DENVER AND THE MINES.
We reached Denver Sept. 5th, and remained there several days. Approaching by the South Platte, you catch sight of the town a mile or two away, when crossing a "divide," and are surprised at its size and importance. Ten years before, there was not an inhabitant there; but now she claimed seven thousand or more, and boasted with reason, of two hundred and fifty houses erected that year. Moreover, the new buildings were chiefly of brick or stone, while the old ones were log or frame. At the junction of the South Platte and Cherry Creek her streets are well-laid out, mostly at right-angles, and for suburbs she has the boundless Plains. Apparently on a plateau, she is nevertheless really a mountain city; for at St. Louis you are only three hundred feet above the sea, at Omaha nine hundred feet, while at Denver you have got up imperceptibly to four thousand feet above the sea, or higher than our average Alleghanies. Her climate is pure and dry, without rain or frost for many months in the year—the paradise of consumptives—and for scenery, she has the ever-glorious Rocky Mountains. Already she had six churches, two seminaries, two daily papers, a banking-house with a business of twelve millions a year, a U. S. Mint, a theatre, and hotels and saloons unnumbered, though these last it was thought were diminishing. Until recently, gambling-hells had also flourished openly on her streets, with their usual concomitants of drunkenness and affrays. But some months before, a Judge Gale—backed by a strong public opinion—had taken hold of the gamblers, and squelched them effectually. Like other "peculiar institutions," they died hard, raising large sums of money to prolong their evil life—threatening some men and bribing, or trying to bribe, others; but Judge Lynch came to the support of Judge Gale, with the counter-threat of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," and so gamblers ceased to rule in Denver. The happy change was freely commented on, and now that it had come, people wondered why they had endured the blacklegs so long. Denver was now evidently aspiring to better things—to "sweeter manners, purer laws." Her merchants and bankers were building themselves homes, sending east for their families, and settling down, as if to stay. Though not so law-abiding and Sabbath-loving, as our eastern cities, yet her churches were well-attended; and her Episcopal Bishop (Randall), we found scouring the country with all the earnestness and zeal of an old-time missionary, or Methodist itinerant. Band and gown, stole and chasuble, and other ritualistic millenary, he affected but little; but he preached Christ and Him crucified with a tenderness and power, that touched all hearts, and Colorado already had come to love and honor him. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," was his text for as sound and appropriate a discourse the Sabbath we were in Denver, as we had heard in a long while. Every sentence struck home, like a rapier or a bullet, at some sin most prevalent in Colorado, and Denver might well "make a note of it." Subsequently we heard of him in the mines and among the mountains, preaching in quartz-mills and by the roadside—wherever he could gather a handful of hearers—always engaged in the Master's work, and always leaving a deep impression behind him.
Denver, with water and coal both near, yet had neither water nor gas works then, and scarcely a tree or shrub growing anywhere. Numerous trees had been planted, and much shrubbery; but the long and rainless summers had proven too much for them. The winter before, a company had been chartered to bring water from the mountains, for irrigating and other purposes, and they already had one ditch completed—three or four feet wide, by one or two deep—and were projecting others. This one irrigated several farms, turned a grist-mill or two, and then, with a branch to the fair-grounds, emptied into the Platte. But Denver must have such ditches, all around and through her, if she wants trees and shrubbery and then she may have streets and suburbs unsurpassed anywhere. Salt Lake, we afterwards found, had done this; and Denver will, when she has once been well scourged by fire. Then she was powerless against the fire-fiend, and a large conflagration well under way would have swept the town.[4]
Though the largest town in Colorado, and of commanding influence there, yet Denver we found was not the capital, but Golden City instead—a hamlet of five hundred inhabitants or so, fifteen miles farther west, at the base of the mountains. The Territorial Legislature convened there every winter, as required by law; but immediately adjourned to Denver, where all business was really transacted, and where the governor and other territorial officers resided, when not absent in the states, as some often were. In location, Denver itself was, no doubt a geographical blunder, as the business of the country was really among the mines and mountains; but as gold had been first discovered here, it got the start, and bade fair to maintain its supremacy. The sharpest and shrewdest men in Colorado, we found were all settled here. All enterprises, of much pith and moment, began and ended here. All capital centred here. And Denver brains and Denver capital, it was plain to see, ruled and controlled our whole Rocky Mountain region, north to Dacotah and south to New Mexico.
