Diggings upon as direct a course as possible. The leader in this enterprise
was H. C. Norton, under whose direction the South Platte already had been
bridged at the site of Fort St. Vrain and a wagon-road thence to Boulder
City located and given some improvements. But after considerable work
had been done upon the attempted extension of this highway to the Gregory
District the project was abandoned. "Though the settlers subscribed all
they were able to give, it proved too great an undertaking for their means."
In that autumn several groups of our pioneers formed corporate associa-
tions to establish wagon-roads as business ventures. The "Denver, Aurai-ia
& Colorado Wagon Road Company" was organized by Josepli Casto, Horner
HISTORY OF COLORADO v^Tl
Fellows, Christian Dorsej-, and Solomon Shoup, "to build a toll wagon-
road from Denver City, by way of the South Park, through Tarryall to
'Saratoga West" on the Blue Fork". The "Blue Fork" was the present Blue
River, of the western slope ; and "Saratoga West" was, as set forth in my
next chapter, the proposed site of a contemplated new "city" to be located
upon the ground occupied by the present town of Sulphur Springs, the
county seat of Grand County. The geography of the western slope was not
well known at that time. The course of this road was southwesterly from
Auraria-Denver to Mount Yernon, thence on in the same general direction
over the foot-hills to the North Fork of the Sduth Platte and thence westerly
and southwesterly to Tarryall. It was "ojiened" to Bergen Park by the
middle of December, and late in the next spring to Tarryall, when it became
a thoroughfare between Denver and tiie Sovith Park and Blue River mining-
districts. But there had been some travel upon the route in tlie last half
of the previous year.
Samuel W. Brown, Joseph M. Brown, and J. H. Cochran formed a
companv "to build a toll-road from Auraria. Ijy way of Bradford and Pied-
mont, to the South Park". This road "connected with the Bergen road in
the mountains, about twelve miles from the plains" ; and in the following
April its luiilders notified the public that it was "the shortest route to
Tan-yall and the Blue". This was true, but the rival road of Casto and his
associates, by way of Mount A'ernon, had "the easiest gi-ades in entering the
mountains", and was held to be the shorter in time.
John W. Mclntyre, J. M. Ferrell, Harry Gunnell. and Lucien W.
Bliss organized the "St. Yrain, Golden City & Colorado Wagon Road Com-
pany" for the purjTOse of "locating and improving a toll wagon-road from
[the site of] Fort St. Yrain, by way of Golden City, to 'Saratoga West' on
the Blue Fork". This highway, which was designed to side-track Auraria-
Denver and divert to Golden City the travel up the South Platte and on to
the South Park diggings, was "located and improved" before tire end of
the year as far as Mount Yernon. Of its further extension by the middle
of the follo^^^ng April, and which was by way of Bradford, a contributor
to the Rocl-ij Mountain News said:
'â– I am happy to inform the people of tliis vieinity and the travelling public
generally, tliat through the utiring energy and perseverance of Colonel Mclntyre and
others, as fine a mountain road to Tarryall, by way of Bradford, as I have ever
travelled, will soon be completed for their accommodation. It is now finished to
the crossing of the South Platte, and a large force of men are steadily at work on
the other part of the road. I came from Tarryall to this place [Denver City] in
two days."
Late in the autumn of 18-59, some of the promoters of Boulder City
again attempted to take a hand in road-building. The "Boidder City, Gold
Hill & Left Hand Creek Wagon Road Company"'" was organized "to construct
a toll wagon-road from Boulder City to Gold Hill and Left Hand Creek",
but which appears not to have progressed in that year much Ijeyond the
paper stage. A contemporary highway-enterprise in that part of the country
was the "St. Yrain, Altona, Gold Hill & Gregory Wagon Road Company",
organized to locate and open a toll-road upon the course implied by the
corporation's name. In that autumn and the following spring, a fairly
passable road was made from the lowland to the nrouth of a ravine which
was then called "Aikins" Gulch"', on Left Hand Creek, near Gold Hill. Some
work also was done from the site of Central City nortlnvard, upon the
•3?-a HISTORY OF COLORADO
Gregory end of the contemplated thoroughfare. However, tlie connecting
link was not constructed, and therefore the road failed to become a "through
line".
