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Title: The Land of Enchantment: From Pike's Peak to the Pacific
Author: Lilian Whiting
Release Date: October 9, 2017 [EBook #55718]
Language: English
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THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
[Illustration: PICTURESQUE BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL, GRAND CAÑON, ARIZONA]
THE LAND OF
ENCHANTMENT
From Pike's Peak to the Pacific
By LILIAN WHITING
Author of "The World Beautiful," "The Florence of
Landor," "Boston Days," etc.
"_The Fairest enchants me;
The Mighty commands me._"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1909
_Copyright, 1906_,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
TO
THE UNFADING MEMORY
OF
MAJOR JOHN WESLEY POWELL
THE GREAT EXPLORER
Whose name is inseparably linked for all time with the "Titan of
Chasms," the entire length of which he penetrated, revealing its weird
and mysterious grandeur; whose fidelity to scientific survey has
signally advanced the progress of our country; whose wise foresight in
advocating water supplies for arid lands, whose heroism amid hardships
and whose persistence of energy and noble purpose forever endear his
name to every American and to all who revere the loftiest achievements
of science,
These pages are inscribed by
LILIAN WHITING.
"_The sun set, but not his hope;
Stars rose; his faith was earlier up._"
"_What's life to me?
Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen
Music; and where I tend bliss evermore._"
BROWNING.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
It is a special pleasure to the author to gratefully present her
acknowledgments to Mr. W. H. Simpson, of the Santa Fé; Mr. S. K.
Hooper, of the Denver and Rio Grande; Mr. David Cameron Mac Watters, of
the Short Line, and Mr. Croycroft, the artist of Santa Fé, New Mexico,
for their kind courtesies in facilitating the choice of subjects for
illustration and for their sympathetic encouragement in the effort to
interpret something of the sublimity and the loveliness of this land of
enchantment between Pike's Peak and the Pacific.
THE BRUNSWICK
BOSTON, October, 1906
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WITH WESTERN STARS AND SUNSETS 3
II. DENVER THE BEAUTIFUL 15
III. THE PICTURESQUE REGION OF PIKE'S PEAK 51
IV. SUMMER WANDERINGS IN COLORADO 94
V. THE COLORADO PIONEERS 157
VI. THE SURPRISES OF NEW MEXICO 182
VII. THE STORY OF SANTA FÉ 207
VIII. MAGIC AND MYSTERY OF ARIZONA 228
IX. THE PETRIFIED FOREST AND THE METEORITE MOUNTAIN 270
X. LOS ANGELES, THE SPELL-BINDER 298
XI. GRAND CAÑON; THE CARNIVAL OF THE GODS 311
INDEX 339
ILLUSTRATIONS
Picturesque Bright Angel Trail, Grand Cañon, Arizona _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Acoma, New Mexico. Two Miles Distant 13
Summit of Pike's Peak, Colorado 55
Williams Cañon, near Manitou, Colorado 64
Seven Falls, Cheyenne Cañon, near Colorado Springs, Colorado 66
St. Peter's Dome, on the Cripple Creek Short Line 71
Approaching Duffield 72
Portland and Independence Mines, Victor, Colorado 75
View from Bull Hill, Richest Gulch in the World 76
The Devil's Slide, Cripple Creek Short Line 80
Colorado Springs and Tunnel No. 6, Cripple Creek Short Line 83
Gateway of the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado 92
Cathedral Spires, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado 92
The Walls of the Cañon, Grand River 99
The "Fairy Caves," Colorado 101
Marshall Pass and Mt. Ouray, Colorado 103
The Wonderful Hanging Lake, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado 112
Cathedral Rocks, Clyde Park, Cripple Creek Short Line 137
Sultan Mountain 150
Acoma, New Mexico 183
The Enchanted Mesa, New Mexico 184
Laguna, New Mexico 186
Cliff Dweller Ruins, near Santa Fé, New Mexico 191
Stone Tent. Cliff Dwellers, New Mexico 191
San Miguel Church, Santa Fé, New Mexico 211
"Watch Tower." Cliff Dwellers, New Mexico 215
Cliff Dwellers. Within Twenty-five Miles of Santa Fé,
New Mexico 215
Petrified Giants, Third Forest, Arizona 228
Collection of Cacti made by Officers at Fort McDowell, Arizona,
for this Picture 232
Looking through a Part of the River Gorge, Foot of Bad Trail,
Grand Cañon 240
Suwara (Giant Cactus), Salt River Valley, Arizona 267
San Francisco Peak, near Flagstaff, Arizona 276
Grand Cañon, from Grand View Point 316
Zigzag, Bright Angel Trail, Grand Cañon 318
A Cliff on Bright Angel Trail, Grand Cañon 320
THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
CHAPTER I
WITH WESTERN STARS AND SUNSETS
"_The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, and the plains--
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?_"
TENNYSON
"_It may be that the gulfs will wash us down._"
TENNYSON
"_My father's kingdom is so large that people perish with cold at one
extremity whilst they are suffocated with heat at the other._"
CYRUS TO XENOPHON
The good American of the Twentieth century by no means defers going to
Paris until he dies, but anticipates the joys of Paradise by making a
familiarity with the French capital one of the consolations that tend
to the alleviation of his enforced terrestrial sojourn. All Europe,
indeed, has become the pleasure-ground of American tourists, a large
proportion of whom fail to realize that in our own country there are
enchanted regions in which the traveller feels that he has been caught
up in the starry immensities and heard the words not lawful for man to
utter. Within the limits of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern
California there are four centres of sublime and unparalleled scenic
sublimity which stand alone and unrivalled in the world. Neither the
Alps nor the Himalayas can offer any parallel to the phenomena of the
mountain and desert systems of the Southwest as wrought by the march
of ages, presenting unique and incomparable problems of scientific
interest that defy solution, and which are inviting the constant study
and increasing research of many among the most eminent specialists of
the day in geology and metallurgy. The Pike's Peak region offers to
the traveller not only the ascent of the stupendous Peak, but also the
"Short Line" trip between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek, which
affords forty-five miles of marvellous mountain and cañon effects.
The engineering problem of the ascent of St. Peter's Dome,--a huge
mass of granite towering eleven thousand feet into the air, around
which the steel track winds in terraces, glory after glory of view
repeating itself from the ascending vistas as the train climbs the
dizzy height,--the engineering problem that is here at once presented
and solved, has attracted scientific attention all over the world as
the most extraordinary achievement in mountain transportation. The
Grand Cañon of the Colorado in Arizona, two days' journey from the
Pike's Peak region, the Petrified Forests that lie also in Arizona,
seventy-five miles beyond the border of New Mexico, and that Buried
Star near Cañon Diablo, make up a group that travellers and scientists
are beginning ardently to appreciate. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona,
and Southern California offer, all in all, a landscape panorama that
for grandeur, charm of climate, and rich and varied resources is
unrivalled. Imagination falters before the resources of this region and
the inducements it offers as a locality in which to live surrounded
by perpetual beauty. The air is all exhilaration; the deep blue skies
are a miracle of color by day, and a miracle of shining firmament by
night; the land offers its richly varied returns in agriculture, fruit,
mining, or grazing, according to the specific locality; the inhabitants
represent the best quality of American life; the opportunities and
advantages already offered and constantly increasing are greater than
would at first be considered possible. This entire Southwest can only
be accurately defined as the Land of Enchantment.
"Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world,"
exclaims Tennyson's Ulysses, and the wanderer under Western stars that
hang, like blazing clusters of radiant light, midway in the air, cannot
but feel that all these new experiences open to him vistas of untold
significance and undreamed-of inspiration.
"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,"
is the haunting refrain of his thoughts when, through the luminous
air, he gazes into the golden glory of sunsets whose splendor is
forever impressed on his memory. Every hour of the journey through
the Southwest is an hour of enchantment in the intense interest of the
scenes. One must not miss the outlook when descending the steep grade
down Raton Mountain; nor must he fail to be on the alert in passing
through the strange old pueblos of Isleta and Acoma; he must not miss
Cañon Diablo when crossing that wonderful chasm on the wonderful
bridge, nor the gleam of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff on its
pine-clad hill-slope, nor fail to gaze on the purple Franciscan peaks
on which the lingering sunset rays recall to him the poet's line,--
"Day in splendid purple dying."
Like a modern Telemachus he sees "the baths of all the western stars."
Between La Junta in Colorado and Los Angeles in California there lies
a journey which, in connection with its side trips, is unequalled,
because there is only one Grand Cañon, one Pike's Peak with its
adjacent wonderland, and because, as a rule, elsewhere in the United
States--or in the world, for that matter,--forests do not turn into
stone nor stars hurl themselves into the earth with a force that buries
them too deep for resurrection. Through the East and the Middle West
the mountains do not, on general principles, attempt any competition
with the clouds, but content themselves with the gentle altitude of
a mile or so; the stars stay decorously in the firmament and are not
shooting madly about, trying fantastic Jules Verne experiments to
determine whether or not they can shine better from the centre of the
earth than from their natural place in the upper air; the stars of the
Eastern skies "stand pat," so to speak, and are not flying in the face
of the universe; so that, altogether, in these regions it would seem
quite evident that
"The world is built in order,
And the atoms march in tune."
These exceptional variations to the established order, however,--these
wonderful peaks and cañons and forests and gardens of gods,--all these
enchanted things lie, naturally, within the Land of Enchantment, within
this vast territorial expanse replete with many other attractions. From
La Junta let the traveller journey into Colorado with its splendor of
resources, and in gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the
Snowy Range he cannot but feel that Nature has predestined Colorado for
the theatre of noble life and realize the influence as all-pervading.
Infinite possibilities open before one as an alluring vista, and he
hears the refrain,--
"My spirit beats her mortal bars
As down dark tides the glory slides
And star-like mingles with the stars."
With the excursions offered,--grand panoramas of mountain views where
the tourist from his lofty perch in the observation-car looks down
on clouds and on peaks and pinnacles far below the heights to which
his train climbs,--with the cogwheel road ascending Pike's Peak,
the fascinating drives through Cheyenne Cañon, the Garden of the
Gods, Ute Pass, and around Glen Eyrie, and with the luxurious ease of
life at "The Antlers," the traveller finds fairly a new world, rich
in suggestion and wide outlook. This attractive region is, however,
only one of the central points of interest in Colorado. Denver, the
brilliant and fascinating capital; Pueblo, the metropolis of Southern
Colorado; Glenwood Springs, the romantic and fashionable watering place
and summer resort high up in the mountains on the beautiful "scenic
route" of the Denver and Rio Grande; Boulder, the picturesque mountain
town, with its State University so ably conducted; Greeley, the town of
the "Union Colony," whose romantic and tragic story is a part of the
great history of the Centennial State, and where an admirable normal
school draws students from all over the country, even including New
England,--these and a wealth of other features offer interest that is
coming to engage the attention of the civilized world.
New Mexico has been more or less considered as one of the impossible
and uncivilized localities, or has failed to establish any claim to
being considered at all; yet here is a territory whose climate is
simply delightful by virtue of its altitude,--cool in summer and mild
and sunny in winter,--whose mines of amethysts and other precious
stones suggest developments yet undreamed-of; whose ethnological
interest, in the marvellous remains of Cliff-dwellers and of a people
far antedating any authentic records, enchains the scientist; a
territory whose future promises almost infinitely varied riches in many
directions of its development.
Arizona is simply a treasure land. If it offered only that enthralling
feature, the Grand Cañon, it would be a central point of pilgrimage for
the entire civilized world; but even aside from this,--the sublimest
vision ever offered to human eye,--even aside from the Grand Cañon,
which dominates the world as the most sublime spectacle,--Arizona
offers the fascinations of the Painted Desert, the Tonto Basin, the
uncanny buttes that loom up in grotesque shapes on the horizon, the
dreamy lines of mountain ranges, the strange pueblos, the productive
localities where grains and where fruits and flowers grow with tropical
luxuriance, the Petrified Forests, and the exquisite coloring of sky
and atmosphere.
Southern California, with its brilliantly fascinating metropolis, Los
Angeles; the neighboring city of Pasadena, the "Crown of the Valley";
with an extensive electric trolley-car connection with towns within a
radius of fifty miles, and other distinctive and delightful features,
almost each one of which might well furnish a separate chapter of
description; with mountain trips made easy and enjoyable by the swift
electric lines,--all this region fascinates the imagination and
indicates new and wonderful vistas of life in the immediate future. The
vast and varied resources of the great Southwest will also, as they are
developed, increasingly affect the economic aspects of the country.
To the traveller one fact stands out in especial prominence, and that
is that the traditional primitive conditions in this region hardly
continue to exist. The picturesque aspects of nature form the stage
setting to very-much-up-to-date life. The opportunities and advantages
already offered and constantly increasing are greater than would at
first be considered possible. In isolated homes on the desert the
children of the family will be found studying the higher mathematics,
taking music lessons, or receiving lessons in languages (classic,
or the romance languages) from some one in the neighborhood who is
able to give such instruction. If any traveller expects to encounter
the traditional "cow-boy" aspects of life, he will be very much
disappointed. There is no refinement of life in the East that is not
mirrored and duplicated in the West. There are no aspirations, no
ideals, no fine culture in the East that have not their corresponding
aspects in the great West. In fact, in many ways the West begins where
the East leaves off. For instance, the new towns of the West that have
sprung up within the past twenty years have never known what it was to
have gas or horse-cars. They begin with electric lights and electric
transit. Their schoolhouses are built with up-to-date methods, and
the houses, however modest, are constructed with a taste and a beauty
unknown in the rural regions of the East. The square white house with
green blinds and a straight stone-paved pathway to the front gate,
so common in New England, is not seen in the West. Instead, the most
modest little structure has its piazza, its projecting bay window
thrown out, its balcony--something, at all events, tasteful and
beautiful to the eye.
The journey from La Junta (in Colorado) to Los Angeles offers a
series of enthralling pictorial effects that are invested with
all the refinements of civilized life delightfully devoid of its
commonplaceness. These long transcontinental trains with two engines,
one at the front and one at the rear, with their different grades
of the Pullman, the tourist, and the emigrant car service, are as
distinctive a feature of the twentieth century as the "prairie
schooners" were of the early half of the nineteenth century. The real
journey begins, of course, at Chicago, and as these trains leave in
the evening the traveller fares forth in the seclusion of his berth
in the Pullman. The nights on a sleeping-car may be a very trance of
ecstasy to one who loves to watch the panorama of the skies. Raise the
curtain, pile up the pillows to the angle that one can gaze without
lifting the head, and what ethereal visions one is wafted through! One
has a sense of flying in the air among the starry spaces, especially
if he chances to have the happy fortune of a couch on the side where
the moon is shining down,--a midsummer moon, with stars, and filmy,
flitting clouds,--when the panorama of the air becomes the enchantment
of a dream.
It is, literally, "such stuff as dreams are made of," and when one
drops off into slumber, he utilizes it for his fancies of the night.
Miss Harriet Hosmer, the famous sculptor, once related a story of a
night journey she took with a party of congenial spirits on horseback
between Rome and Florence. By way of "a lark" they rested by day and
rode by night, and the beauty of the effects of light and shade sank
into her mind so that she drew on them thirty years or more later for
the wonderful designs in her great "Gates," which even rival those of
Ghiberti. "The night hath counsel" and suggestion of artistic beauty
as well, and the effects that one may get from a flying train are
impossible to obtain under any other condition. After all, is it not a
part of the fine art of living to take the enjoyment of the moment as
it comes, in whatever guise, without lamenting that it is not something
else?
These splendidly equipped trains of the Santa Fé service admit very
little dust; the swift motion keeps up a constant breeze, and some
necromancy of perpetual vigilance surrounds the traveller with
exceptional cleanliness and personal comfort. One experiences a certain
sense of detachment from ordinary day and daylight duties that is
exhilarating.
[Illustration: ACOMA. TWO MILES DISTANT]
Kansas City, the gateway to the great Southwest, might well claim
attention as an important manufacturing and distributing centre; Kansas
itself, once the bed of an inland sea, is not without scientific
interest for the deposits of gypsum and salt that have left the
soil so fertile, as well as for strange fossils revealing gigantic
animals, both land and aquatic, that have lived there,--the mastodon,
rhinoceros, elephant, the crocodile and shark,--many of whose skeletons
are preserved in the National Museum in Washington. The prosperous
inland cities with their schools and colleges, their beautiful homes
and constant traffic,--all these features of Kansas, the state of
heroic history, are deeply impressive. But it is Colorado, New Mexico,
Arizona, with which these pages are chiefly concerned, and the
especially picturesque aspects of the journey begin with La Junta.
Entering Colorado, the plateau is four thousand feet above sea level,
and constantly rising. This altitude renders the climate of New Mexico
particularly invigorating and delightful.
The most romantic and poetically enchanting regions of the United
States are entered into on this journey, in which easy detours allow
one to visit that mysterious "City in the Sky," the pueblo of Acoma,
near Albuquerque in New Mexico; to make excursions to Montezuma's Well;
to the mysterious ruin of Casa Grande; to the Twin Lakes (which lie on
a mountain crest); and to study other marvels of nature in Arizona. The
splendors of Colorado, with the myriad mountain peaks and silver lakes,
the mysterious cañons and deep gorges, the rose-flushed valleys lying
fair under a sapphire sky in the luminous golden atmosphere, and the
profound interest inspired in the general social tone of life in its
educational, economic, and religious aspects, invest a summer-day tour
through the Land of Enchantment with all the glory and the freshness of
a dream.
CHAPTER II
DENVER THE BEAUTIFUL
"_I will make me a city of gliding and wide-wayed silence,
With a highway of glass and of gold;
With life of a colored peace, and a lucid leisure,
Of smooth electrical ease,
Of sweet excursion of noiseless and brilliant travel,
With room in your streets for the soul._"
STEPHEN PHILLIPS
Denver the Beautiful is the dynamo of Western civilization, and the
keynote to the entire scale of life in Colorado. The atmosphere seems
charged with high destiny. "I worship with wonder the great Fortune,"
said Emerson, using the term in the universal sense, "and find it
none too large for use. My receptivity matches its greatness." The
receptivity of the dwellers in this splendid environment seems to match
its greatness, and expand with the increase of its vast resources. As
Paris is France, so Denver is Colorado. Hardly any other commonwealth
and its capital are in such close relation, unless it be that of
Massachusetts and Boston. Colorado is a second Italy, rather than
Switzerland, as it has been called. Over it bends the Italian sky; its
luminous atmosphere is that of Dante's country; at night the stars hang
low as they hang over the heights of San Miniato in fair Florence;
the mountain coloring, when one has distance enough, has the soft
melting purple and amethyst lights of the Apennines, and the courtesy
of the people is not less marked than in the land of the olive and the
myrtle. Then, too, the light--the resplendent and luminous effect of
the atmosphere--is like that of no other state. The East is dark by
comparison with this transparency of golden light.
As the metropolis of the great West between Chicago and the Pacific
Coast, Denver has a continual procession of visitors from all
countries, who pause in the overland journey to study the outlook of
the most wonderful state in the Union,--that of the richest and most
varied resources. To find within the limits of one state resources
that include gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, coal, and tin mines;
agriculture, horticulture, stock raising, manufactures, and oil wells,
sounds like a fiction; yet this is literally true. Add to these some of
the most beautiful and sublime scenery in the world, the best modern
appliances, and the most intelligent and finely aspiring class of
people, and one has an outline of the possibilities of the Centennial
State.
Denver is, geographically, the central city of the country, equally
accessible from both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, from the
North and the South. It has the finest climate of the continent; its
winters are all sunshine and exhilaration, with few cloudy or stormy
days; its summers are those in which oppressive heat is hardly known,
and the nights are invariably cool. It is a great railroad centre; it
has infinite space in which to extend itself in any direction; it has
unsurpassed beauty of location. No city west of Chicago concentrates so
many desirable features, for all this wealth of resource and loveliness
of scenic setting is the theatre of noble energy and high achievement.
Denver is only twenty-six hours from Chicago; it is but forty-five
hours from New York. Although apparently a city of the plains, it is
a mile above sea level, and is surrounded with more than two hundred
miles of mountain ranges, whose changeful color, in royal purple, deep
rose, amber, pale blue, gleams through the transparent air against the
horizon. The business and hotel part of Denver lies on a lower level,
while the Capitol, a superb building of Colorado marble, and all the
best residential region, is on a higher plateau. The Capitol has the
novel decoration of an electric flag, so arranged that through colored
glass of red, white, and blue the intense light shines.
The Denver residential region is something unusual within general
municipal possibilities, as it has unbounded territory over which to
expand, thus permitting each home to have its own grounds, nearly all
of which are spacious; and these, with the broad streets lined with
trees, give to this part of the city the appearance of an enormous
park. For miles these avenues and streets extend, all traversed by
swift electric cars that so annihilate time and space that a man may
live five, ten, or a dozen miles from his place of business and call
it all joy. He insures himself pure air, beautiful views, and an
abundance of ground. If the family desires to go into the city for
evening lectures, concerts, or the theatre, the transit is swift and
enjoyable. They control every convenience. These individual villas are
all fire-proof. The municipal law requires the buildings to be of brick
or stone, thus making Denver a practically fireproof city. Both the
business blocks and the homes share the benefit of the improved modern
taste in architecture. The city of Denver covers an area of eighty-nine
square miles, and these limits are soon to be extended.
The Capitol has an enchanting mountain view; it also contains a fine
museum of historic relics found in Colorado from cliff-dwellings and
other points. A million dollars has been offered--and refused--for
this state collection. The City Park, covering nearly four hundred
acres, with its two lakes, its beds of flowers and groups of shrubbery;
its casino, where an orchestra plays every afternoon in the summer,
while dozens of carriages and motor cars with their tastefully dressed
occupants draw up and listen to the music, is a centre of attraction to
both residents and visitors. This park is to Denver as is the Pincian
Hill to Rome, or as Hyde Park to London,--the fashionable drive and
rendezvous. Great beds of scarlet geraniums contrast with the emerald
green of the grass, while here and there a fountain throws its spray
into the air. Far away on the horizon are the encircling mountains in
view for over two hundred miles, the ranges taking on all the colors
of fairyland, while a deep turquoise sky, soft and beautiful, bends
over the entire panorama. From this plateau four great peaks are in
view: Pike's Peak, seventy-five miles to the south; Long's, Gray's, and
James's peaks, all distinctly silhouetted against the sky, rising from
the serrated range which connects them. During these open-air concerts
in the park there is a midsummer holiday air over the scene as if all
the city were _en fête_.
The architectural scheme of Denver's residential region harmonizes with
the landscape. The houses are not the palaces of upper Fifth Avenue
and Riverside drive, or of Massachusetts or Connecticut avenues in
Washington; but there is hardly an individual residence that has not
legitimate claim to beauty. The tower, the oriel window, and the broad
balcony are much in evidence; and the piazza, with its swinging seat,
its easy chairs, and table disposed on a bright rug, suggest a charm
of _vie intime_ that appeals to the passer-by. Books, papers, and
magazines are scattered over the table: the home has the unmistakable
air of being lived in and enjoyed; of being the centre of a happy,
intelligent life, buoyant with enterprise and energy, and identified
with the social progress of the day. On the greenest of lawn a jet
of water or, in many cases, a fountain plays, the advantage of an
irrigated country being that the householder creates and controls
his own climatic conditions. The rain,--it raineth every day when
irrigation determines the shower; roses grow in riotous profusion on
the lawn, and the crimson "rambler" climbs the portico; lilies nod in
the luminous gold of the sunshine, and all kinds of foliage plants
lend their rich color to these beautiful grounds that surround every
home. To the children growing up in Denver the spectacle of dreary
streets would be as much of a novelty as the ruins of Karnak. The line
that divides the past from the present is not only very definite, but
also very recent, as is indicated by the question of a five-year-old
lad who wonderingly asked: "Mamma, did they ever have horses draw the
trolley cars?" The mastodon is not more remote in antiquity to the
man or woman of to-day than was the idea of horses drawing a car to
this child. Between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries the
gulf of demarcation is almost as wide as between the fifteenth and the
nineteenth.
The streets of Denver are very broad, usually planted with trees, and
the smooth roads offer an earthly paradise to the motor-car transit
that abounds in Denver. One of the happy excursions is that of
motoring to Colorado Springs, seventy-five miles distant, a constant
entertainment. With the splendid electric-transit system, annihilating
distance; with the broad streets paved after the best modern methods;
with the wide and smooth sidewalks of Colorado stone and the almost
celestial charm of the view, city life is transformed. Telephonic
service is practically universal; electric lighting and an admirable
water system are among the easy conveniences of this section, which is
not yet suburban because of its complete identification with all other
parts of the city.
The universality of telephonic intercourse in Colorado would go far to
support the theory of Dr. Edward Everett Hale that the time will come
when writing will be a lost art, and will be considered, at best, as
a clumsy and laborious means of communication in much the same manner
that the late centuries regard the production of the manuscript book
before the invention of the art of printing. In few cities is the
telephone service carried out to such constant colloquial use as in
Denver. The traveller finds in his room a telephone as a matter of
course, and there are very few quarters of an hour when the bell does
not summon him to chat with a friend, from one on the same floor of the
hotel to one who is miles away in the city, or even fifty or a hundred
miles distant, as at Greeley, Colorado Springs, or Pueblo.
"How are you to-day?" questions the friendly voice. "Did you see
so-and-so in the morning papers? And what do you think about it? and
can you be ready at eleven to go to hear Mrs. ---- lecture? and at
one will you lunch with Mrs. ----? the entire conversation to be in
Italian? and could you go at about four this afternoon to a tea to
meet an Oriental Princess who will discuss the laws of reincarnation?
and will you also dine with us at seven, and go later to the Woman's
Municipal Club that holds a conference to-night?" All those lovely
things fall upon one with apparently no thought of its being an unusual
day--this is Denver! This is twentieth-century life. This is an
illustration of what can be done when the non-essential is eliminated
from the days and that which is essential is felicitously pursued.
When the Denver woman remarked to the Eastern woman sojourner within
the gates that she was unable to be away that autumn on any extended
absence, as the campaign was to be more than usually important, the
wanderer from the Atlantic shore irreverently laughed. Her hostess
endeavored (unsuccessfully) not to seem shocked by this levity
regarding serious subjects. She remembered that there were extenuating
circumstances, and that the Eastern women had really never had a fair
chance in life. Their part, she reflected, consisted in obeying laws
and abiding by whatever was decreed, with no voice allowed to express
their own preferences or convictions. She remembered that a proportion
of the feminine New England intellect consecrates its powers and
its time to extended researches in the Boston Public Library and in
the venerable records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in
a perpetual quest of information regarding its ancestors, who are
worshipped with the zeal and fervor of the Japanese. The Boston woman,
indeed, may have only the most vague ideas regarding the rate bill, the
problem of the Philippines, the Panama Canal, or the next Governor of
Massachusetts; but she is thoroughly conversant with all the details
of the Mayflower and her own ancestral dignities. Recognizing the New
England passion for its ancestry, a leading Boston journal offers a
page, weekly, to open correspondence on the momentous question as
to whether Winthrop Bellingham married Priscilla Patience Mather in
1699 or in 1700, and a multitude of similar questions concerning
the vanished centuries. The Denver woman realized all this and was
discreetly charitable in her judgment of her friend's failure to
recognize the significant side of the political enfranchisement of
women in Colorado. For despite some actual disadvantages and defects
of woman suffrage in the centennial state, and a vast amount of
exaggerated criticism on these defects, it is yet a benefit to the four
states that enjoy it,--Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.
In a majority of the states of the entire nation there is a conviction
(and one not without its claims) that women are adequately represented
and protected in all their rights, as things are, and that it is
superfluous to increase the vote.
The anti-suffrage argument suggests many reflections whose truth must
be admitted, and this side of the controversy is espoused and led by
some proportion of men and women whose names inspire profound respect,
if not conviction, with their belief. Still, the fact remains that
when woman suffrage is subjected to the practical test of experience,
the advantages are so obvious, its efficacy for good so momentous,
that their realization fairly compels acceptance. In the entire nation
there has never been a man or a woman whose clearness and profundity
of intellect, moral greatness, and sympathetic insight into the very
springs of national and individual life exceeded those of Lucy Stone,
the remarkable pioneer in the political emancipation of women, whose
logical eloquence and winning, beautiful personality was the early
focus of this movement. Mrs. Stone surrounded herself with a noble
group,--Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
and others whose names readily suggest themselves, and with whom, in
the complete companionship and sympathy of her husband, Dr. Henry B.
Blackwell, she successfully worked, even though the final success has
not yet been achieved. Other great and noble women--Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton--consecrated their entire lives and remarkable
powers to the early championship of woman suffrage. The present ranks
of women workers--the younger women--are so numerous, and they include
so large a proportion of the most notable women of both the East and
the West, that volumes would not afford sufficient room for adequate
allusion. In Denver the leading people are fully convinced of the
responsibility of women in politics. Although the ballot has not been
generally granted to women, the very movement toward it has resulted
in their higher education and their larger freedom in all ways. The
situation reminds one of the "subtle ways" of Emerson's Brahma:
"If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
"Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
"They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings."
* * * * *
Apparently, the principle of woman suffrage has "subtle ways" in which
"to pass and turn again." It has recently turned in a manner to compel
a new and more profound revision of all opinion and argument.
Colorado presents a most interesting field for the study of woman
suffrage, and from any fair and adequate review of its workings and
results there could hardly fail to be but one conclusion,--that of its
signal value and importance as a factor in human progress. One of its
special claims is of a nature not down on the bills,--the fact of the
great intellectual enlargement and stimulus,--aside from its results,
which the very exercise of political power gives to the women of the
state. It is seen in the higher quality of conversational tone and
the tendency to eliminate the inconsequential and the inane because
great matters of universal interest were thus brought home to women in
connection with their power to decide on these matters. This result
is perhaps equally seen among the women who rejoice and the women who
regret the fact of their political enfranchisement. For in Colorado,
as well as in other states, there is a proportion of women who do
not believe in the desirability of the ballot for themselves. They
sincerely regret that it has been "forced," as they say, upon them.
This proportion in Colorado is not a large one, but it includes some
of the most intelligent and cultured women, just as an enthusiastic
acceptance of the ballot includes a much larger proportion of this
higher order of women. However, welcome or unwelcome, desired or not
desired, the ballot is there, and so the women who regret this fact yet
realize its responsibility and feel it a moral duty to use it wisely as
well. And so they, too, study great questions, and discuss them, and
fit themselves to use the power that is conferred upon them. All this
reacts on the general tone of society, and the quality of conversation
at ladies' lunches, at teas, and at clubs, is of a far higher order
than is often found in other states among the more purely feminine
gatherings.
Among the women who have successfully administered public office in
Colorado was the late Mrs. Helen Grenfell, whose record as State
Superintendent of Public Instruction was so remarkable that both
political parties supported her. A Denver journal said of her:
"Mrs. Grenfell's term has lasted six years, the last two years
having been under a Republican administration, although Mrs.
Grenfell is a Democrat. Her most notable achievement has been in
her conduct of the school lands of the state, making them valuable
sources of revenue. Her policy from the first was against the sale
of the school lands, which comprise some three million acres. The
income from such sales had been limited, as the investments were
prescribed, and the interest rate rather low, as Western interest
goes. The leasing system was inaugurated under Mrs. Grenfell's
direction, and the result was an increase of school revenues of
nearly two hundred thousand dollars a year, with no decrease in
the capital. The Land Department of the state shares the credit
with the state superintendent of public instruction, as they have
administered her policy wisely, but the policy was hers alone."
Judge Lindsay of Denver, giving an official opinion as to the
desirability of woman suffrage for Colorado, said:
"Woman suffrage in Colorado for over ten years has more than
demonstrated its justice. No one would dare to propose its repeal;
and, if left to the men of the state, any proposition to revoke the
right bestowed upon women would be overwhelmingly defeated.
"Many good laws have been obtained in Colorado which would not have
been secured but for the power and influence of women.
"At some of the elections in Denver frauds have been committed.
Ninety-nine per cent of these frauds were committed by men, without
any connivance or assistance, direct or indirect, from women; but
because one per cent were committed by women, there are ignorant
or careless-minded people in other states who actually argue that
this is a reason for denying women the right to vote. If it were a
just reason for denying suffrage to women, it would be a ten times
greater reason for denying it to men.
"In Colorado it has never made women any the less womanly or any
the less motherly, or interfered with their duties in the home,
that they have been given the right to participate in the affairs
of state.
"Many a time I have heard the 'boss' in the political caucus object
to the nomination of some candidate because of his bad moral
character, with the mere explanation that if the women found him
out it might hurt the whole ticket. While many bad men have been
nominated and elected to office in spite of woman suffrage, they
have not been nominated and elected because of woman suffrage. If
the women alone had a right to vote, it would result in a class
of men in public office whose character for morality, honesty, and
courage would be of a much higher order....
"People have no right to judge woman suffrage in Colorado by
the election frauds in a few precincts. The election frauds in
Philadelphia, where women do not vote, were never used as a reason
why suffrage should be denied to men....
"With women, as with men, it requires more or less public sentiment
to arouse them to their civic duties; but when aroused, as they
frequently are, their power for good cannot be overestimated.
Again, the very fact that the women have such a power is a
wonderful reserve force in the cause of righteousness in Colorado,
and has been a powerful deterrent in anticipating and opposing the
forces of evil.
"It does not take any mother from her home duties or cares to spend
ten minutes in going to the polling place and casting her vote and
returning to the bosom of her home; but in that ten minutes she
wields a power that is doing more to protect that home now, and
will do more to protect it in the future, and to protect all other
homes, than any power or influence in Colorado.
"I know that the great majority of people in Colorado favor woman
suffrage, after more than a decade of practical experience,--first,
because it is fair, just, and decent; and secondly, because its
influence has been good rather than evil in our political affairs."
Judge Lindsay's words represent the general attitude of the
representative people of the state.
The Hon. Henry M. Teller, senior senator of Colorado, is one of the
most interesting men in the Centennial State, and the traveller who may
meet and talk with him is impressed with his quiet sincerity, with the
sense of reserved power with which he seems endowed, and the refinement
and directness of his methods. He is by birth an Eastern man, and a
graduate of Harvard; but his mature life has been passed in Colorado.
As a lawyer his law office claims much of his time and thought,
even with all the great tide of national interests with which he is
identified. He is a thorough and, indeed, an astute politician; not
in the "machine" sense, but with a very clear and comprehensive grasp
of the situation and a large infusion of practical sagacity. Senator
Teller is in no sense an enthusiast. He is responsive to high aims and
high ideals; he knows what they are, so to speak; he recognizes them on
sight; he never falls into the error of under-valuing them; but he is
not a man to be carried away by an ecstatic vision, and he would have
no use for wings at all where he had feet. He would regard the solid
earth as a better foundation, on the whole, than the air, and one more
suited to existing conditions.
Senator Teller has had more than a quarter of a century's experience in
political life and in statesmanship. For two years he was a member of
the Cabinet. For twenty-seven years he has been in the Senate, where,
with Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, he shared the highest honor,
and the most absolute confidence, in both his flawless integrity and
conspicuous ability, that the Senate, and the nation as well, can give
to him.
Senator Patterson, the junior senator from Colorado, is a man whom, if
he encounters an obstacle does not grant it the dignity of recognition.
He instantly discovers the end,--the desired result,--and declares, per
saltum, "It is right; it should be done,--it shall be done." Senator
Patterson is a man of very keen perceptions and one with whom it is
easy to come into touch instantly; he is responsive, sympathetic,
full of faith that the thing that ought to be accomplished can be
accomplished, and therefore that it shall be. Senator Patterson has the
typical American experience of successful men lying behind him. He was
on familiar terms with the intricacies of a newspaper office in his
youth; he studied in an Indiana college without an annual expenditure
of that twenty thousand dollars which some of the latter-day Harvard
undergraduates find indispensable to the process of securing their "B.
A.," and tradition records, indeed, that the junior Colorado senator,
in the prehistoric days of his youth, set out for the fountain of
learning with a capital of forty dollars; that he frugally walked
from Crawfordsville to Indianapolis that he might not deplete his
financial estate which was destined to buy a scholarship, and that in
this unrecorded tour in the too, too truly rural region of his early
life, he cleaned two clocks on the way in payment for lodging, and
that he cleaned them uncommonly well. Of all this traditionary history
who shall say? Senator Patterson is a man who would always keep faith
with his aims and convictions. He is sunny and full of wit, and full of
faith in the ultimate triumph of good things in general, and is, all in
all, one of the most genial and delightful of men--and senators.
It is related that Senator Patterson first dawned upon Denver in its
primeval period of 1872, when its municipal affairs were conducted by
two prominent--if not eminent--gentlemen, one of whom was the champion
gambler, and the other the champion brewer of the metropolis. There
were eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight other citizens
in this municipality besides the brewer and the gambler (and the
population was said to have been twelve thousand in all), and the
eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight, like "The Ten" of early
Florentine history, decided that would "reform the town." Their united
effort was to elect Mr. Patterson as Mayor. And a good one he proved;
and he has gone on and on, in the minds as well as in the hearts of his
fellow-citizens, until now he is the colleague of Senator Teller, and
he offers another typical illustration of true American integrity and
honorable ambition and success. Personally, Senator Patterson is one of
the most winning men in the world, and one delights in his success and
the high estimation in which he is held.
The development of Colorado and other parts of the great Southwest
during the past half-century has created a new order of employment in
that of the government expert,--the specialist in upland or hydraulic
irrigation, in engineering and mining problems. The government
surveying work has also increased largely, both in extent and in the
greater number of specialties now required. The Geological Survey and
the Agricultural Department, both included under the Department of
the Interior, are rapidly multiplying branches of work that require
both the skilled training and ability for original research and
accomplishment. These positions, which command government salaries
at from some eighteen to twenty-five hundred dollars a year, afford
such opportunity for the expert to reveal his value that private
corporations and business houses continually draw on the ranks of
the government employees. Of late years the demand for the expert
irrigation engineer has been so great in Colorado as to seriously
embarrass the government forces by drawing some of the best men for
private service. Denver is an especial centre for these enterprises,
as being the natural metropolis for the vast inter-mountain region and
the plains country of the Missouri River. This vast territory will
support many millions more of population. In fact, the dwellers within
this described territory at this day are but pioneers on the frontier
to what the future will develop, although they already enjoy all the
benefits of the older states, with countless advantages beside which
they cannot enjoy.
The smelteries in Denver, of which the Grant is the largest, treat
millions of pounds of copper and lead, and great quantities of silver
and gold, while there are also extensive ones in Pueblo, Leadville,
Durango, and other places. There is also a good proportion of Colorado
ore which is not treated at all at smelteries, but is of a free-milling
order. The revenue from mining has exceeded fifty millions of dollars
annually of late years, but the revenue from agriculture exceeds
that of the mines, and to these must be added some twenty millions
a year from live stock during the past two or three years. In the
aggregate, Colorado has an internal revenue of hardly less than one
hundred millions a year, and this largely passes through Denver as the
distributing point, constituting the Capital one of the most prosperous
of young cities. Denver stands alone in a rich region. One thousand
miles from Chicago, six hundred miles from Kansas City, and four
hundred miles from Salt Lake City, Denver holds its place without any
rival.
The ideal conditions of living have never been entirely combined in any
one locality on this sublunary planet, so far as human history reveals;
and with all the scenic charm, the rich and varied resources, and the
phenomenal development of Colorado, no one could truthfully describe
it as Utopia. There is no royal road to high achievement in any line.
Difficulties and obstacles are "a part of the play," and he alone is
wise who, by his own determination, faith, and persistence of energy,
transforms his very obstacles into stepping-stones and thus gains the
strength of that which he overcomes.
Northern Colorado has great resources even beyond the coal fields
that will make it the power centre; with its prestige of Denver, and
such surrounding towns as Greeley, Boulder, Fort Collins, Golden, and
others, all of which fall within a group of social and commercial
centres that will soon be interconnected by a network of electric
trolley lines. For the electric road between Greeley and Denver Mr. J.
D. Houseman has secured a right of way one hundred and fifty feet wide,
the rails being midway between the Union Pacific and the Burlington
lines. Mr. Houseman is one of the noted financiers of the East who came
to Denver to incorporate and build this road, and his is only one of
three companies that are now in consultation with the power company
negotiating for the supplies which will enable them to build the
proposed new roads.
The Seeman Tunnel, which is to be constructed near Idaho Springs, at a
distance of fifty miles from Denver, and which is to be twelve miles
in length, although at an elevation of eighty-five hundred feet, is
yet to extend under Fall River and the Yankee, Alice, and the Lombard
mining districts. It will be one of the marvels of the state, and
will penetrate a thousand mining veins. The Continental Mines, Power
and Reduction Company, recently incorporated with a capital of three
millions, of which Captain Seeman is the president, owns many of the
mining veins which will be touched by this tunnel. Many of the veins
to which this tunnel will afford approach have not been accessible
heretofore for more than four or five months in the year. For the
remaining six or seven months travel is practically impossible in these
mountains; the "claims" cannot be reached, as they lie in the region of
perpetual snow. When the Seeman Tunnel is completed the owner of any
claim that is tapped by it can, by paying a certain royalty per ton
for each ton of ore mined, obtain the right to work it in the tunnel,
thus being able to proceed through the entire year and at a far less
cost in production than at present. Regarding this gigantic enterprise,
Captain Seeman said, in June of 1906, that the work would be pushed as
rapidly as men, money, and machinery could advance it, and, he added:
"I consider it one of the greatest tunnels ever attempted, and one
that will hold the record for mining tunnels. I am confident that we
will strike enough ore within the first two or three miles to keep
us busy for years." The Leviathan is one of the first veins that the
tunnel is expected to tap,--a vein three hundred feet wide on the
surface,--and while already traced for more than three miles, it holds
every promise for as yet uncalculated extension. The Lombard is another
vein of leading importance which promises to be a bonanza. Gold is the
principal mineral that appears in these veins, although silver, lead,
and copper are found. Another ore, tungsten, used for hardening in
armor plates, large guns, and the best mechanical implements,--an ore
valued at six hundred dollars per ton,--has been discovered in these
veins. The Seeman Tunnel is located directly under James's Peak.
Another of the remarkable engineering marvels that mark the progress of
Colorado is the Moffat road, the new railroad between Denver and Salt
Lake City, now open as far as Kremling, which initiated its passenger
service in the late June of 1906 with daily excursions, in solid
vestibuled trains, making the round trip between Denver and Tolland,
Corona (the region of perpetual snow) and Arrow, on the Pacific slope
of the Continental Divide, in one day. This vast enterprise is due to
the genius and the prophetic vision of President David H. Moffat of the
First National Bank in Denver, one of the leaders in all that makes for
the best interests and the advancement of the Centennial State, and of
the future of Denver the Beautiful. Mr. Moffat says:
"Denver's population is growing steadily and naturally. Some time
ago I made the prediction that Denver would have three hundred
thousand inhabitants within five years. I see no reason for
changing my estimate. Rather, I might increase it, but I will be
conservative.
"The things that build up a city's wealth and population are 'round
about Denver in prodigal quantities. If Denver had only the state
of Colorado from which to draw, her future would be absolutely
assured. But consider the vast territory that is tributary to this
city. It stretches away to the east, west, north, and south, an
area quite one-third of the whole country, and quite the richest
in all natural resources. Denver is the geographical hub of this
territory."
The Moffat road will climb the ramparts formed by the main range of
the Rocky Mountains west of Denver and run directly westward, passing
through one of the most fertile sections of the state. The road ascends
to an altitude of eleven thousand six hundred feet, running through a
region rich in minerals, and especially in coal. The sublime scenery
along the route has already made it most popular for excursions, which
draw a vast tourist travel continually. President Moffat's road has
brought Routt County into such prominence that investors from the East
are being attracted to this region, a notable one among these being the
Eastern capitalist, C. B. Knox, who proposes to invest in copper, coal,
and iron in Routt County, which he regards as the richest section in
Colorado. Mr. Knox engaged the services of several experts to examine
and report to him upon this region. To a press correspondent who
inquired of Mr. Knox his views regarding Colorado, he said:
"I believe that there is wealth unmeasured in Routt County, and I
am out here to put some money in there. I am sure that this section
of the state is one of the richest territories in the country.
How I became interested is a long story,--too long to tell. But
it is sufficient to say that I have heard of Routt County for so
long, and from so many different people in whose judgment I have
the utmost faith, that I have come out here to invest some money.
I believe thoroughly that money put into Routt County will within
a few years bring handsome returns. If I did not believe that I
should not be here looking for a place in which to invest money.
"I have been to Steamboat Springs myself, and I am thoroughly of
the opinion that it is going to be one of the big towns of your
state. The fact is, I have never seen a better looking proposition
in my life than investing money in Routt County. Already I have
purchased some land, and I am going to get more. It is this iron
proposition that I am having investigated the most completely. The
iron to be found in Routt County looks awfully good to me, and
there is no question in my mind that Routt County is the place to
put capital.
