“——topple round the West,
A looming bastion fringed with fire,”
runs the Gunnison river, through a bosky avenue of full-foliaged trees and thickly interlaced underbrush. Away to the southward of the town again, the Tomichi curves about the base of rounded, plush tinted hills that look like the backs of gigantic elephants. I have called the first of these streams the Gunnison, but if you follow it up a little way you will come to repeated forkings known as East river, Taylor river, Ohio creek, and so on. I believe, therefore, that properly the Gunnison does not attain individuality and deserve its name until all this cluster of northern tributaries joins with the Tomichi, just below the town, and the united and largely increased stream flows independently onward.
A UTE COUNCIL FIRE.
It is in the fork of these chief sources of the Gunnison,—at its very head so to speak,—that the town is placed. It is not upon the banks of either, but the pure waters are easily led in open aqueducts all over the site, running by their own current. There are places enough for them to run, too, and people enough to consume them, leaving only begrimed tailings for the engine-tanks at the station.
The town began in two parts and became the shape of a dumb-bell, the handle represented by Tomichi avenues. The knobs of town at each end are rival districts known as Gunnison and West Gunnison, but the former is the larger, seems to have the start, and has secured such distinctions as the post-office, the banks, the court-house, the high school and the principal newspapers. These, with several of the mercantile establishments, show fine structures of brick and stone, the latter being a white sandstone of great excellence for building purposes, which abounds in the buttes on the edge of the plateau. The majority of the houses, both for business and for residence, however, are frame buildings. Some are of pretentious size, and many prettily decorated, so that we do not know, a cleaner, more regular, cosy-looking city in the state than this. The divided appearance is gradually disappearing by increased building between, which proceeds with amazing rapidity.
The history of this valley and town is entertaining. In the early days of Rocky Mountain exploration, this whole region was known as the Grand River country, its noblest stream, now called the Gunnison river, then being known as the South Fork of the Grand. Of its history, or its geography, as I have intimated, little has been known until very recent times. It is recorded that in 1845, ex-Governor Gilpin, then a mere lad, traversed the entire length of the river valley from west to east, on his return from Oregon to St. Louis. “Having crossed southern Utah by an old Spanish trail he pushed his way up through the valleys of the South Fork of the Grand, crossing the divide very near the southeastern corner of what is now Gunnison county. Although pursued relentlessly by savages he was enthusiastic over the results of his trip and embodied the knowledge so obtained in a map which is now on file in Denver. The interval following Governor Gilpin’s exploration between 1845 and 1853 is entirely an historical blank, only vague Indian stories being given out by occasional trappers and by the Mormons, who joined in relating the beauty and richness of the country.
“In 1853 Captain Gunnison, a gallant officer, following Rock creek up to its head, discovered a nobler stream coursing southward from the Elk mountains. This stream cost him his life. As he was exploring it, he was set upon (whether by Indians or not seems doubtful) and cruelly murdered. After this adventurous officer the Gunnison river was named and afterwards Gunnison county. In 1854 the indomitable ‘Old Pathfinder,’ General Fremont, passed over nearly the same country from east to west and in his report paid glowing tribute to the beauty and wealth of these regions. It was not, however, until 1861, when some prospectors, approaching through California gulch, where Leadville now stands, gave names to Washington gulch, Taylor park, Rentz’s gulch, and Union park, that any positive development was undertaken. Then it was only on a very small scale, and although the discoveries they made created considerable excitement in mining circles, the fear of Indians was yet so great as to prevent any immigration of any consequence. This fear was heightened by the horrible discovery one morning of the massacre of twelve men in Washington gulch. This wholesale tragedy gave a gloomy side-defile the name of Dead Man’s gulch. The story of this outrage quickly spread throughout the entire country, each person coloring it as it went and adding a little to the horrors of the event. At this time nothing could tempt the daring miners of the adjacent and already populous Colorado gulches to risk their lives in this country. Even the most marvelous stories which were told of the golden bullets used by the Indians, and of mines to which El Dorado and Comstock and Golconda were vanities, failed to tempt their cupidity sufficiently to cause them to venture into the blood-christened country. A few, however, who had already forced their way in, earned a precarious livelihood in Washington gulch, fortified from the Indians and living for months at a time upon game and fish. In their leisure moments, between fighting Indians and hunting game, they occupied themselves in placer mining and, it is said, made from five to twenty dollars a day. Not until 1872, however, was any organized attempt made to open up the country. In that year Jim Brennen, of Denver, headed a small party of prospectors and located in the Rock Creek region.