Denver had two real "sensations," while we were there—one, the alleged usurpation of Gov. Cumming, the other the arrival of Gen. Sherman. It seemed there had been a territorial election, for delegate to Congress, and the returns not being clear, Gov. Cumming assumed to give the certificate of election to Hunt, an Andrew Johnson man, rather than to Chilcott, a radical Republican—notwithstanding the Board of Canvassers decided otherwise. The governor claimed that the law and facts were with him, but the Board of Canvassers protested to the contrary, and popular opinion seemed to sustain them. There was a breezy time in Denver for awhile. The papers savagely denounced the governor's conduct, as an outrage and usurpation, and fell into a vein of coarse vituperation they seemed incapable of before. The saloons were filled with excited crowds at night; knots gathered on the streets by day; and presently, one morning out came the papers with the old-time suggestion of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," if His Excellency did not yield. An explosion was now hourly expected, but it did not come. Denver evidently had grown in grace. The mob-spirit of her early days could not be revived, and all good citizens rejoiced to see it. No doubt she liked Judge Lynch still; but she liked Eastern immigration and English capital better, and would do nothing to startle either. The governor wisely appeared in public but little, and for several nights found it convenient to sleep elsewhere than at home. Finally, it was given out, that the military were on his side, as in duty bound, and the storm presently blew over. Subsequently it appeared, that said military consisted of only two officers, without a single soldier; but His Excellency attributed his safety to them, all the same. General Sherman's arrival immediately after was just in the nick of time. It followed on the heels of the election imbroglio, and was a good salve to the public sore. All Denver turned out to welcome him and his distinguished brother (the Ohio Senator), and a cavalcade of horsemen and carriages met them miles away. Next night there was a reception, banquet, speeches, ball, etc. and hundreds assembled to do them honor. There was a lamentable lack of ladies; but brighter, keener men, you could find nowhere. What there were of ladies, were intelligent and sprightly, and all were richly attired and adorned; but Denver needed more of them. Everybody vied in doing Sherman honor, as a great soldier who had fought nobly for the country. They did not know his views yet on the Indian question, which a few months afterwards they denounced so severely. By an ambulance tour of two thousand miles, from post to post, through the heart of the Indian country, he was trying to study the Indian question for himself, as the great question of his Military Division; and yet Denver, fond of contracts, claimed to understand that questio vexata better than he!
We left Denver one bright September morning for Central City and the Mines. A stage ran daily, but wanting to travel more leisurely we went by ambulance. Across the Platte, and over the Plains again for fifteen miles, brought us to the mountains and Golden City, just within the foothills. Clear Creek dashes through the "city," a broad swift stream, furnishing fine water-power for several mills already, with plenty to spare for more. Coal, iron, lead, copper and kaolin were said to exist in the mountains adjacent, and this water-power was therefore justly esteemed very valuable. Four or five miles farther on, the mountains seem to close up—a solid rampart—before you; but suddenly the road shifts and at Gate City, through a narrow rocky cañon you again pass on. The road here follows up a diminutive mountain stream, crossing and re-crossing its bed every few yards, and by a very sinuous course slowly makes its way forward between abrupt masses of red and purple rock, that everywhere seemed to block its progress. Farther on, the hills open out, and wild currant and gooseberry-bushes appear, with pines and firs here and there—many charred by former fires. The road gets wilder the farther you proceed, and the mountain views become more and more superb. You catch glimpses of the great Snowy Range from time to time; but after awhile you cross the first range, and then you have the great white-capped Sierra almost always before you. Three peaks there are especially superb—Old Chief, Squaw and Papoose—their white and glittering summits flashing gloriously in the sunshine. Sometimes we got long views of the Snowy Range, for miles on miles; and then again, deep down in some wild gorge, its rocky sides would suddenly expand, and there would stand these three grand peaks projected against the clear sky, framed in like a picture. A right "kingly spirit throned among the hills," Old Chief seemed to be keeping watch and ward over these Rocky Mountain fastnesses in solemn and solitary grandeur; but the Yankee and the miner had been too much for him.