"I cannot, of course, at this time say just what properties I
have in view,--that would not be good business; but I have under
investigation locations of mineral property near Steamboat and
north and south of there. I have decided on nothing definite;
that is, as to just what ores I will endeavor to exploit, for the
whole proposition looks so good to me that I am going to purchase
probably several different kinds of propositions. As I say,
though, I am most interested in the iron ore, as that seems to
present the greatest opportunities."
These views are significant not only as those of an experienced
financier who has unbounded faith in the future of Colorado, but
also as typical of the wide range of vision which is open to the
trained eye of the capitalist and the organizer of great enterprises.
The spellbinder may work his will in Colorado. It is the land of
infinite opportunity. It offers resources totally unsurpassed in the
entire world for unlimited development, and these resources await the
recognition of those whose vision is sufficiently true to discern the
psychological moment.
The first railroad reached Denver thirty-six years ago, and the city
has now sixteen railroad lines. It has a population of over two hundred
and twenty-five thousand. It is a geographical centre, which assures
its permanent importance as a distributing point. With two hundred and
twenty-five miles of street railway, with seventy-five miles of paved
streets, and a taxable property estimated at one hundred and two and a
third millions, Denver holds unquestionable commercial importance.
When, on the evening of July Fourth, 1906, the splendid electric flag,
with the national colors intensified a thousand fold in brilliancy by
the electrical lights, floated in the air from the dome of the Capitol
on its commanding eminence, and the new city Arch, a veritable _Arc
de Triomphe_, flashed its "Welcome" in electrical light to eager
throngs, the moment was one which might well have been fixed on the
sensitive plate of the camera of the future as typical of the entire
horoscope of Denver the Beautiful. On that day had been unveiled this
triumphal arch, placed at the Seventeenth Street entrance to the city
from the Union Depot, which, in its sixteen hundred electric lights,
flashes its legend upon the vision of every one entering Denver. This
arch, weighing seventy tons, eighty feet in length, and with a central
height of fifty-nine feet, is constructed from a combination of metals
so united as to give the best results in strength, durability, and
beauty, and thus to stand as a symbol of the composite life of the
nation. Over the entire surface has been placed a plating of bronze
finished with _verde antique_, to thus give it the aspect of ancient
bronze. It is built at a cost of twenty-two thousand dollars, and the
originator of the idea, Mr. William Maher of Denver, received the
entire subscriptions for it within one day. The design is that of a
Denver girl, Miss Marie Woodson, whose name must always be immortalized
in connection with this beautiful achievement which typifies the spirit
of the city. Constructed by one of the city manufactories, the design
and the execution are thus exclusively of Denver. In his address at the
unveiling of the arch, Chancellor Buchtel said:
"To all men who stand for honesty, for industry, for justice, for
reverence for law, for reverence for life, for education, for
self-reliance, for individual initiative, for independence, and
for sound character, the city of Denver speaks only one word, and
the state of Colorado speaks only one word, and that word we have
emblazoned on this glorious Arch,--the word 'Welcome.'"
Dean Hart, offering the Invocation, referred to the scriptural fact
that God had instructed his leaders to build monuments that they might
bear witness to some act or covenant, and it was right that the people
of Denver should raise this similar monument to their ideals of peace
and happiness and truth and justice. Mayor Speer, accepting the gift on
behalf of the city, emphasized the fact that the arch was to stand in
its place for ages as the expression of the attitude of the citizens
to the strangers who enter their gates. "It is intended to reflect our
hospitality," said Mayor Speer, "on a traveller's arrival and on his
departure. It is more than a thing of beauty; it is the type of the
new spirit in Denver, an awakening of civic pride that is sure to be
followed by much that is artistic and beautiful in our beloved city."
The spirit of Denver the Beautiful is finely interpreted in these words
by representative citizens. It is the spirit of generous and cordial
hospitality to all who are prepared to enter into and to contribute to
its high standards of life. It is the spirit of continually forging
ahead to accomplish things; of that irresistible energy, combined with
the eternal vigilance, which is not only the price of liberty, but
the price of almost everything worth having. With this zeal for the
great achievements,--carrying railroads through the mountains, opening
the inexhaustible treasures of mines, bringing the snow of mountain
peaks to irrigate the arid plains, establishing electric transit for
fifty miles about, and telephonic connection that brings an area of
hundreds of miles into instant speaking range with Denver,--with all
the zeal for these executive accomplishments, the spirit of Denver is
focussed on that social progress which is aided and fostered by all
modern mechanical facilities. Education, culture, and religion are
nowhere more held as the essentials of social progress than in Denver.
Something of the nature of the problems of civilization that confronted
the early pathfinders in Colorado may be inferred from the words of
Major Long,--whose name is now perpetuated by the mountain peak that
bears it,--when, in 1862, he stated, in an official report to the
government:
"This region, according to the best intelligence that can be had,
is thoroughly uninhabitable by a people depending on agriculture
for their subsistence, but, viewed as a frontier, may prove of
infinite importance to the United States, inasmuch as it is
calculated to serve as a barrier to prevent too great an extension
of our population westward and secure us against the machinations
or incursions of an enemy that might otherwise be disposed to annoy
us in that quarter."
Less than sixty-five years have passed since the region of which Denver
is the great centre was thus pronounced useless except as a frontier
to serve as protection from an enemy, and this judgment reminds one
of a keen insight into the evolutionary progress of life expressed by
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe when she remarked that "Every generation makes a
fool of the one that went before it." Colorado, pronounced "thoroughly
uninhabitable" in 1842, was organized as a territory in 1861 and in
1876 admitted as a state.
Darwin, who regarded "climate and the affections" as the only absolute
necessities of terrestrial existence, should have lived in Denver,
for of all the beautiful climates is that in which revels the capital
of Colorado. The air is all liquid gold from sunrise till sunset; the
mountains swim in a sea of azure blue; the ground is bare and dry in
winter, affording the best of walking, and there are few cities where
the general municipal management exceeds or is, perhaps, even as good
as that of Denver. The electric street-car service is on schedule time,
and the two hundred and twenty-five miles of its extent already, with
increase in the near future, is certainly an achievement for a young
city. Nature is a potent factor in this excellent service, as there is
no blocking by heavy snowstorms and blizzards, as in the Middle West
and the East.
The gazer in the magic mirror of the future requires little aid from
the imagination to see, in the growth and development of Denver, an
impressive illustration of the significance of the name of the state
of which it is the capital and the keynote. With what felicitous
destiny is the name invested in the old Castilian phrase, "_A Dios con
le Colorado_" (Go thou merrily with God),--a parting salutation and
benediction. Denver is, indeed, more than a state capital; it is the
epitome of the great onward march of civilization, and it must always
be considered in its wide relations to all the great Southwest as well
as in respect to its own municipal individuality.
No citizen of Denver has contributed more to the moral and intellectual
quality of the city as one of the conductors of great enterprises held
amenable to the higher ideals of citizenship, than has Mr. S. K. Hooper
of the Denver and Rio Grande, which is one of the marvels of the West
in scenic glory. From May till October pleasure tourists throng this
marvellous route through the Royal Gorge, through mysterious cañons
and across the Divide. For it must always be remembered that Denver
is a great city for tourists and season visitors, and the floating
population exceeds a hundred thousand annually. Beautiful as it is in
the winter, Denver is also essentially a summer city. There is not a
night in the summer when the wind, cool, refreshing, exhilarating, does
not blow from the great rampart of the snow-clad, encircling mountains.
There is not a morning when the wind does not come again, sending
the blood leaping through the veins, while the sun rides across the
heavens in a glory of brilliancy, and the great range rears its white
head to the cloudless blue sky.
The Denver Art League is a flourishing association that has under its
auspices classes in drawing, water colors, and sculpture. Already many
artists of Colorado are winning a name. A new Public Library is now in
process of erection, and the Chamber of Commerce also maintains a free
library of some twenty-five thousand volumes, the reading-room open
every day in the year. The city appropriates six thousand dollars a
year for the expenses of this institution.
The educational standards of Denver are high. Drawing, music, and
German are included among the studies of the grammar schools, and
physical culture is introduced in each grade. The high school building
cost a quarter of a million dollars, and stands second in the entire
country in point of architectural beauty and admirable arrangements.
Besides the splendid public-school system there is the University of
Denver, a few miles from the city; St. Mary's (Catholic) Academy, and
two large (Episcopal) schools for girls and boys, respectively,--"Wolfe
Hall" and St. John's College. The Woman's College and Westminster
University complete this large group of educational institutions
which centre in Denver. There is also the University of Colorado at
Boulder, which has established a record for success under the able
administration of Dr. James H. Baker, who, in January of 1892, was
called to the presidency after having served as principal of the
Denver High School for seventeen years. President Baker is well known
in educational circles in the United States as a scholarly man and a
capable college president. He has been offered the presidency of other
State universities from time to time, but has preferred to remain in
Boulder and to concentrate his efforts toward making this institution
one of the largest and best of the state universities. He has always
been active in the State Teachers' Association and the National Council
of Education.
For three years past the University of Colorado has held a summer
school with a large attendance of teachers and college students. In
this past season of 1906, Professor Paul Hanus of Harvard University
gave a valuable course of lectures on education, and Professor Hart,
also of Harvard, conducted a course in history.
Over a hundred and fifteen thousand pupils are enrolled in the public
schools of Denver, including all grades, from the primary to the high
school. The latter offers the full equivalent of a college education
freely to all.
The churches of Denver are numerous, and include many fine edifices
besides the large granite Methodist Church that cost over a quarter of
a million dollars. It is not, however, only the church structures that
are noble and impressive, but the preaching in them is of an unusually
high order of both intellectual power and spiritual aspiration. The
keen, critical life of Colorado's capital demands the best thought of
the day. The wonderful exhilaration of the atmosphere seems to exert
its influence on all life as a universal inspiration.
The new building for the Denver Public Library is under process of
construction, an appropriation of a quarter of a million dollars having
been made for the edifice, which will stand in a small triangular
park, insuring air and light, and giving to its approach a stately and
beautiful dignity.
The Colorado capital is tending to fulfil the poet's ideal of affording
"room in the streets for the soul."
The life is most delightful. Without any undue and commonplace
formalities, yet always within that fine etiquette which is the
unconscious result of good breeding, the meeting and mingling has a
cordial and sincere basis that lends significance to social life. The
numerous clubs, and the associations for art and music, for Italian,
French, and German readings, are all vital and prominent in the city,
and the political equality of woman imparts to conversation a tone of
wider thought and higher importance than is elsewhere invariably found.
Denver, which should be the capital city of the United States, is
pre-eminently the convention city. Even with all the beauty of
Washington and the vast sums that have been expended within the
past fifteen years in the incomparable structure for the Library of
Congress, and in other fine public buildings, and the splendor of
the private residence region,--even with all this, and the fact that
the Capitol itself is one of the notable architectural creations of
the world, the nation is great enough and rich enough to found a
new capital which should far surpass the present one, however fine
that present one may be. However great are the treasures of art and
architecture in Washington, the change could be, even now, made with
the greatest advantage for the future. Within a quarter of a century
all that invests Washington with such charm in architectural beauty and
in art could be more than duplicated in Denver. The nation has wealth
enough, and the most modern ideas and inspirations in these lines
surpass those of any previous age or decade. The present is "the heir
of all the ages."
No one need marvel that Denver ranks as the western metropolis of the
Union, with its delightful climate, its infinite interests, its centre
as a point for charming excursions, and its sixteen railroad lines.
In this atmosphere of opportunity and privilege there is, indeed,
"room for the soul" and all that the poet's phrase suggests. There
is room for all noble and generous development; for the expansion of
the spirit to express itself in all loveliness of life, all splendid
energy of achievement; and in all that makes for the supreme aim of a
nation,--that of a Christian civilization,--no city can offer greater
scope than does Denver the Beautiful.
CHAPTER III
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.
CHAPTER IV
SUMMER WANDERINGS IN COLORADO
"_God only knows how Saadi dined;
Roses he ate and drank the wind._"
EMERSON
Deep in the heart of the Rocky Mountains lies Glenwood Springs, a
fashionable watering place, where a great hotel, bearing the name of
the Centennial State, with every pretty decorative device imaginable,
allures the summer idlers, and where various kinds of springs and
baths furnish excuse for occupation. All varieties of invalidism,
real or fancied, meet their appropriate cure. One lady declared that
the especial elixir of life was found in a hot cave that yawns its
cavernous and mysterious depths in an adjacent mountain. Another
continued to thrive on (or in) the sparkling waters of "the pool,"
which is, for the most part, a dream of fair women, relay after relay,
all day and evening, swimming about after the fashion of the Rhine
sisters; and those who do not take kindly to the pool or the dark and
"hot" cave fall upon some particular geyser and appropriate it for
their own. Woe to the woman who interferes with another woman's geyser!
The whole region around Glenwood Springs is phenomenal. A hot sulphur
spring boils up at the rate of twenty thousand gallons a minute. The
"pool"--where the Rhine maidens are forever floating, morning, noon,
and night--covers over an acre, and is from three to six or seven feet
deep. Two currents of water are constantly pouring into it,--the hot
(at one hundred and twenty-seven degrees) at a rate of ten thousand
gallons a minute, and the cold from a mountain stream. A stream
constantly runs from it, a part of which is utilized as a waterfall in
the centre of the large dining-room of the hotel. On one bank of this
pool is a colossal stone bathhouse (costing over one hundred thousand
dollars), where every conceivable variety of the bath is administered,
and from which "the pool" is entered. In warm evenings, when the full
midsummer moon peeps over the mountains, the groups of girls, one after
another, begin mysteriously to disappear, and in reply to a question as
to the destination of this evening pilgrimage one bewitching creature
in floating blue organdie, as she flitted past, laughingly answered,
"Come to the pool and see." There was no time to be lost. The moon in
silver splendor was climbing over the mountains, and the girls emerged
from their dainty evening gowns to array themselves in bathing suits.
A few minutes later they were to be seen at this mysterious trysting
place at "the pool," the only difference being that some were outside
and some inside. Surely those inside had the best of it. How can the
scene be pictured? From the broad piazza of the hotel a terraced
walk ran down through the greenest of lawns, with shade trees and a
fountain resplendent in colored electric lights. The pool lies in an
open glade. Not far away is one of the ranges of the Rocky Mountains,
over which the August moon was climbing. Tall electric lights mingled
with the moonlight, giving the most curious effects of chiaroscuro
through the glade and the defiles of the mountains. On one side of this
immense natatorium rose the vast stone bathhouse,--a beautiful piece of
architecture. Near by the round sulphur spring boiled and bubbled in a
way to suggest the witches' rhyme:
"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble."
A high toboggan slide in one place descended into the pool, and was
much used by the young athletes,--the men, not the girls. In the pool
a natural fountain of cold water shot high in the air. The swimmers
abounded. Those who were unable to swim would cling to a floating
ladder. Here in the moonlight the girls--clinging two and three
together--circle around in the water, needing only the melody of the
Rhine sisters to complete the illusion of one of the most enchanting
scenes in the entire Wagner operas.
Rev. Frederick Campbell wrote of this unique place:
"There is but one word to utter at Glenwood Springs--'Wonderful!'
If one enjoys life at the most luxurious of hotels, here it is at
Hotel Colorado. Built in the Italian style of peach-blow sandstone
and light brick, lighted with electricity, a searchlight reaching
from one of its towers at night and lighting the train up the
valley, a powerful fountain supplied from the mountain stream up
the cañon pouring the geyser 170 feet straight in the air, and
views, views everywhere."
The hot cave is as wonderful as anything around Sorrento or Amalfi.
In fact, all Colorado reminds the traveller of Italian scenery. It
has been called the Switzerland of America, but it is far more the
Italy. It has the Italian sky, the Italian coloring, and the mysterious
and indefinable enchantment of that land of romance and dream. The
volcanic phenomena is often startlingly similar to that of Italy. This
hot cave at Glenwood Springs is of the same order as those on Capri
and the adjacent coasts of Italy. In this cave at Glenwood hot air
continually comes up from some unknown region, and it is utilized for
curative purposes. The two or three caves have been made into one,
a cement floor laid, and marble seats with marble backs put in (the
ancient Romans would have found this a Paradise). Here come--not the
halt or the blind, but the people who take "the cure." The process
is to sit on the marble seat with a linen bag drawn completely over
the entire form, with a hole for the head to emerge. Around the neck
is placed a towel wrung out of cold water. To see a cave filled with
these modern mummies, sitting solemnly, done up in their linen cases,
like upholstery covering, is a spectacle. The men go in the morning,
the women in the afternoon. One lady obligingly gave the data of her
"cure." Twice a week she migrated in negligée to the hot cave, and
sat done up in her linen covering, bathing in the hot air at one
hundred and twenty degrees or so. Other afternoons were devoted to the
hot sulphur water bathing, and what with the various gradations of
temperature and the work of the attendants, the cup of Turkish coffee
and the siesta, the process consumed the entire afternoon. It is bliss
to those who delight in being rolled up like a mummy and sitting still.
But if it were chasing a star that danced, if it were riding on a
moonbeam, if it were dancing with the daffodils,--if it were anything
in all the world that was motion,--then it might have some fairer title
to charm. The felicity of lying about in a state of inertia is in the
nature of a mystery. And one questions, too, whether the spring of life
is not, after all, within rather than without. Let one take care of
his mental life and the physical will, very largely at least, keep in
spring and tune without elaborate and expensive processes of propping
it up. To disport one's self in the pool,--there is a delight. Who
wouldn't be a Rhine maiden under the midsummer moon in the heart of the
Rocky Mountains?
[Illustration: THE WALLS OF THE CAÑON, GRAND RIVER]
In nearly all the cañons and caves of this surrounding region are found
traces of the prehistoric peoples who inhabited them. Fragments of
pottery, in artistic design and painted in bright colors, are numerous;
relics similar to those found in the cliff houses are not unfrequently
chanced upon in walks and excursions and the stone implements abound.
The ethnologist finds a great field for research in all this Glenwood
Springs country. There are carriage roads terraced along the base of
the mountains where drives from five to twenty miles can be enjoyed
in the deep ravines where only a glimpse of blue sky is seen above,
and the saunterer finds a new walk every day. The mountains branch off
in every direction, and the lofty peaks silhouette themselves against
the sky. It is like being whirled up into the air. The sensation is
exhilarating beyond words. If people could take "cures" getting up into
sublime altitudes like this, where the views are so heavenly that one
does not know where earth ends and Paradise begins,--that would be a
cure worth the name. Really, it is vitality and exhilaration that one
wants, and it is to be found in the air far more than in any other
element.
"'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant;
'Tis life, not death, for which we pant,
More life and fuller that I want."
The Denver and Rio Grande Railway is well called "the scenic line of
the world." From Denver to Pueblo it runs almost due south, across a
level valley, with perpetually enchanting views of the mountains and
curious rock formations, between Denver to the region below Colorado
Springs. From the great smelting city of Pueblo, "the Pittsburg of the
West," the road turns westward, on an upward grade, till it reaches
Cañon City, and from there to Glenwood Springs this road is a marvel of
civil engineering. Up the narrow, deep cañons of Grand River, through
the towering granite cliffs, it winds, on and up, passing Holy Cross
Mountain, offering at every turn new vistas of sublime and wonderful
beauty. To take a day's ride through such scenery, with the luxurious
comfort of the most modern Pullman cars, and a good dining-car
constantly with the train, is to enjoy a day that lives in memory. Not
the least of the attractions of Glenwood Springs is the enchanting
route by means of which one arrives in this picturesque region. As the
train climbs up to plateau after plateau in the mountains the scenes
are full of changeful enchantment. The formation is interesting,--a
deep cañon, with rock cliffs apparently towering into the sky, and then
the emerging on a great level plateau. All along this route, too, are
those wonderful sandstone formations that have made the "Garden of the
Gods" so marvellous a place. Between Cañon City and Glenwood Springs
the very dance of the Brocken is seen in Sandstone sculptures.
[Illustration: THE "FAIRY CAVES," COLORADO]
Near the summit of Iron Mountain, which is in the immediate vicinity,
the "Fairy Caves" rival the famous "Blue Grotto" of Capri in
attraction. These caves (less than a mile from the Hotel Colorado)
are a most intricate and wonderful series of subterranean caverns,
grottos, and labyrinths, with translucent stalactites and stalagmites,
and they are all lighted by electricity,--a great improvement on the
sibyls' cave, where the sibylline leaves were read. The oracles of that
time were sadly lacking in conditions of modern conveniences. The sibyl
had not even a telephone. We do things better now, and run electric
cars up to the Pyramids. Nor did the sibyl of old have a tunnel two
hundred feet long, by which her votaries could approach the scene of
her oracles; but visitors to the Fairy Caves may pass by means of
this tunnel to one of the grandest and most awful precipices in the
Rocky Mountains, where they step out upon a balcony of stone into the
open air, with a perpendicular wall of rock one hundred feet high,
above, and an almost perpendicular abyss, down, twelve hundred feet
below. Standing on this balcony, nothing can be seen behind but sheer
perpendicular ascent and descent of rock; but in front and far below
may be seen the Grand River, appearing as a brook, winding in and out
among the projecting mountains, visible here like burnished silver, and
lost there, only to reappear again at a point far distant.
At this high elevation the opening of the cañon of the Grand is seen
in all of its majesty,--the massive mountains projecting against each
other in their outlines, and the lofty peaks reaching to the skies. The
Denver and Rio Grande Railway is at the foot of the cañon,--a mere
winding line, as seen from this Titanic height.
The Colorado Midland Road also runs through Glenwood Springs, whose
phenomenal hot caves and luxurious and elaborate bathhouse have given
it European fame. The twin towers of the hotel remind one of Notre
Dame, and the views from these are beautiful. The design is after the
Villa Medici in Rome,--the same motive repeated for the central motive
of this superb Hotel Colorado with its towers and Italian loggias and
splendid spacious piazzas, and its searchlight from one of the towers,
illuminating the evening trains that pass in the deep cañon of Grand
River. Here is a region that might be that of Sorrento and Capri.
In Glenwood Springs the traveller may meet Mrs. Emma Homan Thayer, the
author of "Wild Flowers in Colorado," published in both London and New
York. Mrs. Thayer was a New York girl, one of the original founders
of the Art League, and the daughter of an enterprising and well-known
man. She is an artist by nature and grace,--sketches, paints, and
writes, and in both painting and literature she has made a name that is
recognized, and she has charmingly perpetuated in her book the unique
and wonderful procession of Colorado wild flowers.
[Illustration: MARSHALL PASS AND MT. OURAY, COLORADO]
Lookout Mountain, rising some twenty-five hundred feet above the
town, has an easy trail to its summit; the driving is picturesque
and safe on terraced mountain roads with perpetual vistas of beauty,
and many lakes in the vicinity--Mountain, Big Fish, Trappers' Lake,
and others--offer excellent fishing. The hotel grounds at night are
transformed into a veritable fairyland. The fountains shoot their
jets of water up hundreds of feet into the air, with a play of color
from electric lights thrown over them until they are all a changeful
iridescent dream of rose and emerald and gold mingled with blue,--the
very rainbows of heaven reproduced in mid-air.
The journey up the "scenic route" has one point especially--that at the
base of the Holy Cross Mountain where the train climbs from plateau
to plateau--that enchants the imagination. The vast mysterious cañons
lie far below, steeped in the twilight of the gods. The air shimmers
with faint hints of color. Above, the towering granite walls seem to
cut their way into the sky. The faint plash of a thousand waterfalls
echoes from the rocky precipices, and the faint call of some lonely
bird hovering over a pinnacle is heard. The mysterious light, the
dim coolness and fragrance, the glimpses of blue sky seen through
the narrow openings of the cañons above all, combine to produce that
enchantment--the "Encantada,"--that Vasquez de Coronado felt when he
first beheld this marvellous country.
Emerson asserts that life is a search after power,--
"Merlin's blows are strokes of fate."
It is apparently a twentieth-century Merlin who has dreamed a dream of
wresting electricity from the mountain currents to utilize as power to
create a new field for industrial energy. The electrical engineer, who
is the magician of contemporary life, demonstrates that not the volume
of a stream, but rather its "fall," is the measure of its possibilities
of power, and no country is so rich in water that comes tumbling down
from the heights as is Colorado. The wild streams that precipitate
themselves down the mountain-sides are as valuable as are the veins of
gold that permeate the mountain. Science has now taken them in hand,
and will not longer permit these torrents and waterfalls to run to
waste or to display themselves exclusively as decorative features of
the mountain landscapes. The General Electric Company is utilizing
these falling waters, and is already achieving results with their
transformation into power which are beyond the dreams of imagination.
The Silver Cascade, which for ages has had nothing to do but leap and
flash under the shimmering gold of the Colorado sunshine, suddenly
undergoes
"a sea change
Into something new and strange."
It becomes an important factor in the world's work. For instance, in
lovely Manitou,--the little town that dreams at the foot of Pike's
Peak and which seems made only for stars and sunsets and as the stage
setting of idyllic experiences,--in lovely Manitou an hydro-electric
plant has been for more than a year in successful operation; and an
opportunity is thereby afforded the interested observer to see the
practical working of an enterprise that draws its energy directly from
nature's sources. The power is obtained from water that is stored in a
reservoir situated far up on the side of the peak. Three and one-half
miles of pipe were used to carry the water from the reservoir to the
plant. The water has a fall of twenty-three hundred feet, which is much
more than is needed to turn the giant wheels that furnish the power to
be distributed to Colorado Springs, Colorado City, and the surrounding
country. The mills at Colorado City use this power exclusively, and the
cheapness at which it can be furnished is a potent factor in making for
the success of their operation.
At Durango the Animas Power and Water Company has installed a plant
for hydro-electric energy which will furnish power to the entire San
Juan county. The plant comprises two three-thousand horse-power current
generators and the station appliances that correspond with these; and
from this plant extend fifty-thousand volt circuits to all the large
mines near Ouray, Silverton, and Telluride. The "Camp Bird," the "Gold
King," the "Silver Lake," the "Gold Prince," and the "Revenue Tunnel"
mines all draw from this plant for their entire milling and mining
work.
To harness the cascades, which for ages have known no sterner duty
than to sparkle and frolic in the sunshine, to force the water sprites
and nixies to perform the work of thousands of horse-power, is the
achievement of the modern Merlin.
The Platte River Power and Irrigation Company are about to establish
two electrical power enterprises most important to Denver, one of which
is to supply all the power that is necessary to turn every wheel now
in motion in the city, and the second is to secure electric power from
the water that is stored in the Cheesman dam and transmit it to Denver.
Responsible men are working for the success of the enterprises, and
it is anticipated that Denver will soon enjoy the advantage of power
furnished at a minimum of cost.
The Denver inter-urban service for transportation will be carried on
entirely by electricity within the near future. All the railroads that
centre in this City Beautiful are preparing estimates and making ready
to conduct experiments. The recent tests in the East of electrically
driven locomotives indicate that Colorado, with Denver as a centre,
will one day be a network of electric lines traversing productive
regions and connecting all the prosperous towns of the state by this
most ideal form of transit.
In Colorado it is one of the unwritten laws--a law from which there
is no appeal--that nothing which is desirable is impossible. This is
one of the spiritual laws, indeed, and he who holds it as an axiom
shall perpetually realize its force and its eternal truth. The entire
physical world is plastic to the world of spirit. In that realm alone
realities exist. For "the things which are seen are temporal; but the
things which are not seen are eternal." The faith that stands--not
"in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God"--is that which shall
be justified by the most profound actuality. It is that hidden wisdom
"which God ordained before the world unto our glory." Science has
already discerned the connection between organic form and super-space;
and speculations already begin to emerge from the dim and vague region
of conjecture into hypothesis and theory out of which are developed new
working laws of the universe which are as undeniable as is that of the
law of gravitation.
In harmonious accordance, then, with that unwritten law of Colorado
that nothing which is desirable is impossible, it was realized that the
Gunnison River, a powerful stream thirty miles east of the Uncompahgre,
afforded an abundance of water to reclaim these desert wastes to the
traditional blossoming of the rose. The Gunnison River, however, flows
through a box cañon three thousand feet deep. Were it at the bottom of
a gorge three thousand miles deep, that fact would hardly daunt the
Colorado spirit. Immediately some invention, incomprehensible to the
present mind of man, would be made by which the desirable issue should
be achieved. As has been remarked, failure is a word not included
in the vocabulary of Colorado. That state has a "revised version" of
its own for the resources of its language, laws, and literature. Its
keynote is the invincible. Ways and means are mere matters of minor
detail. If an achievement is desirable, it is to be accomplished, of
course. It is not even a question for discussion. There is no margin of
debatable land in the realization of every conceivable opportunity.
A stupendous work in development is that of this Gunnison Tunnel
under the Vernal Mesa to Uncompahgre Valley,--a desert waste whose
area comprises some one hundred thousand acres of sand, sagebrush,
and stones. Yet even here irrigation worked its spell, and while the
Uncompahgre River held out a water supply, the land reached proved
fertile beyond expectation. But the Uncompahgre had its far too
definite and restricted limits; no other water supply was available
for this region, and there lay the land--a tract of potential wealth,
but destined to remain, so far as could be seen, an unproductive and
cumbersome desert region unless irrigation could be achieved.
To the constructing engineer of the reclamation service there came
a telegram from the chief engineer in Washington asking if it were
feasible to divert the waters of Gunnison River to Uncompahgre Valley
by means of a tunnel under Vernal Mesa? This implied building a tunnel
from a point totally unknown. No one had ever succeeded in passing
through Gunnison Cañon. But the past tense does "not count," any more
than Rip Van Winkle's last glass, in any estimate of the present in
Colorado. Professor Fellows, an engineer of Denver, selected his
assistant; they prepared their instruments, their provisions, and
their inflated rubber mattress, and set forth on this expedition in
which their lives were in constant peril; in which hardships beyond
description were endured. The topographic map, for instance, was
made by Mr. Fellows in the delightful position of being lowered
with ropes into the deep cañon where, should the slightest accident
occur, he would never return to the day and daylight world again. The
establishment of precise levels for both ends of the tunnel, one of
which must, of course, be lower than the other to induce a flow of
water, was another matter requiring a delicacy of adjustment beyond
description. Of their wonderful and even tragic experiences a local
report says: "It all ended by Fellows and his companion saving two
things,--their lives and their notebooks. Everything else went down
with the flood. When the men emerged at the Devil's Slide, weary,
bruised, and bleeding, friends who had been waiting to pick up their
mangled bodies hailed them as if they had returned from the dead."
Of all this story there was no hint in the cheerfully laconic telegram
despatched to Washington,--"Complete surveys for construction." The
tunnel will be five or six miles in length, of which over two miles
are already completed. The work proceeds night and day with the drills
like mighty giants eating their way through the solid granite of the
Vernal Mesa that lies between the two rivers. This desert region which
will thus be reclaimed comprises portions of three counties,--Ouray,
Montrose, and Delta,--the region being at an altitude of five thousand
feet. It easily produces fruit, alfalfa, and grain, and it is also well
adapted to the culture of potatoes, celery, and the sugar beet. The
land when irrigated is estimated to be worth five hundred dollars per
acre. The tunnel will have a capacity for conveying thirteen thousand
cubic feet of water per second, and there will be connected with it
an elaborate system of lesser canals and ditches that will carry the
water all over this desert tract. It is estimated that this enterprise
will add thousands of homes to the valley of the Uncompahgre, and that
it will increase by at least ten millions the taxable property of
Colorado. The cost of the Gunnison Tunnel will be some two and a half
millions.
Uncompahgre Valley, lying between the Continental Divide on the east,
and the Utah Desert on the west, comprises the greatest extent of
irrigable land west of Pueblo in the entire state; but the need for
irrigation and the possibilities of supplying that need were so widely
apart that even Merlin the Enchanter recognized the difficulty, though
by no means defining it as an impossibility. The Uncompahgre River
was soon exhausted, and only this apparently impracticable scheme,
now happily realized, offered any solution of the problem. Hon. Meade
Hammond of the state legislature of Colorado secured the appropriation
of twenty-five thousand dollars to meet the expenses of surveying
and preliminary work. Hon. John C. Bell, the representative for that
district in Congress, gave untiring devotion to the project, and to
his efforts was due the zeal with which the reclamation service took
up this vast work; and when Professor Fellows was appointed as the
government district engineer its success became the object of his
supreme interest and unremitting energy, and its achievement adds
another to the remarkable engineering works of Colorado.
In this Land of Enchantment almost anything is possible, even to
yachting,--a pastime that would not at first present itself as one to
be included among the entertainments of an arid state which has to
set its own legislative machinery and that of Congress in motion in
order to contrive a water supply for even its agricultural service;
nevertheless, on a lake in the mountains, more than a mile and a half
above sea level and some one hundred miles from Denver the Beautiful,
a yacht club disports itself with all the airy grace and assurance of
its ground--one means of its water--that distinguishes the delightful
Yacht Club at old Marblehead on the Atlantic Coast. There was, however,
no government appropriation made to create this lake, as might at
first be supposed, nor any experts sent out commissioned to prepare
the way. There are numerous forms of summer-day entertainments that
are more or less in evidence in the inland states; but yachting has
never been supposed to be among them, as preconceived ideas of this joy
have invariably associated it with oceans and seas. Still, it must be
remembered that Colorado is an exceptional region in the universe, and
creates, not follows, precedents. It is the state, as has before been
remarked, to which nothing conceivable is impossible.
Grand Lake is in Middle Park, sixty miles from the nearest railroad
station. (With the incredible celerity with which life progresses
in the Centennial State, of course by the time this description is
materialized in print Grand Lake may have become a railroad centre--who
shall say? It is not safe to limit prophecy in Colorado.) At present,
however, a railroad journey of forty miles from Denver, supplemented
by sixty miles of stage, brings one to the lake, a beautiful sheet of
water two miles in length and more than a mile in width, whose water
is icy cold. The locality has become something of a summer resort for
many Denver people, and also, to some extent, to those from Chicago
and Kansas City, and a group of cottages have sprung up. Some seven
years ago the Grand Lake Yacht Club was duly organized, with Mr. R.
C. Campbell, a son-in-law of Senator Patterson of Colorado, Mr. W. H.
Bryant, a prominent citizen of Denver the Beautiful, Major Lafayette
Campbell, and other well-known men, as its officers. The club has
now a fleet of yachts; it has its regatta week, and altogether holds
its own among nautical associations; it takes itself seriously, in fact
with what Henry James calls the "deadly earnestness of the Bostonians,"
which is paralleled by this inland and arid-land yachting club.
[Illustration: THE WONDERFUL HANGING LAKE, NEAR GLENWOOD SPRINGS,
COLORADO]
Besides the joys of yachting in an arid state where that nautical
pastime is apparently carried on in mid air, is the local diversion of
climbing mountain peaks that are pronounced impossible of ascension.
This is one of the favorite entertainments of Colorado young women,
who have conquered Long's, Gray's, Pike's, and Torrey's peaks, Mount
Massive, the "Devil's Causeway," and various lesser heights, which they
scale with the characteristically invincible energy of their state. The
summit of Mount Massive is fourteen thousand five hundred feet above
sea level, and of one of these expeditions a Denver journal says of
this party of several ladies and gentlemen:
"Camp was struck at Lamb's ranch, where, in the early morning, the
wagon was left with all the outfit not absolutely necessary. The
trail sloped steadily to the boulder field, where the party stopped
for lunch. They were now at an altitude of twelve thousand feet.
A cold wind swept across the range and chilled them, so that the
climb was soon renewed.
"The boulder field is two miles long and seemed five, for walking
over the great stones is a wearisome business. At the end of the
boulder field, which is much like the terminal range of an old
glacier, is a great snowbank. From a long distance the mountain
climbers saw the keyhole,--a deep notch of overjutting rock through
which goes the only trail to the summit of Long's. It is a gigantic
cornice to a ridge that extends north from the main cone.
"After passing the keyhole, which had loomed up before them through
weary miles of tramping, a great panorama of mountains stretched
before them.... There was a precipitous slope of rocks jammed
together in a gulch. This rises for about seven hundred feet, every
inch stiff climbing.
"The danger at this point was that some climbers might dislodge
rocks which would come bounding down on the heads of those in the
rear. For this reason the orders of the leader were urgent that the
party should not get separated. The trail at this point led up the
sharply sloping eaves of the mountain roof, from which the climber
might drop a dizzy distance to the depths below. Clinging to the
rocks and hanging on by hands or feet, the party pushed up to a
ledge from which they looked over an abyss several thousand feet
sheer down."
In Southern Colorado the cliff-dwellers' region offers some of the most
remarkable ruins in America, and their preservation in a government
reservation, to be known as the Mesa Verde National Park, has been
assured by a bill that has been recently passed by Congress and
which is one of the eminent features of latter-day legislation. It
is Representative Hogg who introduced this bill providing for the
permanent protection of those cliff-dweller ruins which, with those
in New Mexico and Arizona, constitute some of the most valuable and
interesting prehistoric remains in the United States. Already much of
this archæological treasure of inestimable scientific value has been
carried away by visitors, while, instead of permitting this region to
be thus despoiled, it should be made easily accessible to tourists
and held as one of the grand show places of the great Southwest.
Like the Grand Cañon and the Petrified Forests of Arizona, like the
Pike's Peak region in Colorado, Mesa Verde would become an objective
point of pilgrimage to thousands of summer tourists. In the winter
of 1904-5 Representative Lacey, of Iowa, the eminent chairman of the
House Committee on Public Lands, made in behalf of his committee a
favorable report on the Colorado Cliff-dwellers' Bill, presenting, with
his characteristic eloquence of argument, the truth that the permanent
preservation of these wonderful and almost prehistoric ruins is greatly
to be desired by the people of the Southwest, as well as by those
interested in archæology elsewhere. "The ruins are situated among rocky
cliffs, and may be easily preserved if protected," said Mr. Lacey, and
added:
"With the exception of two or three small, fallen, and totally
uninteresting ones, all the ruins of the Mesa Verde are in the
Southern Ute Indian Reservation. It is an extremely arid region,
and little or no agriculture is practised by the Utes, although
they range sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies on the mesa and in the
cañons. It is a poor range at best, and the Indians appear to need
all they can get. Moreover, the reclamation service has made some
estimates regarding storage reservoirs in the upper Mancos, and it
may be at some future time a part of this land in the reservation
will be irrigable and greatly increased in value. The Utes are
not going to destroy these ruins or dig in them. They stand in
superstitious awe of them, believing them to be inhabited by the
spirits of the dead, and cannot be induced to go near them."
These dwellings are excavated in cliffs from five to nine hundred feet
above the plateaus. Of these, two dwellings stand out prominently,--the
"Spruce Tree House" and the "Balcony House," the former of which
contains a hundred and thirty rooms, of each of which the average
measurement is about eight by six feet. Much pottery, weapons,
armament, and many skeletons and mummies are found in these dwellings.
The later conclusions of scientists are that these cliff-houses were
designed as places of refuge and defence rather than as ordinary
habitations. The parallelogram and circle forms predominate, and they
are often forty feet in diameter. There are sometimes double, or even
triple walls, solidly built of hewn stone, with a circular depression
(council-chamber) in the centre.
Pueblo is the metropolis of Southern Colorado. It is the second city
in the state, ranking next to Denver. It is an important industrial
centre, being the location of the great steel works of the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company, and two large smelting plants in constant
activity. It is a town with unusual possibilities of beauty, rambling,
as it does, over the rolling mesas with a series of enchanting vistas
and mountain views of great beauty. The Spanish Peaks are in full
sight from the new residence region of Pueblo, and here is the home of
ex-Governor and Mrs. Alva Adams, with its spacious, book-lined rooms;
its choice and finely selected souvenirs of foreign travel; its music
and pictures; and far above all, the gracious sweetness and charm of
Mrs. Adams, who has that most perfect of gifts--that of transforming a
household into a home. Governor Adams, although in his modesty he would
deprecate the distinction, is easily the first citizen of Colorado.
Twice the Governor of the state, he has impressed the entire people
with his flawless integrity of character, his noble ideals, and his
energy of executive power in securing and enforcing the best measures
for the people and carrying onward into practical life the highest
moral and educational standards.
Governor Adams is always greatly in demand as a speaker, and in
September of 1906 he was again nominated for Governor of the state.
Colorado, quite irrespective of party, is all aglow with the name of
Alva Adams. Good Republicans have long been greatly perplexed over
the fact that the man they most desire to vote for, the man to whose
guidance they would most willingly commit the affairs of state, is a
Democrat. The ability, the unquestioned integrity, the fidelity to
lofty ideals, and the great administrative power of Governor Adams
inspire the almost universal enthusiasm of Colorado irrespective of
party lines.
No son of the Centennial State is more in sympathy with its individual
problems. Born in Wisconsin (some fifty-five years ago), Governor Adams
was about to enter the Ann Arbor Law School when the illness of a
brother brought him in his earliest youth to Colorado. Its beauty, its
rich possibilities, enchanted him. Here he married a very cultivated
and beautiful young woman, whose parents came in her early girlhood to
Colorado, and whose sympathetic and perfect companionship has been the
unfailing source of his noblest inspiration.
In an address on "Pathfinders and Pioneers," given before an irrigation
congress at Colorado Springs, we find Governor Adams saying:
"What a sublime moment when the explorer realizes the fruition
of his dream! What fateful hours upon the dial of human progress
when Columbus saw a new world emerge from the sea, when Balboa
stood 'silent upon a peak in Darien,' when Lewis and Clark upon
the continent's crest saw the waters of the rivulet run toward the
West! Such events compensate great souls, and their spirits defy
hardship, ingratitude, chains, dungeons, and the axe. The curtain
has been run down upon the careers of those brave men whose praise
we sing. Their race is run. The explorer, priest, trapper, and
pioneer have vanished.
"'Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.'
"Would it be a daring assumption to consider the irrigated regions
of America as the arena in which the fifth act, time's noblest
offspring, is to perfect and complete the drama of civilization?
"Irrigated lands were the cradle of the race. The first canals
were run from the four rivers of Paradise. May not the fruition of
mankind seek the same conditions amid which it was born? Providence
has kept fallow this new land until man was fitted to enter and
possess it.
"'Hid in the West through centuries,
Till men, through countless tyrannies, could understand
The priceless worth of freedom.'"
"I would not decry culture and refinement," said ex-Governor Adams in
this address; "they are the charm and beauty of modern life, the music
and art of the social commerce of the age; but in their acquirement
I would not give up the robust, vigorous, daring qualities of the
pioneer."
The Governor proceeded:
"They had blood and iron in their heart, they had the nerve to
dare, the strength to do. I do not believe in battle for battle's
sake; but I never want to see our people when they are not willing
to fight, and able to fight. The only guarantee of peace and
liberty is the ability and willingness to do battle for your
rights. Refinement alone is not strength, culture alone is not
virtue. Absalom, Alcibiades, and Burr stand in history as the
most polished, cultured men of three ages, yet they were more a
menace than a brace to the liberties of their time. In stress,
the world calls upon the Calvins, the Cromwells, the Jacksons,
Browns, and Lincolns. They were stalwart, strenuous, courageous
men; not cultured and refined, but rich in royalty and daring. It
is the rugged and the strong, and not the gentle and the wise, who
gather in their hands the reins of fate and plough deep furrows
in the fields of human events. It is they who have driven the car
of progress and have woven the deepest colors in the fabric of
human happiness. It is true that some of our Western torch-bearers
were not perfect; none of them were ever anointed with the oil
of consecration; around them surged the temptations of a wild
and boisterous age; through their hearts and souls there swept
the impulses and passions of the strong; if they sinned, it was
against themselves, not their country. Let their frailties be
forgotten, and their good cherished. Often rough and defiant of the
conventionalities, they were ever true and loyal, and most of these
empire builders can stand before the great white throne with open
hearts. They were the architects, the Hiram Abifs of these Western
empires. They laid the foundations in courage and liberty."
Let no one fancy that Pueblo is a primitive Western city devoid of
electricity, telephones, motor cars, or even Marconigrams. Let no one
fancy it is too far from Paris to have the latest French fashions. It
is hardly an exaggeration to say that it demands the best and the most
up-to-date ideas of the Eastern cities to be at all eligible in these
Colorado towns. Pueblo has a most delightful club-house on the edge of
a lake--the lake is artificially created, and being made to order, is,
of course, exactly the kind of lake that is desired, the water being
conducted from the mountains into a large natural depression--where
great open fires in every room greet the daily visitor; where there are
large reading-rooms, a dining-room, and a ball-room; no intoxicating
beverages of any kind are allowed to be sold, so that youths and
maidens may at any time enjoy the club with no insidious dangers to
their moral welfare.
There are many centres of social life; and if Pueblo people have any
other conceivable occupation than to give dinner parties at night and
go motoring in the morning, with endless receptions of the Daughters
of the Revolution and other clubs, organizations, or purely private
card receptions invading the afternoons, the visitor hardly realizes
it. The dinners given are often as elaborate as in the large Eastern
cities, as one, for instance, given by Mr. and Mrs. Mahlon D. Thatcher
at their stately home "Hillcrest," where the decorations were all in
rich rose red, a most brilliant effect, and the souvenirs were India
ink reproductions of old castles on white satin. The dinner cards held
each a quotation from the poets.
