, and a vigorous population
composed of thrifty young people from the middle states poured across
the Big Muddy, disdainfully leaving behind them the broad and equally
fertile areas in Missouri, partly because they were undeveloped by
railroads, and these immigrants built a chain of villages along each of
the new western railroad lines as rapidly as the tracks were laid. These
villages were speedily surrounded by the green fields of husbandmen,
until those roads were like necklaces of steel with emerald settings.
Colleges were soon built in each of the trans-Missouri territories
through which the roads passed, where two decades before the wolves had
roamed at will.
A certain twentieth century statesman having apparently a less distinct
knowledge of the past than Benton and Greeley seemed to have of the
future has recently said, "States made the railroads," and this
allegation was assigned as the reason why state legislatures should
regulate railroads without interference by the United States Government.
In watching the magical development of the West, as I have carefully
done, and observing that its evolution, sometimes on its fertile lands,
at other times on arid deserts once regarded as hopeless, was always
rapid along or near the new lines of transportation and scanty, if at
all, elsewhere, one is tempted to invert the statesman's assertion that
"States made railroads" and declare with greater justice that "Railroads
have made states," and while like men they should be subject to
regulation, they also deserve that reasonable protection to which a
prime factor in modern civilization is entitled.
Nearly half a century has passed since there began this sudden and
wonderful awakening of the Western Wilderness, the processes leading up
to which are described in these pages as they were unfolded to one who
had observed them from the first quickening of Western emigration.
The Wild West as still caricatured in the arena by dashing, reckless
circus cowboys and swift-footed Texas steers is no more. The limitless
ranges of semi-arid lands over which those riders coursed their hardy
mustangs are now partitioned by wire fences within which steady herdsmen
watch their blooded stock.
The old Oregon and Santa Fe trails stretching half way across the
continent over wide wastes unpeopled except by savage tribes, once the
scene of innumerable thrilling adventures and desperate encounters, are
now quite forgotten except as they are held in vivid remembrance by the
few still living who have traced their dusty courses across the plains
and deserts or their sinuous pathways through the mountain canyons.
Steel railways now parallel those trails along which trains of prairie
schooners slowly crept, and thousands of miles of steel branches radiate
from them across vast areas hardly visited fifty years ago even by the
explorer.
The warrior tribes are subdued and driven to reservations; the buffalo
is seen no more on those broad vistas; a dozen great and populous
commonwealths have arisen in those territories and have been added to
the galaxy of American States, and thriving cities and towns, thoroughly
abreast with advanced civilization, are now scattered over the expanse
defined on the old maps as the Great American Desert.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Hyphenation, punctuation, and spelling standardized when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise unchanged. Simple
typographical errors remedied; most retained.
Chapter XXVI sub-heading changed to mixed-case small-caps for
consistency with all the other Chapter sub-headings.
Pages 213-215 (Chapter XVII, paragraph 4, which begins "Lieutenant
Collins was born in Hillsboro, Ohio,"): the paragraph contains
unbalanced double-quotation marks, which have been retained.
Most illustrations have been moved slightly from their
original positions.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Awakening of the Desert, by Julius C. Birge