We dined en route, getting a good meal for seventy-five cents, and reached the Conner House at Central City, about 6 p. m., forty miles from Denver. What a strange place was this, and how surprising it all seemed! A busy, active, bustling town, with all the appliances of eastern civilization, in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains—our ultima thule but a few years ago! Or, rather, four towns—Black Hawk, Gregory Gulch, Mountain City, and Central City—all now grown into one. It never was any place for a town; but there had to be one there, and so American genius and pluck went to work and created it. Imagine a narrow, winding mountain-gorge, with Clear Creek flashing through it, with scarcely standing-room on either side for an antelope even, and you have about all Nature has done for a town-site there. Yet our miners had stuck mills, and stores, and saloons, and dwelling-houses, and churches here, almost everywhere, in the most delightful and picturesque confusion. Some were astride of Clear Creek, as if wading up stream. Others were propped up on its edges, as if about to topple in. Others again were mounted on lofty stilts, all along the mountain side, as if just ready to start and walk away. About and through them all, following the general course of Clear Creek, wound one long and narrow street—too narrow for side-walks—and here in this bizarre place, walled in on all sides by the Rocky Mountains, lived and flourished six thousand souls, all apparently busy and well-to-do—with banks, schools, churches, newspapers, telegraphs, theatres, and pretty much all the institutions and destitutions of modern society. There only remained one need, a railroad, and that was already in contemplation, down Clear Creek to Golden City, and so away to Denver. This would bring the ores and coal together at Golden City, for fuel was becoming scarce among the mines; would save much of the cost of travel and transportation by the wild mountain roads; and be a great blessing to the mining regions every way.[5] After tea, we strolled through the town for a mile or more, and found the streets full to overflowing. The theatres were crowded, and the drinking and gambling-saloons in full blast; yet the streets were comparatively orderly. The population seemed of a better class than one would suppose, all things considered. There were scarcely any women, it is true, and what there were had better been elsewhere, as a rule; but the men carried keen, clear-cut, energetic faces, that well explained the enterprise and elan of this audacious town. Of foreigners, there were far fewer than one ordinarily meets east, and the Americans as a rule were athletic and live men—fit to be the pioneers of empire. The inevitable African, of course, cropped out here and there; but usually he had risen from the dignity of a barber or a bootblack, to be a merchant or a miner. Everybody talked of "feet," and "claims," and "dust;" and bets were made, and drinks paid for, in "ounces" and parts of an ounce, as determined by the universal scales and weights. Greenbacks were still taken, but they were regarded as a depreciated currency, unworthy of the Mines and Mountains.