* * * * *
Pueblo is always all sunshine and radiance, and has a beauty of
location that makes it notable, with its encircling blue mountains and
picturesque mesas, and the perpetual benediction of the Spanish Peaks
silhouetted against the western sky. Its new library is the pride and
delight of every citizen. It is one of the Carnegie chain,--a large,
two-story and basement structure of white Colorado stone, the interior
finished with the richly variegated Colorado marble which is used for
mantels and fireplaces. The book stacks, the spacious and splendid
reading-room, the children's room, and the smaller ones for reference
and special study, are all planned on the latest and most perfect
models.
The library is in the Royal Park, on the crest of one of the mesas,
very near the home of Governor Adams. It is a library to delight the
heart of the book-lover. Pueblo offers, indeed, great attractions to
all who incline to this land of sunshine. The climate is even more mild
than that of Denver, from which city it is a little over three hours
distant by the fast trains, or four hours by slower ones. Colorado
Springs lies between--two hours from Denver and a little over one
hour from Pueblo. The location combines many attractions. With three
railroads; its large industries in smelting and steel; its excellent
schools, both public and private; its churches, its daily newspapers;
its library; and its fine clubhouse, open to families,--women and
children as well as men enjoying it freely,--Pueblo seems one of
the most delightful of places. It has large wealth and a power of
initiating many opportunities. It is on the most picturesque and
delightful lines of travel to Cañon City, Salida, Leadville, Glenwood
Springs, and through Salt Lake City to the Pacific Coast; or on the
line to Arizona and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, and on to Los
Angeles and San Francisco; or eastward to Chicago and the Atlantic
Coast; or southward to Mexico, or St. Louis, or New Orleans. Pueblo is
really in the heart of things, so to speak. The Chicago papers arrive
the next day, the New York papers the third morning, and the telephonic
communication is simply almost without limit. Governor Adams will step
from his library into another book-lined room where the telephone is
placed, and from there talk with people in five different states. Once
he held a conversation with a man at the bottom of a mine a few hundred
miles away,--a man whose subterranean sojourn had the alleviation of a
telephone.
The greatest industrial organization west of the Mississippi River is
that of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, whose largest plant is at
Pueblo, and is held at a valuation of fifty-eight million dollars. On
its pay-roll are fifteen thousand employés. There are twenty thousand
tons of steel rail produced each month, and it is said that this
number will soon be largely increased, and that the Goulds and the
Rockefellers are arranging to utilize the product of these mills for
their vast railroad interests. The company owns such large tracts of
land in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming; it owns coal mines,
iron mines, lime quarries; it owns parts of two railroads, besides
telegraph and telephone lines galore, so that by reason of these
extensive holdings it is able to secure at a minimum of cost all the
raw materials from which the finished products are turned out. Upward
of three hundred thousand acres of the richest coal lands in the West,
an empire containing one hundred square miles more than the coal
area of Pennsylvania, constitute the holdings for coal mine purposes
of the company. In addition there are iron, manganese mines, and
limestone quarries containing the elements which give to the product
of the furnaces and mills qualities that secure the markets of the
Western world. Its plant at Pueblo has become the centre of a town
called Minnequa, composed of its own employés and their families. The
company has established a model hospital, with a surgeon's department
fitted up with the most elaborate and finest scientific and nursing
facilities; a fine library and large reading-rooms, and a recreation
hall and gymnasium for the workmen. Nearly one million dollars has
been expended on the tenant houses belonging to the company, which
are rented to their employés on fair and advantageous terms. In
many respects Minnequa, at Pueblo, is one of the most remarkable
manufacturing centres in the world, presenting aspects that invite
study, in its extensive resources, the vast and colossal character of
its purposes, and its remarkable achievements. All employés are given
the opportunity to acquire homes; and every late ideal in the way of
providing opportunities for their care in health, in mental and moral
development, and in recreations, is carried out to the fullest possible
extent.
The company has recently engaged in an irrigation enterprise in the
purchase of water-right priorities of the Arkansas River for seventy
cubic feet of water per second, at an expense of one million dollars.
These rights, which date back to 1860-62, are among the oldest
existing, and they insure to the company the uninterrupted and certain
possession of the river flow. A court decree enabled them to change
the point of division, and they have constructed a new head-gate at
Adobe, six miles east of Florence. A canal fifty-eight miles in length
is being constructed from Florence to the mills owned by the company.
The cost of this canal will be some three quarters of a million. These
mills produce over seventy-five thousand tons of iron and steel each
month. The manufacturing plant at Minnequa includes blast furnaces,
converting works, blooming mills, a merchant iron mill, a hoop and
cotton tie mill, a spike factory, a bolt factory, a castings and pipe
foundry, with open hearth furnaces, a reversing mill, and many other
appliances.
"It must not be supposed, because we find it necessary to practise
irrigation in Colorado, that we therefore never have any rains,"
observed a Coloradoan; "on the contrary, the rains of spring are
usually of such abundance as to make the ground in fine condition
for ploughing and putting in crops, and we seldom find it necessary
to apply water to germinate any kind of seed; only once, in thirteen
years' experience at Greeley, were we compelled to resort to irrigation
before crops of all kinds were well up and considerably advanced in
growth. About the last of May, however, as regularly as the natural
periods of summer, autumn, winter, and spring occur in the other
states, never varying more than a week in time, these copious rains
suddenly cease and give place to light and entirely inadequate local
thunder-showers. Now is the accepted time, and all over cultivated
Colorado, within a period of not more than two days, every flood-gate
is opened and the life-giving current started to flowing on the rapidly
parching grain. Corn will endure until later in the season, but all
sowed crops must get one thorough application of water within two
weeks or become severely injured for the want of it. Day and night
the silent current flows on and on, among the fields of grain; not a
drop of water nor a moment of time must run to waste until the first
irrigation is completed."
In so exceptional a summer of drought and heat as was that of 1901 the
advantages of irrigation stand out. Journeying through Kansas, the long
day's ride across the state revealed continued devastation from the
lack of rain. Corn fields looked almost as if a fire had passed over
them, so shrivelled and stunted they were; but in Colorado on every
hand there were greenness and luxuriance of vegetation and of crops.
The result is simply that, with irrigation, man controls his climate
and all the conditions of prosperity. Without it, he is at the mercy of
the elements.
The Union Colony of Greeley was the first to introduce upland
irrigation in Colorado. Of the method employed, the "Greeley Tribune"
gave this description:
"Almost the first question asked by many persons on their first
arrival in Colorado, when they see the irrigating ditches running
along the sides of the bluffs high above the river, and back from
it five, ten, or twenty miles, is, 'How do you get the water out
of the river, and so high above it? It looks as if you made the
water run uphill.' The answer is very simple. All the rivers of
Colorado are mountain streams, and consequently have a fall of from
ten to thirty feet to the mile, after they reach the plains. In the
mountains, of course, the fall is often much greater. The plains
also have a gradual slope eastward from the foothills, where the
altitude is generally between six and seven thousand feet above sea
level, while at the eastern boundary of the state it is only about
three thousand feet. Take, for example, the canal generally known
as Number Two, which waters the lands of the Greeley Colony. This
canal is taken out of the Cache la Poudre River, about seventeen
miles west of Greeley, and where the bed of the river is probably
a hundred and sixty feet higher than it is at Greeley. The bed of
the canal only has a fall of from three to three and a half feet
to the mile; therefore it is easily seen that when that grade is
continued for a number of miles, the line of the canal will run in
a direction further and further from the river, and on much higher
ground, so that the lands lying between the canal and the river are
all 'covered by,' or on a lower level than, the water in the canal.
In the process of irrigation this same plan must be followed,
of bringing the water in on the higher side of the land to be
irrigated, then the water will easily flow all over the ground."
In Weld County, of which Greeley is the county seat, irrigation was
extended during 1905 to cover from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand
acres of arid land never before under cultivation, and storage
reservoirs increased in capacity. It is proposed to cut a tunnel
through the Medicine Bow mountain range and to bring a large quantity
of water through from the Western slope to irrigate an additional fifty
thousand acres of prairie.
Within the past year there have been two potato starch factories
started in successful operation in Greeley which are estimated to
pay out annually one hundred thousand dollars for potatoes that have
heretofore been practically a total loss to the farmers.
The Swift Packing Company of Chicago propose investing one and a half
millions in further irrigation in this county. The products of the
Greeley district alone, for 1905, were five and a half millions,--a
fact that suggests the wise foresight of Hon. Nathan Cook Meeker, the
founder of the town, in selecting this location, in 1869, for his
colony.
Of recent years a remarkable feature of agricultural progress in
Colorado has been developed by the "dry farming" system, the discovery
of which is due to Prof. H. W. Campbell, who has been experimenting,
for some twenty years past, in Eastern Colorado, in the scientific
culture of the soil without benefit of irrigation. Professor Campbell
says that he had been assured that corn would not grow at an altitude
of three thousand feet, as the nights would be too cool; but that he
can refute this, as, during the past five years, he has averaged from
thirty to forty-two bushels per acre at an altitude ranging from five
thousand to nearly seven thousand feet. Successful agriculture is, in
Professor Campbell's belief, based on the fundamental principle of soil
culture, and in an interview he said:
"While the great work now being done by the government in
promoting irrigation enterprises in the more arid portion of
the West and the using of millions upon millions of money for
the building of mammoth reservoirs have value and virtue, and
means the development of many sections that must remain almost
worthless without them, and the spending of thousands of dollars
in traversing foreign countries to secure what some have pleased
to call drought-resisting plants, will undoubtedly play their part
in promoting the welfare and prosperity of Colorado, ... yet there
should also be an understanding of, first, the necessary physical
condition of the soil for the most liberal growth and development
of roots; secondly, the storing and conserving the entire season
rainfall,--not only the portion that falls during the growing
season, but from the early spring to late in the fall; thirdly, the
fact that air is just as important in the soil as water, and that
it is the combination of the elements of air and water in the soil,
together with heat and light, that is most essential; and that when
these conditions are fulfilled, Eastern Colorado will come to its
rightful own, and little towns and cities will spring up along all
the great trunk lines, while the intervening country will be dotted
with ideal farm homes and shade trees; orchards and groves will
break the monotony of the now bleak prairie, and present a restful,
cheerful, homelike, and prosperous condition."
While agriculture in Colorado is regarded as in its infancy, yet the
product of Colorado farms alone contributed almost fifty-one millions
to the world's wealth, in 1905, exclusive of wool, hides, or live
stock. Professor Olin of the State Agricultural College estimates that
there are over two hundred thousand acres in Colorado which produce
crops without irrigation, by the application of Professor Campbell's
"dry-farming" system. The so-called dry land, consisting of millions
of acres in Eastern Colorado, averages now four dollars per acre,
where one year ago untold quantities could be bought for an average of
two dollars per acre. The speculative value of this land has gone up
wonderfully under the impetus of the Campbell system of dry farming. If
this system comes anywhere near proving the claims of its advocates,
it will vastly increase the wealth and population of the state. With
a greater understanding of the science of dry culture it is certain
that the farmers of the state and the state generally will experience
immeasurable advantage. In the eastern plains of Colorado are embraced
more than fifteen million acres of land which are now lying practically
useless, only a small amount being utilized for ranging cattle. The
claims of dry-culture enthusiasts and those who have been experimenting
with seed imported to meet the dry conditions are, that this empire
will be made to yield harvests which will support many thriving
communities. In proof of their claims they point to so-called model
farms established at various places on the plains where the hitherto
unyielding soil has borne substantial crops.
One important feature in the agricultural development of Colorado is
the extinction of the bonanza ranch of thousands of acres. Instead,
farms are reduced to manageable proportions, and are carried on far
more largely by intelligent thought and scientific appliances than by
mere manual labor.
The present day Colorado ranch is an all-the-year-round enterprise.
The ranch owner is a careful business man, who watches his acres and
the products thereof even as the successful merchant or manufacturer
acquires close knowledge of all the details of his business. He sows
his land with diversified crops, rotating hay, grain, and root crops
scientifically for the double purpose of securing the greatest yields
and preserving the nourishing qualities of the soil. Keeping in touch
with the market conditions of the world, and with the advancing
developments of science, he is easily the master of the situation, and
in no part of the country is the condition of the farmer better, or
perhaps so good, as in Colorado. The agriculturist of the Centennial
State who is the owner of two quarter sections, or even of one, is
altogether independent. The returns from his business are absolutely
sure, and with the certain knowledge of substantial gains at the end
of the season he plans improvements to his home, and comforts and even
luxuries for himself and family, which far exceed those usually secured
in the Middle West or by the small farmers of the East. In Colorado it
will be found that almost every young man and woman of those who are
natives of the state are college graduates. Co-education prevails, just
as does the political enfranchisement of women, and the results of this
larger extension of the opportunities and privileges of life are very
much in evidence in the beauty, the high intelligence, and the liberal
culture that especially characterize the women of Colorado.
Irrigation enterprises in Colorado are far more widely recognized than
is the Campbell system of dry culture; but in 1905 these enterprises
appealed with increased force to capitalists outside, as well as within
Colorado, as a safe and profitable means of investment. Land held at
ten dollars per acre is, by irrigation, instantly increased in value
from twenty to fifty dollars; and it was seen that the most favorable
localities within the state in which to raise funds for further
extension of irrigation were among the farmers in the older irrigated
sections who have won their ranches, improved their places, and made
large deposits in the banks through the use of the productive waters
trained to make the soil blossom with wealth.
Irrigation is developed to its highest excellence in Northern Colorado
and in the valley of the Arkansas River. These regions have been the
longest under irrigated culture, and their value is increasing rapidly.
Each year sees the agriculturist grow more conservative in his use of
water, and the quantity thus saved has been applied to new lands. Thus,
in an interesting and quite undreamed-of way, a problem that incited
discord and dissension, that promised only to increase inevitably
as larger territories of land and their correspondingly increased
irrigation should be held, was brought to a peaceful solution.
Continued litigation, and a great pressure to secure legislative
restrictions of the use of water supply, and the constant irritation
and turmoil involved in these disputes, were all, happily, laid to rest
by the discovery of the farmers themselves that extravagance in the use
of water was not conducive to their own prosperity. In the matter of
flood waters the irrigation experts of the state are quite generally
meeting the condition in their own way. Storage reservoirs are dotting
the irrigation systems at frequent intervals, and in the dry months
the supply piled up behind the cement dams is drawn off to furnish the
final necessary moisture for the maturing of the crops.
Another possibility of irrigation that is receiving the attention of
engineers is the utilization of the streams for power purposes. In many
cases the power thus generated will be made to accomplish marvellous
feats in the way of construction, as in the instance at Grand River,
already described.
One of the special journeys in Colorado is that called a "trip around
the circle," affording more than a thousand miles among the mountains
within four days' time; but a permission for ten days is available,
thus affording several detours by stage, which penetrate into the
most sublime regions. The abysmal depth of five of the great cañons;
many of the noted mountain passes; great mining camps, with their
complicated machinery; cliff dwellings, vast plateaus, and stupendous
peaks; Indian reservations; the icy crevasses a thousand feet in depth;
the picturesque "Continental Divide," from which one looks down on a
thousand mountain peaks, where the vast Cordilleras in their rugged
grandeur are seen as a wide plain; the beautiful Sangre de Cristo
("Blood of Christ") range; the sharp outlines of the Spanish Peaks,
rising twelve and thirteen thousand feet into the air; beautiful meadow
lands where the blue and white columbine, the state flower of Colorado,
blooms in profusion, and the tiger lily, the primrose, and the
"shooting stars" blossom,--all these are enjoyed within the "circle"
trip; and it also includes Leadville, the "city above the clouds,"
Durango, Ouray, Gunnison, and other interesting towns. It offers a near
view of the Mount of the Holy Cross, which strange spectacle is made by
the snow deposits in transverse, gigantic cañons,--the perpendicular
one being fifteen hundred feet, while the transverse cross is seven
hundred and fifty feet in length; of Lost Cañon, a novelty even in a
land of cañons; and of the Rio de Las Animas Perditas, old Fort Lewis,
the valley of Dolores River, a region of early Spanish discovery; of
Black Cañon and Cimarron Cañon and Grand River Cañon, whose walls
rise to the height of more than twenty-five hundred feet;--all these
are but the merest outline and hint of the scenic wonders compassed
within the circle trip. Up the cañons the train climbs; through narrow
gorges with overhanging rocks, on and on, till a plateau is reached;
then more cañons, more climbing, more peaks towering into the skies,
and waterfalls chiming their music. As even an enthusiast in scenery
cannot entirely subsist on stars, sunsets, and silences, the luxurious
comforts of these trains enhance one's enjoyment. A dining-car is
always on, and the excellence of the food and the moderate prices for
all this perfect comfort and convenience are features the traveller
appreciates. That dance of the Brocken which one fancies he sees in
the fantastic sandstone formations on the mountain's side on the
romantic route to Glenwood Springs is occasionally duplicated in
other cañons, where these strange rocks resolve themselves, with the
aid of the mysterious lights and shadows, into a dance of witches,
and every shape springs to life. The train rushes on, and one leaves
them dancing, confident that although these figures may be stationary
by day, they dance at night. Another mountain slope of the sandstone
shows a colossal figure of a prophet,--shrouded, hooded, suggesting
that solemn, majestic figure of death in Daniel French's great work
entitled "Death and the Sculptor." The precipitous walls of the cañon
rise in many places to over a thousand feet in height. In their sides
such a variety of designs and figures have been sculptured by erosion
that the traveller half imagines himself in the realm of the gods of
Hellas. These innumerable designs and figures incite not only the play
of fancy, but they invite the study of the geologist, who finds here
the primary rock formations exhibited in the most varied and striking
manner. As the train winds deeper into the heart of the projecting
rocks the crested crags loom up beyond the sight; below, the river
rushes in foaming torrents and only a faint arch of the sky is seen.
There are recesses never penetrated by the sun.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL ROCKS, CLYDE PARK, CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT LINE]
Another group of the sandstone shapes, under the transformation of
moonlight, resolved itself into a band of angels, and still another
mountain-side seems to be the scene of ballet dancers. The splendid
heights of Dolores Peak and Expectation Mountain, the Lizard Head,
the Cathedral Spires, the Castle Peaks of the Sangre de Cristo--what
points and groups that fairly focus all conceivable sublimity they
form! Here is a state more than a third larger than all New England;
it is the state of sunsets and of stars; of scenery that is impressive
and uplifting, rather than merely picturesque; a state whose plains,
even, are of the same altitude as the summit of Mount Washington in the
White Mountains, and whose mountains and peaks ascend to an altitude
of over two miles above this height. Of the total extent of Colorado,
the mountains, inclusive of parks and foothills, occupy two-thirds of
the area. So it is easily realized to what extent they dominate the
scene. But great and impressive as they are in effect, the mountain
features have an undoubted influence, however unconsciously received,
on the character of the people. The effect of beauty on character is
incalculable. When to beauty is added sublimity, how much greater must
this effect be! It was not mere rhetoric when the Psalmist exclaimed,
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.... The Lord
shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul." It is
this train of thought which is inevitably suggested to the mind in
gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the mountain scenery.
Nature has predestined Colorado for the theatre of noble life, and the
influence is all-pervading.
Great engineering feats are in evidence all over Colorado. Miles of
railway tunnels pass through the mountains. No mountain, not even
Pike's Peak, is regarded in Colorado as being in any sense an obstacle
to any form of the extension of travel. The railroad either passes
through it or climbs it. The matter is apparently simple to the
railroad mind, and evidently all the peaks of the Himalayas piled on
Pike's or Long's peaks--"Ossa piled on Pelion"--would not daunt the
Coloradoan enterprise. In fact, the greater the obstacle, the greater
is the enterprise thereby incited to overcome it. In the most literal
way obstacles in this land of enchantment are miraculously transformed
to stepping-stones. But what would you,--in an Enchanted Country?
Colorado has four great systems of parks whose elevation is from seven
to nine thousand feet: North Park, with an area of some twenty-five
hundred square miles; South Park, one thousand; Middle Park, three
thousand; and San Luis, with nine thousand four hundred square
miles,--all sheltered by mountains, watered by perpetual streams, and
so rich in grass lands as to afford perpetual grazing and farming
resources. Colorado has nearly one thousand inland lakes, and over two
hundred and fifty rivers fed from mountain snows. Its grand features
include mountains, cañons, gorges and deep chasms, crags and heights;
its mountain systems cover more than five times the area of the Alps,
and its luminous, electrically exhilarating air, its play of color, and
the necromancy of distances that seem near when afar--all linger in the
memory as a dream of ecstatic experiences. Colorado is all a splendor
of color, of vista, and of dream. It is the most poetic of states.
Now the fact that this country has been importing over two million tons
of sugar a year lends importance to the beet sugar factories already
largely established. Colorado has a future in beet sugar hardly second
to her gold-mining interests, if her interests receive the national
safe-guarding that is her due.
Colorado and the Philippines were brought into collision of interests
by the attempt to reduce the tariff on sugar imported from those
islands. This would ruin the beet sugar industry in the Centennial
State, which is already beginning to transform it into one of the
richest agricultural states in the Union.
This industry is absolutely identified with the irrigation interests
of Colorado, as it is the arid land irrigated that offers the best
facilities for the sugar beets.
The beet sugar enterprise means remunerative work for the farmer, good
business for the railroads and merchants, and an incalculable degree of
prosperity for all Colorado. Thomas F. Walsh, of Ouray, Colorado, and
of Washington, made an earnest protest against this movement.
Mr. Walsh is a great capitalist, but while he has not one dollar
concerned in the beet sugar enterprise of his state, he is a loyal and
devoted son of Colorado. In a convincing manner he said:
"... It is not a small thing, this robbery of American farmers and
home-makers for the benefit of sugar corporations and exploiters
of Philippine labor. It means the ultimate ruin of an industry
that is full of the brightest promise for thousands of Americans.
It means that the people of the United States shall pay tribute
to a trust forever for one of the necessaries of life.... The
removal of protection to Colorado sugar growers would simply mean
that the sugar trust, or cormorants in human form like it, would
go to the Philippines, employ the peons at starvation wages, and
send millions of tons of sugar to the United States. Would the
consumer here be benefited? Not at all. Has the consumer benefited
by reciprocity with Cuba? The sugar trust has received a gift from
the treasury of the United States--that is all."
And again Mr. Walsh truly says:
"This proposition is merely a design on the part of enormously
rich, greedy speculators, who are willing to adopt any means for
the accumulation of more money. Money, money, money! They have
already a thousand times more than they need, and are simply money
mad. They propose to exploit the Philippines for their own selfish
ends. Help for the poor Filipinos, indeed! Imagine the generosity
of these get-rich-quick sharks towards the peons in their employ.
Think of the wages that would be paid, contrasted with the standard
of living in the United States! I'd rather have the people of this
country exterminated than to be brought to such a level."
Regarding the arid land Mr. Walsh said:
"With the application of water to this land under the National
Irrigation Act--one of the greatest acts of statesmanship
accomplished under our broad-minded and far-sighted President--the
people of Colorado will furnish an outlet for a great population,
and the cultivation of beets for sugar will enable thousands of
American citizens to establish homes of their own. That is what is
now being done in Colorado, and the industry is in its infancy.
The people have gone in there at the suggestion of the government,
planted beets provided to them by the agricultural department, and
started a great industry. There was an implied, if not expressed,
promise that they were to be protected in this new industry. Yet
it is now proposed to place them in competition with the peons
of the Philippines, at the most critical time in the history of
the industry. The people of the East," continued Mr. Walsh, "do
not seem to be able to grasp the great possibilities of the arid
West under the operation of the national irrigation law. The West,
properly irrigated with water that we know can be developed by
drainage, wells, and underground flow, will easily support fifty
millions of people. Think of what this means! Fifty millions of
American citizens owning their own homes! It is an incalculable
addition to the wealth and strength of the United States."
One of the very valuable and exceptional resources of Colorado is
in its stone, which equals the world's best product in its quality.
Millions of tons of almost every variety of building stone lie
unclaimed on the hills and plateaus. There are quarries in Gunnison
County that would make their owners multi-millionnaires, could the
stone be made easy of access or transportation. The difficulty of the
former, and the high freight charges, combine to delay this field
of development. In Pueblo there is a marbleized sandstone that is
very beautiful. Its "crushing" strength, as the architectural phrase
goes, is between eleven and twelve thousand pounds to the square
inch,--a strength which exceeds the most exacting requirements of any
architect. This stone is found in unlimited quantities. In the country
around Fort Collins there is a red sandstone which is very popular, and
this is also found in large quantities at Castle Rock, south of Denver.
Near Trinidad is a gray sandstone of great beauty, and the Amago stone,
which is used for the Denver Postoffice, is a favorite.
In stone for decorative purposes also, Colorado is plentifully
supplied. Specimens of marble from the vicinity of Redstone show
characteristics as beautiful as are seen in the finest Italian marble
found at Carrara.
Besides the marble for building there are also vast beds of the purest
white marble, which will soon be placed on the market for statuary
purposes.
Vast deposits of granite are to be found in many different sections of
the state. In Clear Creek County, about Silver Plume and Georgetown,
there are mountains of granite. In the southern part of the state
deposits are found which are used extensively for monumental purposes,
and great quantities of this granite are shipped out of the state.
Although only a limited amount of work in the way of development and
seeking markets has been done for Colorado stone, the value of the
sales is already an appreciable source of revenue.
Statistically, Colorado ranks first in the United States as to the
yield of gold and silver; first in the area of land under irrigation;
first as to the quality of wheat, potatoes, and melons, and as to
the percentage of sugar in the sugar beet. The state ranks fifth in
coal and iron; sixth in live stock, and eighth in agriculture. It is
true, however, that irrigated agriculture is considered to be the
most important interest in Colorado. The Centennial State is not,
primarily, as has often been supposed, a mining state; the mines, rich
and varied in products as they are, offer yet a value secondary to that
of agriculture. A mine is always an uncertainty. A rich pocket may be
found that is an isolated one and leads to nothing of a permanently
rich deposit. A vast outlay of time and expensive mechanism can be
made that will not result in any returns. An apparently rich mine may
suddenly come to an end; the miner may have reason to believe that
if he could go down some thousands of feet he would again strike the
rich vein; he may do this at great cost of machinery and labor only
to find that the vein has totally disappeared, or does not exist. All
these and many other mischances render mining something very far from
an exact science,--something, indeed, totally incalculable, even to
the specialists and experts,--while agriculture is an industry whose
conditions render it within reasonable probabilities of control and
calculation. The great problem which continues to confront Colorado,
and to a far greater extent Arizona, is the more complete understanding
of what Prof. Elwood Mead, the government expert in national irrigation
problems, calls "the duty of water" and the conditions which influence
it as a basis for planning the larger and costlier works which must be
built in the future.
"One of the leading objects of expert irrigation investigation is to
determine the duty of water," says Professor Mead, and he adds:
"In order to do this it is necessary to deal with a large range
of climatic conditions, and to study the influence of different
methods of application and the requirements of different crops.
Farmers need an approximate knowledge of the duty of water in order
to make intelligent contracts for their supply. It is needed by
the engineer and investors in order to plan canals and reservoirs
properly. Without this knowledge every important transaction in
the construction of irrigation works, or in the distribution of
water therefrom, is very largely dependent on individual judgment
or conjecture.... In constructing reservoirs it is as necessary to
know whether they will be filled in a few years by silt as to know
that the dam rests on a solid foundation; and it is as desirable to
provide some means for the removal of this sedimentary accumulation
as it is to provide an adequate waste way for floods."
The problems of irrigation are evidently highly complicated ones. There
are large tracts of irrigated land selling at three hundred dollars an
acre which, fifty years ago, were held as worthless desert regions. The
value of water rights has risen from four to thirty-five dollars an
acre. The Platte River and its tributaries, alone, irrigate one million
nine hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-five
acres. In the South Platte the average flow of water is two thousand
seven hundred and sixty-five feet a second. The North Platte and its
tributaries irrigate about nine hundred thousand acres. There are now
over two million acres in Colorado under actual irrigation, with an
agricultural population of some one hundred and fifty thousand, with a
total income of over thirty millions. The agricultural population is
increasing so rapidly that the day cannot be distant when it will reach
a million, with a total production of more than one hundred and fifty
million dollars. It is believed that an expenditure of forty millions
in irrigation at the present time would immediately result in an
increment of from two hundred to three hundred millions. The irrigation
bill that passed Congress in 1904 proved of the most beneficial nature
to Colorado; not only for its immediate effects, but for the promise
it implied and the confidence inspired in the immediate future. The
encouragement of irrigation in Colorado is the influence that enlarges
and develops the agricultural efforts, promoting the growing industry
of beet sugar and extending all resources. Beyond the material results
there lie, too, the most important social conditions of the greater
content and industry of the people and the corresponding decrease of
tendencies toward anarchy and disorder.
In the quarter of a century--with the sixth year now added--since
Colorado became a state there has passed over twenty million acres of
government lands into the individual ownership of men whose capital,
for the most part, consisted solely of the horses and wagon that they
brought with them. Of this vast area there are some two and a half
million acres under agricultural cultivation, which are assessed at
a valuation of some twenty-five millions. The Boston and Colorado
smelter, established in 1873, has produced a valuation in gold, silver,
and copper of nearly ninety-six millions. In the year of 1905 the
Colorado mines,--gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc,--all told,
produced nearly ninety million dollars.
The population of Colorado is increasing rapidly, not only by the
stream of immigration that pours in of those who come _con intentione_,
but to a considerable degree by those who come only as tourists and
visitors, and who become so fascinated with Colorado's charm, and so
impressed with her rich and varied resources, that they remain. The
development of this state is one of the most remarkable and thrilling
pages in American history. It is the story of personal sacrifice,
personal heroism, personal devotion to the nobler purposes and ideals
of life that no one can read unmoved.
"There can be no backward movement, not even a check in the steady
tramp of such a conquering army," said the "Denver Republican"
editorially. "Before it, mountains melt into bars of gold, of silver,
of copper, lead, zinc, and iron. It passes over virgin soil, and behind
it spring up fields of grain and groves of fruit. It brings coal from
distant fields, rocks from far-away hills, and its artisans mould and
weld and send out tools of trade and articles of merchandise to all the
world.
"It pushes the railroads it needs to where it needs them, and the world
comes to marvel at its audacity. It finds to-day what yesterday it
needed and to-morrow it must have. It waits only the world's needs or
pleasures to find yet other ways to supply them."
The prosperity of Colorado is a remarkable fact in our national
history. By some untraced law, defects, faults, misfortunes, or crimes
are always made more prominent than virtue and good fortune. The crime
is telegraphed everywhere, the good deed is passed over in silence--as
a rule. And so the strikes, and the outlawry, and the discords and
troubles of Colorado have been very widely heralded, while there
has been less general recognition of the firm and just governmental
authority that has held these outbreaks in check, and has almost
succeeded in ending them entirely.
In general aspects and conveniences the towns and cities are under
excellent municipal regulations. Leadville, formerly one of the most
lawless of great mining camps, is to-day a peaceful and prosperous city
on a great trans-continental highway. The Western towns begin with
wide, clean, beautiful streets. They begin with the most tasteful
architecture. It may not be the most expensive or the most colossal,
but it is beautiful.
Northern Colorado is in many respects a distinctive region of itself.
It offers rich agricultural facilities; the beet sugar factories at
Greeley are making it a commercial centre; the electric trolley line
which will soon connect Greeley with Denver will multiply the homes
and settlements within this distance of fifty miles, and this part
of Colorado is enriched with great coal fields. The latter promise
not merely their own extension of industries in digging the coal and
putting it on the market, but they also indicate another and far more
important result, which stimulates the scientific imagination,--that of
making Northern Colorado a power centre whose strength can be applied
in a variety of ways and transmitted over a large area of country. For
more than two years the Government has been conducting a series of
experiments in a very thorough manner, endeavoring to ascertain the gas
values of the great lignite coal fields between Boulder and Denver. It
has been discovered that the converting of the coal into gas gives it
double the efficiency for use as a motor power for engine or for fuel
than can be gained from the coal in its natural state. A ton of coal
converted into gas will, as gas, give twice the power that the coal
would have yielded, and give the same power that two tons of coal, that
has not been converted into gas, would afford. In order, however,
to produce this power economically, it must be done at the point of
mining. It is there that the gas producers must be located; and from
these points the gas can be transported in pipes, or can be converted
into electricity and sent by wires at far less cost than would be that
of sending the coal itself by freight. These discoveries not only
suggest that this region in Colorado is destined in the near future
to become a power centre which will be tapped from the surrounding
country for a great distance in all directions, and will thus render
Boulder one of the most important of Western cities; but they also
suggest the evident tendency of the age toward intensity rather than
immensity,--toward the concentration of energy in the most ethereal
form rather than its diffusion through large and clumsy masses of
material.
Colorado contains over twenty-five thousand square miles of coal
fields, distributed over the state, with an average annual product of
over seven million tons. No other corresponding area in the entire
world exceeds Colorado in its great storage of coal, and the state
ranks as one of the first in the production of iron.
There are already fifteen beet sugar factories in operation,
representing investments amounting to over twelve million dollars,
and which are estimated to have produced, in 1906, an aggregate of
some two hundred and twenty thousand pounds of sugar, the percentage
of saccharine matter being higher than that of the sugar beet of
California.
[Illustration: SULTAN MOUNTAIN]
Statistically, Colorado ranks first in irrigation, and there are some
eighteen thousand miles of irrigating canals already in operation, with
the system being so rapidly extended that it almost outruns the pace of
calculation. Three million acres are under cultivation in Colorado, and
two million eight hundred and fifty thousand acres are irrigated; the
storage reservoirs already constructed are sufficient to place another
million of acres under cultivation. This irrigated land sells from
sixty to one hundred dollars per acre. Colorado has a reputation for
being a great potato state, and in the year 1905 the town of Greeley
alone shipped over three hundred thousand dollars' worth of potatoes,
while tomatoes are a feature often yielding ninety dollars to the acre,
and celery has been estimated to yield one hundred and fifty dollars an
acre. There are tracts of from two to three thousand acres devoted to
peas alone, producing forty to fifty thousand cans; and asparagus grows
with great success.
Colorado is a fruit country offering the best of conditions. The
peaches of Southern Colorado lead the world in flavor, beauty, and
size; the canteloupe flourishes with such extraordinary vitality that
it often yields a revenue of fifty dollars an acre; and the watermelon
also grows in unusual perfection. The valley of the Arkansas River is
the great region for producing melons, and Colorado exports these to
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. Apples, plums, and
pears grow with equally bounteous success, and there are fruit farms
that with their orchards and small fruits sometimes realize fifty
thousand dollars a year, when the season is a good one and the market
conditions favorable. The seasons of irrigated land are largely under
control, and surpass those regions which are at the mercy of excessive
rains or of droughts. So the law of compensation still obtains. The
resources of horticulture, alone, in Colorado are very important, and
they form one of the most alluring features of this beautiful and
richly bountiful state.
In the way of crops, alfalfa takes the lead in Colorado, as wheat
does in Kansas. It requires the very minimum of care; the land being
once planted with alfalfa, there is need only of turning on the
irrigation, and mowing it, at the right time. Alfalfa produces three
crops a year, and yields from one to two tons per acre. It sells at
from three to ten dollars a ton, and this makes a revenue quite worth
considering. The difficulties encountered everywhere in Colorado, in
every branch of industry, or in domestic work, are those of securing
labor. Wages are high in every conceivable line of work, but to a
large extent the labor and service, even when procured, is of a very
poor order. In many of the larger hotels employés are often kept
on the pay-roll for two months at a time when not needed, simply
because it is impossible to fill their places when the need comes.
From requirements of the seamstress, the laundress, the cook, the
maid, the farmer's working-men, or the employés in almost any line
of work, the same difficulty exists. Much is heard regarding strikes
and other forms of the eternal conflict between labor and capital;
and yet the high rates paid, the concessions constantly made to the
demands of employés, the conditions provided for them, would seem, at
a superficial glance, to be such as to bridge over every difficulty.
Domestic service is something that presents the greatest problem on the
part of the employer. If there is so large a number of "the unemployed"
in the East, why should not the conditions balance themselves and this
superfluous element find good conditions for living in Colorado? This
question involves the problem of economics, with which these pages have
nothing to do; but no traveller, no sojourner, can linger in Colorado
who is not simply lost in wonder that the varied work that is waiting,
with the most liberal payments for the worker, and the multitude of
workers in the East who need the liberal payment, cannot, by some law
of elective affinity, be brought together.
When it is realized that the Rocky Mountains occupy in Colorado
more than five times the entire space of the Alps in Europe, their
importance in climatic influence as well as in scenic magnificence
can be understood. The forests of Colorado are found on the mountains
and foothills. The heights are covered with a dense growth of pine
woods, while in lower ranges abound the silver spruce and the cedar.
Colorado has a state forestry association which aims to secure as a
reservation all forests above the altitude of eight thousand five
hundred feet, as this preservation is considered most important to the
water supply. In the Alps there are nine peaks over fourteen thousand
feet in height; in the Rocky Mountains, within the limits of Colorado
alone, there are forty-three peaks, each one of which exceeds in height
the Jungfrau. There are in Colorado more than thirty towns, each of
which is the theatre of active progress, and each of which lies at an
altitude exceeding that of the pass of St. Bernard. The sublime cañons
and gorges are eloquent of the story of Titanic forces which rent the
mountains apart. The vast plateaus were once the bed of inland seas.
In the cañon of Grand River towering walls rise to the height of half
a mile, in sheer precipitous rock, for a distance of some sixteen
miles. The strata of these rocks are distinctly defined, and the play
of color is rich and fantastic. The vast walls are in brilliant hues
of red and amber and green and brown,--the blending of color lending
its enchantment to the marvellous scene. Each cañon has its own
individuality. No one repeats the wild charm of another. Excursions
abound. There is "the loop," an enchanting mountain ride made from
Denver within one day for the round trip; the "Rainbow" tour, and
others, besides that of the "circle" already described. In each and all
these journeys the route is often on the very verge of the abyss, and
the sublimities, the splendor of coloring, exceed any power of language
to suggest.
In Northwestern Colorado, along the White River and northward, lies
the sportsman's paradise, now reached only by a stage drive of from
forty-five to ninety miles from the little town of Rifle on the "scenic
route" of the Denver and Rio Grande, beyond Glenwood Springs. Trapper's
Lake and the Marvine lakes are well known, and the Marvine Hunting
Lodge is a favorite resort of English tourists.
Estes Park, some seventy miles from Denver, a favorite summer resort,
is a long, narrow plateau of two or three miles in width and fifteen
in length, a mile and a half above sea level, and enclosed in mountain
walls that tower above the park from two to seven thousand feet. A
swift stream, well stocked with trout, runs through the park. The
four great systems of parks divide Colorado into naturally distinct
localities: North Park, with an area of twenty-five hundred square
miles; Middle Park, with its three thousand; the smaller South Park
of one thousand; and San Luis, with over ninety-four hundred square
miles,--all, in the aggregate, presenting a unique structural plan.
Every journey in Colorado has its vista of surprise. No artist can
paint its panoramas. Every traveller in this Land of Enchantment must
realize that its exhilaration cannot be decanted in any form. It is a
thing that lies in character, moulding life.
Colorado is the Land of Achievement. It offers resources totally
unsurpassed in the entire world for an unlimited expanse. These
resources await only the recognition of him who can discern the
psychological moment for their development. That nothing is impossible
to him who wills is one of the eternal verities, and even the expert
census taker, or the supernatural tax collector whom nothing escapes,
might search in vain, within the limits of the splendid Centennial
State, for any man who fails to will. The resplendence of this state
of stars and sunshine is due to this blaze of human energy. The
Coloradoans are the typical spirits who are among those elect
"... who shall arrive
Prevailing still;
Spirits with whom the stars connive
To work their will."
CHAPTER V
THE COLORADO PIONEERS
"_Around the man who seeks a noble end
Not angels, but divinities attend._"
"_In the deep heart of man a poet dwells
Who all the day of life his summer story tells;
Scatters on every eye dust of his spells,
Scent, form, and color: to the flowers and shells
Wins the believing child with wondrous tales;
Touches a cheek with colors of romance,
And crowds a history into a glance;
Gives beauty to the lake and fountain,
Spies over-sea the fires of the mountain;
When thrushes ope their throat, 'tis he that sings,
And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings.
The little Shakespeare in the maiden's heart
Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart;
Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed
And gives persuasion to a gentle deed._"
EMERSON
Not even the starry splendor of Colorado skies or the untold magic
of the atmosphere vibrating with unwritten music, pictorial with
such scenes as no artist ever put on canvas; not even the scientific
achievements in feats of civil and electrical engineering; not even any
advancement of the arts and the development of industries, commerce, or
economics that bring the general life into increasing harmony with the
physical environment,--none of these things, important and significant
as they are, touch the profoundest interest of Colorado. For this
supreme interest is that of the noble men and women whose lives have
left to the state the legacy of their hopes, their efforts, their
earnestness, and their faith. "Much is made of the Pilgrim Fathers who
landed on Plymouth Rock," editorially remarked the "Denver Republican"
in an article on "Pioneers' Day," in June of 1906; "and if there had
been phonographs in those days to preserve the record of the speech of
one of those old fugitives from European persecution, with what delight
the men and women of this generation would listen to the tones which
come from the instrument! But, after all, were the Pilgrim Fathers,
canonized by nearly three hundred years of tradition, any braver, any
more venturesome, any more worthy of honor, than the pioneers who
fought Indians and struggled against adverse fortune of every kind
while they laid in fear and hope the foundations of this great state?"
Among the poems of Walt Whitman is one entitled "The Beginners," which
interprets a high quality of life. The lines are as follows:
"How they are provided for upon the earth (appearing at intervals):
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth:
How they inure to themselves as much as to any--what a paradox appears
this age:
How people respond to them, yet know them not:
How there is something relentless in their fate, all times:
How all things mischoose the object of their adulation and reward,
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great
purchase."
The price was paid by the pioneers of Colorado. They poured out
lavishly all their hope, their indomitable energy, their patience,
which was faith, as well. They planted, knowing that not to themselves
would come the harvest. They builded that those yet to come might
have shelter. They gave to Colorado such an endowment of potent
but invisible force that its momentum pervades the air to-day. The
accelerated ratio of power with which spiritual forces proceed defies
even the ablest of the statisticians.
In all the chapters of American history there are none more thrilling
than the story of the early life in Colorado; there are no chapters
that more vividly demonstrate the absolutely present and practical aid
of the divine guidance of God acting through His messengers,--those who
have lived on earth and have gone on into the life more abundant.
The lives of the remarkable men and women who have been canonized by
the church have left the world the better for their being and humanity
the richer for the inheritance of their experience. Their history is
not to be held merely as tradition or as superstition. Let one visit
in Italy Assisi, the home of St. Francis; Siena, the home of St.
Catherine, and follow the footsteps of others whose names enrich the
church calendar, to their homes and haunts, and their record becomes
vivid and vitalized as, to a stranger visiting Boston, might become
the footsteps of her noble and consecrated lives which are yet almost
within universal personal remembrance: the lives of Lydia Maria Child,
William Lloyd Garrison, Emerson, Whittier, Lucy Stone, Lowell, Mary A.
Livermore, James Freeman Clarke, and Phillips Brooks,--men and women
whom Boston may well hold as her prophets and her saints. They, too,
were of the order of "The Beginners." They sowed the seeds of the
higher life. They were receptive to all high counsels from the ethereal
world, from the divine realms; they listened to great truths which the
multitude did not hear, and they gave it anew by voice and by pen, till
all the world might hear and read and receive it. They were, indeed,--
"God's prophets of the Beautiful."
Such persons were living a twofold life during their entire earthly
pilgrimage, and we may well recall their lives and link them with those
of the great and the holy men and women of all ages and all climes.
The pathfinders of human progress do not live for personal ease,--
"The hero is not fed on sweets."
These are royal natures, who come into the world not to enjoy ease and
prosperity, but who bring with them the high destiny of sacrifice.
Their lives are companioned with struggle and conflict. Of such
experiences as theirs well might be asked the question so impressively
conveyed in these noble lines by America's great woman poet,--our poet
who sang the song of the nation's "Battle-Hymn,"--Julia Ward Howe:
"What hast thou for thy scattered seed,
O Sower of the plain?
Where are the many gathered sheaves
Thy hope should bring again?"
"The only record of my work
Lies in the buried grain."
"O Conqueror of a thousand fields!
In dinted armor dight,
What growths of purple amaranth
Shall crown thy brow of might?"
"Only the blossom of my life
Flung widely in the fight."
"What is the harvest of thy saints,
O God! who dost abide?
Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs
In blood and sorrow dyed?
What have thy servants for their pains?"
"This only--to have tried."
These Shining Ones are on earth to serve as co-workers with the divine
power; to serve through good fortune or ill fortune; through evil
report or good report,--still to serve; still to follow The Gleam.
These are the men who
"... make the world within their reach
Somewhat the better for their being
And gladder for their human speech."