No great amount of cutting, filling and Ijridging, as measured by
modern standards, was done upon any of these toll-roads, and much the
larger part of the labor was applied to the mountain sections. Over streams
not easily to be forded rude bridges of logs were built, and here and there
obstructions were removed and more or less grading was required. They
were regarded as "fair" highways by those who used them, Ijut nowadays
would be considered pretty hard roads to travel. The use of the word
"Colorado" in the names of two of these toll-road companies was due to the
same misunder-standing that had caused the founders of Colorado City to
make it a part of the "title" of their town.
About the time these road-builders were organizing, William H. Green
"and associates"" converted themselves into the "Fountain City Bridge Com-
pany"", witli intentions immediately "to build a toll-bridge over the Arkansas
River at Fountain City", to serve the travel from and to Xew Mexico, and
which was constructed in the following spring.
AMiile the founders of new "cities"" and the promoters of highwa\s were
busily engaged as related above, the miners in the mountains were having
a kind of trouble that had not been anticipated in the days of the inrush
to their diggings. In consequence of the previous wiuter"s mildness, the
summer and autumn of 1S59 were dry seasons; and even before the end of
the summer the supply of water, an element indisi3ensable in placer mining,
had begun to run low in all the diggings. By the coming of autumn, work
upon a large number of claims had to te suspended and upon many others
was greatly retarded because of its scarcity. The districts on the North
Fork of Clear Creek were the more seriously affected by the drouthy con-
ditions, which had been of some hindrance in the Gregory District and in
Russell Gulch from before the middle of July.
To guard against the recui-rence of sucli interruptions in tlieir localities,
the miners in Russell Gulch and adjacent parts organized the "Fall River
Ditch Companj^' late in Julv, under the leadership of William Green
Russell, to construct a ditch that would conduct water to them from the
upper reaches of Fall River, the length of the required channel, measured
by its windings, being a little more than eleven miles. About the same
time, other miners, above Russell Gulch and nearer Fall River, formed the
"Rocky Mountain Ditch Company"', of which Robert W. Steele, who tecame
Governor of "Jefferson Territory"' some three months later, was elected
President, to procure water for their district from the same source and
by the same means. As Steele"s comjiany asserted prioritv in tlie Fall River
water-right for this purpose, the two organizations, after a delay of several
weeks, were merged into the "Consolidated Ditch Company", of which
William Green Russell was chosen President; A. H. Owens, Secretary; and
J. M. Wood, Superintendent. The ditch was a difficult and expensive under-
taking; and, although work upon it was done gi-atuitously by a number of
the interested miners, it was said to liave entailed an outlay of $100,000 in
gold, or about $9,000 per mile. Lumber, for flumes over ravines and for
other requirements, delivered where it was to be used, was supplied at heavy
cost, while the price of powder for blasting was eighteen dollars per keg.
But labor was obtained at figures relatively much lower, a^ many idle men
HISTORY OF COLORADO 273
who had failed to acquire a miniug-claim from which they could abstract
the means of living were glad to work upon the ditch at moderate wages.
The channel was not "completed until early in the siunmer of the next year,
when its utility proved to be of great service to the districts it supplied.
About that time, the "Xevada Ditch Company" finished a conduit,
several miles long and less difficult to construct, from near the head of the
Xorth Fork of Clear Creek into the diggings at Nevada.
Aside from their usefulness to tlie miners, these ditches are of further
historical interest because their construction was the first work ranking
as civil engineering that was done upon the soil of Colorado.
Other ditches of considerable length had preceded them in the lowland,
but these comparatively were simple affaire upon open land and easy courses.
On the 1st of May (1859), the "Cherry Creek Ditch Company" began
digging a trench that diverted water from Cherry Creek at a point some six
miles above the mouth of that stream, and completed it two months later.
''The ditch will require an average depth of three and one-half feet for
about one mile and a quarter"', said a contemporary reference to it, "when
it will follow a natural channel to the Platte, making a total length of
a little over three miles and bringing an abundance of water to Auraria
and the Spanish dry diggings" (the old "Mexican Diggings", on the right
bank of the South Platte, in what is now the southern part of the city of
Denver). At the same time, the "Platte Ditch Company", "commenced
work on their ditch, leaving the Platte about nine miles above the mouth of
Cherry Creek, and furnishing water to the ilontana mines" [placer diggings
in the vicinity of the site of the short-lived to-mi of Montana and of the
mouth of Drj' Creek]. This ditch apjjears to have been completed before the
end of May.
