OCR Text |
Show By EDWARD EMERINE WNU Features. '"iOLD!" The magic word was VJJ spoken. It was heard and repeated. re-peated. Gold in Colorado for the taking. Nuggets as big as turkey eggs all over the mountains. As the story traveled, it was embellished in retelling. Overnight in 1858, "Pikes Peak or Bust" became the nation's slogan. Men of every nationality, occupation occu-pation and station in life joined the Pikes Peak gold rush, one of the great mass migrations in America's Ameri-ca's history. They swarmed into the Colorado mountains, whooping it up as they went. In their wake followed fol-lowed farmers to settle in the fertile fer-tile valleys. From Texas, across the open grasslands, were driven herds of longhorn cattle. Down south in Georgia, W. Green Russell heard about it. He organized organ-ized a party of 30 or 40 miners and set out for the Pikes Peak region, hardly sleeping until he reached the banks of the South Platte and made camp. Within a month he had been joined by 400 others and the settlement was dignified by the name Auraria, in honor of Russell's town back in Georgia. Thousands of others were on their way. A year later General Larimer crossed Cherry creek, took possession of some cabins, and named the settlement Denver City, in honor of Gen. James W. Denver, governor of Kansas. (At that time, Colorado as yet unnamed was a part of Kansas territory). Wild days followed on that 960-acre townsite. Thousands of excited people peo-ple thronged the dusty streets. Soon Denver was the Mecca of the Mountains. A printing plant was brought from Omaha, and the Rocky Mountain News made its debut (1859). Soon thereafter the Herald was founded. The files of those early-day newspapers tell a story of lusty life in Denver, of gambling, Indian scares and promised prom-ised riches for all men. The Denver scene was re-enact- t'e.&isi r i N E "w "M'"E""hc I c 'o 1 "o'kTa- i ... n twt SUGAR BEET FACTORY ... At Brighton. Colorado is a leading pro- I ducer of suglir, made from sugar beets. ed a hundred times. Boom towns grew overnight at Cripple Creek, Leadville, Central City, Creede and scores of other places. Prospectors clambered over the hills. Nuggets were found. Rich veins of ore were uncovered. There were millionaires million-aires created Winfield Scott Strat-ton, Strat-ton, H. A. W. Tabor (of "Silver Dollar" Dol-lar" fame) and others. Men blustered, blus-tered, gambled, drank, fought and died during the score of years that followed. But slowly the truth about Colorado Colo-rado emerged. The facts were not all pleasant ones. The territory was incredibly rich there was no doubt of that. There were great stores of silver and gold. There were rich and fertile soils. There were other resources lumber, coal, building stone and a marvelous marvel-ous climate. There was deep snow in the mountains, but there was little rainfall on the plains. The nuggets we're soon picked up. The "free" gold was gone and hard-rock hard-rock mining had come to stay. Gold and silver were buried deep in the granite, defying quick wealth. Men who had sought a soft and easy life were confronted with stark reality. Colorado was no Garden of Eden. They would have to work and work hard for whatever they got. And they couldn't live on fresh air and mountain scenery. Colorado weighed each man among them to find his worth. There was work to be done, and it took strong men to do it. The weaklings, weak-lings, the ne'er-do-wells, the misfits mis-fits were eliminated. They departed depart-ed with a curse on their lips and hatred in their hearts. Those with courage, strength, hope and vision stayed. First, the miners set to work. They did not know the extent of mineral reserves in the Colorado Rockies and they still don't Is ) i t "L v- t v -1 JOHN C. VIVIAN Governor of Colorado Gov. John C. Vivian was born In Golden, Colo., not far from Denver and state capital. He is a graduate of the University of Denver. His profession is law. He served as lieutenant governor from 1936 to 1942. know. Many veins have been merely mere-ly tapped and new ones are constantly con-stantly being discovered. In spite of all obstacles Coloradoans have dug and blasted three billion dollars' dol-lars' worth of precious and industrial indus-trial metals from the granite warehouses ware-houses within its borders. More than 250 minerals have been discovered dis-covered within the state, between 35 and 50 of them now being extracted ex-tracted for market. Colorado is first among the states in vanadium and uranium, third in gold, fourth in tungsten, fifth in silver, sixth in lead, seventh in copper and fifteenth fif-teenth in zinc. It leads the world in molybdenum production. These Coloradoans probed and blasted and swore, as they went deeper and deeper into the granite gran-ite treasure chest. In 1862, A. M. , Cassedy drilled in a canyon near Florence and struck oil, after petroleum had been found bubbling on the surface of Oil creek. They found Colorado shales containing enough recoverable oil to equal present production for 50 years. The recently opened Rangely oil field on the western slope is the most sensational find in years. Natural Na-tural gas was discovered over, a wide area, and helium gas struck in Las Animas county. Beneath the surface of the good earth they found coal, too enough of it to last the nation for 700 years! Colorado ranks first among the states in coal reserves, most of them in the San Juan basin, Moffat county, all along the Utah border and extending under the foothills on the eastern slope from the Wyoming border to New Mexico. Mex-ico. The Colorado plainsmen were sifted, too, and the unfit were blown out, starved out and sent back home. Where there is life there must be water every Col- oradoan knows that. Cowmen, ' sheepmen, beet growers, truck gardeners, gar-deners, fruit growers, hay ranch- j ers and general farmers must have water. They got it. They dug wells deep in the ground. They constructed con-structed dams in the canyons to store the melted snow; they dug canals and ditches; they irrigated the rich, thirsty soil. They homesteaded in the Great American desert and they made it bloom. The beet and potato industry in-dustry around Greeley, founded by the old Union colony, is a monument to pioneers in irrigation. All along the South Platte basin, from Denver and Fort Collins to Sterling and Julesburg, is a mighty agricultural empire. The Arkansas river waters developed a famed valley val-ley that produces beets, melons, fruit and garden truck for the nation. na-tion. From Canon City through Rocky Ford to Lamar and the Kansas Kan-sas line is another agricultural wonder brought about by irrigation. irriga-tion. In between the rivers, the non-irrigated non-irrigated farms and ranches now produce wheat, corn, hay, beans, potatoes and other crops. Thousands Thou-sands of head of sheep and cattle cat-tle are 'grown and dairying is statewide. The Western Slope, the San Luis valley, and all mountainous mountain-ous areas below timberline are havens for farms, ranches and orchards. or-chards. Snow-capped peaks often look down on blossoms in the valley val-ley below. With raw materials near at hand, Colorado progressed industrially indus-trially too. Mills were built to process proc-ess the ores. Steel plants grew up at Pueblo, the Pittsburgh of the ? V 1 jfcc&aa-xjifraftV Snow Mass Lake and Hagger-man Hagger-man Peak, near Glenwood Springs. Rockies. Colorado has foundries, brick kilns, canning plants, sugar factories, food processing plants, creameries, cheese factories and scores of other manufacturing plants. Colorado's granite, marble, limestone, sandstone and lavas are known to builders the world around. Sawmills still flourish near its great forests. Colorado clasped its riches tightly tight-ly to its bosom and said, "you can have them if you deserve them." The men and women of Colorado accepted the challenge. They conquered con-quered the mountains and plains. They built cities and factories and schools. They blasted highways out of solid granite. They made it easy for others to "ftnie Up to Coo Colorado," where the sublimity of the Rockies inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write "America the Beautiful." |