The names of many of these heroic pioneers of Colorado may be unwritten
save in the pages of the Recording Angel; but they live and are
immortal in the influence they have left as a heritage to succeeding
generations, in the trains of thought and purposes they initiated,
and in all that potent power of generous aims and noble ideals,--for
all advancing civilization rests on lofty ideals. "While the basis of
civilization must be material," says the Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames
of Boston, "its life must be spiritual. Its end and object must be the
soul, and not the body; and it will provide all best things for the
body, that the soul may be worthily housed and served. The higher and
chief interests of society will always be intellectual, affectional,
aspirational--human and humane. The true, the beautiful, and the
good--almost unknown to the barbarian, and often mocked at by the
Philistines of modern society--will be sought for as men seek for gold
and pearls of great price. Wealth will bring its offering to the altars
of education and art and worship. Science, as it searches the worlds of
matter and of mind, will find new and sacred parables and gospels of
grace. Learning will be a priestess of truth. The imagination of man
will wander and wander in the wide creation, free, fearless, and glad,
knowing that the Father's house is everywhere, and that his child may
be everywhere at home."
In many of the pioneer households of Colorado, whether those of
plenty or of privation, the children had the inestimable advantage of
the refined and beautiful atmosphere of a home in which high ideals
and lofty devotion to intellectual progress and spiritual culture
prevailed. If schools were insufficient, there were the trained
educational methods of both the father and the mother under which they
were reared and taught; and poverty of purse cannot greatly matter
where there is no poverty of the spirit.
Well may these pioneers of Colorado be held as belonging to that order
of humanity which the poet calls "The Beginners." Some of them were
unlettered and untaught save in the great school of life itself; some
of them were rich in learning and culture; but they all shared in
common a devotion to progress differing only in degree or conception:
they shared common sacrifices; they gave their best energies to the
development of a great and beautiful state whose increasing rate of
progress is to them an immortal monument. These leaders of humanity
whom the poet so finely characterizes as "The Beginners" are an order
of people always appearing on earth. They are of those who hear the
Song in the air and behold the Star in the sky. They are the persons
who discern--and follow--The Gleam. Their lives are rich in service
and sacrifice. Their kingdom is not of this world. Their lives are not
unfrequently cheerless and cold, but on their altar fires glows the
living coal sent down from heaven. They fast that others may feast.
They accept privations that others may revel in possessions. They pay
the inexorable price for the same great purchase. They are those who
are sent on earth peculiarly set apart to co-operate with God in the
larger fulfilment of the divine laws. They pay the inexorable price of
toil and labor and sorrow and sacrifice. They rise into the everlasting
triumph and the beauty and the joy of spirituality of life. They give
all for this; they find all in it. But let no one resign his hopes or
his dreams. Let no one doubt, for an instant, that all of goodness and
beauty and sweetness and joy that he longs for is on its way toward
him. It is only a question of time. Let him be patient, which is not a
mere passive and negative condition, but one full of intense activities
and serene poise; let him be patient and believing, and make room in
his life for that immortal joy which no man taketh from him.
The town of Greeley, with its felicitous location midway between the
two state capitals, Denver and Cheyenne, fifty miles from each, and
which is already the principal town of Northern Colorado as Pueblo is
of the southern part of the state, has a romantic and thrilling story
connected with its founding. In the history of Colorado, among the
many men whose lives stand out in noble pre-eminence, was that of the
founder of Greeley, Hon. Nathan Cook Meeker, whose personal life is
inseparably associated with the interesting town which owes to him its
origin.
The Meekers trace their ancestry to men who went to England from
Antwerp about 1500. In 1639 Robert and William Meeker came to this
country and settled in New Haven. Thirty years later William Meeker
removed to New Jersey, and the town of Elizabeth was founded by him
and named for his wife. He was a leader in the affairs of the day,
held prominent office, and in 1690 he died, leaving the old Meeker
homestead in Newark, New Jersey, which is still in the possession of
his descendants. One of his sons was Joseph Meeker, also prominent
in promoting the conditions of progress, and he was the grandfather
of Nathan Cook Meeker, the founder of Greeley, who inherited the
qualities that have made the family a marked one in America. When he
was but seventeen he carried on an extensive correspondence with Henry
Clay, John Tyler, George D. Prentice, and other noted men of the day,
discussing with them subjects of importance, and he was a contributor
even in these early years to the "Louisville Journal," then edited
by George D. Prentice, and now the "Courier-Journal," edited by the
brilliant Colonel Henry Watterson; to the New Orleans "Picayune," and
other leading papers. Even in his early youth Mr. Meeker seems to have
been a man of perpetual aspiration and honorable ambition carried out
to achievement, and by means of his own energy and persistence he
graduated in 1840 from Oberlin College, became a teacher, and later
(for literary work was his dominant gift) became a regular contributor
to the "New York Mirror," edited by N. P. Willis, the poet, and the
most brilliant man of letters of his day. Mr. Meeker wrote both prose
and poetry,--essays, romance, and verse alike flowing from his facile
pen. He is the author of three books, one of which he dedicated to
President Pierce, and which is in the Boston Public Library among the
choice and rare works not allowed for general circulation but kept
intact for the special use of scholars and researchers. He became one
of the leading writers of the day on sociology, advancing many ideas
which are to-day maintained by thoughtful students of the questions
involved in this subject.
Founding towns seemed to "run in the family," and even as his
great-grandfather founded the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, so Nathan
Cook Meeker felt the impulse to stamp his own strong and progressive
individuality on new communities. He became the secretary and librarian
(in 1844) of the Ohio Trumbull Phalanx, a colony founded to realize in
practical form the theories of Fourier, and somewhat similar to the
famous Brook Farm experiment. Mr. Meeker also co-operated in founding
the Western Reserve Institute, of which, many years afterward, Hon.
James A. Garfield became president.
About this time he married Arvilla Delight, a daughter of Levi Smith of
Connecticut and a descendant of Elder Brewster; a woman whose singular
force, exaltation, and beauty of character may be traced through a
notable New England ancestry. The family soon removed to the Western
Reserve in Ohio. Mrs. Meeker had been known in her sweet girlhood as
the beauty of the town. She was a woman of exceptional refinement
and culture; for many years a teacher, and, more than all, of a
spirituality of character that added to her life its dignity and grace.
The spell of destiny, the burden always laid upon "The Beginners,"
seemed to be on Nathan Cook and Arvilla Delight Meeker; for no history
of the work of the husband could be written that did not include that
of the wife. Like Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, their lives were
conjoined in that perfect mutual response of spiritual sympathy which
alone makes the mystic marriage a divine sacrament.
Horace Greeley became interested in Mr. Meeker's work and invited him
to a place on the editorial staff of "The Tribune," a position which he
filled with conspicuous ability for several years; but in common with
all idealists, Mr. Meeker was haunted and beset by his visions of a
more Utopian future for humanity. A Colorado journal, recently giving
some reminiscences of the life of its great citizen, said:
"In the fall of 1869 Mr. Meeker made a trip to the West for the
'Tribune,' writing interesting letters by the way. On his return
to New York he was full of the idea of establishing a colony in
Colorado. He mentioned his ambition to John Russell Young, who
talked it over with Mr. Greeley, and that great man, at the first
opportunity, said to the returned correspondent: 'I understand you
wish to lead a colony to Colorado.' When Mr. Meeker answered 'Yes,'
Greeley added, 'I think it would be a great success. Go ahead; "The
Tribune" will stand by you.'
"With such encouragement Mr. Meeker spent the following day in
writing the article announcing his purpose and outlining the plan
which was afterwards adopted as the constitution of the colony.
Mr. Greeley suggested a few minor changes, after which the article
was printed and kept in type for a week, in order, as its author
said, 'that there might be due reflection and no haste.' It was
published in the 'Tribune' of December 14, 1869, with an editorial
indorsement of the plan and its originator. Nine days later the
colony was organized, and yet in that short time more than a
thousand letters had been received in answer to the article. On
the 15th of the next April the certificate of organization of 'The
Union Colony of Greeley' was filed for record."
In less extended detail some outline of the life of the founder of
Greeley, the "Garden City" of Colorado, has already been narrated by
the writer in a previous book;[1] but no adequate reference can be
made to the state in which Mr. Meeker's life and work remains as so
remarkable a contribution and so fundamental a factor, which does not
present in full the story of his relation to its development; and the
matter is thus presented even at the risk of some minor repetitions.
In the spring of 1870 Mr. Meeker led his colony to Colorado. The
colonists wished to give the town the name of its founder, but he
himself insisted that it should bear the name of Greeley, after the
great editor of the "Tribune," of whose staff he was still a member.
Into all the sacrifice and the hardships of this pioneer life Mrs.
Meeker, a woman gently born and bred, entered with the utmost heroism.
From the very inception the undertaking was a signal success. But Mr.
Meeker conceived of still another extension of his activities in the
problem then so prominently before the country,--the civilization of
the Indians. He was appointed agent of the northern Utes, in possession
of the great park region of the Rocky Mountains, on White River. To
it he went in the same spirit in which General Armstrong entered on
his work at Hampton. He had matured certain theories regarding the
proper treatment of the Indians, in bringing them within the pale of
the civilized arts,--theories so wise, so just, so humane, that they
might be studied with advantage. These theories he put to the test. His
youngest daughter, a beautiful and gifted girl, opened a free school
for teaching the Indians. His wife united with him in every kindly and
gracious act by which he strove to win the confidence of the race.
This kindness and gentleness was unmeasured. The family lived a life
of constant sacrifice and effort for the education and training of
the Utes. But the Indian nature is one that wreaks its revenge,--not
necessarily on the aggressor, but on the first comer. Other agents had
been lax, and a number of causes of discontent to which allusion cannot
here be made fanned the smouldering fire. Their chief complaints were
that they were required to work, and to abandon a bit of pasturage,
only a few acres, for the new agency grounds and gardens. Events drew
on like the fates in a Greek tragedy, and on the morning of September
29, 1879, Mr. Meeker was cruelly massacred.
The little town of Meeker marks the site of the Meeker massacre. Here
is a little village of a thousand inhabitants, located on White River,
among the most beautiful of the mountain ranges,--the location being
very much like that of Florence, in Italy,--which is the centre of a
very rich agricultural and grazing region. Meeker is now forty-five
miles from a railroad, the nearest station being Rifle, on the Denver
and Rio Grande, a few miles from Glenwood Springs; but the Moffet road
brings to it railroad connection with Denver. There is an extensive
stage line of over one hundred miles, starting from Rifle and going
on through Meeker up into the mountains, where the hunting attracts a
great number of travellers, and especially many Englishmen. It is in
this region that President Roosevelt's happy hunting-grounds lie, and
he is a familiar and favorite figure in Meeker.
There is a little gray-stone Episcopal church among other churches that
adorn this town, which has laid out a handsome park and which has the
perpetual adornment of the beautiful river that flows through it. The
mountains about supply streams that make irrigation easy, and the great
fields of wheat, potatoes, and alfalfa are fertile and prosperous.
Irrigation makes it everywhere possible to control the climatic
conditions.
Meeker is the county seat of Rio Blanco County, in which uranium has
been discovered in two different places; and two oil wells, each at a
cost of four thousand dollars, a creamery, costing nearly six thousand
dollars, and water-works at a cost of sixty thousand dollars, have been
established within the past two years. Fifteen reservoirs and eighty
miles of irrigation ditches were constructed in 1905, and in that year
was harvested, in this county, a quarter of a million bushels of wheat,
oats, and rye.
The basis on which Greeley was founded is thus outlined in the official
documents drawn up by Nathan Cook Meeker:
"I propose to unite with proper persons in the establishment of a
Union colony in Colorado territory. A location which I have seen
is well watered with streams and springs; there are beautiful
pine groves, the soil is rich, the climate healthful, grass will
keep stock the year round, coal and stone are plentiful, and a
well-travelled road runs through the property."
Mr. Meeker proceeded to note the cost of the land,--eighteen dollars
for every one hundred and sixty acres,--and he especially called
attention--for he had the poet's eye--to the grandeur of the Rocky
Mountain scenery, and he added:
"The persons with whom I would be willing to associate must be
temperance men and ambitious to establish good society, and among
as many as fifty, ten should have as much as ten thousand dollars
each, or twenty should have five thousand dollars each, while
others may have from two hundred dollars to one thousand dollars
and upward. For many to go so far without means could only result
in disaster."
The practical wisdom of this clause will be appreciated. The true
idealist is the most practical and wisest of counsellors. It is only
false idealism that leads to destruction. Mr. Meeker's idea was to
make the settlement a village, with ample building lots, and then to
apportion to each family from forty to one hundred and sixty acres
outside for agriculture.
On such a basis as this the Union Colony of Greeley was founded. A
constitution was adopted that is a model of the condensation of the
duties of good citizenship. Industry, temperance, education, and
religion were the pillars on which the superstructure was raised. It
is little wonder that the social quality of Greeley to-day--thirty-six
years after its inauguration as a community--is of the highest type and
exceptional among all the cities of the United States.
Irrigation was the first necessity. A canal thirty miles long was dug,
costing sixty thousand dollars. The Cache la Poudre was first examined
and then tapped to furnish water. The elevation of the surrounding high
bluffs secured the needed descent for the flow of water. The life began.
Greeley is now a town of some seven thousand inhabitants; the seat of
the State Normal College, which its president, Dr. Z. X. Snyder, has
made one of the great educational institutions, not only of Colorado,
but of the United States; a college that draws students from almost
every section, even from New England, so able is President Snyder's
course of instruction and so admirable are the opportunities it
affords for subsequent connection with the fine public school system
in Colorado. A position in any of these offers a higher salary than
can be obtained in the East, to say nothing of many other advantages
associated with the work. Dr. Snyder was one of the eminent educators
of the East; and when some sixteen years since he accepted his present
responsible office, he brought to it the best traditions of Eastern
culture and united them with the zeal and freedom and infinite
energy of the West. The Normal campus of forty acres on high ground,
overlooking the town, with President Snyder's residence in the grounds
and other college buildings near, comprise a beautiful feature of
Greeley. The western view, both from the college and from the home of
President and Mrs. Snyder, over the mountain range including Long's
Peak, is one of almost incomparable beauty. The faculty of the State
Normal comprises thirty specialists; there is a library of thirty
thousand volumes; the laboratory has the latest scientific equipment
of the day; the art department and the music course are admirably
conducted; French, German, and Italian are taught according to the
latest language methods; and athletics, domestic science, nature
studies, all receive due recognition. The "Training School" of the
State Normal College has an attendance of nearly five hundred, and the
graduates of this institution begin work on salaries ranging from five
hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars annually. The tuition is free to
all citizens of Colorado.
The many churches, the excellent public schools, the clubs and
societies for social enjoyment and improvement, indicate the high
quality of life in Greeley. There are three newspapers; and of these
the "Greeley Tribune," founded by Mr. Meeker and now under the able
editorship of Mr. C. H. Wolfe, has created for itself more than a
local reputation. Financially, Greeley stands well, with its several
banks and its solidity of resources.
There is hardly a shabby house to be found in all the town, whether of
residence or business. Every building has a neat and thrifty aspect,
and the art of architecture has been especially studied, for almost
without exception every house, whether large or small, is tasteful and
attractive. A bay window is thrown out here, a little balcony there,
a piazza, a loggia, an oriel window, and the eye is gratified. But,
besides this dainty and tasteful architecture, the one great feature
of Greeley is her beautiful streets. These are due directly to the
taste and the direction of the founder, Mr. Meeker. The streets are one
hundred feet wide, lined invariably--every street in the town--with a
double row of shade trees, giving coolness, beauty, and contributing
much to the modification of the temperature. Every deed granted in
Greeley forbids the sale of any intoxicating liquor. There is not a
saloon in the place. There is not a loafer or a criminal, nor are there
any poor in the unfortunate sense of the large cities. No police are
needed. The jail is locally known as a mere ornamental appendage to the
fine forty thousand dollar courthouse.
For many years it has been felt that some expression should be made in
honor of the memory of the founder of Greeley, and this has now taken
form in the project for the "Meeker Memorial Library," which is in
preparation. The beautiful young city is itself, however, the best
memorial of its noble founder. It is a living monument of perpetually
increasing greatness and beauty; and who to-day can wander under the
shade of the beautiful trees which in a double row line every street
and boulevard--trees planted in 1870 under Mr. Meeker's personal
superintendence--without hearing amid the rustle of their whispering
leaves the poet's words, that fall like a benediction:
"Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly
Serve that low whisper thou hast served; for know,
God hath a select family of sons
Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone,
Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one
By constant service to that inward law,
Is weaving the sublime proportions
Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength,
The riches of a spotless memory,
The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got
By searching of a clear and loving eye
That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts,
And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day
To seal the marriage of these minds with thine,
Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be
The salt of all the elements, world of the world."
The glamour of romance can never fade from Colorado, whose entire
history is one of heroic deeds and splendid energy; but the primitive
stage of the state is already left far behind with the nineteenth
century. In its intellectual and scientific development the years of
the twentieth century have almost exceeded its twenty-four years
of life as a state in the nineteenth. The tide of immigration still
continues, but from being the objective point of mining activities
where fortune hunters rushed to find a royal road to riches, it is
now a state of agriculture and of commerce. Social conditions are
thus altered; and though some of these conditions are those of mining
regions, as in the Cripple Creek district, they have altered from the
typical Bret Harte mining-camp life to those of orderly progress,--to
the life dominated by twentieth-century ideals of humanity; the
life whose framework is seen in public-school systems, in religious
observance, in the liberal reading of periodical and other literature,
and in the maintenance of public libraries as a necessity in every
community.
The dawn of literary and artistic development in Colorado is very
evident,--a dawn that is already of such radiant promise as to forecast
the day when this state shall contribute to our greatest national
literature. A large number of individual writers could already be named
whose work in books, magazine articles, and excellent journalism might
well be held as typical of the best culture of the entire country. The
first wild turmoil of a new and richly varied state has given way to
a prosperous, progressive commonwealth. Material progress must still
always precede the higher growth, yet the air is vital with ideas,
and the vision of Colorado is always toward the stars. The beauty
and majesty of the environment cannot but react upon the people. The
growth of women's clubs has been one steady factor of progress, with
most favorable effect on all the general life of intellectual and moral
advancement. The public libraries in every centre establish and develop
the reading habit. While a love for beauty is an element in human life,
the influence of the transcendent majesty and incomparable sublimity
of the Colorado scenery will continue to prove a source of inspiration
to the mental and moral life of the people. The changing colors of
the mountains are a constant delight. Colorado offers a perpetual
feast of beauty. Her resources are infinite. Colorado combines all
the exaltation of the untried with an abundance of the conveniences
and luxuries of the older civilization; and of this Centennial State
it is difficult to record facts and statistics that do not seem to
suggest the tales of a thousand nights. With resources and with scenic
loveliness which no language could exaggerate, it is still only to
those who themselves know and appreciate the grandeur of this state
that any interpretation of it will appear as rather within than as
at all beyond the limits of the most statistical and demonstrable
facts. The East has already outgrown the tradition that the entire
trans-Mississippi region is a howling wilderness. Colorado is no longer
as vague as is Calcutta to the average mind. Dr. Edward Everett Hale
exclaimed that he desired his sons to know that there was something in
the world besides Beacon Street, and this ambition has of late years
become too prevalent to leave even the extreme East in any absolute and
total ignorance of the wonderful West. Still it may be true that the
flying visions from Pullman-car windows are marvellously extended and
intensified by increasing familiarity with the almost incredibly swift
progress of this region.
A typical illustration of the fallibility of human judgment is seen in
the attitude taken in 1838 by the great Daniel Webster on the floor of
the United States Senate against an appropriation for a post route west
of the Missouri River.
"What do we want," said he, "of this vast worthless area,--this region
of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, shifting sands, and whirlwinds
of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to
put these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impregnable
and covered to their base with eternal snow? What use have we for such
a country? Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the public
treasury to place the Pacific Coast one inch nearer Boston than it is
to-day."
It is a far cry from this "vast worthless area," as Mr. Webster termed
it in 1838, to the grand and richly promising state of to-day, with its
splendid young cities where art and science unite with literature and
ethics in the rapid development of social progress; with its mountain
ranges climbed in palace cars; its electric transit and electric
lighting; its vivid and forceful achievements, that even in each
decade concentrate the progress of a century, as seen in the past.
It is not a mere vagary, but rather a practical and momentous fact,
that Colorado is peculiarly the realm receptive to invisible potencies
and mental impressions. Science is now confronted with the question
as to whether thought and electricity may be identified as the same
force under different degrees of manifestation. "There is an elemental
essence--a strange living force--which surrounds us on every side, and
which is singularly susceptible to the influence of human thought,"
says an English scientist, and he continues: "This essence responds
with the most wonderful delicacy to the faintest action of our minds
or desires; and this being so, it is interesting to note how it is
affected when the human mind formulates a definite thought or desire."
All the significance of a thousand years may be concentrated in an
instant's thought, as all the heat stored up in all the forests of the
world is concentrated in a small quantity of radium. Emerson embodies
this truth in the stanza:
"His instant thought a poet spoke,
And filled the age his fame;
An inch of ground the lightning strook
But lit the sky with flame."
It is intensity, not duration, that is of consequence, and that
determines results. To state that there is something in the Colorado
air that incites active and lofty thought; that uplifts the soul and
enables one to discern the practical processes for identifying the
most marvellous scenic grandeur of the civilized world with the most
advanced processes of applied industries, is to state a simple fact.
Phillips Brooks once said:
"I know no ideal humanity that is not filled and pervaded with
the superhuman. God in man is not unnatural, but the absolutely
natural. That is what the incarnation makes us know.... The truths
of heaven and the truths of earth are in perfect sympathy.... The
needs of human nature are supreme, and have a right to the divinest
help."
The early explorers and pioneers in Colorado felt this truth, so
finely stated by Bishop Brooks, even if they did not formulate it in
words. The apparently insuperable obstacles of a land where the desert
disputed the space with the Titanic mountain ranges piled against the
sky, incited them to effort rather than paralyzed their energy. It
is fitting that this most ideal state, rich in resources of almost
undreamed-of variety and importance, should present a significant
object lesson in the working out of the problem involved in the higher
civilization of the twentieth century. The future of Denver, of Pueblo,
Colorado Springs, Greeley, and other important centres, is a most
important part of the future of the nations. The Star of high destiny
shines on the Centennial State.
CHAPTER VI
THE SURPRISES OF NEW MEXICO
"_But my minstrel knows and tells
The counsel of the gods,
Knows of Holy Book the spells,
Knows the law of Night and Day,_
* * * * *
_What sea and land discoursing say
In sidereal years._"
EMERSON
New Mexico is the scene of surprises. Traditionally supposed to be
a country that is as remote as possible from the accepted canons of
polite society; that is also an arid waste whose temperature exceeds
the limits of any well-regulated thermometer,--it reveals itself
instead as a region whose temperature is most delightful, whose
coloring of sky and atmosphere is often indescribably beautiful, and
whose inhabitants include their fair proportion of those who represent
the best culture and intelligence of our country. New Mexico has a
mixed population. To a hundred and sixty thousand Americans there are a
hundred and twenty-five thousand of Spanish or Mexican descent; a few
hundred Chinese and Japanese, and some thirteen thousand Indians, who
are, however, peaceful and industrious, and a proportion of whom
have been educated in the Government schools for the Indians.
[Illustration: ACOMA, NEW MEXICO]
The altitude of New Mexico seldom falls to less than five thousand
feet, so that the air is cool and exhilarating. The rock formations
partake of the same rich hue that characterizes those in Colorado and
in Arizona, and as the soil is rich there is a continual play of color.
The scenery is one changeful, picturesque panorama of mountains, rock,
or walled cañons, vast mesas, uncanny buttes, and lava fields left by
some vanished volcanic fires. The ancient Indian pueblos are still
largely inhabited, and strange ruins of unknown civilizations add
their atmosphere of mystery. The mouldering remains of the old Pecos
church and the strange communistic dwellings in the old Pueblo de Taos;
the ruins of the fortress and the seven circular mounds, which were
the council-chambers and halls for mystic rites of the prehistoric
civilization; and the fabled site of the ancient Aztec city where
tradition says Montezuma was born,--all contribute to a unique interest
in this "land of the turquoise sky," as New Mexico is called.
Acoma, the ancient pueblo perched on a perpendicular precipice four
hundred feet high, with its terraced dwellings of adobe, its gigantic
church, its reservoir cut out of solid rock, and its inhabitants with
their strange customs, is fairly accessible to the traveller from
Albuquerque by a drive of some twenty miles. Mr. Lummis calls it "the
most wonderful pueblo," and "the most remarkable city in the world,"
as compared, of course, with other pueblos and ruined cities. Acoma has
a present population of some four hundred Indians, and its romantic
beauty of location is unparalleled. There are scientists who incline
to believe that the original Acoma was built on the top of the _Mesa
Encantada_,--the "Enchanted Mesa,"--a sheer, precipitous rock seven
hundred feet high which is now practically unscalable; although Mr.
F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of Ethnology, achieved this apparently
impossible feat, and found what is, in his convictions, unmistakable
evidence of human habitation, supporting the traditions regarding this
colossal rock. Some mighty cataclasm of nature swept the approach away;
but if ever there were human habitations on the "Enchanted Mesa," the
period is lost in prehistoric ages.
[Illustration: THE ENCHANTED MESA, NEW MEXICO]
The colossal church in Acoma is a striking feature. Its walls are ten
feet in thickness and sixty feet high, and the church and yard in
which it stands consumed forty years in their construction. It was
only reached by rude stairs cut in the rock. Dim traditions, which are
perhaps hardly more than speculative theory, suggest that these steps
of approach were suddenly swept away by some convulsion of nature at
a time when the men of this prehistoric pueblo were away hunting, or
otherwise engaged in procuring means of sustenance, and that the women
and children were thus cut off from all supplies and aid and left to
starve. Mr. Lummis has a theory that seems to him possible, if not
probable, that there was a ledge of neighboring rocks which served as
ladders to the _Mesa Encantada_, and that these rocks were swept away
by some frightful storm, or some sudden convulsion of nature, during
the absence of the men; and that a new city--the present Acoma--was
then built on the lesser rock on which it now stands. Acoma was old
even when Coronado, in 1540, made his expedition through the country,
from which period the authentic history of New Mexico begins with the
meagre records of the heroic friars and the memorials of the Spanish
conquerors. Laguna, a pueblo founded in 1699, lies twenty miles from
Acoma on the Santa Fé route, of which it is one of the interesting
features. All these old Spanish missions, which are found in more or
less degrees of preservation in all this chain of pueblos in the valley
of the Rio Grande, contain ancient paintings and statues of saints.
Largely, the paintings are crude and worthless, but there exist those
that have legitimate claim to art as the work of Spanish artists not
unknown to fame. Among these is the painting of San José in the mission
at Acoma, a painting presented by Charles II of Spain. This mission
was founded by Friar Ramirez, who dedicated it "To God, to the Roman
Catholic Church, and to St. Joseph,"--who was the patron saint of this
pueblo.
There is an amusing legend that Laguna, submerged in all manner of
disasters, looked on the prosperity of Acoma and ascribed it wholly to
the influence of this picture of the saint before which the people made
their daily adorations and laid their votive offerings. Laguna believed
that San José would invest it with the same felicities enjoyed by the
neighboring city, could they only secure the portrait, and their urgent
plea to borrow it for a time was granted by Acoma. Their confidence in
the saint was justified; peace and plenty again smiled on Laguna, and
they made their daily devotions before the great picture. At length, so
runs the legend, Acoma reminded Laguna that a loan was not a gift,--to
be held in perpetual fee, and demanded its return. The faithless people
of Laguna declared it was their own,--and the case actually went into
litigation and was tried in Court. Judge Kirby Benedict, after hearing
all the evidence, decided in favor of Acoma, but the picture had
mysteriously disappeared. The messengers sent from Acoma to bring the
sacred treasure at last discovered it under a tree half-way between
the two pueblos. They instantly recognized that the saint, rejoiced
at the righteous decision, had started on his homeward journey of his
own volition. The last one of the Franciscan friars to minister in New
Mexico was Padre Mariano de Jesus Lopez, whose work was in Acoma, the
"city in the sky." Of all the cliff-built cities, Acoma is the most
marvellous. Its terraced dwellings seem, as Mr. Lummis so graphically
says, to be "the castles of giants," for "the lapse of ages has carved
the rocks into battlements, buttresses, walls, columns, and towers,
and the view from this cloud-swept city is one never to be forgotten.
On this cliff the sand rises and falls like the billows of the sea."
[Illustration: LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO, ON THE SANTA FÉ RAILROAD]
No latter-day interest of contemporary life, either in the romantic
scenery or the potential development of New Mexico, can exceed the
richness of its prehistoric past and the marvels of this ancient
civilization that yet remain. Alluding to these wonderful monumental
remains, Colonel Max Frost, of Santa Fé, who knows his territory in
every aspect of its life and its attractions, says:
"The Pajarito Cliff-dwellers' Park, the Chaco Cañon, the Gila
Cañon, western Valencia and Socorro counties abound in cliff and
communal buildings, the age of which has puzzled scientists, but
which are older than any other ruins on the American continent, and
probably in the world. The most accessible cliff-dwellers' region
is the Pajarito Park, only one day's overland trip from Santa Fé or
Española, in which twenty thousand cliff-dwellings and caves are
situated within a comparatively small area. The scenery of this
natural park is superb; 'wonderful' is the only adjective that
will do justice to the caves in the cliffs, high and inaccessible
almost as eagles' nests, but showing many other signs of occupation
besides the peculiar picture writings in the soft volcanic tufa of
which the cliffs are composed. In addition to the cliffs, there are
remains of communal buildings of later occupation, some of them
containing as high as twelve hundred rooms. There are also burial
mounds with remains of ancient pottery. Along the eastern foot of
this steep plateau flows the Rio Grande and lie the villages of
San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and San Juan, while to the west rise
the stupendous mountain masses of the Valles, the Cochiti and
Jemez ranges, with their deep forests and cañons, their famous hot
springs, their Indian villages, and their mines. Where else on
earth is there so much of the beautiful in scenery, of romance,
of historic monuments, of prehistoric remains, of the ancient,
the unique, the picturesque, the sublime, to be found as within a
radius of fifty miles of Santa Fé? One day's trip will take the
wanderer from the historic Old Palace and San Miguel Church in the
City of the Holy Faith, over the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo
range, from which rise in full view mountain peaks almost thirteen
thousand feet high, into the picturesque Tesuque Valley and by the
ancient Indian pueblo of Tesuque. The road winds through sandhills
that the air and the rain have cut into grotesque shapes, huge as
Titans and weird as the rock formations in the Garden of the Gods.
Then come once more fertile fields and the village of Cuymungue,
formerly an Indian pueblo, now a native settlement. Along the
Nambe River, with its grand falls, close by the Indian pueblo of
Nambe to the pueblo of San Ildefonso on the Rio Grande; then along
that river through the laughing Española Valley, past the Black
Mesa, a famous Indian battleground, into the large Indian pueblo
of Santa Clara and its mission church to Santa Cruz, also with a
quaint and ancient church building, threads the wagon road across
the river into Española. From there the road ascends the wildly
beautiful Santa Clara Cañon, along a rippling trout stream up to
the steep cliffs of the Puye and the Shufinne, with their hundreds
and thousands of prehistoric caves and communal buildings. And
all that in one day's journey overland! If the trip be prolonged
another day or two, the remarkable hot springs at Ojo Caliente and
the hot springs in the deep chasm of the Rio Grande at Wamsley's,
the Indian pueblos of Picuris and Taos, the finest trout streams
and best haunts of wild game, or the Jicarilla Indian Reservation,
as well as busy lumber and mining camps, can be visited. And that
is only in one direction from Santa Fé! Going south, one day's trip
will pass through the quaint settlements of Agua Fria, Cienega,
and Cieneguilla, by the Tiffany turquoise mines, the old mining
camp of Bonanza, the smelter at Cerrillos, the Ortiz gold placers,
worked a hundred years before gold was discovered in California and
still yielding gold dust and nuggets, the coal mines at Madrid,
where bituminous and anthracite coal have been mined from the same
hillside, the placer and gold mines of Golden and San Pedro, not to
speak of sheep and cattle ranches and the beautiful scenery of the
Cerrillos, Ortiz, San Pedro, and Sandia mountains.
"Another trip of one day from Santa Fé will take the traveller
by the pueblo ruins of Arroyo Hondo over Apache hill, the
battlegrounds of Apache Springs, the interesting native settlement
of Cañoncito, over Glorieta Pass and the battlefield of Glorieta,
to the upper Pecos River, by the ancient and historic Pecos church
ruins, the village of Pecos, and through the most beautiful
summer-resort country in the Southwest, where trout streams babble
in every cañon and where from one summit can be surveyed the hoary
heads of eleven of the twelve highest peaks in New Mexico.
"Another day's trip out of Santa Fé will take the visitor up the
rugged Santa Fé Cañon, by the large reservoir and the Aztec mineral
springs to the Scenic Highway, which crosses the Santa Fé range
into the upper Pecos Valley and unfolds at every step new mountain
views and panoramas magnificent beyond description. Nor do these
trips exhaust the interesting points in and about Santa Fé. Almost
every other town in the territory offers sights and scenes of equal
interest to the tourist and sightseer.
"The prehistoric ruin of the Chaco Cañon and Pueblo Bonito, in
southeastern San Juan County, as well as those at Aztec, in the
same county, are more fully excavated than those of the Pajarito
Park, and in some respects are more palatial and more impressive.
They can best be reached from Gallup or Thoreau on the Santa Fé
Railway in McKinley County.
"The prehistoric ruins on the Gila Forest Reserve, as well as those
in western Valencia and Socorro counties, have not been thoroughly
explored thus far, being distant from the highways of travel;
but on this very account they should have a special charm and
attraction for the student of archæology.
[Illustration: CLIFF DWELLER RUINS, NEAR SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO]
[Illustration: STONE TENT, CLIFF DWELLERS, NEW MEXICO]
"Coming to more recent, although still ancient days, the ruins
of the Gran Quivira and of nearby abandoned pueblo villages,
between the Jumanes Mesa and the Mal Pais and Jornado del Muerto,
are of great historic interest. They are best reached from the
station of Willard at the junction of the Santa Fé Central and
Eastern Railway of New Mexico. Similar ruins are found in western
Valencia, Socorro, and other counties, and divide the interest of
the tourist with the many present-day Indian pueblos and Spanish
settlements boasting of considerable antiquity. The Zuñi, Navaho,
Jicarilla, and Mescalero Indian reservations are well worthy a
visit, and upon the first two named are many prehistoric ruins.
"Foremost in interest and value in historic archæology are the
old mission churches of the Franciscans. In every occupied Indian
pueblo and at the site of almost every abandoned pueblo, there
is one of the monuments of those pioneers of Christianity and
civilization, the Franciscan Fathers. Many of these are in a good
state of preservation, while others are in ruins, but every one is
an object of historic interest.
"The old mission church of San Diego, which is the oldest of the
California missions, was founded in 1769. It is almost a total
ruin; only the front remains in a good state of preservation. The
side walls are still standing, but no portions of the roof or
interior remain. This is the most venerable and venerated historic
monument in the state of California, and is annually visited by
thousands of tourists. It has stood for one hundred and sixty-four
years. It marks the beginning of civilization and Christianity
in California. And yet, in New Mexico, on the upper Pecos,
thirty-five miles west of Las Vegas, at the site of the abandoned
Pueblo of Cicuye, are the ruins of the old Pecos church. The church
is three hundred years old. It was nearly one hundred and fifty
years old when the San Diego mission was founded. It was projected
before the Spanish Armada was destroyed and antedates the coming of
the Mayflower and the settlement of Jamestown. All that is said of
the old Pecos church may be said of that of Jemez. They were built
at the same time. The one at Gran Quivira was founded in 1630, and
is a fairly well-preserved ruin. The churches at San Ildefonso and
Santa Clara are in a complete state of preservation. They are nine
years older than the oldest of the California ruins. The old San
Miguel mission in Santa Fé has been rebuilt. Its walls date from
1650, the roof from 1694, or possibly a few years later. From the
old church at Algodones was taken a bell, cast in Spain in 1356,
and at the Cathedral at Santa Fé and other churches are ancient
relics and art treasures of old Spanish and Italian masters. These
are only a few examples selected at random from the large number
of ancient churches of equally great interest scattered over New
Mexico. Inscription Rock, on the old road to Zuñi, and every one of
the pueblos from Taos on the north to Isleta on the south, and from
the Rio Grande pueblos in the central part to Zuñi in the west, are
worthy of a visit, both for historic and present-day interest.
"Nor is there any other building in this country to compare in
historic interest with the Old Palace at Santa Fé, which has been
more to New Mexico than Faneuil Hall to Massachusetts or Liberty
Hall to Pennsylvania, nor is there any other town in the United
States which offers so much of interest to the tourist as the city
of St. Francis d'Assisi."
It is no exaggeration to say that in many respects the archæological
interest of New Mexico, its atmosphere, its historic color, is as
distinctive as that of Egypt or of Greece, Italy, or Spain. When,
on December 15, 1905, the first long-distance telephone in Santa Fé
established communication _viva voce_ with Denver, while within a
radius of fifty miles, ruins of prehistoric civilization fascinated
the tourist,--surely the remote past and the latest developments of
the present met and mingled after the fashion of "blue spirits and
gray." Very curiously mixed is the civilization of New Mexico. It can
almost be said to lie in strata, like geologic testimony. The ancient
peoples whose very name is lost,--shrouded in antiquity that has closed
the chapters and refuses to turn the pages for the twentieth-century
reader; the Indian population; the Spanish, whose explorers--Alvar
Nuñez, Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, Juan de Oñate, and others--and whose
missionaries, from the ranks of the Franciscan friars, brought to the
savage land the first message of modern civilization; and the American,
which within almost the past half-century has established itself since
that August day of 1846 when General Kearny floated the stars and
stripes from the "Old Palace" in Santa Fé. The American civilization
and high enlightenment has poured itself into this "Land of the Sun
King,"--the "Land of the Turquoise Sky." For now, as Colonel Frost
has so ably and comprehensively noted, "New Mexico is strictly up to
date in its government, in its hotels, its railroad accommodations, in
the protection the law affords, in its universities, colleges, public
schools, sanitariums, charitable institutions, its progress, and in
its prosperity. Churches are found in every settlement, newspapers in
every town, together with fine stores, banking institutions, and every
safety, comfort, and luxury that the centres of civilization of the
East afford." If that vivid and inspiring group of the Muses,--the
muse of History, of Science, of Philosophy, and others,--painted by
Puvis de Chavannes to adorn the court of the grand stairway of rich
Siena marble in the Public Library of Boston,--an achievement in modern
art that alone would immortalize the great painter of France,--if
these Muses could visit New Mexico, the specialty of each would be
found. The richly historic past that has left its various records; the
present, that has impressed into its service every power of science,
of engineering, of architectural construction, of agriculture, and of
social progress, would furnish to each a vast field in its own especial
domain.
A work published in Paris somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth
century, entitled "_Memoires Historiques sur La Louisiane_,"--a
book that has never been translated,--gives an account of a French
expedition in New Mexico in search of a mine of emeralds and their
encounter with the Spanish forces; but although in this engagement
the Spanish troops suffered disaster, the Spanish civilization still
continues, while there is little permanent trace of the French in New
Mexico. It is a curious fact, however, that the present continues this
varied and strangely assorted grouping of races which characterized the
country in its earliest days.
New Mexico reminds one of Algiers. There is the same Oriental
suggestion of intense coloring, of dazzling brilliancy of sky, of
gleaming pearl, of floating clouds.
There is one feature of this trans-Continental trip which is of the
first importance to the tourist, and this is the line of artistic and
beautiful hotels built after the old mission design, the architecture
felicitously harmonizing with the landscape,--those Harvey hotels
built in connection with the Santa Fé stations at principal points, as
at Trinidad, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and others, all christened with
Spanish names,--the "Cardenas," the "Castañeda," the "Alvarado,"--all
of which are conducted with a perfection of cuisine and service
that is rarely equalled. The social and the picturesque charm of
the long journey is singularly enhanced by the leisurely stops made
for refreshment; the leaving the long train--with its two engines,
one at either end--for the little exercise in fresh air gained by
going into the dining-rooms; being able to procure papers at the news
stands, fruit, or other delicacies, and enjoying the scenery and
gaining some knowledge of the place. In connection with the Alvarado,
at Albuquerque, are two buildings: one that offers a most interesting
museum of Indian archæological and ethnological collections, and
the other showing native goods from Africa and the Pacific islands.
Salesrooms connected with these enable the traveller to purchase any
souvenir from a trifle, to the costly baskets, richly colored Navajo
blankets, the strange symbolic pottery, or the objects of religious
rites.
A day's delay at Albuquerque enables the traveller to visit four
interesting pueblos,--Santa Ana, Sandia, Zia, and Jemez,--in a day's
stage ride between Jemez and Albuquerque. At all these important
stations on the route the Santa Fé has established free reading-rooms
for its employés, fitted up with every comfort.
New Mexico, while partaking in the general fascination that invests all
the great Southwest, is especially not only a land of enchantment, but
a land of opportunities. It is a country of untold latent wealth, of
uncalculated resources. There are vast tracts of soil that are ready
for the cultivation they will so bountifully repay; there are over
three hundred mining districts, few of which are developed. Six million
sheep are grazing upon its thousand hills, which would furnish raw
material for a large number of woollen mills. The land is favorable for
the culture of the sugar beet, and manufactories for this product are
needed. A local authority states that "the rubber plant is indigenous
and mineral products are of such extent and variety that industries
that need them for raw material, or incidentally in the process of
manufacture, will find in this part of the United States a location
much more favorable than most of the Eastern manufacturing centres.
There exist large deposits of iron ore, fluxing material and fuel for
furnaces, steel mills and smelters, and there are but few branches
of manufacture which could not be established with profit in this
part of the Southwest. Besides the raw material there are offered the
water-power, the fuel, the cheap labor, special inducements, such as
exemption from taxation for the first five years and a low assessment
thereafter, favorable legislation, cheap building sites, railroad
facilities, freedom from excessive competition, the increasing home
demand of a growing commonwealth of vast resources, and proximity to
the markets of Mexico and the Orient....
"Farmers are urged to come to till the fertile soil under the most
favorable conditions, and with home markets that pay better prices
than can be obtained anywhere else. Only a quarter of a million of
acres are under cultivation, and most of these only in forage plants
or in products that demand little attention; four times that area is
immediately available for agricultural purposes. Not one-half of the
flowing water is utilized, and not one-fiftieth of the flood water is
stored. There are undeveloped possibilities of farming by the Campbell
or dry-soil method. New Mexico raises the finest fruit in the world,
and every other crop that can be produced anywhere in the temperate
zone. Yet it imports annually millions of dollars' worth of flour,
alfalfa, hay, potatoes, fruit, garden produce, poultry, eggs, butter,
cheese, honey, beef, pork, and other products of the farm and dairy
that it can and should raise at home. Free lands, the finest climate
in the world, irrigation, churches, schools, railroad facilities, home
markets, good prices, and extensive range, are all factors which help
to make the life of the farmer and stock grower in New Mexico pleasant
and prosperous."
The visitor from the East enters New Mexico through a long tunnel;
and in Raton, a prosperous city of some eight thousand people located
in the Raton Mountains, is found the centre of an enormous coal belt,
and also a promising oil field. Raton is called the "Gate City." It
exports ice of a very pure quality, the water being from a reservoir
of a capacity of over fifty million gallons. The streets of Raton are
graded and have electric lighting; there is a fine park, long-distance
telephonic connection with Colorado and New Mexican cities, and its
schools and churches are numerous. A new Raton tunnel is now in
process of construction by the Santa Fé line that will enter New
Mexico through the mountains at a lower point. The work is being done
by electric drills that offer a most interesting spectacle in their
process. The tunnel will cost a million dollars. Most beautiful is
the landscape and the coloring of air and sky between Raton and Las
Vegas. The Cimarron range is silhouetted against the western sky;
picturesque points on the old Santa Fé trail are seen; and Mora Cañon,
through which the journey lies, has its romantic attractions. From
the lofty plateau of Raton's Peak the deep, dark valley of Rio Las
Animas Perdidas is disclosed; the matchless Spanish Peaks, "Las Cumbres
Españolas," lift their heads into the blue sky; Pike's Peak gleams like
a monumental shaft in the clouds, and the Snowy Range, for more than
two hundred miles, is within the luminous landscape.
Las Vegas, the second city in importance in New Mexico, is a
fascinating place. There are really three towns of Las Vegas--the old
Spanish town, still retaining its ancient convent and missions; the
new, up-to-date Las Vegas, with its Castañeda Hotel--beautiful in the
old Moorish architecture, with spacious piazzas and balconies; and
Las Vegas Hot Springs, connected by trolley cars. Thus there is the
particular paradise of the invalid, or of those who take prevention
rather than cure and a sunny winter in order not to be invalids; for at
Las Vegas Hot Springs, to which a branch railroad of this omnipresent
Santa Fé conveys the traveller--only six miles--the Hot Springs boil
and bubble like the witches' caldron. Here the guests may immerse
themselves in boiling mineral water, or lie all day in the sunshine,
or whatever else they prefer; and the medicinal waters, internally
and externally administered, are said to make one over altogether.