In most of the mining-districts on upper Clear Creek, and on Boulder
Creek, as well, there was much difficulty in obtaining water for most of the
more elevated workings. ♦ For conducting it to these, flumes were made and
ditches dug along the hillsides ; and at several places on Clear Creek wheels
with gearing and other appliances were set in the stream to raise water by
the current's power to a height from which it could flow where it was
needed. The miners in the Boulder districts also diverted the streams, for
short distances, from their natural teds to higher levels. Mining operations
in the South Park and on the Blue Eiver were less troubled by scarcity of
water than those of any other sections of the country.
Mechanical devices and appliances for dealing with gold-bearing quartz
were introduced into the diggings on the Xorth Fork of Clear Creek before
midsummer of that year, the fi^rst of which, an "arastra", was constructed in
the Gregory District by three "'pardners" — Lehman, Laughton. and Peck.
They began work upon it on June 28th, and by the middle of July had it in
motion. The arastra was a Mexican invention, of an exceedingly primitive
type, and of which the main part was a circular tul>like basin or vat in the
ground, usually from twelve to fifteen feet in diameter and alx)ut two feet
deep, walled and paved -nnth stone set in some kind of mortar. Two posts
opposite each other supported a horizontal overhead transverse beam at
a man's height above the basin. From one side of the lower half of an
upright post wliich turned on pivots, one in the center of the basin's floor
and the other in the cross-beam above, a horizontal wooden bar extended
to the circumference of the vat. From the opposite side of the pivoted
Vol. I — 18
274 HISTORY OF COLORADO
post a similar bar projected, and to which the motive power — a horse, mule,
or ox, in Mexican practice — ^was hitched. To the first-mentioned horizontal
bar, heavy stones, called "mullers", were attached by means of ropes or
chains. Water to the depth of several inches having been admitted into the
basin upon a grist of quartz, the motive power moved 'round and "round the
vat, turning the pivoted post and thus causing the mullers to drag upon the
quartz and grind it to powder in the water. After a "run"' had been made,
the water was drained ofE and the pulverized quartz removed to be washed or
otherwise treated to extract the gold from the mushy mass. This simple
contrivance served the purpose with fair efficiency, but with the slowness
attributed to the mills of the gods. The arastra made by Lehman, Laughton,
and Peck, was operated with oxen for several weeks, but the motive power
appUed in the beginning to most of the others that were used in the Pike"s
Peak region was that afforded by water, the pivoted post being turned by
means of a belt driven by a water-wheel.
Rather an unique appliance for pulverizing quartz was devised and put
into use at the Gregory Diggings in that summer by an ingenious miner
named Redd, and to which the principle of the trip-hammer was adapted.
A beam, to which a large maul-hammer was fixed at one end, was pivoted
on the stump of a tree and worked by a small and crude water-wheel, the
hammer-head striking upon ore placed in a wooden trough. From the
motions of the more conspicuous mechanism of this pioneer "reduction
plant"', it was given the appropriate name of "Woodpecker Mill".
The first stamp-mill used in the Colorado country was one having a bat-
tery of six stamps, consti-ucted near the mouth of Chase Gulch, in the
Gregory locality, by Charles Giles, an Ohio man, during that summer, and
was run by water-power. Giles made the entire outfit with his own hands,
from material obtained on the ground ; and, excepting the iron with which
the stamp-stems were shod, every part of it was of wood. Yet, according to
one of the lesser of the golden stories told in that year, this feeble and
loose-jointed little mill made for its builder a profit of $G,000 before the
coming of winter.
The first steam stamp-mill that treated Pike's Peak ore was a "three-
stamper" owned by Prosser, Conklin & Co., and was set up on Claim Xo. 1,
of the Gregory District, about the middle of September, steam being raised
in its boiler for the first time on the 17th of that month, the scream of
the whistle echoing from hills upon which bands of mountain-sheep had been
wandering in the stillness of the mountain solitudes less than six months
before. The mill soon was regularly at work and doing well. On October
7th, Coleman, LeFevre & Co. started another steam stamp-mill, having six
stamps, and which stood in Eureka Gulch, in the same neighborhood. Late
in that month a pioneer named Clark took into that locahty another six-
stamp mill to be run by steam, and which he had in operation by the 1st
of December.