Indications of mining operations appeared first at Denver, where gold was first discovered at the junction of the South Platte and Cherry Creek. But the "diggings," or placer mines, here were soon worked out, and then the miners naturally ascended Cherry Creek to Clear Creek, and so into the heart of the mountains. All along North Clear Creek, you see where the stream has been turned aside, and its bed "panned" over, and as we approached Black Hawk we found a few miners still humbly at work this way. But placer-mining in Colorado had mostly been abandoned as no longer profitable, and now the chief labor and capital were applied to the quartz mines—the parents of the "diggings." These seemed to occur, more or less, all through the Rocky Mountains, wherever quartz cropped out; but the richest of them thus far had been found in the narrow defile about Central City. The sides of the ranges there had been "prospected" all over, until they seemed honey-combed or like pepper-boxes, so ragged and torn were they with the process. Here and there they were divided up into infinitesimal lots, rudely enclosed, embracing a few hundred feet or so, denoting mining "claims." Many of these had shafts sunk some distance, with a board up, proclaiming name of mine and the ownership thereof, but others were without these. The favorite mine in Colorado just then seemed to be the Gregory Consolidated, near Central City. We went down into this some three hundred feet, exploring its various galleries, and it seemed to be all that was represented. The gold here was so much diffused through the quartz as to be imperceptible to the eye, and was further mingled badly with silver, copper, and sulphur. The company had erected no mill as yet, but were contenting themselves with developing the lode, and getting out "pay-ore." Their plan was to sink the main shaft straight down on the lode, and every twenty feet or so follow up the indications by lateral galleries, to see whether the vein held out or not. So far it was doing well, and the ore continued of an excellent quality. But it was so difficult to reduce, there was no mill in Colorado that could save a fair proportion of the gold; so that what ore they cared to work was shipped east, or to Swansea, Wales, even, for reduction. The superintendent of the mine was a sturdy young Englishman, once a humble miner with his pick and candle, but afterwards sub-superintendent of a great silver mine in Mexico, and now for two or three years here—a man of rare energy and intelligence. No wonder the stock of the Gregory Consolidated was steadily rising, with such a policy and such a superintendent. Too many of the companies organized in the east were pursuing just the contrary course. They were putting up mills at once at great expense, with steam engines and stamps complete, and then when they came to sink down upon their veins, lo! they had no "pay-ore" there, or at least none worth working. A signal instance of this had occurred a year or two before. A New York Wall street Company had been organized, on a broad basis, and with great expectations. With a West Point ex-army officer superintendent and plenty of capital, their stock soon went soaring up like a rocket; but presently it came down again like a stick—a la their superintendent during the war. He erected a splendid mill of dressed stone at a cost of thousands of dollars, and went in wildly for all the latest and most improved machinery; but when afterwards he came to test their lode thoroughly, alas! he discovered they had only a poor sickly trace of ore, that soon "petered out," and so that fine company of gold and silver miners incontinently collapsed—or, as Mr. Mantilini would have said, "went to the demnition bow-wows!" Machinery that cost the company thirty-three thousand dollars in New York, was afterwards sold by the Colorado sheriff for thirteen hundred dollars, to pay freight bills; and other property in proportion. Other instances were reported to us, but none quite so bad as this. But from the large number of mills and mines standing idle—fully fifty per cent., it seemed—we could well believe that mining machinery could be bought cheaper in Colorado than New York, and that steam-engines and boilers were a drug. A foundry-man beyond Golden City, we were told, found it more profitable to buy up old machinery and recast it, than to work a rich iron mine, though the former was scattered through the mountains and the latter was just at his door.
The trouble with the Colorado ores was, they were refractory sulphurets, which we had not yet learned how to reduce at a profit. They assayed very readily two hundred and even three hundred dollars per ton, or more; but when you came to mill them out in large quantities, you were lucky if you got twenty-five or thirty dollars per ton. The problem Colorado then wanted solved was how to desulphurize these rich ores of hers at a profit. Various "processes" were continually being tried at great expense, but none of them seemed yet to be the "success" she desired. Stamp-mills, with copper-plate and quicksilver amalgamators, seemed to be the process in use generally, though not saving over twenty-five per cent. of the precious metals usually. Many companies were using these and saving their "talings," or refuse, with the expectation of yet realizing goodly sums from working the "talings" over by some new process by-and-bye. A "process" just introduced was saving from twenty-five to fifty per cent. more from these "talings:" but it was too costly for general use, or, perhaps, to pay. Individual mine-owners and the lighter companies seemed mostly to have suspended, or like Mr. Micawber to be waiting for "something to turn up"—for the strong companies to go on and find the much coveted "new process," when they would resume operations. Another trouble evidently was the great number of companies organized to sell stock east, rather than to mine successfully. Companies, with a property worth a hundred thousand dollars, had frequently issued stock for a million, and of course could not expect to make regular dividends on such an overplus. On a basis of a hundred thousand dollars, or real value, with an experienced honest superintendent, they might have got along well, if content to creep at first and walk afterwards. But as a rule they had preferred to "water" their stock, after the most approved Sangrado method; and the result, after a year or two's operations, was disappointed stockholders and the old, old cry of "bogus" and "wild-cat." Many of the companies, too, were heavily in debt, and what was called in Colorado parlance "freezing out" was taking place largely. That is to say, a company gives a mortgage for say twenty thousand dollars on property worth perhaps a hundred thousand, or at least represented by that amount of stock. When due it is not met, the treasury being empty, and the stockholders discouraged from want of dividends, or by "bear" reports about the mine; whereupon the mortgage is foreclosed, and the "bear" directors buy the property in for a song, thus "freezing out" the feebler and more timid brethren. This operation may lack the essential feature of old-fashioned honesty, but is no doubt a paying one—pecuniarily—for the new owners, who can now well afford to go bravely on. "Others may sink; but what's the odds, so we apples swim!"