Rheumatic and tubercular affections flee, it is said, before this
treatment and the wonderful air; and apparently if Ponce de Leon had
only chanced upon Las Vegas he would not have searched in vain for his
fabled fountain.
Albuquerque is an exceedingly "smart" town. Its residents are almost
entirely Eastern capitalists, who are living here that they may keep
an eye on their possessions, mines, ranches, and the things of this
world in general. However largely they have laid up their treasures
in heaven, they have a goodly amount also on earth, over which they
perhaps keep closer watch and ward than over their more immaterial
possessions. At all events, Albuquerque is a sort of Newport of the
West, where people drive and dance and dine from one week to another,
and the women are so stylish as to suggest some occult affinities with
the Rue de la Paix.
In this brilliant and thoroughly up-to-date young city of Albuquerque,
the metropolis of New Mexico; in Las Vegas, one of the fascinating
towns of the continent; in Raton and Gallup, and in its capital, Santa
Fé, the territory has a galaxy of exceedingly interesting towns.
Albuquerque is the trade centre of a region exceeding in area all New
England. With a population estimated at some eighteen thousand; the
seat of the University of New Mexico, whose buildings occupy a plateau
two hundred feet above the town, commanding a beautiful view; with a
scenic background of the Sandia and the Jemez mountains; with the most
extensive free Public Library in the territory; two daily journals and
a number of weekly papers in both Spanish and English, and several
monthly publications; with its splendid railway facilities both to
the North and the South, as well as on the great trans-continental
line from the East to the Pacific; with the shops of the Santa Fé road
employing over seven hundred men, as the junction point of three lines
of this superb system; and with the beautiful Alvarado hotel, in the
old Spanish mission architecture, from whose wide piazzas the view
comprises a host of mountain peaks piercing the turquoise sky, and
whose beauty and comfort is a masterpiece of the magician of the Land
of Enchantment; with the Musée of Indian relics and souvenirs of the
Moki, the Navajo, the Zuñi, Pima, and Apache; the fine Mexican filigree
work; the model of an Indian pueblo, and other curios,--with all these
and many other interesting aspects, Albuquerque fascinates the tourist.
In the "Commercial Club" it has a unique institution representing the
combination of business and social life. The broad streets are well
lighted by electricity; there is electric transit and a fine water
system. Albuquerque has also extensive manufacturing interests, in
foundry, lumber, and other directions, which aggregate an investment of
over two millions of capital with an annual productive value of more
than four millions.
Returning to Las Vegas; with its ten thousand inhabitants, its large
floating population drawn by the medicinal hot springs, and the seat
of the territorial Normal School. As a noted wool centre, and with its
daily papers, good schools, and many churches, it is another alluring
point. One feature of important interest is the new "Scenic Highway"
that is in process of completion between Las Vegas and Santa Fé, across
the Pecos Forest Reserve, which will offer some of the grandest views
in any of the mountain regions of the West. It will be to Santa Fé
and Las Vegas what the beautiful drive between Naples, Sorrento, and
Amalfi is to Southern Italy. This scenic road will wind up to the
Dalton Divide, nine thousand five hundred feet high, where Lake Peak,
glittering with snow, Santa Fé Cañon, and other peaks and precipices
and cañons, are all about, and the Pecos River is seen far below as a
thread of silver. This drive will be one of the famous features of the
entire West when completed. New Mexico monopolizes the greatest belt of
coal deposits west of the Missouri, while Arizona has the monopoly in
pine forests.
The reclamation work in the southern part of the Rio Grande Valley is
now in successful process, and near Engle a reservoir forty miles in
length will be established, having a capacity of two million acre-feet.
It is estimated that a hundred and ten thousand acres of land will thus
be put under irrigated agriculture which will yield marvellous returns
in alfalfa, cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
The government has also purchased the system of the Pecos Irrigation
Company, which is now transferred to the Reclamation Service of the
United States. This is the largest irrigation scheme in New Mexico. It
is located on the Pecos River, which is fed from springs many of which
gush forth from the earth with such force as to indicate that their
source must be in high, snow-crowned hills.
New Mexico's railroad facilities may be estimated from the fact that
not a county in the territory is without a railroad, while many have
the benefit of three lines. With twenty-five hundred miles of railroads
within the territorial limits already in operation, it is confidently
expected that this number will be increased to four thousand miles
within two years, as much of this anticipated increase is already under
construction. Of the present railways eleven hundred miles belong to
the Santa Fé system alone. The matchless scenery of the Denver and
Rio Grande route between Ontonito and Santa Fé offers the tourist one
of the most enjoyable of trips through Española, Caliente, and other
points of beauty with the mountain peaks of San Antonio, Taos, Ute, and
others within the horizon, often appearing like islands swimming in a
faint blue haze.
There is space and to spare in New Mexico. There are almost unlimited
possibilities, with much to get and as much to give, and the latter is
by no means less important in life than the former. Out of a total area
of over seventy-eight million acres only about a quarter of a million
are under irrigation agriculture, and the field for reclamation is as
unlimited as it is promising. The land is fertile and the productions
are abundant. The sky is a dream of color and of luminous beauty, and
the climate is one of the most delightful in the entire world. Nor
does New Mexico suffer from that which is the greatest deprivation of
Arizona,--the lack of water. There is an abundance of the mountain
flood waters that now go to waste which would store vast reservoirs;
there is the flow of copious streams and large river systems, and
there are artesian belts of water all ready for mechanical appliances.
The Campbell dry culture, which is increasingly in use in the eastern
part of Colorado, has been successfully introduced into New Mexico.
Fruit-growing is already becoming an important industry, and the
apple orchard, of all other varieties of horticulture, is the most
successful. At the Paris Exposition in 1900 New Mexico made an exhibit
of apples, and also at Buffalo in 1901, receiving from the former the
award to rank with those of the best apple-growing regions in any part
of the United States, and from the latter the first prize. Peaches,
pears, and apricots grow well; the cherry does not thrive in New
Mexico, but grapes are grown with conspicuous success.
The mineral resources of New Mexico are varied, and include gold,
silver, copper, lead, and other minerals. In precious stones there is
promise of untold development. The Tiffanys own large turquoise mines,
whose supply, thus far, has proved inexhaustible; and the opal and
the moonstone are found in many places. But it is as an agricultural
commonwealth, and as the repository of vast coal belts, that New Mexico
is chiefly distinguished.
It was early in February, 1880, that the first train over the Santa
Fé railroad entered the territorial capital and initiated its
transformation from the mediæval Spanish town to that which is, in
part, the theatre of the progressive American life. In Santa Fé one
of the landmarks pointed out to-day to the visitor is the old Santa
Fé Trail, whose story was told so vividly, some years ago, by Colonel
Henry Inman,[2] who has described the majestic solitude of this highway
and has narrated the mingled experiences of the early pioneers and the
soldiers who thus marched through the wilderness. History and romance
mingle in the wonderful past of New Mexico, and it needs no sibyl of
old to proclaim from the _Mesa Encantada_ the promise of the future to
this beautiful Land of the Turquoise Sky.
CHAPTER VII
THE STORY OF SANTA FÉ
"_From scheme and creed the light goes out,
The saintly fact survives,
The Blessed Master none can doubt
Revealed in holy lives._"
"_Oh, more than sacred relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The footmarks of the Christ of God._"
In the place once occupied by those whose lives were consecrated to
the divine ideal, some influence, as potent as it is unseen, binds
the soul to maintain the honor that they left; to hold the same noble
standard of life. The spell is felt even while it eludes analysis. Few
to-day can tread the narrow, primitive little streets of old Santa Fé
without some consciousness of this mystic influence. It was here, in
the centuries gone from all save memory, that
"there trod
The whitest of the saints of God,"
and "The True City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis" (_La Ciudad Real
de la Santa Fé de San Francisco_) is forever consecrated by the memory
of these holy men, and vital with the tragic interest, the heroic and
pathetic story of their lives. As early as 1539 Friar Marcos de Nizza
and other Fathers of the Church pressed on into this country--then an
unknown wilderness--to extend the domain of the Holy Cross and carry
onward "the true faith of St. Francis." They encountered every hardship
possible to a savage land; sacrifice and martyrdom were their reward.
They left a land of learning and refinement to carry the light into
regions of barbarism. They gave their lives to teaching and prayer,
and they sowed without reaping their harvest. Yet who shall dare think
of their brilliant, consecrated lives as wasted? for the lesson they
taught of absolute faith in God is the most important in life. Faith
provides the atmosphere through which alone the divine aid can be
manifested, and the divine aid is sent through and by means of our
friends and helpers and counsellors in the unseen world. It is man's
business, his chief business, now and here, to co-operate with God in
the carrying out of His plans and purposes. It was this literal and
practical faith in divine aid that the Franciscan Fathers taught in the
wilderness through all hardship and disaster.
"Say not the struggle naught availeth."
It must always avail.
"Yet do thy work; it shall succeed
In thine or in another's day,
And if denied the victor's meed
Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay."
This Spanish mission work planted itself over the entire vast region
which is now known as New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California.
The friars set out on long, lonely journeys, wholly without ways and
means to reach a given destination save as they were guided by unseen
hands and companioned by unseen guides. The cloud by day and the pillar
of fire by night led them on. They went forth to meet desolation and
sacrifice and often martyrdom; yet their gentle zeal and cheerful
courage never failed. They traversed hundreds of miles of desert
wastes; they encountered the cruel treatment of the Apaches and the
Navajos; but these experiences were simply to them the incidents of
the hour, and had no relation to the ultimate issue of their work. In
1598 the first church was founded, by a band of ten missionaries who
accompanied Juan de Oñate, the colonizer, and was called the chapel
of San Gabriel de los Españoles, but it was deserted when, in 1605,
the city of Santa Fé was founded by Oñate, and in 1630 the church of
San Miguel was built. The original wall was partly destroyed in the
rebellion of a half-century later, but it was restored in 1710, and the
new cathedral was built on the site where the present one now stands.
As early as 1617 there were eleven Spanish mission churches within
the limits of what is now New Mexico,--at Pecos, Jemez, and Taos; at
Santa Clara, San Felipe, and other places, mostly within the valley
of the Rio Grande. In six of the historic "seven cities of Cibola,"
all Zuñi towns, these missions were established; and in the ancient
pueblo of San Antonio de Senecú, Antonio de Arteaga founded a church
in 1629; in Picuries, in 1632, Friar Ascencion de Zárate established
the mission, and in 1635 one also in Isleta. In passing Glorieta, from
the train windows, to-day, can be seen the ruins of the early mission
church established there. Before the close of the seventeenth century
the churches in Acoma, Alameda, Santa Cruz, Cuaray, and Tabirá had been
founded, the ruins of all of which are still standing. These Franciscan
Fathers penetrated the desert and made their habitations in solitary
wastes so desolate that no colonizers would follow; but to the Indians
they preached and taught them the elements of civilized life.
"Not the wildest conceptions of the mission founders could have
foreseen the results of their California enterprises," says Professor
George Wharton James in his interesting work on these old missions.[3]
"To see the land they found in the possession of thousands of savages
converted in one short century, to the home of tens of thousands of
happy, contented people, would have been a wild vision indeed. God
surely does work mysteriously, marvellously, His wonders to perform."
Santa Fé is the centre of the archdiocese whose other diocesean
cities are Denver and Tucson. The archbishop, the Most Reverend J. B.
Salpointe, D.D., whose presence exalts the city of his residence, is
one who follows reverently in the footsteps of Him whose kingdom on
earth the early Franciscans labored to establish.
[Illustration: SAN MIGUEL CHURCH, SANTA FÉ]
In 1708 San Miguel was restored by Governor José Chacon Medina
Salazar y Villaseñor, Marqués de Peñuela, and two years later these
restorations were completed. An inscription that can be traced to-day
on the gallery bears this legend:
El Señor Marqués de la Peñuela Hizo Esta Fábrica: El Alférez real
Don Augustin Flores Vergara su criado. Año de 1710.
Not only is this "City of the Holy Faith" consecrated by that
sacrificial devotion of the Franciscan Fathers; the heroic explorers
and pioneers, the brave and dauntless soldiers, from the time of
Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado to that of the gallant and noble General
Kearny, have left on Santa Fé the impress of their brave purpose and
high endeavor. The old Cathedral of San Francisco, the ancient church
of San Miguel, and the Rosario Chapel, all interest the stranger. In
1692 Diego de Vargas marched up from the south with two hundred men and
looked sadly at the little town of Santa Fé, from which his countrymen
had been driven. It would seem that de Vargas was a romantic figure of
his time. He was evidently endowed with the characteristic vehemence of
temperament, intense energy, and the genius for effective action that
marked the Spanish pioneers. He was rich in resources and manifested
a power of swift decision regarding all the perplexities into which
his adventurous life led, ever beckoning him on. The little town he
had entered appealed to him in its impressive beauty. Surrounded with
majestic mountains, with their deep and mysterious cañons, it was then,
as now, a region of entrancing sublimity.
Adjoining San Miguel is the old house where Coronado is said to have
lodged in 1540. The "Old Palace," always used by the Governors of
New Mexico, is partly given over to a museum of Indian and Mexican
curiosities. There is a little library, open only every other
afternoon; there are many mountain peaks around, which are not
difficult to climb, and which offer charming views. The new State House
is a fine modern building, and Governor Hagerman, formerly an attaché
of the American Embassy at St. Petersburg, is alert and progressive in
his methods.
More than half the residents of Santa Fé speak no English, and these
Spanish and Mexican residents have their papers in their own language,
their separate schools, and their worship in the old Cathedral. In
the early afternoon women in black, with black mantillas over their
heads, are seen passing up San Francisco Street and entering the
Cathedral, where they fall on their knees and tell their beads in the
silent church. Often one may see in the streets a funeral procession.
The casket is carried in a cart, and the family sit around it, on
the bottom of the wagon. A few friends follow on foot, and thus the
pathetic and grotesque little procession winds on its way.
The history lying in the dim background of this ancient Spanish city is
one that impresses the imagination. It is a part of all that wonderful
early exploration by the Spanish pioneers of the vast region of country
that is now known as Arizona and New Mexico.
In 1538 Cabeza de Vaca, after following the disastrous expedition of
Pánfilo de Narvaez to Florida, set forth with four men to penetrate
the vast unknown wastes to the west, and without compass or provisions
they made their way, crossing the Mississippi two years before its
discovery by De Soto, reached the Moqui country, and finally arrived in
Sinolao with glowing tales that excited the enterprise of the Spanish
conquerors and led to the founding of another expedition authorized
by the viceroy, Mendoza. It fared forth under the leadership of Padre
Marcos de Nizza, who (in 1539) entered the country of the Pimas, passed
up the valley of the Santa Ana, and set up the cross, giving the
country the name of the New Kingdom of San Francisco.
Padre de Nizza's men were all massacred by the Moquis, but he returned,
as if bearing a charmed life, and set all New Spain aflame with his
tales of gold and of glory, and the great opportunity to extend the
work of the Holy Cross.
Mendoza then proceeded to organize two other expeditions, one under
the intrepid Vasquez de Coronado and the other under Fernando Alarçon.
Coronado visited the ruins of Casa Grande and at last reached the
"Seven Cities," but their fabled wealth had shrunk to the sordid
actualities of insignificant huts, and Coronado returned to New Spain
in 1542, disappointed and dejected.
In the meantime the expedition of Alarçon had sailed up the Gulf of
California (then known as the Sea of Cortez), and he discovered the
Colorado and the Gila rivers, ascending the Colorado in boats up to
the foot of the Grand Cañon. Then for nearly half a century no further
efforts to explore this region were made. But it is interesting to note
that some eighty years before the landing of the Pilgrims a Spanish
expedition had penetrated into the country which is now Arizona, and
have left definite record of their discoveries.
In 1582 Antonio de Espejio explored the pueblos of the Zuñi and Moqui
tribes, visiting seventy-four in all, and discovering a mountain rich
in silver ore. From this time New Mexico was under the rule of the
Spanish conquerors.
Juan de Oñate, who married Isabel, a daughter of Cortez and a
great-granddaughter of Montezuma, assumed the leadership, and about
1605 the town of Santa Fé was founded, and within the succeeding decade
the Mission Fathers had built a dozen churches and their converts
composed over fourteen thousand. A prominent padre in this movement was
Eusebio Francisco Kino.
Santa Fé has the distinction of being the oldest town in the United
States, having been established fifteen years before the landing of the
Pilgrims.
[Illustration: "WATCH TOWER." CLIFF DWELLERS, NEW MEXICO]
[Illustration: CLIFF DWELLERS. WITHIN TWENTY-FIVE MILES OF SANTA FÉ,
NEW MEXICO]
The mission church of San Xavier del Bac was established at so early
a date that it was in ruins in 1768, and on its site was built the
present one, in the valley of Santa Cruz, some ten miles south of
Tucson. This mission is a rare mingling of Ionic and Byzantine
architecture, with a dome, two minarets, and castellated exterior. The
front bears the coat-of-arms of the Franciscan monks--a cross with a
coil of rope and two arms below--one of Cohant and the other of St.
Francis d'Assisi. There are four fresco paintings, and there are more
than fifty pieces of sculpture around the high altar.
The missions of Guevara, Zumacacori, and San Xavier were peculiarly
fruitful in good results. The ruins of Zumacacori still cover a large
space. The church is partially unroofed; the form is seen to have been
that of a plain Greek cross with a basilica, and a roofless chapel
is standing. The basilica is still crowned by the cross, and the
vital influence of this sign and seal of faith in the Christ, this
commemoration of the sacrificial zeal that animated the Mission Fathers
is still felt by all who gaze upon this sacred emblem silhouetted
against a blue sky.
Santa Fé is, indeed, alive with the most profound and arresting
interest. The work of the early Spanish missionary priests effected
a great work among the Indians in creating conditions of peace and
industry; for faith in God, taught in any form, is not merely nor even
mostly an attitude of spirit: it is the instinctive action of life.
It permeates every motive inspiring it with power; it vitalizes every
effort with creative energy. Faith in God may well be described as the
highest possible form of potency. He who is receptive to the Divine
Spirit moves onward like a ship whose sails are set to the favoring
winds. He who is unreceptive to the Divine Spirit is like the ship
before the wind with all her sails furled. "The merit of power for
moral victory on the earth," said Phillips Brooks, "is not man and is
not God. It is God and man, not two, but one, not meeting accidentally,
not running together in emergencies only to separate again when
the emergency is over; it is God and man belonging essentially
together,--God filling man, man opening his life by faith to be a part
of God's, as the gulf opens itself and is part of the great ocean."
The unfaltering devotion of the Franciscan Fathers to the work of
bringing civilization and Christianity to these Indian pueblos and
their martyrdom in their efforts to establish "the true faith of St.
Francis" invests Santa Fé with an atmosphere of holy tradition.
"All souls that struggle and aspire,
All hearts of prayer by Thee are lit;
And, dim or clear, Thy tongues of fire
On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit."
These early Church Fathers taught a pure and high order of faith in the
most practical way. They acquired the Indian language in sufficient
measure to speak to the tribes. They taught them the rudiments of
arithmetic, history, and geography--in the imperfect way then known;
but they gave their best. They inculcated industry and honesty. Their
faith is largely told in the poet's words,--
"That to be saved is only this:
Salvation from our selfishness."
The missions through all the Southwest were peculiarly fruitful in
good results. The ruins of many still exist, revealing them to have
usually been in the general design of a nave and basilica crowned by
the cross--this sign and seal of faith in the Christ.
"O Love Divine! whose constant beam
Shines on the eyes that will not see,
And waits to bless us; while we dream
Thou leavest, because we turn from Thee!
* * * * *
"Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st;
Wide as our need Thy favors fall;
The white wings of the Holy Ghost,
Brood, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all."
Three Spanish documents still exist in the territorial records of
New Mexico dated 1693-1694, which give a full account of the Spanish
conquest; of the re-conquest by the Indians, and the final conquest
again by the Spaniards. There is ample evidence that a city existed on
the present site of Santa Fé four hundred years before the settlement
at St. Augustine. The final Spanish conquest took place in 1692, but
all the records prior to 1680 were unfortunately destroyed in the
Pueblo Rebellion. New Mexico's historian, Hon. L. Bradford Prince, who
has more than once served as Governor of the territory and who is one
of the most distinguished men of the West, has finely said that the
people of his territory, although threefold in origin and language
(Spanish, Mexican, and American), are one in nationality, purpose, and
destiny. In Governor Prince's history of New Mexico he notes its three
determining epochs,--the Pueblo, the Spanish, and the American,--and
he refers to it as "an isolated, unique civilization in the midst of
encircling deserts and nomadic tribes."
On August 18, 1846, General Stephen W. Kearny took possession of the
capital of New Mexico in the name of the United States; and on that
date, for the first time, the national colors floated from the Old
Palace and the acting Spanish Governor, Don Juan Baptista Vigil y
Alvarid resigned his authority.
On the historic plaza where now a memorial to this brave officer
stands, placed there by the "Daughters of the Revolution," General
Kearny proclaimed the peaceful annexation of the territory of the
United States.
"We come as friends to make you a part of the representative
government," he said. "In our government all men are equal. Every
man has a right to serve God according to his conscience and his
heart."
General Kearny assured the people of the protection of every
civil and religious right, and this forcible and noble speech--so
characteristically representing the generous and noble spirit of one
of the ablest among the leaders and the heroes of the nineteenth
century--made a profound impression on the minds of all who listened
to the words. When on August 18 of 1946 New Mexico shall celebrate her
centenary of union with the United States, this memorable address of
General Kearny's should be read to the assembled populace. Not even
Lincoln's noble speech at Gettysburg exceeds in simple eloquence and
magnanimity the lofty words of General Kearny. They were worthy to be
spoken in "The City of the Holy Faith."
It was thus that New Mexico entered the United States, _Esto Perpetua_.
To-day, after a territorial novitiate of more than sixty years, she is
ardently urging her claim for statehood.
In old Santa Fé the past and the present meet. Governor Hagerman
receives his guests in the same room in the Old Palace that was used
by the first viceroy; and seventy-six Spanish and Mexican and eighteen
American rulers have preceded him, among whom was General Lew. Wallace,
who, while serving as territorial Governor, wrote his immortal "Ben
Hur" in one room of the palace, which is still pointed out to the
visitor. During this period Mrs. Wallace wrote many interesting
articles on the history, the life, and the resources of the territory,
in which are embalmed valuable information delightfully recorded. Mrs.
Prince, the wife of ex-Governor Prince, a lady distinguished throughout
all the country for her gracious sweetness and refined dignity of
manner, is much interested in the New Mexico Historical Association;
and the ex-Governor and Mrs. Prince, His Honor, Mayor Cotrell, and Mrs.
Cotrell, Colonel and Mrs. Max Frost, and others of the choice society
of Santa Fé, are preserving the history of this territory "that has
survived all those strange modulations by which a Spanish province has
become a territory of the Union bordering on statehood." Santa Fé is
the home of some of the ablest lawyers in the United States, and one
private law library is said to be the largest legal library west of
Chicago.
The Old Palace has been identified with the times of the Inquisition;
with the zealous work of Friar Marcos de Nizza, Friar Augustino Ruiz,
and with Coronado and his band of warriors. On the Plaza, Juan de
Oñate unfurled the banner of Spain; here de Vargas gave thanks for his
victory, and here to-day is a simple monumental memorial of General
Kearny placed there by the Daughters of the Revolution. The revered
memory of Archbishop Lamy is closely associated with the place. In the
Old Palace is a musée where a great array of unique curios is gathered;
pictures of saints rudely painted on skins; crucifixes rudely carved
in wood or moulded in native silver; gods carved in stone, and
primitive domestic utensils.
There is a very charming and cultivated society in Santa Fé of the
small circle of American residents,--a circle that is of late rapidly
increasing. The country around is rich in gems,--the turquoise, opal,
onyx, garnet, and bloodstone being found in liberal deposits; and in
the town is a manufactory of Mexican filigree work that employs the
natives only who are very skilful in this delicate art. The Plaza is a
curiously fascinating place to saunter around, and the visitor finds
himself loitering and lingering as he is wont to loiter and linger on
the old Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The nomenclature of Santa Fé is
sufficiently foreign to enable one to fancy himself in Andalusia, as
such names as Padilla, Quintona, Lopez, Gutierrez, Vaca, and others
recur.
The Rosario Chapel, built by Señor Diego de Vargas, stands on a height
overlooking Santa Fé a mile distant from the Plaza and the Old Palace.
Near it is now located the Ramona School for the children of the
Apaches. The legend of the founding of San Rosario is still on the
air. When, in 1692, Señor de Vargas, marching from the south with his
band of two hundred men, gazed upon the city from which, in 1680, his
compatriots had been so tragically driven, he prostrated himself on the
ground and implored in prayer the protection and aid of "Our Lady of
the Rosary," and recorded his purpose that, would she but lead him on
to victory, he would build, on the very site where he was kneeling, a
chapel to her name. Arising, he led his band on to assault, and after
a tragic struggle of eleven hours' duration he was victorious. Did the
"Lady of the Rosary" shield and strengthen him? Who shall venture to
deny it?
"More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of."
De Vargas had promised that, in case the victory was granted to him, he
would have the statue of the Virgin carried from the cathedral to the
Rosario Chapel, as already noted. To this day the custom is fulfilled;
and each year, on the Sunday following _Corpus Christi_, this sacred
drama is enacted, with sometimes two thousand people, drawn from all
the country around, forming the procession. The statue is kept in the
chapel a week, with solemn masses celebrated every morning, after which
it is returned to the cathedral and the chapel is closed, not to be
opened again until the octave of the Feast of _Corpus Christi_ the next
year.
The "City of the Holy Faith" is very quiet in these days, and one
finds little trace of the turbulent past when it was the storm centre
of tragic wars and revolutions. The incessant warfare between the
Spaniards and the Indians, the sublime courage and devotion of Bishop
Lamy and other Fathers of the Church, constitute a wonderful chapter in
the history of our country.
Santa Fé antedates the landing of the Pilgrims by more than twenty
years. Its history is an unbroken record of thrilling and romantic
events, from its capture by the Pueblos in 1680; the terrible massacre
of the Mission Fathers, and the flight of the Governor to El Paso;
its conquest again by de Vargas in 1692; the change from Spanish to
Mexican rule; then the splendid entrance of General Kearny and his
troops (in the summer of 1846) in the name of the United States, down
to the scenes and the incidents of the old Santa Fé Trail and thence to
the present day, when three railroads have brought the city into close
touch with the modern life of which it still refuses to become a part.
Still, Santa Fé has nine mails a day, a free-delivery postal system,
electric lights, and local and long-distance telephonic connection.
The Capitol, where Governor Hagerman presides over the councils of
state, is a fine modern building with a beautiful view from the dome.
There is a new Federal Building of stone in classic design, in front
of which is placed a monument to Kit Carson. St. Michael's College,
the residence of the Archbishop, and the Government Indian School
attract the eye. But it is the old Santa Fé of haunting historic
memories that one dreams of in the narrow streets, or in looking down
on the town from a mountain-side. The quaint little Plaza dreams in
the sunshine, which lingers, as if with a _Benedicite_, on the Kearny
memorial, while through the unshuttered and uncurtained windows of the
Old Palace, forming one side of the Plaza, the antique débris may be
dimly seen. Should the ghost of any of the old Spanish warriors peer
forth, the apparition would hardly produce a ripple of surprise. The
long colonnade may be the favorite promenade of phantoms for aught one
knows,--phantoms, that come and go,--
"With feet that make no sound upon the floor."
The twentieth-century sunshine lights up the dusky corners wherein are
stored the relics of the Spanish conquerors and the followers of St.
Francis. Perchance Francis d'Assisi himself, "revisiting the glimpses
of the moon," glides along the shadows, drawn to the spot where, at
so fearful a cost of life and treasure, his "holy faith" was guarded;
or it may be the warrior in his armor who for an instant is dimly
discerned through the dust-covered windows. Coronado, too, may haunt
this scene. Many are those in the historic ranks who have contributed
to the making of Santa Fé. It is the most composite city in American
history. The very air is vocal with tradition and legend.
The little shops around the Plaza bear their signs mostly in Spanish.
Yet mingling with these is the office of Mr. Lutz of the Santa Fé
transcontinental line, with which the New Mexican capital is connected
by a branch to Lamy, on the main line, where one may stand and converse
with Denver,--a feat which may surprise the ghost of Coronado or of
Juan de Oñate were it looking on; and Colonel Frost's daily journal,
with its news of the world, is just at the corner. Not far away, too,
is Mr. Linney, who represents the United States Signal Service, and
regards Santa Fé as a most opportune town in which to pursue his most
up-to-date study of atmospheric phenomena.
A remarkable personality in Santa Fé is Colonel Max Frost, the editor
of "The New Mexican," the political leader of the Republican party and
a man who, though blind and paralyzed, is simply a living encyclopædia
of historic and contemporary events. At eight o'clock every morning
Colonel Frost is in his office, at his desk, dictating to three expert
stenographers, carrying on three different subjects simultaneously.
Instead of his blindness being a hindrance to his work, he has, by the
sheer force of his remarkable energy, transformed the obstacle into a
stepping-stone. "I can do more work in ten minutes than most men can
in an hour," he said, in reply to a question, "as, being blind, I have
nothing to distract my attention. I put my mind on my work and keep it
there."
Colonel Frost's experience is the most convincing testimony to the
phenomenal power that lies in mental concentration. He cannot move
without assistance,--physically he is a wreck; yet he dictates columns
of work daily; he is the most influential leader of the political
party, and he is one of the makers of New Mexico. Every line of copy
in his daily paper is read to him before it goes to press, and the
vigorous and brilliant editorial page is largely his own work. For four
hours, every evening, Mrs. Frost reads to him from the great Eastern
dailies, the periodicals, and new books. It is said in New Mexico that
Colonel Frost has been the power behind the throne in territorial
legislation since the time that General Lew. Wallace served as chief
executive in 1879.
Colonel Frost went to Santa Fé from Washington in 1876 as a brilliant
young officer, commissioned to build a military telegraph line from
Santa Fé to Phoenix, Arizona,--a distance of five hundred miles.
This commission attracted great attention, and Colonel Frost became
at once a power among the Spanish-American citizens of the territory.
His great ability was widely recognized by leading men all over the
Southwest. He was urged to remain and become a citizen of Santa Fé. As
if to further prepare him for his remarkable life, he was commissioned
by the government to serve at several points in New Mexico on a variety
of important matters, and he thus became singularly identified with the
general progress of the country.
With all his extraordinary work in conducting his paper and devoting
himself to party political measures, Colonel Frost is serving his
territory as Secretary of the Bureau of Immigration with the most
conspicuous ability. Under his electric touch and irresistible
energy there is constantly prepared and sent out some of the finest
transcriptions of the entire status of the country, in climate,
resources, and opportunities; in achievements already realized and in
the potential developments of the future. Thousands of residents have
been drawn to New Mexico through the data so ably set forth by Colonel
Frost, the matter being, each year, revised to date. He knows, from
personal observation and intimate contact, every part of the territory;
he is personally acquainted with all the leading people; and no visitor
in the territory can feel his trip in any sense complete without
meeting Colonel Max Frost. If every state and territory in the Far West
could command such efficient service in the literature of immigration
as is rendered by Colonel Frost, there would be an appreciable increase
of their settlers.
There are many eminent men in Santa Fé,--government officers, political
leaders, gifted lawyers,--whom the stranger within the gates must
recognize as among the ablest leaders and makers of the nation. A
newspaper recently established, "The Eagle," ably edited by Mr. A.
J. Loomis, adds another attraction and source of inspiration to the
wonderful old city, whose life still continues to illustrate and exalt
the "Holy Faith of St. Francis."
CHAPTER VIII
MAGIC AND MYSTERY OF ARIZONA
"_... The stars are glowing wheels,
Giddy with motion Nature reels;
Sun, moon, man, undulate and stream,
The mountains flow, the solids seem,
Change acts, reacts; back, forward hurled,
And pause were palsy to the world.--
The morn is come: the starry crowds
Are hid behind the thrice-piled clouds;
The new day lowers, and equal odds
Have changed not less the guest of gods._"
EMERSON
Arizona is the Land of Magic and of Mystery. It is the land of the yet
undreamed-of future, and it is also the region of brooding mystery,
of strange surprise. Besides its stupendous Grand Cañon, here are the
cañons of Chiquito, Marble, Desolation, and Limestone; the Montezuma
Well, Castle Dome, the Four Peaks--rising to the height of several
thousand feet, for hundreds of miles; the Thumb Buttes, San Francisco
Peak, the Tonto Basin, and the Twin Lake--all of these phenomenal
marvels of scenery telling their tale of the action of water and of
fire thousands of ages ago; convulsions of nature which have rent
the mountains asunder, opened chasms thousands of feet deep in the
earth, and projected the bottom of a sea into the air as a mountain
peak,--
"What time the gods kept carnival."
[Illustration: PETRIFIED GIANTS, THIRD FOREST, ARIZONA]
The gods have, indeed, kept high carnival in Arizona. Every aspect of
nature is on a scale of Titanic magnificence. The cañon systems of its
mountain ranges; the indescribable grandeur which reaches its supreme
majesty in the Grand Cañon; the wonders of extinct volcanic action;
the colossal channels cut by rushing waters; the unearthly splendor of
the atmospheric effects, and the coloring of the skies,--all combine
to render Arizona an expression of magical wonder. All manner of
phenomenal conditions are encountered. The land is a red sandy desert,
whose leading productions are loose stones (lying so thickly in the
sand as to make walking or driving all but impossible) and pine trees,
petrified forests, and cacti. The riotous growth of the cactus is,
indeed, a terror to the unwary. But it is in sunsets and enchantment
of views and richness of mines, and in marvellous curiosities--as the
Petrified Forest, Meteorite Mountain, and the Grand Cañon--that Arizona
distinguishes herself. She cannot irrigate her soil because there
is no available water. But the pine forests--some of them--produce
lumber; the mines are rich, and the features of nature unequalled in
the entire world; while the exhilaration of the electric air and the
wonderful beauty of coloring quite make up to Arizona resources that
are unsurpassed if not unrivalled.
Arizona is not an agricultural country by nature, nor hardly by grace.
The resources are mining and timber. Still there are probably some
twenty million acres capable of rich productiveness, on which wheat,
barley, corn, vegetables of all kinds, and also rice and cotton,
could be successfully cultivated if irrigation could be sufficiently
effected. The largest area of agricultural land lies in the regions
adjacent to Prescott and Phoenix. This Salt River Valley is rich in
alluvial soil. The Gila Valley also offers, though in lesser area,
the same fertile land, and the valleys of the Colorado, Chiquito, of
Pueblo Viejo, the Santa Cruz, the San Pedro, the Sulphur Springs,
and the great mesa between Florence and Phoenix, offer the same
possibilities. The great problem of Arizona is that of irrigation, as
most of the rivers lie at the bottom of inaccessible cañons and present
difficulties of access which no engineer can as yet clearly see a way
to overcome. The conditions are, however, materially assisted by the
rainy seasons, occurring usually in February or March and in July
or August, when water can be stored. The rain itself is as peculiar
in Arizona as are other conditions of this wonderland. It rains in
sections; it may rain in torrents in a man's front yard while the sun
shines in his back yard; or if this statement has something of the
flavor of "travellers'" tales, it is at least typical of actual facts.
Five minutes' walking is often all that is required to carry one into,
or out of, a severe downpour of rain. The clouds follow the mountain
spurs as invariably as a needle follows the magnet and a torrent may
fall on the mountains above, flashing down in a hundred improvised
raging cataracts and waterfalls, while in the valley below the sun
shines out of the bluest of skies. No panoramic pictures of the stage
ever equalled the pictorial effects of a thunderstorm in the mountains,
when the forked lightning leaps from peak to peak in a blaze, through
the air; when it dashes like a meteoric shower from rock to crag, and
the thunder reverberates with the mighty roar of a thousand oceans
beating their surf on the shore.
In Maricopa County, in the Salt River Valley, new and important
conditions have been initiated by the government system of irrigation
which has transformed arid lands into fertile gardens. The government
has expended three million dollars in constructing the Salt River dam
(sixty miles north of Phoenix), which is the largest artificial
lake in the world. This reservoir will store one and a half million
acres-feet of water, drawing it from the mountain cañons miles away.
Not only does this project mean an abundant water supply for a region
heretofore useless, but rich returns as well.
There are few regions which so attract and reward the researches of
the scientist as does Arizona. The geologist, the mineralogist, the
ethnologist, the archæologist, finds here the most amazing field for
apparently unending investigation and study. Nor is the botanist
excluded. The flora of Arizona offers the same strange and unique
developments that characterize the region in so many other directions.
The cacti flourish in riotous growth. The saguaro, a giant species,
frequently attains a height of forty feet. A strange spectacle it is,
with its pale green body, fluted like a Corinthian column, and its
colossal arms outstretched, covered with immense prickly thorns and
bearing purple blossoms. The century plant flourishes in Arizona.
There is a curious scarlet flower, blooming in clusters, at the top
of straight pole-like stumps ten to fifteen feet in height, which
terminate in luxuriant masses of scarlet blossoms and green leaves,
and grow in groups of from a dozen to fifty together, producing the
most fascinating color effects in the landscape. This plant is called
the ocotilla. There are plants which produce a fibrous textile leaf
which the native Mexicans used as paper; there are others whose roots
are used as a substitute for soap. The trees are largely pine, cedar,
and juniper, though in many parts of the state the rolling foothills
bear forests of oak, and the sycamore, ash, elder, walnut, and the
swift-growing cottonwood are found along the watercourses.
[Illustration: COLLECTION OF CACTI MADE BY OFFICERS AT FORT McDOWELL,
ARIZONA, FOR THIS PICTURE]
"The echinocactus, or bisnaga, is also called 'The Well of the
Desert,'" says Dr. Joseph A. Munk in some interesting sketches of
Arizona.[4] "It has a large barrel-shaped body, which is covered with
long spikes that are curved like fishhooks. It is full of sap that is
sometimes used to quench thirst. By cutting off the top and scooping
out a hollow, the cup-shaped hole soon fills with a sap that is not
exactly nectar, but can be drunk in an emergency. Men who have been in
danger of perishing from thirst on the desert have sometimes been saved
by this unique method of well-digging."
Of the palo verde Dr. Munk notes that it is "a true child of the
desert," and he adds:
"No matter how hot and dry the weather, the palo verde is always
green and flourishing. At a distance it resembles a weeping willow
tree stripped of its leaves. Its numerous long, slender, drooping
branches gracefully crisscross and interlace in an intricate figure
of filigree work. It has no commercial value, but if it could be
successfully transplanted and transported it would make a desirable
addition to greenhouse collections in the higher latitudes.
"The romantic mistletoe, that is world-renowned for its magic
influence in love affairs, grows to perfection in Southern Arizona.
There are several varieties of this parasitic plant that are very
unlike in appearance. Each kind partakes more or less of the
characteristics of the tree upon which it grows, but all have the
glossy leaf and waxen berry."
The grasses of Arizona, are, in some places, very beautiful, of a rich
velvety green; and the infinite varieties of wild clover, the gramma,
the buffalo, the sacatone, and other grasses, are richly nutritive and
offer good facilities for grazing. As a wool-producing country Arizona
has no rival, the climate giving the best of protection to sheep
with the minimum of care, and the grazing offering adequate means of
support; and stock raising of all kinds, indeed, is destined to become
a great industry in Southern Arizona.
The climate of Arizona can only be alluded to in the plural, as in the
expressive phrase of one of Mr. George W. Cable's creole characters,
"dose climates," for Arizona has all the climates of the known world.
The range of choice almost exceeds the range of the Fahrenheit
registration. From the mountain summit, covered with snow for at least
ten months out of the year, to the heat in Yuma, which has scored up to
one hundred and twenty-eight degrees or more, there are all varieties
and every conceivable quality of atmosphere. In the main, however, the
climate of Arizona is inexpressibly delightful.
Dr. Munk, who is one of the distinguished physicians in Los Angeles,
has made a study of Arizona as a health resort, and of its conditions
he says:
"The atmosphere of Arizona is not only dry, but also very
electrical; so much so, indeed, that at times it becomes almost
painful. Whenever the experiment is tried, sparks can be produced
by friction or the handling of metal, hair, or wool. It affects
animals as well as man, and literally causes 'the hair to stand on
end.' The writer has on various occasions seen a string of horses
standing close together at a watering-trough, drinking, so full of
electricity that their manes and tails were spread out and floated
in the air, and the long hairs drawn by magnetic attraction from
one animal to the other all down the line in a spontaneous effort
to complete a circuit. There are times when the free electricity
in the air is so abundant that every object becomes charged with
the fluid, and it cannot escape fast enough or find 'a way out' by
any adequate conductor. The effect of such an excess of electricity
is decidedly unpleasant on the nerves, and causes annoying
irritability and nervousness.
"The hot sun sometimes blisters the skin and burns the complexion
to a rich nut-brown color, but the air always feels soft and balmy,
and usually blows only in gentle zephyrs. The air has a pungent
fragrance which is peculiar to the desert, that is the mingled
product of a variety of resinous plants. The weather is uniformly
pleasant, and the elements are rarely violently disturbed.
"In the older settled sections of our country, whenever there is
any sudden or extreme change of either heat or cold, wet or dry, it
is always followed by an increase of sickness and death. The aged
and invalid, who are sensitive and weak, suffer most, as they feel
every change in the weather. There is, perhaps, no place on earth
that can boast of a perfect climate, but the country that can show
the fewest and mildest extremes approaches nearest to the ideal.
The Southwest is exceptionally favored in its climatic conditions."
There is a legend that the poetic, musical name, Arizona, was derived
from "Ari," a maiden queen who once ruled the destinies of the Primas,
and "Zon," a valley, from the romantic configuration of the state,
the two combining into the melodious "Arizona." The tradition is
sufficiently romantic to be in keeping with the country it designates,
and nothing tends more to simplify the too complex processes of life,
not to say history, than to apply the rule of believing those things
that appeal to one's sense of the "eternal fitness" and rejecting
those which do not. The apostles of the simple life might well include
this contribution toward simplicity as an axiom of their faith. At all
events, as no other origin of Arizona's pretty name is on record, one
may indulge himself in accepting this one with a clear conscience.
The authentic Spanish history of Arizona dates to the exploration of
Mendoza in 1540. For nearly three hundred years--until the treaty of
Guadaloupe-Hidalgo in 1866, when all the region north of the Gila
and Mesilla valleys was incorporated into the area of the United
States--the Spanish explorers and the Indian natives were in perpetual
conflict, and it was as late as 1863 that Arizona received its name
and individual domain as separate from New Mexico, with which it had
been incorporated. At the time of the Guadaloupe-Hidalgo treaty Arizona
did not contain a single white settlement in the north and west. Near
Tucson and Tuba were a few hundred whites, but all the other portions
were the domain of the Apaches and the Moquis. In 1856 the Hon. James
Gadsden, then United States Minister to Mexico, negotiated for the
purchase of this territory at a price of ten million dollars, and the
Mexican colors in Tucson were replaced by the Stars and Stripes. On
December 1, 1854, a memorial was presented to the legislature of New
Mexico for a separate territorial organization and name of the new
acquirement.
Although the Spanish civilization has long since receded into the dim
historic past, its spirit is impressed in the very air; its zeal and
fervor still, in some mysterious way, permeate the atmosphere.
Until 1863 Arizona remained a portion of New Mexico, the separate
territorial government of each being inaugurated at Fort Whipple, near
Prescott,--a thriving town of some six thousand people, named for the
historian whose works are the unquestionable authority on matters of
the Aztec and Spanish civilizations. Prescott is one of the young
Western cities that has a great future. Its altitude insures it a
delightful climate, the railroad facilities are good, and it is in a
region of almost fabulous mineral wealth. The "United Verde" mine, one
of the possessions of Senator Clark of Montana, is some thirty-five
miles from Prescott and yields vast revenues. Within thirty miles of
the town there are very large beds of onyx, one of which covers over
one hundred acres. This onyx is found in all colors,--the translucent
old gold, green, red, black, and white, with much in richly varied
combinations of color. Prescott has an altitude of a mile above the
sea and is a summer resort of itself for Phoenix and other Southern
Arizona towns. It is a distance of some three hundred miles from
Ash Fork to Winhelman, and Prescott and Phoenix are one hundred
miles apart, Prescott being only a hundred miles from Ash Fork and
Phoenix about the same distance from Winhelman. Near Prescott there
is a curious spot which is not less worthy of world-wide fame than is
the "Garden of the Gods" at Colorado Springs; although the "Point of
Rocks," as this grotesque system of formation near Prescott is called,
is little known to travellers. It is of that same unique sandstone
formation that is found in the "Garden of the Gods." Ruskin declared
that he could not visit America on the ground that it contained no
castles; but had his vision included Colorado and Arizona, with their
wonderful sandstone formations, he would have found castles galore so
far as scenic effect goes. It is not alone the "Garden of the Gods"
and the "Point of Rocks" that are marvellous spectacles, but all over
the states, here and there, on foothill and mountain and mesa, these
strange, fantastic, colossal rock formations arise, that have all the
landscape effect of the castles and towers in Italy.
