“Ours was the first wagon through and I was the first white woman there, if white I could be called, after camping out three months.”
The men cut logs, laid them up four feet and put the 7 by 9 tent on top for a roof. Horace went prospecting and Augusta opened a business. She baked bread and pies, gave meals and sold milk from their cows.
AUGUSTA SAT WITH A PRESIDENT IN A BOX
The Tabor Opera House in Leadville was the home of legitimate drama and provided many cultural evenings for early-day bonanza barons.
Horace found no gold, but Augusta was very successful. She made enough money to buy their unpaid-for farm in Kansas and to keep them through the winter in Denver. In February Horace returned to his prospect but found his claim had been jumped. He decided to go prospecting farther afield, on the Arkansas, and returned to Denver to make plans.
They traveled by way of Ute Pass and were a month on the road before they reached South Park. Now she waxed lyrical.
“I shall never forget my first vision of the park. The sun was just setting. I can only describe it by saying it was one of Colorado’s sunsets. Those who have seen them know how glorious they are. Those who have not cannot imagine how gorgeously beautiful they are. The park looked like a cultivated field with rivulets coursing through, and herds of antelope in the distance.”
After two hazardous crossings of the ice-caked and tumultuous Arkansas, and after several weeks of unsuccessful placering when they could not separate heavy black particles from the gold, they arrived in California Gulch. It was May 8, 1860.
“The first thing after camping was to have the faithful old oxen butchered that had brought us all the way from Kansas—yes, from the Missouri River three years before. We divided the meat with the miners in the gulch, for they were without provisions or ammunition.”