No doubt Colorado is rich, immensely rich, in mineral resources—gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, etc.,—but she was scarcely making much decided headway as a mining community, so far as could be seen, in 1866. Considerable of her population, indeed, had gone off to Montana and Idaho, to the reputed rich gold-fields there, and many of the rest were waiting patiently for the Pacific Railroad and a market. Great results were anticipated from the oncoming of the railroad, and it is to be hoped she has realized them. Her yield of the precious metals in 1862, it was estimated by good authority, amounted to ten millions of dollars; but in 1863 it fell to eight millions, in 1864 to five millions, and in 1865 to four millions. Ross Browne, in 1866, in his report of Mineral Resources of the United States, with characteristic exaggeration, estimated her yield for that year at seventeen millions; but more accurate observers regarded this as a California joke, and pronounced his estimate at least four or five times too high. The large yield in 1862 represented the maximum from gulch or placer mining, and the soft outcroppings of the quartz veins. But in 1866 placer mining, as I have said, had mostly ceased, and our quartz-miners had to go down so deep, and then got only the hardest and most refractory sulphurets, that the business greatly languished. Yet, it was plain to be seen, the gold and the silver were all there, in inexhaustible quantities, practically speaking; or as Mr. Lincoln once remarked, in speaking of our western mines, "We there hold the Treasury of the world!" All Colorado wanted, as elsewhere said, was the right "process" to subdue these rebellious sulphurets and compel them to release their imprisoned deities. Science surely holds the key somewhere, and waits only the coming man to hand it over to him. Millions of our countrymen are watching and praying for him. A half a continent calls for him. And when this coming man does come, who shall estimate the untold treasures he will here unlock and outpour upon the world! He will but have to strike the naked rocks, and abundant streams of wealth will gush forth. He will but have to touch the rugged mountain sides, and gold and silver by the million will obey his bidding—enough not only to pay our own National Debt, but the National Debts of the world. Let Colorado, then, be of good courage. The Pacific Railroad will cheapen supplies, and swell the volume of her immigration. The Yankee hand and brain are busily at work, conning over her knotty problem; and we may be sure, that the right hour will bring the necessary man.