All the country around Prescott is alluring. On the branch road from
Ash Fork of the main transcontinental line to Winhelman some three
hundred miles south, there is an assortment of scenery which might be
described as warranted to please every taste. There are lofty mountains
pine-clad and green with verdure; others are seen barren and bleak,
whose sides and foothills are only decorated with the débris of mines.
There are vast desert solitudes where only the misshapen cacti grow,
looming up like giant skeletons in the air; and again there are glades
carpeted with a profusion of flowers in brilliant hues. There are
river-beds (arroyos) without any water and there are streams that go
wandering about, in aimless fashion, devoid of regulation river-beds.
Some of the arroyos, indeed, have streams running in strong currents,
but they hide these streams under the river-bed, as something too
valuable perhaps for common view. The clairvoyance of the scientific
vision, however, detects this fraud on the part of the arroyo at once,
so that of late years it is of little use for any well-regulated river
to hide its current under its bed. It may just as well relinquish the
attempt and let the stream run in an honest Eastern fashion, like the
Connecticut River, for instance, which is staid and steady, like its
state, and never undertakes to play pranks with its current. Since the
scientist has fixed his glittering eye on Colorado and Arizona, all the
gnomes and nixies have the time of their life to elude this vigilance,
and they seldom succeed. The scientist relentlessly harnesses them to
his use; and though a river may think to conceal its course by taking
refuge under its bed instead of running honestly along above it, the
effort is hopeless in an age when the scientist is abroad. It is said
that there are no secrets in heaven, and apparently nature is very like
paradise in this respect at least, for it is quite useless for her to
pretend to keep her operations to herself. The specialist, the expert,
surprises every secret she may treasure.
Of all the rivers in Arizona no one has more entirely defied all the
accepted traditions of staying in its place and keeping within its own
limits than has the Colorado, which, not content with the extraordinary
part it plays at the bottom of that Titanic chasm, the Grand Cañon,
is now creating an inland sea, named the Salton Sea, in Southern
California. Prof. N. H. Newell, the government expert hydrographer of
the United States Geological Survey, has given close attention to the
Colorado of late, and of it he says:
"... The Colorado cuts in its course the deepest cañons on the
face of the earth. From the solid rocks where it has made them,
through hundreds of miles, it has taken material down to the Gulf
of California, and by slight but regular annual overflows gradually
built banks on each side out into that gulf. These, in time, cut
off the head of the gulf, leaving dry a depression in Southern
California, considerably below sea level, known as 'the Salton
Sink.' For miles of its journey the Southern Pacific runs below
sea level. Ten thousand people, approximately, in what is known as
the Imperial Valley, live below the sea level. A privately owned
irrigation enterprise, on the Mexican side of the line, cut a gash
into this bank of the Colorado which nature had been forming. The
high waters came and man lost control of his artificial channel,
with the result that the river thought best to pour its waters
back into the depression which had once been a part of the Gulf of
California. To get the river to resume its own course is no small
task, and with it the Southern Pacific railroad evidently purposes
to grapple heroically.
[Illustration: LOOKING THROUGH A PART OF THE RIVER GORGE, FOOT OF BAD
TRAIL, GRAND CAÑON]
"The river is now pouring down a steep declivity into this basin,
which is two hundred feet or more below the sea level. If this were
allowed to continue, it would make a great salt lake in Southern
California. This water has already risen to the point where it
has submerged big salt works and fifteen miles of the Southern
Pacific's overland track, forcing that company to build around
the rising sea, and, unless its engineers succeed in routing the
Colorado for its old destination, it will be necessary to rebuild a
much longer piece of that road. Some people have argued that such
a sea would affect favorably the climate of Southern California,
but they forget that the great Gulf of California, jutting into
the most barren regions of the United States and Mexico, seemingly
has had no good effect on the climate of either. The Salton Sea
would add only two per cent of water surface to that part of the
country, and so hardly would do what the Gulf of California has
not accomplished. Unless the break is restored, the river will
pour into this basin, forming a very shallow lake, which would
be almost a frying-pan under that semi-tropical sun. This would
continue to rise until evaporation balanced the river flow, and
then would fluctuate with the seasons of the year, shrinking in
area during the months of the heaviest evaporation and slightest
inflow.
"The gash in the river bank was cut by a Mexican corporation on
that side of the international line, but the water is delivered
to a number of American corporations, so that to-day several
are concerned in the affair. It is understood that the Southern
Pacific, when the river reaches its lowest stage, will put in
a great force of men in an endeavor to get the river back to
its former course. One great difficulty comes in the sugar-like
material which has been eroded, in which it is extremely hard to
insert any permanent structure. A pile one hundred feet deep will
be driven into it, and almost as soon the water, working in under
it, will lift it out."
The Salton Sea, at this writing, covers an area of over four hundred
square miles, and is constantly increasing. The Southern Pacific
Railway that traversed its border has been driven twice from its line
and forced to lay new roadbeds and tracks. It is also creating great
confusion as to irrigation facilities, both in the United States and
in Mexico, within the region where it lies; and as a scientific event
it is one of the first magnitude,--an act in the drama of nature made
visible to all.
The Salton Sink has long been known to the explorers and visitors
of this region. It was a vast basin of some one hundred and forty
miles in length and sixty-five or seventy in width; the evident
bed of a former sea, which had become a desolate and barren waste.
Sometimes a mirage--a not unfrequent phenomenon in Arizona and Southern
California,--would transform this long deserted basin into a phantom
sea, wonderful in aspect. To what extent this transformation will
continue defies prophecy.
Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, is in Maricopa County,--a county
as large as the entire state of Massachusetts. The journey of two
hundred miles between Ash Fork and Phoenix is one of the most
uncanny and unearthly sort of trips, with mountains resembling a
witches' dance,--full of grotesque wonder and romantic charm,--but the
experience is almost like visiting another planet and coming under
totally different conditions of life. Phoenix is both the capital
and the metropolis of Arizona, and no city west of the Mississippi is
more popular among tourists or is able to inspire a stronger sentiment
of attachment among its residents. To some twelve or thirteen thousand
inhabitants are added, every winter, from four to five thousand
tourists. The city lies in the centre of the Salt River Valley,--that
marvel of the Southwest. The most important and valuable agricultural
region in Colorado lies in Maricopa County, of which Phoenix is the
pet and pride. In this locality the visitor to Arizona returns to the
normal day and daylight world again. The forest trees are not stone
quarries, nor have meteors, wandering through space, buried themselves
in its soil. There is no need of colossal magnetic appliances to seek
to discover and extricate some submerged star. Nor has the earth opened
and disclosed an Inferno, "bathed in celestial fires," as that of the
Grand Cañon far away to the northwest. The streams "stay put" within
their legitimate borders, and are apparently as firm in "standing pat"
as is the Republican party over a (new) tariff revision. Maricopa
County pursues a way of peaceful prosperity, with no lapse into the
vaudeville of petrified forests and buried stars. Her stars make their
appointed rounds in the skies, and shine nightly upon the just and the
unjust. In the northern part of Maricopa there are mineral districts
of rich ores, gold and copper as well as silver, lead, and others, but
chiefly the county holds her way as an agricultural region, indulging
in no freaks. Canals radiate in every direction from the Salt and
the Verde rivers. The Salt River Valley is so level that a theory
prevails that in some prehistoric ages it was smoothed by the Toltec
civilization, which even preceded that of the Aztec. Fields of alfalfa,
miles in extent, smile in the sunshine, while cattle graze knee-deep in
luxurious clover. Orange groves alternate with the apple and apricot
orchards. The date-palm, the fig, and the olive trees abound. Beautiful
homes stand in spacious grounds shaded by the dark foliage of the
umbrella tree, through which gleams the scarlet of the oleander and
the brilliant gold of the pomegranate.
Phoenix offers to the resident or the visitor a good proportion
of the best that life can give: in good society, that which is
intelligent, moral, cultured, and sympathetic; in an admirable school
system; in churches of many denominations,--Catholic, Episcopal,
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Christian Science, and others,--all
having their fine houses of worship and earnest congregations. There
is an excellent and a constantly growing public library, and there are
four daily and several weekly newspapers, business blocks that would
do no discredit to any large Eastern city, a circuit telephone system
completely equipped, gas and water works, free city and rural mail
delivery, good hotels, a theatre, and an opera house. There are banks
and a Board of Trade. There are clubs both of men and women. The State
Normal School of Arizona is nine miles distant--in Tempe.
There are three railroads that centre in Phoenix which transport
the traveller with the usual accepted ease and luxury of modern
railroading; and a new road to form a link in a second Santa Fé
transcontinental line will then place Phoenix on a trunk road over
which the Santa Fé traffic will largely pass.
The winters in Phoenix are most attractive. From October till May
there is a climate all balm and sunshine without the enervating quality
felt in the tropics. The region all around has good roads, and driving
and riding are most enjoyable.
Seventy-five miles east from Phoenix, in the Tonto Basin, the
government is building a vast water storage dam which it is expected
will liberally irrigate two hundred thousand acres of land which,
under reclamation, will produce in rich abundance both agricultural
and horticultural products. The climate and conditions combine those
of the temperate and the semi-tropical zones and favor products grown
in both. The Tonto dam will be, with the possible exception of the
Assouan dam in Egypt, the greatest storage enterprise in the world. It
will be constructed of hard sandstone imbedded in cement, making it as
permanent as the mountains. It will be two hundred and eighty-five feet
above foundations and only two hundred feet wide at the bottom. Above
will be a lake about twenty-five miles long, with storage capacity for
one and a half millions acre-feet, which means enough water to cover
that number of acres a foot deep. Even to the best of cement, Nature
has provided on the ground every necessity for construction. Along the
hillsides above is being dug a power canal, to discharge above the dam,
there to generate not less than five thousand horsepower,--more than
enough for the demands of construction. When the dam is finished this
power will be transmitted electrically to the vicinity of Phoenix,
here to be used for pumping. The government engineers have made plans
for eventually developing eighteen thousand horsepower, by harnessing
the falls of the river and the canals.
The Salt River Valley has more than fifty thousand acres devoted to
alfalfa, which sometimes yields six crops in a year. Wheat, barley, and
corn are also grown, and the orange groves produce the finest fruit
known in the Eastern markets, antedating by a month the California
oranges. Grapes, apricots, and dates abound; and if Maricopa County
does not literally as well as figuratively find that her land is
flowing in milk and honey, it is certainly not for lack of the most
favorable conditions.
The Arizona strawberries, too, are a feature of importance in the fruit
market, as for both size and flavor they absolutely exceed almost any
other in the United States.
All this sunny prosperity of conditions and loveliness of climate
reacts on life. There is a poise, a serene confidence, and a charm of
good-will and joyous companionship felt in Phoenix that give to this
delightful young city an individuality of its own.
The great dam now being built in the Tonto Basin has made it necessary
to destroy the town of Roosevelt,--a village of two thousand
inhabitants, with its churches, schools, water-works, electric lights,
and other appliances of modern civilization. "Roosevelt must perish,"
writes a press correspondent, "that a desert may be made to bloom.
Already the marvellous engineering work is well under way. The walls
of the narrow cañon through which Salt River rushes on edge are being
locked by a massive monolith of solid masonry, the highest arch dam in
the world."
The writer continues:
"This wonderful structure of sandstone and cement will be two
hundred and eighty feet in height from foundation to parapet.
Placed by the side of an eighteen-story skyscraper, this dam would
rise ten feet above it, while its length on top would be more than
two city blocks. A turbulent stream, with its enormous floods, will
beat itself into stillness against the masonry monster, its foam
and spume lost in a deep lake twenty-five miles long and two miles
wide.
"By day and by night the dull roar of dynamite breaks the desert
stillness, and the cañon walls go crashing down to furnish material
for this structure. On the hill far above, the rock crushers never
stop grinding the limestone, and great kilns, white hot, are
burning daily hundreds of barrels of cement.
"When night comes, myriads of electric lights burst forth, weirdly
illuminating a busy army of toilers working gnome-like in a shadowy
cañon. A star-gemmed heaven looks down upon a wondrous scene,
unreal, awesome, and inspiring.
"This great work of the government possesses unusual attractions
for the engineer and the layman. It is located in a valley which
has been the abode of three races, one of which lived here when
Cæsar sat upon his throne. In an age forgotten the cliff-dwellers
built their eyrie-like homes along the cañons of this stream, and
in the narrow valleys the lines of their irrigation canals may yet
be traced. Centuries later the Apaches came, and for many years
their tepees dotted the basin. Then came the white man, who sought
to reconquer the desert, which had resumed its sway after the
cliff-dwellers vanished.
"The battle with unfriendly nature proved too much for the pioneer,
and Uncle Sam took a hand in the fight. No problems could daunt
his engineers. They laughed at floods and mocked at desolation. A
dam site was discovered sixty-two miles from a railroad, and they
proceeded to connect it with civilization by a marvellous road
which winds its way for forty miles through deep cañons, along the
face of frowning precipices, over foaming cataracts, and across
broad areas of treeless desert. It opens up to the transcontinental
traveller a new region of compelling interest and of splendid
scenery. Better than that, it provides an easy thoroughfare for the
transportation of heavy machinery of all kinds and the supplies for
the new community which sprang into life almost at a word.
"... Every stone that is laid in the narrow arch, which is to
retain the foaming river now rushing through the cañon, brings
nearer and nearer the day when Roosevelt shall vanish beneath an
inland sea. When the great dam is completed, in 1908, and its
massive gates of steel, weighing eight hundred thousand pounds, are
shut down, a rising flood will cover the site of the city with two
hundred feet of water.
"The ingenuity of man has been taxed in this work. Its isolated
position, the difficult physical conditions, the tremendous and
unexpected floods, have tried the mettle of the engineers. The
enormous amount of cement required was in itself a problem which
forced Uncle Sam to turn manufacturer in order to solve it. Nature,
having kindly furnished an ideal site for a dam, was thoughtful
enough to provide materials near at hand for making cement. A
cement mill was quickly erected at a cost of one hundred thousand
dollars. The downward rush of the river was utilized for electric
power to operate the mill, and many thousand barrels of first-class
cement have already been used in the works.
"But while the city of Roosevelt, with the homes of its two
thousand inhabitants, is doomed, a fair valley is to be redeemed in
which the agricultural possibilities are not exceeded anywhere in
the world. Under almost tropical skies, with a soil of wonderful
fertility, the farmer in Salt River Valley will cultivate his
orange groves, his fig trees, his vines, while his broad meadows
will yield him heavy harvests of alfalfa six and seven times a year.
"The great lake which will be created by the Roosevelt dam is to be
tapped by canals hundreds of miles long and extending all over the
broad valley around Phoenix. Vast areas now absolutely worthless
will be transformed quickly into blossoming orchards and purpling
vineyards, and hundreds of happy homes will dot a plain where now
the giant saguaro rears its spiny head and the Gila monster roams
at will."
Life in the Far West is a continual series of the occurrence of such
events as these. Its problems are largely solved by the civil engineer
and the irrigation expert, who transform vast deserts to regions of
blossoming beauty, change the course of a river, send railroad trains
climbing the mountain peaks or penetrating beneath the range, and who
are, in short, the modern magicians who work their will with the forces
of nature. The National Reclamation Act is fairly recreating the entire
Southwest.
The Gila River, which is the largest tributary of the Colorado, flows
through the regions south of Florence, Arizona, and affords water to
many fertile and beautiful valleys; and Florence, with the towns of
Yuma, Tucson, Glendale, Bisbee, Winslow, and others, is fully abreast
in modern life. Large department stores, public libraries, schools and
churches, women's clubs, daily newspapers, good railroad facilities,
free postal delivery,--all these make up the environment of a splendid
and progressive citizenship. As the Governor of Arizona, Hon. Joseph H.
Kirley, has recently said:
"Nowhere can a man who respects his neighbor's rights, with
reasonably strict attention to his own business, go about with more
freedom and with greater confidence of personal safety than in
Arizona. Locked and barricaded doors are in most parts of Arizona a
novelty. The professional thief is almost unknown in the territory."
The East--at least the portion of it that has not personally visited
the magic land of Arizona--can form little idea of its marvellous
resources and its potent achievements.
The statehood problem looms up on the social and political horizon,
and there is a strong feeling that to force Arizona and New Mexico
into union would do violence to the judgment and the feeling of the
citizens of Arizona. For several years past the incipient possibility
of statehood on these terms has aroused widespread opposition.
The local press voices almost daily the editorial convictions that such
a union would be most disastrous to the interests of Arizona--a country
which is simply a wonderland of treasure and rich and varied resources.
Arizona is settled chiefly by people from the great South and from New
England, the Middle West being hardly represented; its citizens are of
the best quality of our national life, and to unite them with those of
New Mexico--a large proportion of whom can hardly speak or understand
the English language even, to say nothing of their divergence in race,
requirements, and habits from the population of Arizona--would be
imposing upon them a century's delay in realizing the grand ideals of
education, moral progress, and economic development now prevailing in
Arizona.
Phoenix has to-day a better public-school system than Boston, and
other surprising degrees of progress might be related of many of the
towns.
Hon. N. O. Murphy, twice a Governor of Arizona, has recently made
an eloquent plea against forcing these two territories into union as
a state. Ex-Governor Murphy was appointed by President Harrison (in
1889) Secretary of Arizona. Under President Cleveland he was elected
the Delegate to Congress representing the territorial interests; and
on the expiration of this term he was appointed by President McKinley
the Governor of the territory. His experience has given him the most
intimate knowledge and wide grasp of territorial conditions, and in
a letter of three columns over his own signature to the "Washington
Post," appearing under date of February 25, 1906, ex-Governor Murphy
does not hesitate to say that were the Bill for united statehood
then pending before Congress passed, it would be one of the greatest
legislative outrages ever perpetrated in this country. "I refer
particularly to the proposed merger of the territories of Arizona and
New Mexico into a single state against the protests of the people of
those territories," he added.
The ex-Governor points out these statistical facts:
"The area of New England, comprising six states, with twelve
senators, is 66,465 square miles; the area of the territory of
Arizona is nearly twice as great, being 113,916 square miles.
"The area of the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, now
proposed to be merged, is 235,600 square miles, or greater than
Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New
Jersey, represented in the Upper House now by twenty-two senators."
The fact that the population of New Mexico is largely Mexican, and that
of Arizona is mostly American, suggests a potent reason for the strong
feeling in Arizona against this proposition. Their racial instincts and
their business interests alike conflict. If they are joined as a single
state, there will be continual jealousy and friction, and legislation
to promote the interests of one-half the state will necessarily be at
the expense of the other.
To the traveller sensitive to the spell of a strange, unearthly beauty,
Arizona prefigures itself as the country God remembered rather than as
"the country God forgot." It is at once the oldest and the newest of
the states. Its authentic and historic past antedates the coming of the
Mayflower to the rocky and desolate December shores of Massachusetts,
while its future flashes before one like an electric panorama
outspeeding wireless telegraphy. It is the Land of Magic and Mystery.
The light is a perpetual radiance, as if proceeding from some alchemy
of distilled sunshine. While Colorado is the Land of Perpetual Dawn,
of an heroic and poetic achievement, Arizona is the region of brooding
mystery, of strange surprise.
There are the music and pictures of Arizona in her fertile valleys,
her wide rolling mesas; and the very melody of the wind harps meet and
mingle with the organ strains of sweeping orchestral effects of the
winds in the cañons and in wild, desolate gorges where impenetrable
twilight renders them a veritable No Man's Land. Mr. Aldrich's "Two
Shapes" might have met in that uncanny region of the Petrified Forest.
The very dance of the Brocken may nightly be seen in the midnight
fissures and steep precipices of the Grand Cañon.
It is, however, essentially the land of mirage and mystery, this
wonderful Arizona! As one journeys about he half fancies that he hears
on the air those magic lines:
"O birds of ether without wings!
O heavenly ships without a sail!"
Every incredible thing is possible in this miracle country, where
purple mountain peaks quiver in the shimmering golden light, where
ruins of remote ages stand side by side with the primitive mechanism
of pioneer living, where snow-capped mountain peaks are watched from
valleys that have the temperature and the productions of the tropics.
Arizona contains unknown and undreamed-of resources of gold, copper,
and silver. The state has the richest possibilities in mineral wealth;
there are thousands of square miles of range lands; there is wealth of
forests, although it is a part of the miracle character of this state
of color and dream life that its forests are almost as much concealed
from casual view as are its minerals hidden in the depths of the
earth, for they are secluded in deep cañons or they are high out of
sight on the mountain summits. In fruits and flowers Arizona has the
luxurious growth and lavish abundance of the tropics, producing grapes,
figs, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, pineapples, and peaches,--almost
everything, indeed, unless it be the apples of Hesperides.
Although Arizona has not the electric exhilaration and infinite energy
of Colorado, it has a delicious quality, as if the very air were a
caress. Though warm in the south, the heat has none of the enervating
effect of the heat where humidity combines with it. The heat here is
so dry, the air so pure, that there is little extreme discomfort even
when the mercury soars to legendary altitudes. In winter all Southern
Arizona is a paradise of loveliness. At this season the towns of
Florence, Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, and other points invite one to the
balmy air, the luminous brilliant skies, and the nights, which are a
glory of starry illumination. Northern Arizona has a perfection of
summer climate, and the Grand Cañon is destined in the near future to
become one of the great summer resorts of the world. With the splendid
facilities for comfort offered by the arrangements, the traveller
finds all his accustomed conveniences, and the cañon has literally all
seasons for its own. There is one glory of July and another glory of
January; there is a transcendent loveliness of June, and an equally
indescribable charm of October. No month is without its special reasons
for visiting at that time this most marvellous scenic wonder of the
entire earth.
In remote ages Arizona was evidently an inland sea.
Montezuma Well, on the Verde River, some fifty miles from Prescott, is
one of the strange spectacles of Arizona. The well is on an elevated
mesa of solid limestone. It has a circular opening some six hundred
feet in diameter, as perfect as if carved by a skilled workman. From
the surface opening down to the water is a distance of some seventy
feet, and the water itself is over one hundred feet deep. It is
perfectly clear and pure. Near the well are several cave dwellings, and
fragments of pottery abound in the vicinity. There are beds of lava,
also revealing that the well is the crater of an extinct volcano.
There can be no question but that Arizona is one of the most marvellous
regions of the world. Its interest to the tourist is not exceeded
by that of the Yellowstone, whose mountains and geysers and strange
color effects enchant poet and painter. For the cañon system of the
Arizona mountain ranges, the stupendous majesty of scenic grandeur
which reaches its supreme aspect in the Grand Cañon of the Colorado,
the wonders of extinct volcanic action, the colossal channels cut by
the action of water, the unearthly splendor of the coloring in sky and
atmospheric effects, all combine to make this state the very embodiment
and visible expression of magic and mystery.
In the broken mountain ranges the detached peaks extend, with
narrow, fertile valleys lying between; while deep cañons and wild
gorges, with rushing mountain torrents, still further diversify the
grandeur of the panorama. Five great rivers add another impressive
feature,--the Colorado, the San Juan, the Salinas, the Verde, and the
San Francisco,--this system of rivers completing the most extraordinary
combination of mountain, valley, mesa, and cañon to be found in the
entire world. Numberless extinct volcanoes and vast lava beds add their
fantastic imagery; and the metamorphic rock strata, recording the most
violent volcanic upheavals, tell the prehistoric story of the fiery
molten flood which swept over all this region when the earth was new.
As has perhaps been suggested in the preceding pages, life in Arizona
is by no means without its features of entertainment. These include
various aspects, not to mention one that is by no means to be enjoyed
in any of the great Eastern centres,--that of the exclusive annual
festivity of the "Snake Dance." Chicago and Paris, New York and London,
may find social entertainment in balls and opera, dancing and dining,
but in Arizona one goes to this entertainment on the Painted Desert;
and if in some happy summer of life one's horoscope has deflected his
course into Arizona and Colorado, one comes to regard those fascinating
localities with the devotion of a native of their sunny climes.
After all, it is not length of time in any experience of life that is
significant, but intensity of feeling, and one finds himself really
living more intensely in a few weeks in the Far West, in all its wonder
world, than in years or decades of his accustomed rounds in Eastern
cities.
This entertainment of the Snake Dance is furnished by the Moki Indians
at their camp some seventy miles over the desert from Flagstaff. There
is no means of conveyance save by wagons. The journey is over sagebrush
and sand, enlivened by stones and cacti. The horses can make only slow
progress. But the air is simply delightful and full of exhilaration,
and the particular desert over which those who fare forth for this
æsthetic spectacle must pass is the "Painted Desert," whose walls of
rocks and mountains, brilliant in a dream of color, recede as they are
approached, and thus the entire two days consumed in the journey are
a perpetual delight to the eye. The wayfarers camp out overnight, and
during the five days' journey--two days to go, two to return, and one
to stay--their wants are, perforce, reduced to the most primitive.
As the festivity lasts only twenty-eight minutes, it is certainly
spending a good deal of time and energy in order to behold so brief a
spectacle. But one is told it is worth all the fatigue and the time. It
is a religious rite of the Moki Indians, and is a prayer for rain. The
description of it is a literal one, for the dancers hold from one to
three snakes--and rattlesnakes at that--in the mouth as they perform
their strange gyrations. The dancers are the "braves," while the squaws
chant a crooning accompaniment.
One student of this Indian rite has said:
"With the first glow in the east the priests hasten to the shrine
of the Sun God with their offerings, the luminary himself being
greeted with a prayer or with songs as he slowly emerges from
behind the mesa in the Far East. Later the priests repair to their
homes, and return to the kiva, bearing the ceremonial paraphernalia
with which, early in the afternoon, they robe themselves in
gorgeous array preparatory to the dance, which is given usually
before the sun sets behind the San Francisco Peaks.
"As the priests emerge from the kiva, where they wait in line until
all have appeared, there is the hush of expectancy throughout the
village; the inhabitants now line the terraces, house-tops and
every available spot around the dance plaza, all being attired
in their gayest and brightest costumes. In single file and with
measured tread comes the line of priests. Entering the plaza, they
wheel about and begin a slow, short dance, the time of the step
being accompanied by the shaking of rattles and by the singing of
sacred songs. The dance is over all too soon, when the spectators
return to their camps and the priests to the kiva, where great
quantities of food have been brought for them. Finally, in a
great feast, they break the fast, which, on the part of the chief
priests, has been maintained for many days."
It is quite by way of being love's labor lost to visit Arizona during
that period of time devoted to the Moqui Festival. Apparently the
entire population betake themselves to this entertainment, journeying
over the desert in their wagons, carrying with them their beds,
their food, and every necessity, for except what they take with them
they must do without. But as all the world, alas, cannot or does not
dwell in Arizona,--a region in which any one sunset alone is worth
the journey there,--and is thus deprived of the unique privilege of
assisting at the Snake Dance, the next best thing, as a substitute,
is to read the new work of George Wharton James (the author of "In
and Around the Grand Canyon") called "Indians of the Painted Desert
Region." It is the very gateway to a wide and deeply interesting
knowledge of Indian life in Arizona and its relation to advancing
civilization. It is the presentation of a series of wonderful
landscapes in a vivid manner of word-picturing.
"Wild, weird, and mystic pictures are formed in the mind by the very
name--Painted Desert," writes Mr. James. "The sound suggests a fabled
rather than a real land. Surely it must be akin to Atlantis or the
island of Circe or the place where the Cyclops lived. Is it not a
land of enchantment and dreams, not a place for living men and women,
Indians though they be?"
It seems that the Spaniards gave the name "El Pintado Deserto"--the
Painted Desert.
"Stand with me," writes Mr. James, "on the summit of one of the
towering mountains that guard the region, and you will see such a
landscape of color as exists nowhere else in the world. It suggests the
thought of God's original palette, where he experimented in color ere
he decided how to paint the sunset, tint the sun-kissed hills at dawn,
give red to the rose, green to the leaves, yellow to the sunflowers....
Look! here is a vast field of alkali,--fine, dazzling white. Yonder is
a mural face half a thousand feet high and two hundred or more miles
long. It is over a hundred miles away, but it reveals the rich glowing
red of its walls, and between it and us are vast patches of pinks,
grays, greens, carmines, blue, yellow, crimson, and brown, blending
in every conceivable shade in a strange and grotesque yet fascinating
manner. It is a rainbow petrified. It is a sunset painted on desert
sands."
And here art and archæology may revel. "History--exciting, thrilling,
tragic--has been made in the Painted Desert region; was being made
centuries before Lief Ericson landed on the shores of Vinland or John
and Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol.... In the Painted Desert
region we find peoples strange, peculiar, and interesting, whose
mythology is more fascinating than that of ancient Greece, and for
aught we know to the contrary, may be equally ancient; whose ceremonies
of to-day are more elaborate than those of a devout Catholic, more
complex than those of a Hindoo Pantheist, more weird than those of
a howling dervish of Turkistan.... One of the countries comprised in
the Painted Desert region is the theme of an epoch ... reciting deeds
as brave and heroic as those of the Greeks at Marathon or Thermopylæ;
a poem recently discovered after having been buried in the tomb of
oblivion for over two hundred years. Here are peoples to whom a written
letter is witchcraft and sorcery, and yet who can read the heavens,
interpret the writings of the clouds, deserts, and cañons with unerring
certainty.... A land it is of witchcraft and sorcery, of horror and
dread of ghosts and goblins, of daily propitiations of fates and
powers, and princes of darkness and air, at the very thought of whom
withering injuries are sure to come."
One is tempted to run on and on in quotation from this fascinating
book, which depicts the strange life and the marvellous scenery in the
country "where atmospheric colorings are so perfect and so divinely
artistic that desolate deserts are made dreams of glory."
Harriet Monroe, the Chicago poet, playwright, and most charming of
essayists, who by no means limits her séances with the Muses to those
particular hours in which she dons her singing robes, has given this
prose-poem picture of a scene on the "Painted Desert":
"The rocks lay in belts as red as flame, yellow as gold, purple
as violets, and they seemed to shine of their own light; the City
of Rocks, flaming red, and high as mountains; one thousand foot
walls sheer to the desert, all carved in needles, spires, towers,
castles--the most tremendous thing on earth--there it lay!"
Of the sudden climatic changes of the desert Professor James says:
"I have been almost frozen in its piercing snowstorms; choked
with sand in its whirling sandstorms; wet through ere I could
dismount from my horse in its fierce rainstorms; terrified and
temporarily blinded by the brilliancy of its lightning storms,
and almost sunstruck by the scorching power of the sun in its
desolate confines.... With my horses I have camped, again and
again, waterless, on its arid and inhospitable rocks and sands, and
prayed for morning, only to resume our exhausting journey in the
fiercely beating rays of the burning sun; longing for some pool of
water, no matter how dirty, how stagnant, that our parched tongues
and throats might feel the delight of swallowing something fluid.
And last year (1902), in a journey to the home of the Hopi, my
friends and I saw a part of this desert covered with the waters of
a fierce rainstorm as if it were an ocean, and the 'dry-wash' of
the Oraibi the scene of a flood that for hours equalled the rapids
of the Colorado River. Desert though it is in the main,--barren,
wild, and desolate,--here and there within its boundaries are
fertile valleys, wooded slopes, and garden spots as rich as any
on earth; and the people who make their dwelling-place in this
inhospitable land present characteristics as strongly contrasted
as those of nature. Here are peoples of uncertain and mysterious
origin whose history is preserved only in fantastic legends and
traditional songs; whose government is as pure and perfect as that
of the patriarchs, and possibly as ancient, and yet more republican
than the most modern of existing governments; peoples whose women
build and own the houses, and whose men weave the garments of the
women, knit the stockings of their own wear, and are as expert
with needle and thread as their ancestors were with bow and arrow,
obsidian-tipped spear, or stone battle-axe.... Here are peoples
of stupendous religious beliefs. Peoples who can truthfully be
designated as the most religious of the world, yet peoples as
agnostic and sceptic, if not as learned as Hume, Voltaire, Spencer,
and Ingersoll. Peoples to whom a written letter is witchcraft
and sorcery, and yet who can read the heavens, interpret the
writings of the woods, deserts, and cañons with a certainty never
failing.... Here are intelligent farmers who for centuries have
scientifically irrigated their lands and yet who cut off the ears
of their burros to keep them from stealing corn.... Peoples who
pray by machinery as the Burmese use their prayer wheels, and who
'plant' supplications as a gardener plants trees and shrubs....
Peoples who are pantheists, sun worshippers, and snake dancers,
yet who have churches and convents built with incredible labor and
as extensive as any modern cathedral. Peoples whose conservatism
in manners and religion surpasses that of the veriest English
Tories; who for hundreds of years have steadily and successfully
resisted all efforts to 'convert' and change them, and who to-day
are as firm in their faiths as ever.... Peoples to whom fraternal
organizations and secret societies, for men and women alike, are as
ancient as the mountains they inhabit, whose lodgerooms are more
wonderful, and whose signs and passwords more complex, than those
of any organization of civilized lands and modern times."
One of the most weird and fascinating experiences in Arizona is a visit
to "Assamanuda," the "Country of the Departed Spirits." This is the
poetic name the Iroquois Indians give to the Painted Desert. This vast
plain stretches away with gigantic horizontal columns, the remains of
vast layers of sedimentary rock, from which the rains of prehistoric
ages have washed away the connecting earth, and the columns are
streaked and mottled with scarlet, due, it is said, to the oxidization
of particles of feldspar in the granite of which these rocks are
composed. Here may be witnessed in its perfection the Fata Morgana. In
the air appear palaces, hanging gardens, and temples; fountains and
wonderful parks adorned with sculpture; towers and turreted castles;
beautiful villas with terraced lawns and cascades of water thrown high
in the air; rose gardens and hills, where the deer and the antelope are
seen; all these and other visions of loveliness are pictured on the air
in a perfection of light and shading. It is not difficult to fancy that
one is really gazing into the ethereal world, beyond the pearly gates,
and gazing indeed into "the country of departed spirits."
[Illustration: SUWARA (GIANT CACTUS), SALT RIVER VALLEY, ARIZONA]
All Northern and Northeastern Arizona are comprised in the
region,--Nature's picture gallery. Dr. Newberry, the geologist, who
explored all the regions east of the upper Colorado as far as the
junction of the Green and the Grand rivers, thus pictures one view of
the plateau:
"Directly south the view was bounded by the high and distant mesas
of the Navajo country, succeeded in the southwest by the still
more lofty battlements of the great white mesa formerly seen from
the Moqui pueblos. On these high tablelands the outlines were not
only distinctly visible, but grand and impressive at the distance
of a hundred miles. Nearly west a great gap opened in the high
tablelands through which the San Juan flows to its junction with
the Colorado. The distance between the mesa walls is perhaps ten
miles, and scattered over it are castle-like buttes and slender
towers, none of which can be less than a thousand feet in height,
their sides absolutely perpendicular and their forms wonderful
imitations of architectural art. Illuminated by the setting sun the
outlines of these singular objects come out sharp and distinct with
such exact similitude to art that we could hardly resist conviction
that we beheld the walls and towers of some ancient Cyclopean city,
hitherto undiscovered."
Every journey in Arizona seems to lead on into an enchanted world.
The gray valley road, the curious mesa formations that stretch into
infinite distances; the mystic apparition in the Estrella range of
the Montezuma faces; the ruins of Casa Grande, which tell their tale
of a massive city that once existed here; the ruins on the Rio
Verde; the mounds and shafts discovered belonging to some prehistoric
civilization; the ancient watch tower; the painted rocks, with their
extensive hieroglyphics,--all speak to the archæologist in a language
that fascinates the imagination. Its three greatest features--the
Grand Cañon, regarding which there is neither speech nor language;
the Petrified Forest, and that Submerged Star known as "Meteorite
Mountain"--would alone make it the world mecca of scientists; to say
nothing of the strange ruins of prehistoric peoples, of an unearthly
beauty of atmospheric coloring, and of the contemporary scientific
interest of the great Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, or the splendid
progress and development of the people. It might well have been of this
marvellous country that Emerson wrote:
"And many a thousand summers
My gardens ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.
"I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.
"And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew."
What is the world that shall be in this mystic Arizona? What, indeed,
was the world that has been there? Imagination falters alike before
the stupendous marvels of its past, the picturesque splendors of its
future. Its scenic grandeur will make Arizona a world centre; the
nations from afar will make their pilgrimage to the sublimest marvels
of all nature's revelations to this planet. Here will be sought the
counsel of the gods. The message of the prehistoric past and of the
undiscovered future will "give the law of night and day" in wonderful
Arizona, the land of magic and mystery.
CHAPTER IX
THE PETRIFIED FOREST AND THE METEORITE MOUNTAIN
"_A spell is laid on sod and stone,
Night and day are tampered with.
Every quality and pith
Surcharged and sultry with a power
That works its will on age and hour._"
EMERSON
A June day in the Petrified Forests of Arizona is an experience that
can never fade from memory. Every excursion into this strange, uncanny
realm of Arizona, which is an empire in its area; every journey one
takes, every trail he follows, leads into strange and fascinating
locality; and Adamana, the gateway to the Petrified Forests, has its
own spellbinding power for the tourist. Adamana consists of a water
tank, the station, and two bungalows, in one of which very comfortable
entertainment is offered, and in the other of which dwells a character
whom all travellers meet,--Adam Hanna, a distant relative of the
late Mark Hanna, the original settler of this region. For a long
time the place was known as Adam Hanna's, and when with advancing
civilization this designation became too colloquial for an up-to-date
twentieth-century world, the elision of two or three letters gave the
present attractive name,--Adamana.
To leave the comfortable ease of a Pullman sleeper at the witching hour
of five in the morning to stop over at Adamana and visit the Petrified
Forest requires a degree of fortitude beyond that usually calculated.
Left to one's self, one would emulate the example of the man who
journeyed to the north pole to see a sunrise that occurred only three
days in the year. On the first two mornings he refused to rise on the
plea of the further extension of his opportunities; on the third, when
his servant reminded him that it was the "last call," he turned over
and philosophically remarked that he would come again next year. But
the dusky porter allows the tourist no such margin for reflection, and
one finds himself standing in some wonderful place spellbound by the
witchery of the desert, and the long train vanishing in the distance,
almost before he knows whether he has exchanged the land of dreams for
the land of day and daylight realities,--for this weird and mystic
panorama of the infinite desert, with the bluest of turquoise skies
already lighted by the blazing splendor of the June sunrise, and the
grotesque, uncanny buttes scattered at intervals all over that vast
plain. The intense silence was unbroken save by the voice and footstep
of the man representing the little bungalow termed the Forest Hotel.
Contrary to one's preconceived ideas of an Arizona desert, the morning
was cold, and the blazing fire and hot coffee were most grateful. But
where was the "Petrified Forest"? one marvelled. Away on the horizon
gleamed an evanescent, palpitating region of shimmering color. Yet this
was not the "quarry of jewels," but the "Bad Lands," which have at
least one redeeming virtue, whatever their vices,--that of producing
the most aërial and fairy-like color effects imaginable.
It is astonishing how swiftly one relinquishes preconceived ideas of
living and learns to get on without electric bells, long-distance
telephones, and elaborate conveniences in general, even to the
"prepared air," strained through thin layers of cloth, as the latest
superfine condition added to a great New York hotel, and adapts one's
self to a mode of life in which a simple but very clean room, primitive
food, wonderful air, good, kind people, and a petrified forest to amuse
him, take the place of the complex and elaborate life of the great
Eastern cities. At Adamana one finds himself seventy-five miles from
Gallup, New Mexico, the nearest town of any importance, from which
all household supplies must be ordered. When the coffee gives out,
for instance, seventy-five miles from a lemon; and when a Sunday and
a holiday have almost followed each other, thus delaying all orders,
one has then the most delightful and spacious opportunities for
experimenting on the simple life. The desert offers other things; and
while these do not include the menu of Sherry's, for instance, they
do include certain allurements for which the country might be searched
in vain, as they only exist on the Colorado desert. The quality of the
air, the color of the sky, the marvel of color vistas,--all make up a
new world in which one finds himself fairly questioning regarding his
own identity. Nor has he any apparent test by which to determine--
"If I am I, as I do hope I be."
Perhaps, indeed, he does not so tenaciously cling to that which he
remembers of himself yesterday, and is rather interested, on the
whole, in accepting some possibly new transformation of his being. The
locality seems to him sufficiently well indicated as being, according
to his first impression, simply somewhere in the magic and witchery
of space. This address might not be accepted by the government postal
service, but even that heretofore indispensable matter in some way
fades into comparative insignificance. What does one who has an Arizona
sky, and a bewildering shimmer of color afar on the horizon that might
be
"A painted ship upon a painted ocean"
or almost anything else,--what does he want of the sublunary detail
of eight postal deliveries a day, beginning at half-past seven in
the morning, with his first dawn of returning consciousness, and
ending with midnight, when he is, very likely, summoned out of his
sleep by the rap of a bellboy delivering more mail,--more,--as if he
had not been under an avalanche of it all day and had sought refuge
in dreamland for the very purpose of escaping the vigilance of his
national postal service. But one may as well accept the fact as one
from which there is no appeal, that in the heart of civilization he
cannot escape its burdens and its penalties. He can only evade them
by going to--Adamana, for instance; Adamana, the metropolis of the
railroad water-tank, the station, and two bungalows. Even these are too
many. One bungalow is enough. He cannot repose in two at the same time;
and as for neighbors and news,--has he not the stars and the sunsets?
What does Emily Dickinson say?--
"The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From Immortality."
There are no birds to
"... carol undeceiving things,"
as in Colorado; but there is, instead, intense silence,--a silence so
absolutely intense as to be, by a paradox, fairly vocal; and if one
does but catch the music of the spheres for which he finds himself
listening, it must be that his powers of hearing are defective. One
recalls the lines:
"Who loves the music of the spheres
And lives on earth, must close his ears
To many voices that he hears."
The "many voices" are stilled; one has left them at least seventy-five
miles away,--in Gallup, for instance! Gallup, that for the time
prefigures itself to him as his New York, his Paris, his London. It is
the source of all his possible supplies; and that it does not assume an
overwhelming importance is simply because he does not want any supplies
of the particular nature that Gallup--or Paris--can furnish. He has
achieved something more than the power to satisfy all his (former)
multitudinous wants; he has eliminated them.
To be sure, the Chinese have a proverb that it is not worth while to
cut off one's feet to save buying shoes. Yet, if instead of depriving
himself of feet he has achieved wings, why, manifestly, there is no
need of shoes. There are, when one comes to think of it, a vast number
of things in our late civilization for which there is no special need.
"For a cap and bells our lives we pay;
Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:
'Tis heaven alone that is given away;
'Tis only God may be had for the asking."
In fact, when one comes to reflect upon the aspects of his former life
(as he sees them in mental panorama from Adamana), he can only arrive
at the conclusion that life is unnecessarily choked and submerged
under an ever-increasing burden of _things_. Emerson, of course, whose
insight saw the universe as a crystal sphere which revealed to his
vision its entire working mechanism,--Emerson long since announced that
"Things are in the saddle
And ride mankind."
Why should one be ridden by things? Why should he enslave
himself,--mortgage his entire powers of achievement, such as they are,
to pay his bills to the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker?
Is not the life more than meat, and the spirit than fine raiment? So he
may dream for the moment, gazing meditatively at the water-tank, the
station, and the two bungalows that comprise Adamana. Good for that day
only, at least, is its contrast to the bewildering din of _entrepôts_,
of ports, of custom-houses, of the general din and warfare of the world
he has left behind.
Holbrook, the other station for the Petrified Forests, is twenty miles
away. Flagstaff, a very thriving and interesting Arizona town, famous
as the site of the Observatory of Prof. Percival Lowell of Boston,
is one hundred and fifty miles to the west; and one hour of railroad
journey beyond Flagstaff is Williams, the town from which runs the
branch railroad to the Grand Cañon over the rolling mesas crowned
with the beautiful peaks of the San Francisco mountains, a distance
of sixty-three miles, the journey occupying three hours. The nearest
town to Adamana station, in which a daily paper is published, is
Albuquerque, in New Mexico, which is nine hundred and thirty-five
miles to the east, almost as far as from New York to Chicago. The
metropolis to which this region looks as its nearest large city is Los
Angeles, twenty-six hours distant. So here one is out of the world, so
to speak,--
"The world forgetting, by the world forgot,"--
with the vast rolling mesas, with sandstone cliffs offering an uncanny
landscape before the eye, with the eternal blue of Arizona skies
bending above, with a silence so deep brooding over the desert that one
might well feel himself on the moon rather than on earth,--a silence
only broken by the semi-daily rush of the long overland trains and
occasional freight lines that pass.
[Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO PEAK, NEAR FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA]
John Muir, the famous California naturalist, explorer, and author of
valuable books on the Western parks, passed the winter of 1905-06 at
Adamana with his two daughters, the Misses Wanda and Helen Muir, and it
is he who has discovered the new Petrified Forest which he calls the
"Blue Forest"--all the specimens having a deep blue tone, while the
other three are simply quarries of red moss, agate, amethyst, topaz,
pale rose crystals gleaming against a smoky green ground. The landscape
effect of the "Bad Lands" from the little bungalow known as the Forest
Hotel is of fairy-like enchantment. A shimmer of rose and gray and gold
and emerald, it gleams on the horizon. Lighted by a blazing sunset, it
might well be the gates of a New Jerusalem. Anything more exquisite,
and more ineffably ethereal in coloring, one might journey far to seek.
