Show V k X ii X correspondence BEA BEAR r RIVER BIVER NORTH nov 1868 7 A CONTRAST while lawless and brutal men are savagely seeking each others lives as the telegraph wire conveys the information at bear river biver east or bear river biver city here all is peace and quietness the eastern crossing has been rendered notorious through gh the country by a deed of blood enache enacted d near it today to day men have met an untimely grave and are now lying in their lifeblood life blood while others are writhing in the agonies of terrible wounds received in a contest which would never have arisen hid bid ha d all those engaged deeloy e enjoyed n ed the S spirit irit of peace and the desire to have faw law law respected and order reign the northern crossing has no sounds but those of industry and peaceful pursuits it reflects so much more of the quietness and incites to the calm and noly holy feelings which fill the soui soul with pure thoughts and reverence for the great creator who spreads his blessings around us with an ever bounteous hand in this age of sensations and unhealthy excitement people are apt to pass by as too trivial for notice many things which should possess more or less interest this is my apology for attempting a description of this locality with which so many are well acquainted be lieving that still many more of your readers as yet know bud buc little concerning it to begin then with BEAK BEAR RIVER STATION many doubtless may have havis much the same idea of the place that I 1 had before coming to it that there was a hotel here a bridge and wells fargo cos gos stables it was lark dark when the coach arrived and passing down and around an exe excellent ellent eilent dagway dugway dag dug way lights to the left glancing from numerous windows gave e the impression that in the bend below there was quite a little town while the white railing of the bridge beyond and the piles on which it rests shone in the glare of a couple of camp caina fires which flared up brightly close by the willows on the opposite bank the lights fro from m the windows were in the hotel wells fargo cols gos offices their carriage house a smith emith shop mr hamptons Ham store and a number of other places occupied for various purposes which give the station the air of a settlement THE HOTEL is a fine rock structure the building is two stories erected at a cost including furnishings of nearly thirteen thousand dollars by W B S godbe and BH B ampton hampton itis it is furnished in aman a manner that would do credit to a first class city hotel instead of a low uncomfortable log cabin such as many western stations have been des described bribed by travelers it is really a comfortable halting baiting place in the west wing js is the W U telegraph office with mr turner as operator and wells famo fargo cos cols express ress omee presided over overby overly by mr hen hell ierson derson derbon both gentlemen being obliging 0 a and nd accommodating a THE BRIDGE is built on ten rows of strong piles the centre ones being thirty five feet in I 1 length enath 0 and fifteen feet below the river b bed ed and the outer ones thirty feekin feed feet in I 1 length and ten feet below the riverbed river bed it t was built last fehn Fehr february uary for godbe hampton in sixteen days with fifteen men superintended super intended by mr elbert E eastman ast of american fork at a cost of thirty six hundred dollars and was erected on the site of one put up by T godbe and anan nicholi Nic L hols holg which had yielded to the war of waters and massive iee ice ca cakes aes that sometimes give this now placid river a wild and angry aspect the morning mornin got of the day on which it was ivas completed the stage crossed on the ice before daylight and with the frozen mass yielding to the runners till the driver breathed an ejaculation of thankfulness as he looked back and viewed the perilous passage at night the last i iles were driven the stringers were laid the planking done and the stage crossed over the bridge THE TRAVEL past this point ia is considerable and is augmented by that 0 and from the grading camps on the C P R B R teams passing up and down give the place a lively air and there is a good deal of business done for the place with the nearest settlements strings of packers are now moving from montana I 1 some on the way to the tile white pine pin e mining district in nevada others for various points on the railroad and not a few among whom dead beats form a large per are making their way to salt bait lake city there is ia a possibility lity that some of the last named may cause the c citizens of salt lake trouble before spring for they will have to be fed and some of them have not means sufficient to pay their way until they reach their destination this place will soon be of much great er importance im ortance than it now is tracts of IM land north and south of it that but a short time ago were in all the wildness of nature are now occupied and improved and farms are rapidly being taken up within convenient distances to which it will be a business centre THE RIVER elver BOTTOMS adjoining the brid bridge g e contain several hundred acres of line land most of which is fenced in the bluff on either side rises abruptly to a height of over a hundred feet and below are all the evidences of rank and luxuriant legeta tion the cane brake rising nine and ten feet high with rank tules the willows willo Ws which abound fringing the river reach a growth of twelve feet and over in many places plenty of fine grass furnishes feed for stock and the plateaus on either side of the river abound with luxuriant bunch grass which fattens the cattle that range around until they