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Show DENVER MEN AGAIN FIGURING JM TUNNEL I.ivu Pushers Recognize Fact That Tributary Territory Must He Developed If City Prosper and (Irows There is renewed talk in Deiner of Misting in some way to build the James Peak tunnel. The fact that the people of the Capital city are thoroughly in favor of opening better bet-ter communication with Northwest Colorado and Northeastern Utah was conclusively demonstrated by the overwhelming vote in favor of the proposition submitted two years ago. Thin scheme later was declared unconstitutional un-constitutional by the states upreme court. The ground on which the former project failed was the partnership arrangement with the railroad, each to furnish a portion of the money. Now It is seriously proposed by some of the Denver boosters to have the city build the tunnel, leasing it to the Moffat railroad or any others that want to come in. This would put an entirely new face on the proposition prop-osition so far as the legal aspect Is concerned. - The live pushers of Denver are recognizing re-cognizing the fact that Colorado must be developed in order for the city and state to prosper. There are olhr projects in addtion to the James peak tunnel which must iu time be pushed through. The Immense amount of coal being developed in Routt and Moffat counties, however, calls for the James peak tunnel as the most important. It would give the most immediate impetus to the commercial life of the state. As a writer in the Denver Commercial points out, Colorado, to be a successful success-ful state, must tunnel Its mountain ranges and permit its present walled-ofT walled-ofT communities to flow together In freer Intercourse. The population and the state's Industries are separated, separ-ated, as it were, by the walls of reservoirs res-ervoirs between which there is not sufficient intercommunication. Tun nel the "everlasting hills' at state expense say ceraln individuals who constantly have iu mind the state's welfare. Austria and Switzerland are reputed reput-ed to have spent two hundred million! dollars in the construction of tunnels. tun-nels. Thereby they have reclaimed and brought within easy access mountain moun-tain valleys and fastnesses that other wise would have been Isolated and unproductive. It is estimated that with the expenditure in Colorado of only an amount sufficient to produce one modern battleship the state could set up a flow of population that would be most healthful and beneficial not only to communities which at present pres-ent are kept apart by uncomfortable and expensive journeys across austere mountain ranges, but to the whole state. Certain business men of Denver, whose minds constantly run on bigger big-ger and better things for Colorado, have conceived the Idea that the state itself could well take up the building of three railroad tunnels at once and put them into use by leasing them to the railway lines that would be qualified to use them. A tunnel, oft-discussed, oft-discussed, under James peak on the Moffat road would allow all of the northwest Colorado and the Uintah basin to flow Into Denver and set up an artery of transcontinental travel. "Midway down the state a tunnel under un-der Marshall pass would tap the rich Montrose-Delta country and serve to straighten the main line of the Rio tlrande. In the southwest it is time to place Durango and the San Juan country on the Colorado map by constructing a tunnel through the San Juan range. The James peak tunnel would mean underground construction of six miles; the Marshall pass tunnel perhaps per-haps would have to be nearly as long as the great Simplon tunnel between Italy and Switzerland about nine miles. What is expended there can be made up on the southernmost tunnel tun-nel proposed which experts say need not be more than a mile in length. In these days when capital is readily readi-ly found to tunnel the Hudson and the East river for the New Yorkers; when every large city is acquiring its subway system.and jvheii projects ago Btaggered thelij projectors, are I being pushed to success, it would not seem weird for Colorado to set forth on the undertaking of uniting its people. The fifteen or twenty millions mil-lions that would produce three tunnel tun-nel systems would more than return In the prosperity that would How through them. In southwest Colorado alone a tunnel tun-nel would superinduce a wonderful travel into the state at large. The counties of Montezuma, San Juan, La Plata and Archuleta, indeed, have so long been isolated that they arc said to he becoming tributary to Arizona, New Mexico and California rather than the state of which they are a part. All the rich ores, the coal and agricultural products that come from that region would make their way northwood if transportation means were provided, just as the products of the rich regions that are now walled off from the rest of the state by Marshall Mar-shall pass and James peak would make their way eastward. Those who have begun to talk tun-J nels of course realize that Austria and Switzerland, the champion tunnel tun-nel builders, own their own railroads, and that the roadways through the mountains instead of over them are necessary and economic parts of the construction of said lines. This feature, fea-ture, however, need not Interfere with tunnel activities in Colorado. A way will be found to make them r-numeratlve. r-numeratlve. The main thing is to defeat the mountain barriers to trade and intercourse in a state which must advance as a unit If it advances at all. I |