"Moreover, something is, or seems,
That touches us like mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams."
These lines may, perchance, come echoing around one in the air as he
loiters at night on the low, long piazza, while the myriad meteors of
Arizona skies blaze their way through the transparent air and a sky
full of stars contends with the moon for brilliancy; the unearthly,
delicate, ethereal coloring of the "Bad Lands" gleaming resplendent on
the distant horizon.
If the wanderer has fallen upon particularly fortunate days in his
horoscope and found Miss Wanda Muir--her quaint name coming from her
mother, the daughter of a Polish nobleman--to drive him out to this
marvellous "forest" of stone, he will have a pleasure enhanced by
interesting conversation. A graduate of Berkeley College in California,
and the constant companion of her father in his wanderings, Miss Muir
is indeed an ideal guide, and under her hand one June morning the
two horses sped along over the rough, stony ground at a pace to set
every fibre tingling. One of the features of the Arizona desert is the
arroyo, a dry stream, a ready-made river, so to speak, minus the water.
Some of these even have a stream of flowing water, only it is under the
bed of the river rather than on top of it, for Arizona is the land of
magic and wonder and of a general reversal of accepted conditions.
"Sometimes in driving out here," said Miss Muir, "a cloudburst comes
up while we are in the Petrified Forests, and on returning the horses
have to swim this dry stream. Once the water was so high it came into
the wagon. Not infrequently, when we go out to the forest, some one
comes dashing after us on horseback to warn us to get back as quickly
as possible, or the torrents of water from a sudden cloudburst will
cut us off altogether, perhaps for a day and a night." The pleasing
uncertainty of life in Arizona may be realized from this danger of
being suddenly drowned in the arid sands of a desert, and being
confronted with a sudden Lodore that descends from the heavens on a
midsummer noon. But, as one is constantly saying to himself, Arizona is
the land of surprises. No known laws of meteorology, or of any other
form of science, hold good here. The mountain peak transforms itself
into the bottom of a sea, and the sea suddenly upheaves itself in air
and figures as a mountain. Arizona is nature's kaleidoscope; it is the
land of transformation.
Of the three petrified forests, each separated by a mile or two, the
first is reached by a drive of some six miles, while the third is more
than twice as far. The second is the largest and most elaborate, and
in the aggregate they cover an area of over two thousand acres. The
ground is the high rolling mesas, and over it are scattered, "thick
as leaves in Vallombrosa," the jewel-like fragments of mighty trees in
deposits that are the wonder of the scientist. From the huge fallen
tree trunks, many of these being over two hundred feet in length and
of similar proportions in diameter, to the mere chips and twigs, the
forests are transmuted into agate and onyx and chalcedony. Numbers of
these specimens contain perfect crystals. They are vivid and striking
in color,--in rich Byzantine red, deep greens and purples and yellow,
white and translucent, or dark in all color blendings. Great blocks
of agate cover many parts of the forest. Hundreds of entire trees are
seen. When cut transversely these logs show the bark, the inner fibre,
and veining as perfectly as would a living tree. And over all these
fallen monarchs of a prehistoric forest bends the wonderful turquoise
sky of Arizona, and the air is all the liquid gold of the intense
sunshine.
At Tiffany's in New York may be seen huge slabs and sections of this
petrified wood under high polish. A fine exhibit of it was made at
the Paris exposition in 1900, and a specimen of it was presented to
Rodin, the great sculptor, who was incredulous of the possibility that
this block, apparently of onyx, could have been wood. Through all the
forests are these strange rock formations called buttes, rising in the
most weird shapes from the sand and stones and sagebrush of the vast
desert. What a treasure-ground of antiquity! This region, which seems
a plain, is yet higher than the top of Mount Washington, and the
altitude insures almost perpetual coolness. Scientists seem to agree in
the theory that the petrified forests are a debatable phenomenon whose
origin eludes any final conclusion. It is possible that some mighty
sea suddenly arose--perhaps as the present Salton Sea in Southern
California--and engulfed them. The land is partly the "bad lands" and
partly a sandy plain covered with petrifactions. The third forest
contains hundreds of unbroken tree trunks, of which some are over two
hundred feet in length. Many of these are partly imbedded in the earth.
All around this high plateau rise on the horizon surrounding cliffs
to the height of one hundred and fifty and more feet, serrated into
ravines and gorges, variegated with the sandstone formations in all
their shimmer of colors, and indicating that this basin was once the
bottom of a sea.
It is the paradise of the ethnologist as well as of the geologist.
Besides cliff ruins and hieroglyphics, almost anywhere, by chance, one
may find traces of submerged walls, and following these, a man with
an ordinary spade may dig up prehistoric pottery, skeletons, beads,
rings, and occasionally necklaces. The pottery, both in design and in
scheme of decoration, shows a high degree of civilization. Who were
these prehistoric peoples who had built their pueblos and created their
implements and pottery and were already old when Plymouth Rock was new?
Much of the symbolic creation here still awaits its interpreter.
From these millions of tons of glistening, shining blocks and segments
and tree trunks the tourist is not allowed to carry away specimens
_carte blanche_, as formerly. The Petrified Forests are now a
government reservation, although not yet one of the government parks.
Small specimens, within a reasonable amount, are permitted the tourist
as souvenirs.
The Petrified Forests are quarries rather than forests; the great
fallen logs, branches, and chips, lying prostrate on the ground, are
seen glowing and gleaming like jewels. So far as the eye can reach
there is not a human habitation. Over the infinite stretch of sand and
rocks bends the bluest of skies, and here and there are prehistoric
Indian mines, and one ledge of cliffs on which are strange and as yet
undeciphered hieroglyphics. The graves of the prehistoric inhabitants
of this region are numerous, each containing rare and choice specimens
of pottery which are dug out intact. This region seems to have been
once thickly populated. The remains of pueblos are numerous. Skeletons
are constantly being found.
Although the visitor is not allowed to carry away with him a trainload
or so of specimens, he may still be permitted a beautiful cross-section
of an entire tree trunk, showing all the veins of the wood and the
bark, a specimen thin enough to be portable, and worthy a place in
any cabinet of curiosities, besides many chips showing all the range
of beautiful colors which abound in Chalcedony Park. In this park
lies a vast fallen tree trunk that forms a natural bridge over a
chasm,--a bridge that seems to be of solid agate. These forests are
among the great scenic wonders of the world, and if they were in the
heart of the Himalayas or some other especially inaccessible spot,
all good Americans would hasten to visit them. But our own wonderful
and incomparable scenic grandeur is neglected. These "Petrified
Forests" are the marvel of the geologist. What has happened, in all
the phenomena of nature, to produce this incredible spectacle? Many
scientific men believe that these forests did not grow on the spot
where they now would lie prostrate, but were swept down by floods when
this region was a vast inland sea, and that they became imbedded in the
sand; that then the sea vanished and volcanic eruptions poured over,
and the wood was hardened to rock. Again, a flood of water passed over
and washed away the sand and silt, and the erosion left these thousands
of acres of petrifactions exposed on the surface as now; and thus,
after millenniums have passed, we have these quarries of chalcedony and
agate, onyx, cornelian, topaz, and amethyst.
Every evening at Adamana disclosed a sky panorama of kaleidoscopic
wonder. Afar to the horizon the Bad Lands shimmered in a faint dream
of colors under the full moon. The stars seemed to hang midway in the
air, and frequent meteors blazed through the vast, mysterious space.
Adamana is nine hours from Albuquerque, the metropolis of New Mexico,
and five hours distant from Flagstaff, to the west. All the thousands
of acres of desert lands about require only water to render them richly
productive. But water is unattainable. There are no mountain ranges
near enough to produce water storage, and unless the twentieth-century
scientists discover some way of creating rain, these arid regions must
remain as they are. Yet even here American life and energy and progress
are seen. The scattered settlers unite in maintaining public schools
six months in the year, and with only from twelve to twenty pupils the
teacher is paid from seventy-five to eighty dollars a month,--more than
twice the salary paid in the country schools in New England. In the
little bungalow here at Adamana, where Mr. Stevenson, the government
guardian of the Petrified Forests, makes tourists strangely comfortable
during their desert sojourn, one finds a piano, a well-selected little
library, and young people whose command of the violin and piano
offer music that is by no means unacceptable. The children get music
lessons--no one knows how; they are eager for any instruction in
language, and acquire French and Spanish in some measure, and in all
ways the national ambition is sustained. From Albuquerque comes a daily
paper, and only one day behind date the Los Angeles papers arrive. One
is not out of the world (alas!) even on the Arizona desert.
It is a new world in itself,--the desert of Arizona. No region on the
earth is more diversified, more intensely interesting. This desert
comprises mountains and plains; it contains that one supreme scenic
wonder of the world, the Grand Cañon; in it are Cañon Diablo and the
Meteorite Mountain. Within its area also is the "Tonto Basin,"--an
incalculable chaos of isolated and unrelated cliffs, and crags of
mountains peaks that have lost their mountains, and general wreck and
ruin. One might fancy that at the end of creation, when the universe
itself was completed, all the chips and fragments and débris in
general were hurled into the Tonto Basin,--only that, of course, the
universe was never "made," but is always in the making; only that the
physical configuration of the entire earth is always in process of
transformation into new aspects, and nowhere is this progress of the
ages more extraordinarily in evidence than in Arizona.
Leaving the Petrified Forest for the Grand Cañon, one has a wonderful
journey of six hours to Williams, and thence three hours over the
branch road to Bright Angel, where the new and magnificent hotel, "El
Tovar," captivates the travellers, and from which a stage runs to Grand
View, thirteen miles away, where Vishnu Temple, the Coliseum, Solomon's
Temple, and other wonders of the marvellous sandstone architecture, in
the depths of the Grand Cañon are viewed.
In waiting for the train on the branch road running from Williams to
the Grand Cañon over the beautiful San Franciscan mountains, the
hour of waiting at Williams is made a delight by a most unique and
interesting curiosity shop under the splendid Harvey management, where
all kinds of natural curiosities and Indian and Mexican things are
shown. The walls are hung with bright-hued blankets and rugs, the
ceiling is decorated and draped, easy-chairs and sofas abound, and
these tend to make the journey a kind of royal progress.
In 1540 Pedro de Tovar, one of the officers who accompanied Coronado
through his great expedition, passed through Arizona. Even then an
extinct civilization was already old. The ruins of the dwellings of
those prehistoric people abound near Flagstaff. In the recesses of
Walnut Cañon there are found cliff-dwellings in great numbers. "Some
of these are in ruins, and have but a narrow shelf of the once broad
floor of solid rock left to evidence their extreme antiquity. Others
are almost wholly intact, having stubbornly resisted the weathering of
time." Nothing but fragments of pottery now remain of the many quaint
implements and trinkets that characterized these dwellings at the time
of their discovery.
"Fixed like swallows' nests upon the face of a precipice,
approachable from above or below only by deliberate and cautious
climbing, these dwellings have the appearance of fortified retreats
rather than habitual abodes. That there was a time in the remotest
past when warlike peoples of mysterious origin passed southward
over this plateau is generally credited. And the existence of
the cliff-dwellings is ascribed to the exigencies of that dark
period when the inhabitants of the plateau, unable to cope with
the superior energy, intelligence, and numbers of the descending
hordes, devised these unassailable retreats. All their quaintness
and antiquity cannot conceal the deep pathos of their being,
for tragedy is written all over these poor hovels hung between
earth and sky. Their builders hold no smallest niche in recorded
history. Their aspirations, their struggles, and their fate are all
unwritten, save on these crumbling stones, which are their sole
monument and meagre epitaph. Here once they dwelt. They left no
other print on time."
Flagstaff is a pleasant mountain town some seven thousand feet above
sea level, and is particularly fortunate in being the site of the
Lowell Observatory, founded by Professor Percival Lowell of Boston,
which brings eminent astronomers and scientists to the place. In the
Lowell Observatory some of the best work in modern science is being
accomplished, and Professor Lowell and his staff have for some years
been devoting themselves to the special study of Mars. Flagstaff was
selected for the site of the observatory on account of the singularly
clear and still air of Arizona. It is an atmosphere almost without
vibration. Never were distances more curiously deceiving to the eye
than in Arizona. A point that is apparently only a few yards away may
be, in reality, at a distance of two miles. Professor Lowell and his
staff have, therefore, exceptional facilities for their work, and Mr.
Carl Otto Lampland, the stellar photographer of the staff, has taken
impressions of Mars that seem to leave little doubt in the minds of
experts that canals on that planet reflect themselves by the camera.
This achievement is recognized by astronomers everywhere as marking
an epoch in the study of Mars and as fairly closing the argument
regarding the possibility of canals on that body by bringing their
construction there as an unquestionable fact. It was Schiaparelli, the
Italian astronomer, who first observed what he believed were canals
on Mars. His report was received with incredulity; but his theory has
been so reinforced and supported by actual results of observations
since then that it is now generally accepted. Early in the decade of
1880-90 Professor Lowell began a special study at Flagstaff with his
fine twenty-four-inch telescope, but it was in May, 1905, that the
first results of real significance were obtained. The light about Mars
is said to be faint, and the vibrations in the air, though less in
Arizona than is usual elsewhere, still produced disturbing effects on
the plate. It is said that Mr. Lampland overcame this difficulty after
a long series of experiments, "by using a diaphragm on the telescope,
cutting down the aperture from twenty-four inches to twelve inches,
as a rule. Though this diaphragming of a photographic lens is not
new, this was the first time it was applied to a glass as large as
twenty-four inches in diameter and for such faint objects. Hitherto
astronomers have been more concerned with availing themselves of the
light-gathering power of the large lenses. It was a distinct advance,
and is the one step to which the largest share of the credit is due of
successfully photographing the canals."
In the vestibule of the Institute of Technology in Boston were shown in
the spring of 1906 a number of these photographs. To the uninitiated
they merely presented a black ground with white lines faintly defined.
Professor Lowell says that the special significance of the photographs
lies in the fact that they corroborate the results shown by other
photographers of Mars, and that they also corroborate the methods. That
the sensitive plate of the camera will record a star never visible
through even the strongest glass, and thus prove its existence, is a
wonderful fact in stellar photography.
Cañon Diablo is one of the volcanic phenomena of Arizona,--a narrow
chasm some two hundred and fifty feet deep, several miles long,
and five or six hundred feet wide, which the Santa Fé road crosses
on a wonderful steel spider-web bridge a few miles before reaching
Flagstaff. It is one of the curious things for which the tourist is
watching. For so intensely interesting is the entire journey westward
after leaving La Junta in Colorado, that the traveller who realizes the
wonderland through which he is passing is very much on the alert for
the landscape.
Between Adamana and Flagstaff is a strangely interesting country.
Here is Meteorite Mountain, where evidently a huge meteor fell into
the earth with terrific force, upheaving all the surrounding crust
and thus producing a mountain with an enormous cavity in its centre.
For five years men have been digging here to find the meteor. They
have excavated huge fragments of it. The vast hollow crater where the
meteorite is supposed to have fallen into the ground is a mile wide.
In some fragments of the meteor which were submitted to Sir William
Crookes for examination that great scientist found diamonds in small
but unmistakable quantities.
The Meteorite Mountain is situated not more than ten miles south of
Cañon Diablo, from which station the traveller may drive to this
phenomenal cavity. Within recent months shafts are being projected into
the earth to discover, if possible, whether the meteoric theory is
the true one. More and more, with every year, is science undertaking
to "pluck out the heart of the mystery" in this problematic Arizona.
Prof. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, has made a
special study of this phenomenon, and it is he who experimented with a
magnetic test, assuming that if an enormous meteorite had hurled itself
into the earth until it was buried past excavation, the great mass of
metallic iron would still respond to the test, and furnish unmistakable
proof of its presence if subjected to magnetic attraction. A scientific
writer who has recently made a study of Meteorite Mountain thus reports
the conditions:
"The mountain is about two hundred feet high, and there are a few
stunted pines about its forbidding looking slopes. Going to the top
of this mountain, over huge masses of strange-looking rock, one
will find a great depression, generally called the crater, though
there are no evidences of its volcanic formation. This crater is a
huge bowl one mile across and six hundred feet deep. The winds of
the desert have blown much sand into the crater, evidently covering
the bottom of the depression to a depth of many feet. There is a
level space of about forty acres in the bottom of the crater.
"When the gigantic meteor fell hissing into the earth, if it
ever did so, the concussion must have been terrific. And in this
connection it is interesting to note that the Indians near by
have a legend about a huge star falling out of the heavens and
dazzling the tribe with its brightness. Then there was a great
shock and sudden darkness, and ever since then the Indians have
regarded Meteorite Mountain with awe. Some idea of the action of
the meteorite can be obtained by throwing a stone into the mud.
When the meteorite buried itself far into the earth the sides were
heaved up, leaving a rim-like circle about the depression. As
the meteorite sank into the earth it must have crushed layers of
red sandstone and limestone. It is believed that the white sand
found in the crater and on the sides of the mountain is from the
sandstone pulverized by the meteor in its descent. This sand was
blown skyward and afterward settled down on the mountain, covering
it thickly. No sand like it is to be found near the mountain.
"Men searching the ground surrounding the mountain for a distance
of several miles find small meteorites. Several of these weigh
as much as one thousand pounds, and others weigh only a fraction
of an ounce. The largest pieces were found furthest from the
mountain. These meteorites have been proved to be practically
non-magnetic. This may explain why the immense body of iron in
the buried meteor has not shown any magnetic properties. Needles
taken to the mountain have not shown the presence of any great
magnetic attraction, and this fact puzzled scientists until it was
found that the fragments found near the mountain did not possess
magnetism.
"Another interesting discovery is the presence of what is called
'iron shale' near the mountain. These are fragments of burned or
'dead' iron. They might have been broken from the meteorite at the
time of the terrific impact, or they might have been snapped from
the larger body owing to a sudden cooling process. Inasmuch as the
Cañon Diablo country was at one time an immense inland sea, another
interesting theory has been brought forth,--that the meteor fell
into this sea, and that the great number of splinters of iron in
the neighborhood were caused by the sudden cooling of the molten
mass. It has been discovered that these small meteorites contain
diamonds."
In the immediate vicinity of Meteorite Mountain several tons of
meteoric fragments have been found of which Prof. George Wharton James
has one, weighing about a ton, on his lawn at his charming residence in
Pasadena. There are also found in this vicinity large amounts of shale
which scientists pronounce analogous to the meteorite, but "dead"; yet
this shale is highly magnetic and possesses polarity,--one of the most
mysterious and incomprehensible properties of electricity.
Professor Gilbert did not meet success when he tried the magnetic
test, and in discussing this matter in an address on "The Origin of
Hypotheses," delivered before the Geological Society in Washington last
year, he said:
"Still another contribution to the subject, while it does not
increase the number of hypotheses, is nevertheless important in
that it tends to diminish the weight of the magnetic evidence
and thus to reopen the question which Mr. Baker and I supposed
we had settled. Our fellow-member, Mr. Edwin E. Howell, through
whose hands much of the meteoric iron had passed, points out that
each of the iron masses, great and small, is in itself a complete
individual. They have none of the characters that would be found if
they had been broken one from another, and yet, as they are all of
one type and all reached the earth within a small district, it must
be supposed that they were originally connected in some way.
"Reasoning by analogy from the characters of other meteoric bodies,
he infers that the irons were all included in a large mass of some
different material, either crystalline rock, such as constitutes
the class of meteorites called 'stony,' or else a compound of iron
and sulphur, similar to certain nodules discovered inside the
iron masses when sawn in two. Neither of these materials is so
enduring as iron, and the fact that they are not now found on the
plain does not prove their original absence. Moreover, the plain
is strewn in the vicinity of the crater with bits of limonite, a
mineral frequently produced by the action of air and water on iron
sulphides, and this material is much more abundant than the iron.
If it be true that the iron masses were thus embedded, like plums
in an astral pudding, the hypothetic buried star might have great
size and yet only small power to attract the magnetic needle.
Mr. Howell also proposes a qualification of the test by volumes,
suggesting that some of the rocks beneath the buried star might
have been condensed by the shock so as to occupy less space.
"These considerations are eminently pertinent to the study of
the crater and will find appropriate place in any comprehensive
discussion of its origin; but the fact which is peculiarly
worthy of note at the present time is their ability to unsettle
a conclusion that was beginning to feel itself secure. This
illustrates the tentative nature not only of the hypotheses of
science, but of what science calls its results.
"The method of hypotheses, and that method is the method of
science, founds its explanations of nature wholly on observed
facts, and its results are ever subject to the limitations imposed
by imperfect observation. However grand, however widely accepted,
however useful its conclusions, none is so sure that it cannot be
called into question by a newly discovered fact. In the domain of
the world's knowledge there is no infallibility."
Sir William Crookes has been deeply interested in the phenomenon of
Meteorite Mountain, which must take rank with the Petrified Forests
and even with the Grand Cañon as one of the marvels of Arizona. The
meteoric shower which seems to have accompanied the falling of the
huge meteorite--if the theory of its existence is true--has recorded
its traces over a radius of more than five miles from the crater-like
cavity. The experiment of Dr. Foote is thus described:
"An ardent mineralogist, the late Dr. Foote, in cutting a section
of this meteorite, found the tools were injured by something vastly
harder than metallic iron, and an emery wheel used in grinding
the iron had been ruined. He examined the specimen chemically,
and soon after announced to the scientific world that the Cañon
Diablo Meteorite contained black and transparent diamonds. This
startling discovery was afterwards verified by Professors Friedel
and Moissan, who found that the Cañon Diablo Meteorite contained
the three varieties of carbon,--diamond (transparent and black),
graphite, and amorphous carbon. Since this revelation the search
for diamonds in meteorites has occupied the attention of chemists
all over the world.
"Here, then, we have absolute proof of the truth of the meteoric
theory. Under atmospheric influences the iron would rapidly oxidize
and rust away, coloring the adjacent soil with red oxide of iron.
The meteoric diamonds would be unaffected and left on the surface
to be found by explorers when oxidation had removed the last proof
of their celestial origin. That there are still lumps of iron left
in Arizona is merely due to the extreme dryness of the climate and
the comparatively short time that the iron has been on our planet.
We are here witnesses to the course of an event which may have
happened in geologic times anywhere on the earth's surface."
In this desert plateau of dull red sandstone worn by the erosion and
the storms of untold ages, does there indeed lie a submerged star? And
if there does, buried so deep in the earth as to elude as yet all the
research of science, what force projected it, "shot madly from its
sphere," into the desert lands of Arizona? To visit these extraordinary
things--the Petrified Forests, the Meteorite Mountain, the Grand
Cañon--is to feel, in the words of the poet,--
"These are but seeds of days,
Not yet a steadfast morn,
An intermittent blaze,
An embryo god unborn.
* * * * *
I snuff the breath of my morning afar,
I see the pale lustres condense to a star:
The fading colors fix,
The vanishing are seen,
And the world that shall be
Twins the world that has been."
Not the least among the phenomena of Arizona is that Emerson, who never
saw the Great West, should have left on record in his poems the lines
and stanzas that seem as if written from personal familiarity with its
unspeakable marvels of scenic and scientific interest.
CHAPTER X
LOS ANGELES, THE SPELL-BINDER
"_This is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!_
"_Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails._"
EMILY DICKINSON
"_In what ethereal dances!
By what eternal streams!_"
Los Angeles, "the City of the Angels," is invested with the same poetic
suggestion in its name as that which surrounds Santa Fé,--"the City
of the Holy Faith." A terraced street is known as "Angel Flight." Any
retrospective contemplation of Los Angeles gives one the sensation
of having been whirled through the starry immensities of space.
During even a brief stay one afterward discovers by the unerring
logic of mathematics that within a few days he has perhaps travelled
some four hundred miles by the electric trolley cars, besides his
motor-car journeys when shot through space from old San Gabriel to the
Pacific Coast, or from Elysium Park to Hollywood, and far and away
on the opposite side of the city. Were one caught up in an aëro-car,
journeying far above the clouds for ten days, it could hardly seem more
unreal. One can only think of Los Angeles as the City of Vast Spaces.
The town has laid out all the surrounding country, one would fancy, in
beautiful tracts (there are over four thousand), each tract containing
several acres,--laid out under alluring names, with streets, sidewalks,
and lamp-posts.
The "boom" is something tremendous. Companies and corporations run
free electric cars to points forty miles out of town, as Redondo Beach
and other localities, for people to inspect the lots offered,--lots
at prices from "four dollars down, and four dollars a month," with
the entire cost from ninety dollars up to that of several hundred.
If all the world is not supplied with homes it is not the fault of
enterprising Los Angeles. The incomparable electric trolley system
renders the entire region within fifty miles around eligible for
city privileges. People think nothing of going thirty, forty, even
seventy-five miles by the "express electrics." Over an area of a
thousand miles in length and perhaps one hundred and fifty in width
there is scattered a population less than that centred within city
limits in Chicago. The world is wide--in Southern California. There
is nothing of the dreamy, languorous old Spanish atmosphere in Los
Angeles. It is the most electrically up-to-date city imaginable. The
city limits comprise over twenty-eight thousand acres. The streets are
paved and oiled; the lighting is wonderful, most of it being done from
tall towers rather than ordinary lamp-posts. Not even New York has any
street or avenue so illuminated by night as is Broadway in Los Angeles,
where, as in the boulevards in Paris, one can easily read by the
street lights. Los Angeles has twenty-one great parks and innumerable
hills and valleys in the residence regions. This diversity affords
natural facilities for landscape gardening which are utilized with fine
effect. Spacious boulevards, artificial lakes, and series of terraces
everywhere enchant the eye, seen amidst the bewildering luxuriance of
creamy magnolia blossoms and the graceful pepper tree.
The enterprise of Los Angeles is equalled by the refinement and culture
of the people, and the schools, churches, libraries--the social
life--all reveal the best spirit of American institutions.
That this is one of the spellbinding cities goes without saying.
Everything is in gleam and glitter and glow. The electric car and the
telephone system are here developed to a higher degree than perhaps
in any other Western city except Denver. The growth of Los Angeles is
something fairly incredible. A leading park commissioner, Dr. Lamb, has
described the beauty of the four thousand tracts of land (each tract
comprising many acres), all laid out, ready for buyers and builders.
Of the twenty-one parks, one comprises more than three thousand
acres, and another, Elysium Park, over eight hundred acres of hills
and valleys already decoratively laid out with terraced drives and
beautiful shrubs, flowers, and artificial lakes. The trend of the city
is rapidly toward the ocean, some fifteen to twenty miles away, and it
can hardly be five years before from Venice and Santa Monica, on the
coast, to Pasadena, ten miles to the east of Los Angeles, there will
be one solid city, one vast metropolis of the Southwest. The public
library is ably administered, and it is one of considerable breadth of
resources, with the advantage of having for its librarian Mr. Charles
F. Lummis, the well-known writer on the Southwest. Madam Severance, who
in 1878 founded the Woman's Club, a large and influential association
of which for many years she was the president, and Mrs. Rebecca
Spring, the friend of Margaret Fuller, are two Boston women who have
transferred their homes to Los Angeles and whose lives emphasize
Emerson's assertion that it is the fine souls who serve us and not what
we call fine society.
The rush and the brilliancy of life in all this Los Angeles region
transcend description. Broadway has more than two miles of fine
business blocks, the architecture being restricted to some eight or
nine stories. The beautiful parks, with their artificial lakes, their
date-palm trees, their profusion of brilliant flowers, attract the eye.
There are residence sections of exceeding beauty,--the lawns bordered
by hedges of rosebushes in full bloom and perhaps another rose hedge
separating the sidewalk from the street.
From the high plateaus of Northern Arizona to the blossoming plains
of California is a contrast indeed. In Arizona these thousands of
acres need only irrigation to become richly productive. The climate
is delightful, for the elevation--over seven thousand feet--insures
coolness and exhilaration almost every day through the summer. But at
present there seems no conceivable way to procure water with which to
irrigate. In California precisely the same land is irrigated and has
also the advantage of a rainy season, and the vegetation and fruits
abound luxuriously. Orange groves, with the golden fruit shimmering on
the trees; lemon groves, olive orchards, and the avenues and groves of
the eucalyptus tree make fair the landscape. An important industry here
is that of lima beans. Tracts of fifteen hundred acres sown with these
are not unusual, and the crops are contracted for by Russia and Germany
almost as soon as sown. On one of these it is said that the owner had
made a princely fortune within two years. The creation of the city in
imagination is in great favor. Vast tracts of country from one to ten
miles outside the city limits are staked out, as before noted; avenues
and streets defined and named, lamp-posts erected, an attractive name
given the locality, and lots are offered for sale from perhaps four or
five hundred dollars up, on the terms of "fifty dollars down and ten
dollars a month."
The trolley-car service in and around Los Angeles is said to be the
best in the world. To Venice and Santa Monica, on the beach,--at a
distance of some seventeen miles,--there are electric "flyers" that
make the trip within thirty minutes. Venice is a French Étretat. The
little rows of streets at right angles with the coast line, running
down to the water, are named "Rose Avenue," "Ozone Avenue," "Sunset
Street," and other alluring names. This Venice is a veritable (refined
and artistic) "Midway," with its colonnades of shops offering every
conceivable phase of trinkets and _bijouterie_; its concert halls,
casino, gay little restaurants, and every conceivable variety of
amusement. It is the most unique little toy town of a creation
conceivable, and the electrical display and decorations at night are
fascinating in their scenic effect.
Santa Monica, some two miles farther up the coast, is still, stately,
and poetic. Here the blue Pacific rolls in in the most bewildering
sea greens and deep blues, and over it bends a sky rivalling that of
Arizona in depth and richness of color. The entire Pacific Coast is an
idyl of landscape loveliness.
But of life. What are the people of this lovely young city of two
hundred thousand inhabitants doing and thinking? It is not a question
to be answered in a paragraph. Life here is intense, interesting,
full of color and movement, and its many-faceted aspects invite
consideration. As one sits, for instance, on a Pasadena piazza, with
the golden glory of the sunset seen over the Sierra Madre, and the
rose hedges, the orange groves, the great bushes of heliotrope that
are almost like young trees pouring out their mingled fragrance on
the evening air, one falls under its spell. As the twilight deepens
into darkness the great searchlight from Mount Lowe, directly in
the foreground, a picturesque panorama, may swing out with its
weird, sweeping, dazzling illumination over the scene. When this
searchlight is out, people at the far-away beaches can see to read by
it at distances of from twenty-five to fifty miles. Quite near Mount
Lowe--one of the adjacent peaks--is Mount Wilson, on which the new
Carnegie Observatory is to be located. This will be fitted with the
largest telescope in the world and will have the advantage of every
latest scientific appliance.
Pasadena, like all the California towns and cities, covers very large
tracts of country. There is a thriving business centre, not very far
from which are the great Raymond Hotel and other winter resorts for
the throngs of tourists who are almost as important to the revenues
of California as they are to Italy. There are both North and South
Pasadena,--each almost a separate city in itself,--and the most
beautiful street is Orange Grove Avenue, with large estates on either
side and spacious lawns. On Fair Oaks Avenue, in a pretty cottage,
lives Prof. George Wharton James, the famous explorer, scientist,
and notable writer on the Grand Cañon in Arizona,--and the greatest
interpreter, indeed, of the entire Southwest. The books of Professor
James, "In and Out of the Old Missions of California," "The Indians
of the Painted Desert," and "Indian Basketry" (besides his book on
the "Grand Canyon," which is the accepted authority), interpret the
many phases of life in the Southwest in a vivid and accurate manner,
rendering them invaluable to contemporary literature. Professor James
makes his original explorations, taking with him an assistant and his
own camera, and going through varied hardships, almost greater than
could be realized. In the vast desert spaces, remote from any human
habitation, he has had to swim large, muddy, inland lakes, where vermin
were swarming; to go without food and water, and to endure the intense
fatigue of long tramps. In perusing his books the reader little dreams
at what fearful cost of energy all this original material was obtained.
In his home Professor James has a most interesting collection of the
_objets d'art_ of the Southwest. One must travel over this part of
the country in order to appreciate them. They are as distinctive of
New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California as the old masters and
other phases of Italian art are of Italy. There are brilliant Navajo
blankets and rugs--soft, rich, and vivid in color, with curiously
decorated designs; the most interesting array of Indian pottery--the
many specimens from the old tombs being far finer than any pottery done
by the modern Indians; and at the entrance to his lawn Professor James
has a huge meteorite from Meteorite Mountain in Arizona, which weighs
over a ton. He has a large section of a tree of the Petrified Forest,
and the finer specimens that show the bark and the fibre, and also the
crystallization. His library is large and fine, and comprises many
autograph gift copies from other authors.
One feature of the life of Professor James is especially helpful. In
his spacious library upstairs, on every Thursday evening, he gives
an informal talk on his travels and explorations to his friends and
neighbors. His personal experiences in studying the phenomenon of the
Salton Sea and the vagaries of the Colorado River, which is a law unto
itself, are most interesting.
The call of the wild is not more irresistible than the call of the
desert to Professor James. He has lived on it and with it, and learned
to read its hieroglyphics. The desert spirits have companioned him.
He has explored vast spaces of the Grand Cañon; he has encamped,
day after day, even week after week, on the Painted Desert; he has
wandered in the grim strange Tonto Basin, and sailed (of late) the
Salton Sea,--this sheet of four hundred square miles of water, this
impromptu lake where but a little while before was a deserted hollow
of a long extinct volcanic sea. Nature leads man a pretty dance out in
this Land of Enchantment. No one would venture to prophesy at night
just what stage transformation might take place before morning. This
very uncertainty of any particular tenure of mountain, sea, or desert
perhaps tends, unconsciously, to so react upon the population that
their more real life is thrown forward into the future. For instance,
Los Angeles lays no particular stress upon her present population,
but announces that by 1910 the figures will undoubtedly reach the
half-million mark. Nor, indeed, can the observer doubt this in any
contemplation of the present incredible rapidity of progress in every
direction. The city seems half made up of millionnaires, and the latest
municipal bank clearings amounted to almost four hundred millions of
dollars. Los Angeles is really an exotic, for the latest census reveals
the astonishing fact that ninety per cent of its inhabitants are from
the East, leaving only ten per cent as native Californians. Never was
the advertising of a city carried out to the degree of being fairly a
fine art so wonderfully as in Los Angeles. In the Chamber of Commerce
there is a perpetual exhibition of fruits and flowers in season, and of
the products and manufactures of the country.
Los Angeles, like most of the other more important Western cities, is
deeply concerned with irrigation schemes. This region of California
supplements its rainfall with irrigation, and between the two the
whole country is in bloom and blossom. Los Angeles is now arranging a
gigantic scheme to bring water from the Owen's River, two hundred miles
away, by means of tunnels through mountains and a huge canal. This
fall of water will not only entirely supply the city with water power
of immense force and volume, but it is estimated that it will also
irrigate a hundred thousand acres. The scheme will employ five thousand
men for some four years, and it is estimated that the cost will be
twenty-five millions. No undertaking daunts the Western city. If an
enterprise is desirable, it is to be achieved. That is the law and the
prophets in the Land of Enchantment.
Los Angeles, like Colorado Springs, is the paradise of excursions. The
trip up Mount Lowe to the observatory offers a magnificent panorama of
landscape, including Pasadena Valley and Catalina and Santa Barbara
islands. Old San Gabriel Mission and the San Gabriel Valley are
infinitely interesting, and the famous bells of San Gabriel still ring
in their quaint, rude stone framework even though they are jangled and
out of tune with the lapse of years. The Sierra Nevada Mountains rise
from the San Gabriel Valley.
One of the excursions has a feature that is new to every visitor,--that
of glass-bottom power boats which give a view of the marvels of the
ocean. These boats run from Avalon on the coast--an hour's express
trolley ride from Los Angeles--to the submarine gardens adjoining
Catalina Island, and they have a capacity to seat over a hundred
passengers around the glass. In sailing over these submarine gardens
the boats move very slowly, that the passengers may enjoy the view of
the strange seaweed, the marine flowers, the varied aquatic vegetation.
Catalina Island is a favorite sea resort, lying in such convenient
proximity to the city.
Los Angeles seems to be the paradise of every one who has a new
idea--or ideal--for the betterment of humanity. There is an atmosphere
of idealism. Among the recent institutions is the Pacific School of
Osteopathy, with a faculty of thirty physicians, men and women, who
base their therapeutics on the scientific fact that the body is subject
to chemical, electrical, thermal, mental, and mechanical treatment. In
the line of ethics Rev. B. Fay Mills has established a comprehensive
movement of "Fellowship," including religious services and social
intercourse, with a large and enthusiastic membership drawn by this
eloquent orator and preacher who for many years before in his pastorate
in Boston preached to large congregations who gave him profound
appreciation.
A most important centre that radiates sweetness and light in infinite
measure is that of Christ Church (Episcopal), whose rector, Rev.
Baker P. Lee, is not only eminent as a preacher, but as a leader and
inspirer of a network of organizations connected with the church for
the betterment of human life. Christ Church parish is a large one,
numbering over two thousand in direct connection with the church, with
a list of communicants of over twelve hundred. Within the past three
years the parish has built a magnificent new church and a rectory, and
the holy earnestness of the young and gifted rector makes the work one
of vital spirituality.
No city can offer more beautiful homes than those of Los Angeles;
more attractive parks, more enchanting scenery, or more delightful
excursions over a network of electric lines which aggregate above five
hundred miles of single track and reach one hundred towns and villages
from Monrovia of the foothills to Redondo by the sea. The world has
but one Southern California, with its cool, soft, gray sea-fogs in
the early mornings, followed by its cloudless days of blue sky over
golden sunshine; where the sea-breeze gladly brings its health-giving
ozone in exchange for the odors of orange blossoms and roses; where
the mountains stand glorying in the ruggedness of their rocky cliffs
until, touched by sunset's wand, they glow with pink lights and
purple shadows; and over all comes a golden radiance that changes the
forbidding outlines of their jagged peaks into radiant beauty,--fitting
features of the vast panorama of nature to hold their eternal place in
the Land of Enchantment.
CHAPTER XI
GRAND CAÑON; THE CARNIVAL OF THE GODS
"_What time the gods kept carnival!_"
EMERSON
"_The earth grew bold with longing
And called the high gods down;
Yea, though ye dwell in heaven and hell,
I challenge their renown.
Abodes as fair I build ye
As heaven's rich courts of pearl,
And chasms dire where flood like fire
Ravage and roar and whirl._
"_Come, for my soul is weary
Of time and death and change;
Eternity doth summon me--
With mightier worlds I range.
Come, for my vision's glory
Awaits your songs and wings;
Here on my breast I bid ye rest
From starry wanderings._"
HARRIET MONROE
One takes the wings of the morning and arrives at the uttermost parts
of the earth to find--the Grand Cañon, the scenic marvel of the entire
world.
Only to the poet's vision is the Grand Cañon revealed; only to the
poet's touch do its mighty harmonies respond. For this sublime
spectacle is as vital as a drama enacted on the stage, only its acts
require the centuries and the ages in which to represent themselves.
Whatever one sees of the Grand Cañon,--it matters not from what
commanding view of vision or vista, one sees only an infinitesimal
point. It is the Carnival of the Gods. "Prophets and poets had wandered
here," writes Harriet Monroe, "before they were born to tell their
mighty tales,--Isaiah and Æschylus and Dante, the giants who dared
the utmost. Here at last the souls of great architects must find
their dreams fulfilled; must recognize the primal inspiration which,
after long ages, had achieved Assyrian palaces, the temples and
pyramids of Egypt, the fortresses and towered cathedrals of mediæval
Europe. For the inscrutable Prince of builders had reared these
imperishable monuments, evenly terraced upward from the remote abyss;
had so cunningly planned them that mortal foot could never climb and
enter to disturb the everlasting hush. Of all richest elements they
were fashioned,--jasper and chalcedony, topaz, beryl, and amethyst,
fire-hearted opal, and pearl; for they caught and held the most
delicate colors of a dream and flashed full recognition to the sun.
Never on earth could such glory be unveiled,--not on level spaces of
sea, not on the cold bare peaks of mountains. This was not earth; for
was not heaven itself across there, rising above yonder alabaster marge
in opalescent ranks for the principalities and powers?... In a moment
we stood at the end of the world, at the brink of the kingdoms of peace
and pain. The gorgeous purples of sunset fell into darkness and rose
into light over mansions colossal beyond the needs of our puny unwinged
race. Terrific abysses yawned and darkened; magical heights glowed with
iridescent fire."
If one pauses for a moment with any sense of obligation to himself
to gain some _rationale_ of this cañon; if for a moment he turn from
rhapsody and ecstasy and the dream of poet and painter to grope after
statistical estimates, what does he find? One comparison is that,--
"If the Eiffel Tower, which with a height of almost a thousand feet
is the tallest structure in the world, were placed at the bottom of
the cañon in its deepest part, five more towers just like the first
would have to be piled on top of one another to reach the rim of
the plateau."
And again:
"Could the cañon be filled in for a building site, it would furnish
room enough for fifty New York cities. Indeed, it would have an
area of sixteen thousand square miles, equal to the whole of
Switzerland, or the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware,
and Rhode Island combined."
Statistical comparisons are, at best, a necessary evil which, once
confronted, need not companion one further. It is beauty, it is
sublimity, not mathematical assurances, that really lays hold on life.
The inexplicable impressions made by this spectacle are mirrored in
the following words:--
"As I grew familiar with the vision I could not quite explain its
stupendous quality. From mountain tops one looks across greater
distances and sees range after range lifting snowy peaks into the
blue. The ocean reaches out into boundless space, and the ebb
and flow of its waters have the beauty of rhythmic motion and
exquisitely varied color. And in the rush of mighty cataracts
are power and splendor and majestic peace. Yet for grandeur
appalling and unearthly; for ineffable, impossible beauty, the
cañon transcends all these. It is as though to the glory of nature
were added the glory of art; as though, to achieve her utmost, the
proud young world had commanded architecture to build for her and
color to grace the building. The irregular masses of mountains,
cast up out of the molten earth in some primeval war of elements,
bear no relation to these prodigious symmetrical edifices mounted
on abysmal terraces and grouped into spacious harmonies which give
form to one's dreams of heaven. The sweetness of green does not
last forever, but these mightily varied purples are eternal. All
that grows and moves must perish, while these silent immensities
endure."
The majestic panorama dominates every detail of daily life. As when in
Bayreuth for the Wagner music-dramas alone, every other consideration
is subordinated to these, so in life in El Tovar, on Bright Angel
Trail, one's hours for sleep and for any daily occupations are
held strictly amenable to "effects" in the mysterious splendor of
the Titanic underworld. To see the cañon under the full moon; to
see it when all the pinnacles of rock are leaping in rose-red flame
under a sunrise; to see it in a dream of twilight as the purple
canopy falls,--all these hours,--all hours are made for the magical
transformations. With every breath of change of the atmosphere this
celestial beauty changes. One is hardly conscious as to the special
ways and means by which he finds himself in an enchanted world,--
"From the shore of souls arrived?"
It is very possible. Nor does he know how--or when--he shall depart.
The past is effaced, and the future recedes into some unformulated
atmosphere. Life, a thousand lifetimes, concentrate themselves in the
present. A supreme experience has always this peculiarity,--that it
bars out all the past and all the future. When one is on the Mount of
Transfiguration, he is not scrutinizing the pathway by which he came
nor that by which he may descend.
Even if one has seen the Grand Cañon before, he is surprised to find
how absolutely newly created it is to him when its haunting magic
draws him back. No enshrined memory can compare with the reality. In
seeing the Petrified Forest one checks it off as a thing accomplished
for life. It is definite. The great logs of agate and jasper and
chalcedony lie on the ground as they have lain for perhaps thousands of
ages. It is a wonder--the seventh wonder of the world, if one pleases
and--the paradise of geologists, but it is unchanging. Not so the
Grand Cañon. The cañon is a perpetual transformation scene. Its color
effects rival those of an electric fountain under the full play of the
spectroscope. It is rose, purple, amber, emerald, pearl gray, pale
blue, scarlet--according to atmospheric states. One leaves it in the
late afternoon with the rocky towers and pinnacles and battlements all
in glowing scarlet, seen through a transparent air. He steps out upon
the broad hotel piazzas an hour later and, behold, the uncalculated
spaces of the cañon are filled with a half-transparent blue mist which
envelops all the curious sandstone formations that gleam in pale rose
and opal tints through this thin blue mist, and assume wraith-like
shapes. Major Powell well said, that really to see the Grand Cañon, a
year is necessary. Yet just as truly may it be said that even for two
days it is worth crossing the continent to enjoy this most marvellous
of spectacles. Only the scientist and the specialist dream of seeing it
in anything like completeness. For the tourist and traveller a range of
twenty miles is quite sufficient to disclose its representative beauty.