are pictures a butcher would doat on for those who desire asp sport 0 A 1 I in hunting there are numerous flocks of wild duck on the river and other game convenient nov nor 21 1868 piscatorial bear river biver at this place and on down to the lake is a fine stream of water flowing on majestically with numerous sweeping curves it abounds with fish trout mullet chub and suckers which could be caught in large quantities with a good sein yesterday I 1 witnessed a couple of hauls bauls made by b nir dir mr haman hampton with a feet sein seln an and the first landed pounds of excellent mullet many of the fish weighing four and nive five pounds the next haul gather ed in over twenty pounds of beautiful trout and between thirty and forty mullet t the weight of which was not taken in this latter haul which was made at the bridge hundreds of trout lets were got many of them so small that they slipped through the meshes were put in a box filled with water by mr mark bigler and conveyed to a fishpond fish nish pond which lie he has haa lately made on his ranche about a mile and und a half south of the bridge this pond he has been stocking In gIth with young fish caught in the river rl ver and he be will doubtless be well supplied with fine trout next summer there is a great number of ponds of various sizes along the river bottom which with a little trouble and expense could be made excellent places for fish breed ing many of them are fed from pure springs and the water could be conveyed from them into the river thus cecur lug ing iuga luga a constant supply of beautiful running water the greatest difficulty would be in protecting them from being overflowed with the periodical swell stellios sw ellios A of the river in thia this there 0 great future profit nere nene from what I 1 can learn too it is probable that oyster beds might be formed down near the mouth of the river where the water yater possesses a sufficient clent degree of for fr the purpose it is said sald to be orne sonic sixty or seventy miles from near bear iziver bridge to salt lake measuring the windings of the river in a direct direce line liue itis it is nearly thirty miles the channel is sufficiently deep in the shallowest shai shul lowest part to float a small light draught steamer MALAD malab RIVER runs nuns south down tile the valley of the same name and empties into bear river elver fifteen miles milea below the bridge it is a dull and sluggish stream flowing between high banks bilks and forming a marshy bottom in which rank tules abound the water is deep and the river proper very narrow but it does not seem as if it could bo be made very available where I 1 saw it for irrigating purposes the current ia Is so sluggish though its water is taken out cut lower down and quite a large tract of land is under cultivation in inconsequence con bear elver eiver rejoices in a rocky g gorge 0 e which harthe has the suggestive title applied ap p alfed to some other places in this western vestern country devils gate or THE RAPIDs yesterday afternoon a small party consisting of mr and mrs hampton mr henderson and your correspondent started to visit the place A ride of between four and five miles over the river bottom and along the side of the bluff where tender footed animals moved with commendable deliberation and caution brought us to a point where our equine companions had to be left from this pillars of the g gate ate locomotion was somewhat tedious u s and very like the pursuit of pleasure under u difficulties the blum blun assume the proportions of mountains which rise towering above fringed with rank sagebrush and crowned from the summit half halfway way down with cedars that seem to have but a slender hold on the rugged rock masses of bastaic quartz throw out jagged points which increase in size until the summit of the little ridge aldge is reached around which the r river av er rushes with wildness wil wll duess for about three qu quarters arterb of f mile up the the river is visible from frow nis his this point it is enclosed between precipitous mountains that drop their bases in lik the water huge bou boul derbi derti stud the rivurs rivers bed and the fall is very great rho rno ehe the water ls is is 14 thus thrown with immense force against the rocky point which jutting towards the B south out h 1 bars its passage around this the river runs soma aoma sixty 3 at y feet below the he overhanging cliff and though now in in its mildest mood mood it dashes along with sufficient fury to show what it can do when a hot june sun melt melta s the mountain snows and sends sena don the full volume of an angry mountain flood on the south side the mountain rises nearly perpendicular with green sward covering its side save where the rocky strata thrown upon their edge bulges out and crowned with cedar trees the river makes a curve washing the precipitous mountain and sur surging 9 ing against and around the point mentioned foaming over the huge rocks in its bej bea bed that seem as if torn from the mass above and cast there for a final resting place just below two vast rocks lie in the narrow channel and between them the water dashes before it reaches a point where it careers with milder force the Thet mountain on the north side is much tile the same as that on the bouth south and somewhat cone cones s shaped aped it has been talked of I 1 believe to throw a dam across the narrowest part of the tho rapid take the river out through the neck of the little promontory and lead it along the side of the blufland bluff and on to the plateau above for irrigating purposes could it be done thousands of acres of excellent land would be made valuable for cereal and other productions tois |