The smaller of these equipments, crushing "lieadings" from the sluices
— that is, quartz that was too coarse to pass through the sluice-screens —
produced gold weekly to the value of about $200 until the close of the
season. The six-stamp miU of Coleman, LeFevre & Co., which had broken
down shortlv after its first start and remained idle for a month, l>ecame
very profitable after it resumed work. From quartz taken from the Gunnel!
Lode at a depth of fifty-six feet, the results of a run of seven days were
HISTOEY OF COLOBADO 275
1,442 pennjfweights of gold. Later, from fifteen tons of Gunnell ore. raised
from seventy-six feet below the surface, this mill obtained gold to the value
of $1,700.
Bv October 1st, there were five arastras and two small wooden stamp-
mills running on the North Fork of Clear Creek, with four more arastras
in course of construction. All these were operated by water-power, the
pioneer ox-power arastra liaving in the meantime been equipped with a
wheel.
Late in the summer, T. J. Graham conveyed a three-stamp mill to Gold
Hill, in the Boulder Creek district ; but, as it was a half-crippled affair, it
failed to do much efficient work. In the middle weeks of the autumn, a
larger mill, driven by water-power, was erected at Gold Hill, and which
proved of good service in the following year. The production of gold in
the South Park and Blue Eiver districts and in those at and in the vicinity
of the mouth of Chicago Creek appears to have continued to \x confined to
placer mining to the close of 1859.
There were no means of ascertaining definitely the aggregate value of
the gold that was yielded by the Pike's Peak mines during that year. Wliile
some of the miners who had worked unusually rich claims had freely told
the results of their operations, a large number of these were inclined to be
reticent as to the proceeds of theirs. Furthermore, there were hundreds of
less conspicuous claim-owners who had had generous returns for every day's
labor, and many others whose rewards were of the rank of good wages. How-
ever, various estimates of the sum of the values were made, ranging from
several hundred thousand dollars to "many millions"'. But all the circum-
stances imply the probability that the total approximated $3,000,000.
While some thousands of our pioneer Pike's Peakers had acquired min-
ing-properties that already had produced values varying from fair compensa-
tion for time and labor to amounts which were the equivalents of opulence
according to the standards of that period, there was a much larger number
of thousands from whom Fortune had withheld all favors. Among the latter
were many who had raced from the scene of one disclosiu-e to that of another
until they had made the entire circuit of mining-districts, and still were
empty of hand and light of pocket. Of such as these it has been said, but
with a measure of exaggeration as to comparative numbers, that having
heard "a rumor of discovery, they swarmed at that place, alighting like
locusts upon a field which could not furnish ground for one in a thousand
of those who came ; and finding themselves too late, they swarmed again at
some other spot, which they abandoned in a similar manner''. Many others
had ransacked the mountain region in futile efforts to emulate the success
of Gregory and Jackson as prospectors.
About the 1st of September, the gi-eat majority of these disappointed
men, who were weary, downhearted and tattered after their season of failure,
began taking their leave of the country and trudging homeward in droves,
commenting loudly and with much picturesque profanity upon their folly in
heeding the infatuation which had allured them to Pike's Peak, and with
strong voices proclaiming their eagerness to "get back to God's country"
and their determination to stay there for the rest of their days. With this
host of aggrieved and complaining victims of Adversity, went a large num-
ber of Fortune's favorites, nearly all of whom had good and sufficient reasons
for their fixed intention to return after a winter's visit to their former
376 HISTORY OF COLORADO
homes. More than one-half of the peojjle wiio liad lieen in tlie TikcV I'cak
country at the beginning of the antunin were inelndeil in this exodus, whicli
continued unto the end of that season. The popuhition that remained
during the \rinter of 1859-60 was "conservatively estimated" to numl>er
between 20,000 and 25,000, but the figures used in this guess doubtless were
too large. It was also "estimated" that about one-tenth of the t^tal were
residents of Auraria-Denver.