A day's drive by the stage to Grandview Point, Hance's Trail, and
Moran's Point is easily made between nine and five o'clock. A drive
of two or three miles in the opposite direction will include Rowe's
and O'Neil's points. One day will allow the adventurous tourist to "go
down the trail." Still, after doing all these things, the best of all,
it may be, is to live into the atmosphere. To draw one's chair out on
the broad balcony of the new and beautiful hotel, El Tovar, and sit and
dream and gaze and wonder, and wonder and gaze and dream, is, perhaps,
the greatest joy one can have in all the time passed here, especially
if the solitude can be the solitude _à deux_. No joy, no interest, is
of much consequence until or unless it is sympathetically shared. As a
_décor de scène_ the Grand Cañon is unrivalled. The magic and mystery
of all the universe broods over its Titanic spaces.
[Illustration: GRAND CAÑON, FROM GRAND VIEW POINT]
The air is the most bracing, exhilarating, and exquisite imaginable.
The great rolling mesas covered with pine forests are more than
seven thousand feet above the sea, and their exhilarating and tonic
properties are beyond description. The entire atmosphere is fragrant
with the pines. Throat and chest are bathed in balm and healing. There
can hardly be any difficulty with the bronchial and breathing mechanism
that cannot find its cure here. And the charm, the utter enchantment of
living on this rainbow-tinted cañon, a mile and a half deep, thirteen
miles across at this "Bright Angel" point (and this is its narrowest
place), the joy of life is to steep one's self in the atmosphere
of enchanting loveliness; and this perpetual play of color is an
experience that finds no interpretation in language.
On first alighting from the branch of the Santa Fé that runs from
Williams, Arizona, to Bright Angel, at the head of Bright Angel Trail
on the Grand Cañon,--a three hour's ride of transcendent beauty among
the purple peaks of the San Francisco mountains,--on first stepping
from the train up the terrace to the beautiful "El Tovar" built on the
very rim of the cañon, one objects strenuously to entering the hotel.
His eye has caught the Vision,--a "celestial Inferno bathed in soft
fires?" or the "Promised Land?" or the mystical vision that John saw
on the Island of Patmos? The hotel would, presumably, remain; but this
spectacle,--what can it be save a mirage, one never seen before on
earth and perhaps not to be too confidently anticipated in Paradise?
Would such a picture remain? Can one safely leave a sunset which is all
a miracle of splendor while he goes in to dine? Can he safely turn away
from the heavens when a young moon at night is winging her way down the
sky and expect to find her midway in the heavens? And could one safely
leave this most marvellous scene of all while he should bestow himself
in his rooms?
"Would the Vision there remain?
Would the Vision come again?"
Could it be, in the very nature of things, any more permanent than any
other momentary revelation of an enchanted hour that would fade
into the darkness as night came on, like the splendor of a sunset, the
color-scheme of a rainbow, or the glory and the freshness of a dream?
[Illustration: ZIGZAG, BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL, GRAND CAÑON, ARIZONA]
Instead, the Grand Cañon prefigures itself to one as an apparition,
and while he may gaze upon it under all changing lights of dawn, of
noonday, of sunset--and of moonlight--he cannot come to any realization
that it is there all the time. His room in the hotel may look out into
it and over it; and, waking in the night, he rises and leans out of his
window to see if it is still there. One does not expect a vision of
the New Jerusalem, a palpitating, changing, flaming, throbbing sea of
color--in its rose-reds, its greens, its amber, gold, and purple--to
remain like a field or a forest. It seems a thing of conditions,
visible at one moment, vanished, perchance, the next.
Think of a chasm a mile and a half deep, from thirteen to eighteen
miles wide, and as long as from Boston to New York--two hundred miles!
Think of it again as not merely a deep, dark chasm, but as filled with
the most wonderful architectural effects in the sandstone formations
which simulate Chinese pagodas, temples, altars, cathedrals, domes,
and towers so perfectly that one is incredulous of the fact that their
shaping is nature's work alone. Add to this the color scheme, now an
intense royal purple, again flashes of rose and green and ivory and
a rare blue; or again a "nocturne" in silvery gray, with hints of
lingering rose and amber shimmering in the air. Until within a few
years the Grand Cañon was so inaccessible as to quite account for
the general ignorance of this most wonderful scenic phenomenon in
our country, and, indeed, with no exaggeration be it said, the most
wonderful in the entire world. Twenty Yosemites might be thrown into
it and make no impression; and as for Niagara, it would be a mere tiny
waterfall in comparison.
In the trail leading downward into the cañon the first level is just
five times the height of St. Peter's in Rome, or the Pyramids of Cheops.
[Illustration: A CLIFF ON BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL, GRAND CAÑON]
From the brink one looks down a mile and a half into towers and
pinnacles; one looks across eighteen miles in the widest place;
and one looks up and down its tortuous length, as its complicated
system of cañons revealed themselves as far as the eye could see
either way. One gazes, not into a deep, dark cleft, a Titanic royal
gorge, but on and into a sea of color and a wealth of architectural
wonders,--cathedrals, towers, mosques, pinnacles, minarets, temples,
and balconies exceeding in variety of design, in extraordinary beauty
of grouping and splendor of color, anything of which one could dream,
even in his most enchanted moments. The red sandstone, the brilliant
white of the limestone luminous under the setting sun, the green of
pine trees or of copper rocks, the gray and ochre tints of gravel and
fallen rocks and débris, the soft, deep purple mist enveloping all
as an atmosphere in which all these architectural marvels seemed to
swim--the strange, unearthly splendor of it all--holds one under a
fascination that can neither be analyzed nor described. This, then, is
"El Grande Cañon de la Colorado." One stands speechless, breathless,
as if transported to some other planet. Suddenly all life--everything
that floated in memory--seemed confused, unreal. Was the past (whose
running series of incident and event and circumstance already seemed
vague) a dream, and was this the reality? Or had there never been any
reality in life before? Was this a dream, wrought under some untold
spell of enchantment? Would one hear the water nixies chanting their
refrain if he listened? Or was this scene of Titanic grandeur the abode
of Wagner's gods and heroes? One watched for the sacred fires to flame
on Brunhilde's rock and for Siegfried to appear. One saw the ship which
had borne Tristan on his ill-starred voyage, and the garden where the
lovers confessed their intense and instant love, and the fatal potion
scene rises before him; and again he is lost in rapt ecstasy as the air
seems filled with the passionate drama of Lilli Lehmann and Alvarez.
For let Ternina and other younger women come and go in the Wagner
music-drama, and yet where will that absolute perfection of dramatic
action, that passionate exaltation of emotion, ever again attend and
invest any singer as they invest and are identified with Lilli Lehmann?
"The Fairest enchants me,
The Mighty commands me."
In this most sublime of all earthly spectacles there are aërial
landscape effects as delicate and evanescent as a cloud-wreath, or as
a fog that advances, wraith-like, to melt away into dissolving views.
"The region is full of wonders and beauties and sublimities that
Shelley's imaginings do not match in the 'Prometheous Unbound,'" wrote
Charles Dudley Warner.
If the world realized the marvellous effects of this very Carnival
of the Gods, the infinite spaces of the Grand Cañon itself could not
contain all who would eagerly throng to behold it. The statistical
record of the increase of visitors is rather interesting. In 1900 there
were eight hundred and thirteen; the succeeding year, six thousand
eight hundred and eighty-three; while in 1903 the number increased
to nearly one hundred and twenty-eight thousand. Since that date the
number of visitors has multiplied itself after the fashion of compound
interest. The establishment of all the conveniences and comforts, not
to say luxuries, of modern travel may be one of the most potent factors
in this increase of visitors. Until within five years the Grand Cañon
could only be reached by a stage ride of seventy miles through the
Coconino Forest,--whose dim gray twilight reminds one of the forests
of Fontainebleau,--and which drive, however romantically beautiful,
was attended with too great terrestrial discomfort to commend it to
general public service. Until 1906 the hotel accommodations, also,
while offering a modest comfort, were essentially primitive; while
now the superb new Harvey hostelry, "El Tovar," built at a cost of a
quarter of a million dollars (and the Harvey name is a synonym in the
West for everything admirable in dining cars, refreshment stands, and
hotels), insures to every traveller any degree of luxurious comfort he
requires. Even the man who, after visiting all the enchanted points in
the Land of Enchantment, in its prehistoric period of twenty years ago
before Pullman cars climbed the mountain peaks and the Waldorf-Astoria
type of hotels sprang up, the man who, after a trip through these
wonders of the world, returned to New York and declared that he would
rather see an electric bell and a bath than all the grandeur between
Pike's Peak and the Pacific, would now be fully reconciled to Western
sojourns. He would find his electric bell and his bath to be as much a
matter of course as in Fifth Avenue, besides also finding that there
were spectacles,--as that of the Garden of the Gods, Cheyenne Cañon,
the Petrified Forests, the Grand Cañon, and the Los Angeles electric
trolley system (which quite deserves to rank with the modern "Seven
Wonders" of the world), and which Fifth Avenue by no means provided for
her votaries. In fact, "El Tovar" is so inclusive of comfort as to be
fairly a feature of the cañon, commanding, on one side, a magnificence
of prospect without parallel in the world in the mighty chasm on
whose brink it stands, on the other side the fragrant Coconino pine
forest,--the largest belt of pine timber in the United States, and
which has been made a government forest reservation.
There is now a project to erect a memorial to Major John W. Powell, the
pioneer explorer of the Grand Cañon, to be placed on the rim at the
head of Bright Angel Trail at El Tovar. This most fitting plan to honor
the name of the great scientist and explorer whose research contributed
the first authoritative knowledge of the cañon is the thought of the
American Scenic Association, which will petition Congress to grant the
requisite appropriation. No monument to human greatness could be more
ideally placed than this to perpetually repeat to every visitor and
sojourner the name of the explorer who successfully achieved the most
startling and heroic journey in all history,--that made through the
complete extent of the Grand Cañon.
It was in 1869 that Major Powell, with four boats and nine men,
inaugurated this expedition, starting from Green River City in Utah.
He was dissuaded and importuned in the most urgent way by those
most familiar with the region not to attempt the feat. The Indians
especially insisted that no boat could live in any one of the score of
rapids to be passed. There was also a tradition that for some hundreds
of miles the river lost itself in the earth, and Major Powell and his
men would thus be imprisoned within a Titantic fortress from which
escape would be impossible. But men of destiny do not hesitate when
they are led to great achievements. Major Powell set out on May 24,
1869, with his nine men and four boats, and landed on August 3, with
four men and two boats, at the mouth of the Virgin River, after having
sailed the boiling torrent of the Colorado River, at the bottom of the
cañon, for more than a thousand miles. Mr. C. A. Higgins characterizes
this feat as "the most wonderful geological and spectacular phenomenon
known to mankind."
The first authentic knowledge of the existence of the Grand Cañon
dates back to August of 1540, when the Spanish friar, Alvar Nuñez,
after years of romantic wanderings among the pueblos of the Southwest,
returned to Mexico with tales of this mighty chasm. Coronado, who
had discovered the Seven Cities of Cibola (of which now only Zuñi
remains), ordered Garcia Lopez to take a band of men and Indian guides
and search for this chasm, which he succeeded in discovering; with the
more difficulty, surely, in that one has to gain its very rim before he
has hardly an intimation of its proximity. The spectacle of the cañon
always presents itself as a sudden surprise. It was not, however, until
1884 that, by the building of the great transcontinental line, the
Santa Fé, the Grand Cañon became accessible. Then for some twenty years
it was reached, as has already been noted, by stage from Flagstaff.
Now one can travel in his sleeper without change from Chicago to El
Tovar, and thousands of tourists annually visit the extraordinary
scene. Not the least of the interesting data regarding the cañon is
this gulf of more than three hundred years that divides its discovery
from its taking rank as the most phenomenal scenic resort of the world.
The mills of the gods grind slowly. The visitors to the Grand Cañon
present singularly cosmopolitan groups, there being hardly a country in
the world that is not represented at some time during the year.
For the cañon has all seasons for its own. It is almost as much of
an object of winter as of summer pilgrimage. One season is found, on
the whole, to be almost as enjoyable here as another. It is cool in
summer, and it is warm and sunny in winter. Sometimes there is a fairy
snowfall, but hardly more lasting than a spring frost, and when it
comes it only adds another flitting variety to the stupendous scene.
With untold tons of the water of the Colorado River pouring itself in
torrents through the bottom of the cañon, all the water used for the
table, for toilet, and for laundry purposes has to be brought from a
distance of a hundred and twenty miles, and twenty thousand gallons are
in daily use. An electric-light plant furnishes brilliant illumination.
The Hopi House, built in imitation of an Indian pueblo, with a group
of quaintly garbed Hopi Indians within in attendance, is a curiosity;
and besides the Hopis there are Navajos and Supais coming to sell their
handiwork,--that of pottery, silver ornaments, blankets, and baskets.
Cataract Cañon, forty miles from El Tovar, is the home of the Supais,
and it is a place that well repays visiting for an entirely new point
of view of the vast cañon that it affords. There are peaceful Indians
to be seen daily riding their horses through the pine woods, journeying
from El Tovar to Grand View, to "Hance's Trail," to "Moran's Point,"
and other localities, to sell or barter their wares. One old Indian
who seems to roam about alone has developed an ingenious manner of
procuring food when he is hungry. He enters the hotel office and seeks
the proprietor himself, recognizing with unerring instinct that this
gentleman's liberal endowment of sympathy and unfailing generosity
never permits him to "turn down" a request for aid. The wily old savage
seeks him out and makes conspicuous overtures of his affection.
"You is heap my son; pale face heap my son!" the dusky visitor
declares, and when this assurance is emphasized to the proprietor he
realizes that it means he is "heap my son" because his visitor is
hungry. These outbursts of devotion occur only when the old Indian is
at his wits' end to know where to procure something to eat. Once fed he
is off, and thinks no more of the man whom he assured that he was "heap
my son" until hunger again assails him and stimulates his parental
affection.
So the little trifles and pleasantries of the _comédie humaine_
assert their place in the general life even on the rim of the sublime
spectacle of the Carnival of the Gods.
For more than two hundred miles the cañon offers its innumerable
panoramas, no one ever duplicating that of another. There are thousands
of cañons in it--it is a complicated system of colossal cañons. Every
wall is an aggregation of hundreds of walls. Every pinnacle is formed
of hundreds of pinnacles. When the sun shines in splendor on the
vermilion walls, the glory is almost beyond what man can bear. When
from the trail below a star seems to float in the air and rest on the
verge of the cliff, what words can convey any image of this ineffable
beauty?
The cloud-effects are another of the phases of faëry. A rain creates a
panorama of clouds creeping out of one cañon and flying into another,
all "as if they had souls and wills of their own," says Major Powell;
and he adds, "In the imagination the clouds belong to the sky, and when
they are in the cañon the skies come down into the gorges and cling to
the cliffs and lift them up to immeasurable heights, for the sky must
still be far away; thus they lend infinity to the walls." The cañon
mirrors the color and the state of the sky as water does. This is one
of the most curious facts connected with it. "Yet form and color do not
exhaust all the divine qualities of the Grand Cañon," continues Major
Powell; "it is the land of music. The river thunders in perpetual
roar, swelling in floods of music when the storm-gods play upon the
rocks, and fading away in soft and low murmurs when the infinite blue
of heaven is unveiled.... The adamant foundations of the earth have
been wrought into a sublime harp upon which the clouds of heaven play
with mighty tempests or with gentle showers."
Major Powell, the explorer and practically the modern discoverer of the
cañon, remains its most complete interpreter. His journal narrating
that remarkable voyage through the Colorado River in a region "more
difficult to traverse than the Alps or the Himalayas," is fairly an
epic in American literature. He had the vision of the painter and the
heart of the poet. He felt that infinitely complex variety of the
cañon, and he read its sublime inscriptions on a scroll not made with
hands. He pictures one feature especially that has hardly been touched
by other writers,--that of the perpetually changing aspects. "One
moment as we looked out over the landscape," he writes, "the atmosphere
seemed to be trembling and moving about, giving the impression of an
unstable land: plains and hills and cliffs and distant mountains seemed
vaguely to be floating about in a trembling, wave-rocked sea; and
patches of landscape would seem to float away and be lost, and then
reappear.... The craggy buttes seem dancing about.... The sun shone
in splendor on the vermilion walls. Shaded into green and gray when
the rocks were lichened over, the river filled the channel from wall
to wall, and the cañon opened like a beautiful doorway to a region of
glory. But at evening, when the sun was going down and the shadows were
settling in the cañon, the scarlet gleams and roseate hues, blended
with tints of green and gray, slowly changed to sombre brown above and
black shadows crept over them from below.... Lying down, one looked
up through the cañon and saw that only a little of the blue heavens
appeared overhead,--a crescent of blue sky with but two or three
constellations peering down upon us. Soon I saw a bright star that
appeared to rest on the verge of the cliffs overhead, and, as it moved
up from the rock, I almost wondered that it did not fall, and indeed it
appeared as if swayed down by its own weight. The star appeared to be
_in_ the cañon, so high were the walls."
So the wonderful story of Major Powell's runs on of these atmospheric
phenomena of the cañon, effects that
"... give to seas and sunset skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise."
It is from Bright Angel Trail that the Grand Cañon is the most
accessible. Parties of men and women, mounted on sure-footed burros,
go down this trail with their guides--apparently under the special
protection of the bright angels of the celestial host, as no accident
has ever, thus far, occurred. Prof. George Wharton James notes, in his
invaluable work on the Grand Cañon,[5] that this trail was originally
used by the Havasupai Indians and that the rude irrigating canals that
conveyed water from an adjacent spring to a so-called Indian Garden
in the near vicinity are still to be seen. The view from the head of
Bright Angel Trail is one of vast extent and a peculiar sublimity.
Buddha Temple is a colossal pile that rises in isolated grandeur,
and near it is Buddha Cloister. An impressive tower of rock rising
in the cañon bears the honored name of Agassiz. Isis Temple and the
Temple of Brahma are within the range of the eye from this point.
The perfectly transparent air, and that absence of aërial vibration
that characterizes the atmosphere of Arizona, conspire to invest all
distance with magic illusion. Looking across the thirteen miles of the
cañon's abyss from Bright Angel Trail, the opposite rim hardly seems
farther away than the distance of three or four city blocks. Isis
Temple is said to be as great in mass as the mountainous part of Mt.
Washington, and the summit of Isis looks down six thousand feet into
the depths of a chasm, the ledges on the side being "as impracticable
as the face of Bunker Hill Monument."
It is a noticeable fact, and one which the general reader may regard
with quiet amusement, that all the writers who even attempt to allude
to the Grand Cañon quote copiously from each other; and this is the
almost inevitable instinct of each, in order to reinforce himself with
authority for statements which, to those who have not themselves gazed
upon this Carnival of the Gods, would sound incredible even to the
verge of the wildest extravaganza. Major Powell's vivid transcription
of his thrilling journey through the cañon, sailing through the
boiling, rushing river whose torrents constantly threatened to engulf
his boats,--Major Powell's transcription stands for itself alone;
it was not only the pictured scenes of a writer, but the scientific
report of an official government explorer; but since this,--and from
Major Powell's narrative every writer invariably quotes,--since this,
the writers quote from each other; they use each other's statements
as evidence which they cite in order to support their own statements
regarding a marvel so unspeakably phenomenal that the most literal and
statistical description reads like an Arabian Nights romance. Then,
too, the array of pen-pictures is interesting. A writer who coined
wonderful descriptive phrases is Mr. C. A. Higgins. Of the silent
transformations of the cañon when it "sinks into mysterious purple
shadow" he said: "The far Shinumo Altar is tipped with a golden ray,
and against a leaden horizon the long line of the Echo Cliffs reflects
a soft brilliance of indescribable beauty, a light that, elsewhere,
surely never was on sea or land. Then darkness falls," he continues,
"and should there be a moon, the scene in part revives in silver light
a thousand spectral forms projected from inscrutable gloom; dreams of
mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things eternal." Others who
have written of the Grand Cañon are: Harriet Monroe, whose poet's pen
is dipped in the colors of an artist's palette; George Wharton James;
and Mr. Charles S. Gleed, a distinguished lawyer of Topeka, who thus
described the Cañon's wonders:
"Surrendering our minds to the magic spell of that mighty chasm,
what pictures troop before us! Yonder see Gibraltar, giant sentinel
of the Mediterranean. There on long ledges are St. Peter's
and St. Paul's, Niagara, the Pyramids, and the Tower of Pisa.
Bracketed beyond are the great parliament houses of the world.
Down below behold in life size the lesser mountains of our own
land,--Washington, Monadnock, Mansfield, Lookout, and a thousand
others. See in the distance a million colored pictures of the Alps,
the Adirondacks, and the Sierras. On endless shelves, this way and
that, behold the temples and cathedrals, the castles and fortresses
of all time. See vast armies, the armies of the ages, winding up
the slopes, and great navies manoeuvring in the mirage-like
distance. Here, indeed, the giant mind of Dante would have found
new worlds to conquer; and Homer would have dreamed new dreams of
gods and men, love and war, life and death, heaven and hell."
Hamlin Garland, in one of his prose-poems, has said:
"The clouds and the sunset, the moonrise and the storm, will
transform it into a splendor no mountain range can surpass. Peaks
will shift and glow, walls darken, crags take fire, and gray-green
mesas, dimly seen, take on the gleam of opalescent lakes of
mountain water. The traveller who goes out to the edge and peers
into the great abyss sees but one phase out of hundreds. If he is
fortunate, it may be one of its most beautiful combinations of
color and shadow. But to know it, to feel its majesty, one should
camp in the bottom and watch the sunset and the moonrise while the
river marches from its lair like an angry lion."
Robert Brewster Stanton, a civil engineer whose original work has
brought him prominently before the scientific world, followed Major
Powell's explorations, twenty years later, with a surveying company of
his own organization,--and Mr. Stanton is, indeed, the only explorer
who has made the continuous journey the entire length of the Colorado
River which Major Powell navigated for a thousand miles. It was in May
of 1889 that Mr. Stanton and his men initiated this daring feat, and
of one phase of the appearance of the cañon Mr. Stanton's glowing,
eloquent pen recorded:
"Those terrifying, frowning walls _are moving, are changing_! A new
light is not only creeping over them, but is coming out from their
very shadows. See those flattened slopes above the dark sandstone on
top the granite; even at this very moment they are _being colored_ in
gorgeous stripes of horizontal layers of yellow, brown, white, green,
and purple.
"What means this wondrous change? Wherein lies this secret of the great
cañon?
"After living in it and with it for so many weeks and months, I lost
all thought of the great chasm as being only a huge rock mass, carved
into its many intricate forms by ages of erosion. It became to me what
it has ever since remained, and what it really is,--a living, moving,
sentient being!
"The Grand Cañon is not a solitude. It is a living, moving, pulsating
being, ever changing in form and color, pinnacles and towers springing
into being out of unseen depths. From dark shades of brown and black,
scarlet flames suddenly flash out and then die away into stretches of
orange and purple. How can such a shifting, animated glory be called 'a
thing'? It is a being, and among its upper battlements, its temples,
its amphitheatres, its cathedral spires, its monuments and its domes,
and in the deeper recesses of its inner gorge its spirit, its soul,
the very spirit of the living God himself, lives and moves and has its
being."
Mr. C. M. Skinner, of the "Brooklyn Eagle," impressively wrote:
"... After the sky colors, too, have faded, you are about to turn
away, lingering, regretting, when--again, a wonder; for new colors,
deep, tender, solemn, flow up along the painted walls, as night
brims out of the deep. The bottom grows vague and misty, but each
Walhalla is steeped in purple as soft as the bloom of grapes.
When day is wholly gone and the cañon has become to the eye a mere
feeling or impression of depth and space, walk out on some lonely
point. The slopes, thirteen miles away, are visible as gray walls,
distinct from the black cliffs, and on the hither side the trees
are clear against the snow. No night is absolute in blackness, but
as we look it seems as though the cañon was lighted from within.
It is an abyss of shadow and mystery. There is a sadness in the
cañon, as in all great things of nature, that removes it from human
experience. We have seen the utmost of the world's sublimity, and
life is fuller from that hour."
All these and many other transcriptions of its glory form a picture
gallery which each lover of the Grand Cañon prizes as among his
choicest possessions. Thomas Moran, the artist, has painted many
scenes from the cañon, one of these paintings having been placed in
the Capitol in Washington, where it is the object of the admiration
and the wonder of the endless procession of visitors who throng the
nation's centre. Painter and poet and prophet make their pilgrimages
to this one stupendous Marvel of Nature. To the prophets and the poets
of every century and every age it flashes its responsive message; and
the worshipper at the shrine of this Infinite Beauty, this sublimest
Majesty, can but feel, with Mr. Higgins,--that poetic lover of the vast
Southwest, the lover of music and literature and art and nature, whose
beautiful life on earth closed in 1900, but whose charm of presence
still pervades the scenes he loved and memorialized,--with this lofty
and poetic recorder of nature one can but say of the Grand Cañon:
"Never was picture more harmonious, never flower more exquisitely
beautiful. It flashes instant communication of all that architecture
and painting and music for a thousand years have gropingly striven to
express. It is the soul of Michael Angelo and of Beethoven."
* * * * *
In retrospective glance over a very midsummer night's dream of
the ineffable glory and beauty of wanderings from Pike's Peak to
the Pacific there stands out to the mental vision one treasured
possession whose loveliness exceeds that of all scenic landscape;
which is more luminous and crystal clear than the luminous atmosphere
of beautiful Colorado or glowing Arizona; which is more enduring in
its changelessness than even the Petrified Forests or the mighty
precipices of the Grand Cañon; which is invested with all the etherial
splendor of that brilliant young city which the Spanish conquerors
knew as _Pueblo de la Reine de los Angeles_: which is as sacred in its
nature as are the sacred legends of the Holy Faith of St. Francis.
This treasured possession is that of the friendships formed during
this enchanted journey; of the generous kindness, the bountiful
hospitality; the exquisite courtesy and grace constantly received
from each and all with an unfailing uniformity, including those in
widely varying relations and pursuits; those who, according to outer
standards, are the more, or the less, fortunate in power, resources, or
development,--the treasured possession of all this sweet and gracious
friendliness is imperishable; and in this priceless and precious gift,
which is not only a treasure for the life that now is, but also for the
life which is to come, is there crystallized all the charm of summer
wanderings in the Land of Enchantment.
INDEX
INDEX
Acoma, New Mexico, 183;
theory of its origin, 184;
its antiquity, 185;
rivalry between it and Laguna, 185, 186;
Charles F. Lummis on, 186, 187.
Adamana, the gateway to the Petrified Forests of Arizona, 270;
origin of its name, 270;
the simple life at, 274, 275.
Adams, the Hon. Alva, 117, 118;
quoted, 118, 119, 120.
Agriculture in Colorado, 130, 131;
in New Mexico, 204, 205.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 196;
excursions from, 196;
a "smart" town, 200;
characteristics of, 201.
Ames, Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon, on civilization, 162.
Arizona, sights of, 4, 228, 229, 239, 257, 258, 267, 268;
a treasure land, 9;
visited by the Spaniards, 214;
a land of magic and mystery, 228, 254, 255;
its resources, 230, 255;
irrigation in, 230, 231, 246;
rainfall in, 230, 279;
its attractions for men of science, 231, 232;
flora of, 232;
cacti of, 233;
grasses of, 234;
climate of, 234, 235, 256;
as a health resort, 234, 235;
meaning of the name, 236;
history of, 236;
separation from New Mexico, 236, 237, 252;
rivers of, 240, 251;
capital of, 243;
towns of, 251;
safety of property in, 251;
citizens of, 252, 254;
festivity of the "Snake Dance," 258, 259, 260, 261;
the "Painted Desert" of, 263, 264, 265, 266;
Petrified Forests of, 270;
desert of, 284, 285.
Bear Creek Cañon, 89.
Bell, the Hon. John C., and the Gunnison Tunnel, 111.
"Ben Hur," where written, 219.
Boston woman characterized, 23.
Brooks, Bishop Phillips, on the superhuman, 181;
quoted, 216.
California, Southern, features of, 9.
Campbell, Rev. Frederick, on Glenwood Springs, 96, 97.
Campbell, Prof. H. W., on "dry farming," 129, 130.
Cañon Diablo, Arizona, 289, 292.
Caruthers, William, on resources of Cripple Creek, 77.
"Cathedral Rock," 74, 75, 81.
Cheyenne Cañon, 65, 66, 67;
Helen Hunt Jackson on, 65.
Cliff-dwellings of Southern Colorado, 114, 115, 116;
bill in Congress for preservation of, 114, 115;
opinions concerning, 116;
at Flagstaff, Arizona, 286.
Colorado, splendors of, 14, 139;
a second Italy, 15, 97;
people of, 16;
woman suffrage in, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29;
developed a demand for specialists, 33;
employment in, 33;
revenue of, 34;
railways of, 37, 40, 99;
C. B. Knox on the future of, 39;
Major Pike's description of, 63;
has larger percentage of American population than any other Western
state, 88;
waterfalls of, 104;
irrigation of, 110, 111, 119, 126, 127, 133, 134, 141, 145, 146, 151;
yachting in, 111, 112, 113;
mountain climbing in, 113, 114;
agriculture in, 130, 131;
ranching in, 132;
"trip round the circle" journey described, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138;
engineering feats in, 138;
park systems of, 139;
industries of, 139, 140, 141;
stone-quarrying in, 142, 143;
mineral resources of, 143, 144, 147;
population of, 147;
progress of, 148;
towns of, 148;
northern, 149;
coal-fields of, 150;
fruit cultivation in, 151;
labor in, 152, 153;
forests of, 153, 154;
sport in, 155;
public school system in, 173;
literature and art in, 177;
its future, 178, 180, 181.
----, pioneers of, 157-181;
contrasted with the Pilgrim Fathers, 158;
"Denver Republican" on, 158;
their unselfishness, 159, 160, 163;
environment of, 162, 163;
Nathan Cook Meeker, 164-176.
Colorado College, 85, 86, 87.
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 124, 125, 126.
Colorado River, Arizona, 240;
Prof. N. H. Newell on, 240, 241, 242.
Colorado Springs, gateway to Pike's Peak district, 51;
climate of, 52;
excursions from, 52;
as a tourist centre, 57;
summer and autumn in, 83;
the town described, 84;
life at, 84, 85;
founded by General Palmer, 85;
buildings of, 88;
park system of, 89, 91.
Commencement ceremonies in East and West contrasted, 86.
Cripple Creek, towns of, 75, 76;
gold resources of, 75, 76, 77;
mines of, 76;
character of miners in, 77, 78;
favorite excursion from, 78, 79.
Denver, 15;
metropolis of the West, 16;
climate of, 16, 44;
its buildings, 17, 18, 19;
residential district of, 17;
the Capitol, 18;
City Park, 18, 19;
homes of, 19;
telephone service of, 21;
women of, and politics, 22, 23, 25;
election frauds in, 28;
smelteries of, 34;
growth of population, 37;
future of, 38;
City Arch, 40, 41, 42;
spirit of the city, 42;
enterprise of, 43;
an early opinion of, 43;
a convention city, 45;
Art League of, 46;
institutions of, 46;
education in, 46, 47;
churches of, 47;
life in, 48;
should replace Washington as capital of the Union, 48, 49;
electrical supply in, 106.
Denver and Rio Grande Railway, 99;
scenery on, 100.
"Denver Republican, The," quoted, 147;
on the pioneers of Colorado, 158.
"Dry Farming" system, discovered by Prof. H. W. Campbell, 129;
Professor Olin on benefits of, 131;
extent of, in Eastern Colorado, 131;
success of, in New Mexico, 204.
Eliot, Rev. Dr. Samuel A., quoted, 86, 87.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 25, 51, 63, 94, 104, 157, 182, 228, 268,
270, 275, 296, 311.
Estes Park, Colorado, 155.
"Fairy Caves" of Colorado, 98, 100, 101.
Fellows, Professor, surveys for the Gunnison Tunnel, 109, 111.
Flagstaff, Arizona, 286;
its antiquities, 286;
the Lowell Observatory at, 287, 288.
Franciscans, mission churches of, 191, 209, 210;
their labors, 208, 216, 217.
Frost, Colonel Max, on old New Mexico, 187-193;
his influence in New Mexico, 225;
his career, 226;
Secretary of the Bureau of Immigration, 227.
"Garden of the Gods," Colorado, 91, 92;
gateway to, 91, 92.
Garland, Hamlin, on the Grand Cañon, 333, 334.
Gilbert, Prof. G. K., studies Meteorite Mountain of Arizona, 290, 293,
294.
Gleed, Charles S., on the Grand Cañon, 333.
Glenwood Springs, Colorado, 94;
its mineral springs, 94, 95;
bathing at, 95, 96, 97;
Rev. Frederick Campbell on, 96;
hot cave of, 97;
"Fairy Caves" of, 98, 99, 100, 101;
scenery at, 99.
Grand Cañon, 4;
scenic marvels of, 311, 312, 314, 315, 317, 319, 321;
Harriet Monroe on, 312, 313;
compared with the Eiffel Tower, 313;
area of, 313, 319, 328;
always revealing new beauties, 316;
atmospheric effects of, 316, 318, 319;
approach to, 318, 325, 326, 330;
architectural effects of, 319, 320, 328;
Charles Dudley Warner on, 322;
visitors to, 322;
hotels of, 323;
proposed memorial to Major John W. Powell, 324;
earliest discovery of, 325;
the Hopi House at, 326;
Indians of, 327;
Major Powell's journal of his exploration of, 329, 330, 332;
Prof. George Wharton James on, 331;
eulogies of, by C. A. Higgins, 332, 337,
by Charles S. Gleed, 333,
by Hamlin Garland, 333,
by Robert Brewster Stanton, 334,
and by C. M. Skinner, 335;
paintings of, by Thomas Moran, 336.
Grand Caverns of Pike's Peak, 68, 69;
memorial to General Grant in, 69.
Grand Lake, Colorado, 112;
its yacht club, 112.
Grand River, the, 101.
Grant, General, memorial to, in Grand Caverns, 69.
Greeley, founding of, 164, 169, 171, 172;
constitution of, 172;
population of, 173;
educational establishments of, 173;
churches of, 174;
buildings of, 175;
life in, 175;
the Meeker Memorial Library, 175.
Greeley, Horace, and Colorado, 168.
"Greeley Tribune, The," on irrigation, 127, 128;
foundation of, 174.
Grenfell, Helen, record of, 27.
Gunnison River, Colorado, 107, 108;
plan to divert, 108.
Gunnison Tunnel, 108, 109, 110.
Hammond, the Hon. Meade, and the Gunnison Tunnel, 111.
Higgins, C. A., on the Grand Cañon, 332, 337.
Hosmer, Harriet, on travelling by night, 12.
Howe, Julia Ward, quoted, 161.
Irrigation in Colorado, 107, 110, 111, 119, 125, 126, 127, 128, 133,
134, 141, 145, 146, 151;
in New Mexico, 203, 204;
in Arizona, 230, 231, 246;
in California, 302, 307, 308.
Jackson, Helen Hunt, quoted, 65.
James, Prof. George Wharton, on Californian missions, 210;
on Indian life in Arizona, 261, 262, 263;
on the "Painted Desert," 264, 265;
home of, at Pasadena, 305, 306;
his love of the desert of the Southwest, 306, 307;
on the Grand Cañon, 330.
Kansas City, 13.
Kearny, General Stephen W., occupies Santa Fé, 218, 219;
memorial to, 218;
quoted, 218.
Kirley, the Hon. Joseph H., on Arizona, 251.
Knox, C. B., on Colorado, 39, 40.
Lacey, Representative, on the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings, 115, 116.
Laguna, New Mexico, 185, 186.
Las Vegas, New Mexico, 199;
hot springs of, 199, 200;
its attractions, 202.
Lindsay, Judge, on woman suffrage, 27, 28, 29.
Lookout Mountain, Colorado, 102, 103;
scenery on the ascent of, 103.
Los Angeles, the "boom" of, 229, 300, 301;
trolley system of, 299, 303;
lighting of, 300;
its parks, 301;
public library of, 301;
climate, 302;
irrigation in, 302, 307;
life of, 303, 304, 310;
population of, 307;
as a centre for excursions, 308;
idealism of, 309;
Pacific School Osteopathy at, 309;
churches of, 309, 310.
Lowell Observatory, 6, 268, 276, 287, 288.
Lowell, Professor Percival, 287.
Manitou, 67, 68, 104;
mineral springs of, 67.
Manitou Park, 64, 65.
Maricopa County, 243, 244.
Mars, photographs of, taken at Lowell Observatory, 287, 288, 289.
Mead, Prof. Elwood, on irrigation, 144, 145.
Meeker family, 164, 165.
Meeker, the Hon. Nathan Cook, 165;
his career, 165, 166;
his visit to the West, 167;
Horace Greeley encourages him to establish a colony in Colorado, 168;
founds the town of Greeley, 169;
his work among the Indians, 169, 170;
massacred, 170.
Meeker, town of, 170, 171.
Mendoza, expeditions organized by, 213, 236.
Meredith, Ellis, 79;
her literary work, 80;
her ode to the "Short Line," 81.
"Mesa, the Enchanted," ascent of, 184;
described, 184.
Mesa Verde, cliff-dwellings of, 115, 116;
Representative Lacey on, 115, 116.
Meteorite Mountain, Arizona, 290;
theory of origin, 290, 291, 293, 295;
discovery of diamonds in, 290;
description of, 291, 292;
experiments of Dr. Foote relating to, 295.
Monroe, Harriet, on the "Painted Desert," 263;
quoted, 311;
on the Grand Cañon, 312, 313.
Montezuma Well, Arizona, 257.
Monument Park, 91.
Monument Valley, 91.
Moran, Thomas, paintings by, of the Grand Cañon, 336.
Mount Massive, ascent of, 113, 114.
Mountain climbing in Colorado, 113, 114.
Muir, John, discovers a new Petrified Forest of Arizona, 277.
Munk, Dr. Joseph A., on the cacti of Arizona, 232, 233;
on Arizona as a health resort, 234, 235.
Murphy, the Hon. N. O., opinions on the union of Arizona and New
Mexico, 253, 254.
New Mexico, features of, 8;
climate of, 13;
a land of surprises, 182;
its mixed population, 182;
scenery of, 183;
ruins of, 183;
its ancient civilization, 187-193;
Franciscan mission churches of, 191;
archæology of, 193;
its progress in modern ideas, 194;
French expedition to, 195;
compared with Algiers, 195;
hotels in, 195;
resources of, 196, 197, 198;
irrigation in, 203, 204;
railroads of, 203;
opportunities in, 204;
fruit growing in, 205;
mineral wealth of, 205;
under Spanish rule, 214;
records of, 217;
Historical Association of, 220.
Newberry, Dr., on Arizona, 267.
Newell, Prof. N. H., on the Colorado River, 240, 241, 242.
Newspapers of the Southwest, 122;
"Greeley Tribune" quoted, 127;
"Denver Republican" quoted, 147, 158;
"The New Mexican," 225;
"The Eagle" of Santa Fé, 227.
Night, charm of travelling by, 11, 12;
at Pike's Peak, 55, 56.
Nizza, Friar Marcos de, missionary labors of, 208;
expedition of, 213.
Oñate, Juan de, founds Santa Fé, 214.
"Painted Desert," The, of Arizona, 261-266;
Prof. George Wharton James on, 262, 264;
Harriet Monroe on, 263.
Pajarito Park, New Mexico, 187.
Palmer, General William J., founds Colorado Springs, 85;
benefactor of the state, 89, 90, 93;
residence of, 90.
Pasadena, California, 304;
home of Prof. George Wharton James at, 305, 306.
"Pathfinders and Pioneers," Governor Alva Adams on, 118, 119, 120.
Patterson, Senator, career of, 31, 32.
Petrified Forests, the, of Arizona, 270;
a visit to, 271, 278, 279;
atmospheric effects in, 272, 273, 283;
towns in neighborhood of, 276;
metropolis of, 277;
discovery by John Muir, 277;
difficulties of visiting, 279;
three in number, 279;
area of, 279;
antiquities of, 281, 282;
preservation of, insured by the Government, 282;
the marvel of the geologist, 283;
an arid region, 284.
Phillips, Stephen, quoted, 15.
Phoenix, capital of Arizona, 243;
a tourist centre, 243;
attractions of, 245;
winter in, 245;
school system of, 252.
Pike, Major (afterwards General) Zebulon Montgomery, discovery by, 59;
his ascent of Pike's Peak, 60;
his career, 61, 62;
diary of, 62, 63.
Pike's Peak, region of, 4;
gateway of, 51;
winter at, 51;
the mountain described, 52, 53, 54;
sunsets at, 54, 55;
at night, 55, 56;
cogwheel railway of, 56;
ascent of, 57, 58;
its souvenir daily paper, 57;
summit of, 58;
discovery of, 59;
centenary of discovery celebrated, 64;
favorite excursion in vicinity of, 64.
Pilgrim Fathers, contrasted with the Colorado pioneers, 158.
"Point of Rocks," Arizona, 238.
Powell, Major John W., explores the Grand Cañon, 324, 325;
journal of his expedition, 329, 330.
Prescott, in Arizona, 237;
mines of, 237;
the "Point of Rocks" near, 238;
surrounding country, 238.
Prince, the Hon. L. Bradford, on New Mexico, 218.
Pueblo, 116, 117;
home of Governor Alva Adams in, 117;
its amenities, 121, 123;
club-house of, 121;
climate of, 122;
library of, 122;
plant of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company at, 124, 125, 126.
Ranching in Colorado, 132.
Raton, New Mexico, 198.
Routt County, mineral wealth of, 39.
Salpointe, Most Rev. Dr. J. B., archbishop of New Mexico, 210.
Salt River Valley, Arizona, 230, 244, 247;
its mammoth dam, 231;
fruit-rearing in, 247.
Salton Sea, the, 242.
Salton Sink, the, 242, 243.
San Xavier, mission church of, 215, 217.
Santa Fé, consecrated by holy memories, 207;
founded by Oñate, 209, 214;
centre of archdiocese, 210;
church of San Miguel, 209, 211;
visit of Diego de Vargas to, 211;
buildings of, 212;
inhabitants of, 212;
oldest town in the United States, 214;
occupied by General Stephen W. Kearney, 218;
governed by General Lew. Wallace, 219;
"Ben Hur" written at, 219;
old palace of, 220;
society in, 220, 221;
precious stones in vicinity of, 221;
chapel of San Rosario, 221, 222;
history of, 223;
buildings of, 223.
Santa Monica, California, 303.
Seeman Tunnel, the, 35;
claims reached by, 36.
"Short Line" trip, Colorado, 4, 7, 70, 71, 72;
homes along the railway, 74;
hand-car journey on, 79, 80, 81;
Ellis Meredith's ode to, 81.
Skinner, C. M., on the Grand Cañon, 335, 336.
"Snake Dance, The," in Arizona, 258, 259, 260, 261.
Southwest, scenic attractions of, 4-14;
characteristics of life in, 10;
travelling facilities of, 11, 12;
gateway of, 13.
Stanton, Robert Brewster, on the Grand Cañon, 334, 335.
Stone, Lucy, and the emancipation of women, 24.
St. Peter's Dome, railway up, 4;
excursion to, 64;
ascent of, 71, 73;
view from, 72, 74.
Sugar, cultivation of, in Colorado, 139, 140, 141, 150.
Teller, the Hon. Henry M., career of, 30.
"Temple Drive," a favorite excursion in Pike's Peak region, 64.
Tennyson, Lord, quoted, 3.
Thayer, Mrs. Emma Homan, 102;
her "Wild Flowers in Colorado," 102.
Tonto Basin, mammoth dam at, 246, 248, 249, 250;
entailed the destruction of the town of Roosevelt, 247, 250.
Vaca, Cabeza de, expedition of, 213.
Vargas, Diego de, visits Santa Fé, 211, 221;
his vow to the Virgin Mary, 222.
Wallace, General Lew., governor of New Mexico, 219;
writes "Ben Hur" at Santa Fé, 219.
Walsh, Thomas F., on Colorado and Philippine interests, 140, 141, 142.
Warner, Charles Dudley, on the Grand Cañon, 322.
Washington, may give place to Denver as the capital of the Union, 49.
Water-power, in Colorado, and electricity, 104, 105, 106, 107.
Webster, Daniel, on the worthlessness of the West, 179.
Whitman, Walt, quotation from, 158.
Woman suffrage, 23, 24, 25;
in Colorado, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29;
Judge Lindsay on, 27, 28, 29.
Yachting in Colorado, 111, 112, 113.
Zumacacori, mission church of, 215.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Life Radiant: Little, Brown, & Company, 1903.
[2] The Old Santa Fé Trail: The Story of a Great Highway, 1897. The
Macmillan Company.
[3] In and Out of the Old Missions of California, by George Wharton
James. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston, 1905.
[4] Arizona Sketches, by Joseph A. Munk, M.D. The Grafton Press, New
York.
[5] In and Around the Grand Canyon, by George Wharton James. Little,
Brown, and Co. 1900.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling as well as inconsistencies in hyphenation have been preserved.
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