From Central City we crossed the range at an altitude of nine thousand feet above the sea, and thence descended to Idaho, on South Clear Creek. A fine hotel here, in good view of the Snowy range, boasted itself the best in Colorado, and we found none better. Here also were several fine mineral springs, that bubble up quite near to each other, and yet are all of different temperatures. A bath-house had been erected, where you might take a plunge in hot or cold water, as you chose; the walks were romantic, with a possibility of deer or bear; the sights, what with ravine, and ridge, and peak, were magnificent; and Idaho, already something of a summer resort, expected yet to become the Saratoga of Colorado. Up South Clear Creek, above Idaho, were the new mining districts of Georgetown and Mill City, then but recently discovered and reputed quite rich; but we had not time to visit them. Down South Clear Creek, and thence to Denver, is a wild and surprising ride of forty-five miles, that well repays you. Much of the way Clear Creek roars and tumbles by the roadside, with the rocky walls of its cañon towering far above you; and when at length you cross the last range and prepare to descend, you catch a distant view of Denver and the Plains, that has few if any equals in all that region. The sun was fast declining, as we rounded the last crag or shoulder of the range, and the Plains—outstretched, illimitable, everlasting—were all before us, flooded with light as far as the eye could reach, while the mountains already in shade were everywhere projecting their lengthening shadows across the foot-hills, like grim phantoms of the night. A cloudless sky overarched the whole. Denver gleamed and sparkled in the midst twenty miles away, the brightest jewel of the Plains; and beyond, the Platte flashed onward to the east a thread of silver. It was a superb and glorious scene, and for an hour afterward, as we descended the range, we caught here and there exquisite views of it, through the opening pine and fir trees, that transferred to canvas would surely have made the fortune of any painter. With our Pacific Railroad completed, our artists must take time to study up the Rocky Mountains, with all their fine effects of light and shade—of wide extent and far perspective, of clear atmosphere, blue sky, and purple haze—and then their landscapes may well delight and charm the world.
Mining is, of course, the chief business of all that region, from the Missouri to the Mountains, and the habits and customs of the miner prevail everywhere. He digs and tunnels pretty much as he wills—under roads, beneath houses, below towns—and all things, more or less, are made subservient to his will. His free-and-easy ways mark social and political life, and his slang—half Mexican, half miner—is everywhere the language of the masses. A "square" meal is his usual phrase for a full or first-rate one. A "shebang" means any structure, from a hotel to a shanty. An "outfit" is a very general term, meaning anything you may happen to have, from a stamp-mill complete to a tooth-pick—a suit of clothes or a revolver—a twelve-ox team or a velocipede. A "divide" means a ridge or water-shed between two valleys or depressions. A "cañon" is Mexican or Spanish for a deep defile or gorge in the mountains. A "ranch," ditto, means a farm, or a sort of half-tavern and half-farm, as the country needs there. To "vamose the ranch" means to clear out, to depart, to cut stick, to absquatulate. A "corral," ditto, means an enclosed horse or cattle-yard. To "corral" a man or stock, therefore, means to corner him or it. To go down to "bed-rock," means the very bottom of things. "Panned-out" means exhausted, used-up, bankrupt. "Pay-streak" means a vein of gold or silver quartz, that it will pay to work. When it ceases to pay, it is said to "peter out." Said a miner one day at dinner, at a hotel in Central City, to a traveller from the east, "I say, stranger," pointing to a piece of meat by his side, "is there a pay-streak in that beef thar?" He wanted to know if there was a piece of it worth eating or not. The short phrase "You bet!" is pure Californice, and has followed our miners thence eastward across the continent. We struck it first on the Missouri, and thence found it used everywhere and among all classes, to express by different intonations a great variety of meanings. For example, meeting a man you remark:
"It is a fine day, my friend!"
He answers promptly and decidedly, "You bet!"
You continue, "It is a great country you have out here!"
He responds, "You bet ye!" sharp and quick.
"A good many mills standing idle, though!"
"Wa'll, yes, too many of them! You bet!" with a knowing shake of the head.
"Miners making much now-a-days?"
"Oh, yes! Some of us, a heap! You bet!" rather timid.
"Going back to the states one of these days?"
"When I make my pile! You bet!" firm and decided.
"Get married then, I suppose?"
"Won't I? Just that! You bet ye!" with his hat up, his eyes wide open, and his face all aglow with honest pride and warm memory of "The girl I left behind me!"
In Central City they told us a story of a miner, who was awakened one night by a noise at his window, and found it to be a burglar trying to get in. Slipping quietly out of bed, he waited patiently by the window until the sash was well up, and the burglar tolerably in, when he placed his revolver against the fellow's head, and sententiously remarked, "Now you git!" The story ran, the burglar looking quietly up surveyed the situation, with the cold steel against his brow, and as sententiously replied, as he backed out and dropped to the ground, "You bet!"