Family life, of which there had been but few examples among our
Pike's Peakers before the preceding spring, now was well estalilisbed in the
larger of the lowland communities, and to a narrowly limited extent in some
of the mining-towns in the mountains. The first birth in any of the Ameri-
can settlements in the region occurred in Denver City on March 3. 1859, and
was that of a son of the trader and assistant town-founder, William McGaa,
whose wife was a half-blood Sioux. The bov, who is still living, was named
William Denver McGaa. Full-white native infantile additions to the popu-
lation began in the following summer. The first of these interesting events
was the birth of a daughter to ^Ir. and !Mrs. Henry Humbeil, of
Auraria City, about the middle of July, the exact date not being of rec-
ord. The child received the given-name of "Auraria"', in honor of her
birthplace. The Auraria City Town Company "donated" her a town lot and
three to her parents. At Colorado City, on August 28th, a son, who was
christened "Colorado" Johnson, was born to Mr. and Mrs. William Johnson,
formerly of Pennsylvania. As this was the first birth in that "city", the
proprietary town company presented this baby pioneer with eight lots. Dur-
ing the remainder of that year there were sundry repetitions of such proof
that gold was not the only valuable product of the new country. The first
Pike's Peak wedding under American auspices seems to have been the
marriage, in Auraria Cit}-, on October 16th, by the Rev. G. W. Fisher, of
John B. Atkins, of Mt. Clemens, Michigan, and Miss Lydia B., eldest daugh-
ter of Henry Allen, a leader among the citizens of Auraria. An editorial
notation appended to the published announcement of this union of hearts
and lives, says "this is the first marriage notice ever published in the Terri-
toiy of Jefferson".
Several Protestant clergymen had come to the mountains with the sum-
mer throngs of immigrants ; and in the meantime the beginnings of church
organizations had been made in Auraria-Denver and in some of the other
settlements. On October 3d, the first secular institution of learning in the
Colorado countrj^ a private "Union School", was oj^ened in a rented log-
cabin in Auraria City by 0. J. Goldrick. Thirteen children, two of wlioin
were Indian half-bloods, attended on that day ; but a week or so later the
number was increased to "between fifteen and twenty". Another of our
pioneer educators laid claim in recent times to the distinction here accorded
to Goldrick. but the records of that year contain nothing that gives support
to his allegations of priority.
But a comparatively small numlwr of those of our jiioneers who re-
mained after the autumn exodus had had any experience with Rocky Moun-
tain winter-weather; and among those who had sjjent the previous cold season
in Pike's Peak country there was some doubt as to a repetition of the
mildness that had made it so agreeable. Many of the successful miners who
had returned to their former homes had believed that their claims would lie
buried in snow or locked by frost, that the season would be one of idleness
HISTOEY OF COLORADO -''.:
in the mining-districts, and that they could put in the intervening time
more happily and comfortably at their old firesides. But after a snowfall
near the end of September, and which was about one foot in depth in the
mountains, the weather continued bright and genial until near the end of
the year. An extreme change, that prevailed for several days, came on
December 26th, in the night of which, according to all accoimts, the mercurs'
in Auraria-Denver thermometers solidified, indicating a degree of cold lower
than 39i below zero — the like of which has not been known since. Tr;vvel
between the several lowland towns, and even to and from the ]\Iissouri Eiver,
was not interrupted for long at a time during the winter, nor were the
mining-districts upon the eastern slope of the mountains rendered inacces-
sible.
Considerable activity in mining had continued until past the end of
the autumn, and some new methods were introduced. These were tunnels
into the hillsides, and which were driven at various places in the Clear Creek
districts, but owing to their improper locations, due chiefly to the inex-
perience of their projectors, most of them proved of no practical use, and
later were abandoned. Other miners were taking out and piling up ore,
in anticipation of the installation of more and better milling facilities
in the spring of the next year, those already upon the ground having been
unable to treat all the gold-bearing mineral that was offered them. Xo
small number of owners of claims in the mountains remained at their
properties throughout the winter. In preparation for what they supposed
would be a rigorous period of cold and storms, of enforced indoor life, and
of isolation from sources of supplies, they banked their cabins high with
earth and stocked them with a store of provisions sufficient to outlast the
expected blockade. However, the conditions turned out to te for the most
part greatly at variance with their anticipations and permitted them to do
some mining in each of the winter months. In November, December and