“From this time really dates the origin of the mines, their reports being so enthusiastic that in 1873 Dr. John Parsons, Professor Richardson and thirty miners entered from Denver. One of the stories of this party which is told, but which is historically doubtful, runs to the effect that in pushing around by the southern entrance over the Saguache, General Charles Adams, who was then in charge of the frontier, forbade their further progress without the consent of the Utes. A heated debate is supposed to have arisen over the matter, which was settled by Chief Ouray himself, voting to grant them permission. In 1874 a colony was formed in Denver to settle upon and cultivate the Gunnison’s agricultural lands. Accordingly twenty men, all told, located themselves at various points upon Tomichi river and gave their special attention to ranches. The mining districts, however, on account of the Leadville and San Juan excitements, together with the difficulties and inconveniences of mining in this country at that time, did not really begin to grow until several years later.”
In the latter part of 1877 the state legislature set off Gunnison county, containing about twelve thousand square miles, or an area somewhat larger than the state of Connecticut. Three-fourths of it lay within the Ute Reservation, and it has since been subdivided into four new counties,—Gunnison (restricted to the eastern end), Montrose, Delta and Mesa. By 1880 matters began to assume a fixed condition. The people left their tents and sought more durable habitations. Business ceased to be desultory. The prospect-diggings, of which five thousand had been recorded, were developed as rapidly as possible, the buzz of the saw-mill and planer was heard, and smelters began to be erected.
Historically, there is little to add. Steady growth has benefited the city. New and large business blocks have been erected, a handsome hotel built, and a smelter put in operation. It has now a population of fully five thousand, is lighted with gas, and has a system of water-works. The streets are wide and clean; and the entire town has lost that frontier appearance which characterized it in its earlier days.
And Gunnison is a railway center. To the north the Denver and Rio Grande has extended a branch to Crested Butte and brought into closer communication with the outside world the adjoining mining towns of Irwin, Ruby, Gothic, and others of less importance. The road leads northward from Gunnison up the pointed valley until it gets close upon the bank of East river. Following the river, the valley narrows into a ravine, and some interesting masses of broken volcanic rocks, injected edgewise into the general sandstone strata, attract the eye.
It is the far-away landscape, nevertheless, that holds attention as we look backward. Rising above the level of the plain upon which the city is built, you can span with your vision hills and mesas southward, and behold “striking up the azure” a vast length of the ever-magnificent San Juan mountains,—the same glorious pinnacles that towered about us, near at hand, in Baker’s park. We could count the peaks by dozens if we tried, but it would be rash to try to name the separate points of the long serration. Many snow clouds have shed their burdens upon them since we saw them last, but to-day their heavens are clear and the sun blazes down upon scores of miles of lofty nêve fields, the uniform purity of which, at this distance, seems broken only by the shadows the higher peaks throw upon their lowlier companions and upon their own half-concealed sides. Gazing at them across the dim foreground of sage-plain, the middle scene of receding, intermingled, haze-obscured and bluish hills, we were more and more delighted with their loveliness,—a word whose propriety you will appreciate when you, too, have laid away this treasure of memory—one of the most entrancing bits of landscape in Colorado.
There are a few patches of rank meadow, but most of the way the hills run down so close to the river banks, that there is barely room for the road-bed to be made. Growing so close to the water that they are reflected in its depths, are sweet-smelling trees, tall, graceful, luxuriant, but in winter they bend beneath the snow that clings to them. Reaching to the top of the hills and completely covering them, are tangled masses of brush, pushed aside at times by forests of pines and torn asunder in places by the rocks that have lost their balance on some far summit and been rolled to the river below. In the narrowest places precipices menace each other across the stream; and on their faces, brown and weather-beaten, grow hardy shrubs, clinging to the crevices and hugging the bold headlands.
Nor does the valley afford satisfaction to the lover of what is only picturesque in nature. We have seen many a trout whipped from his cool retreat under the shadow of the rocks. The region is a sportsman’s paradise. Nature is at her best, the forests are full of health-giving odors, and a day’s tramp could not fail to bring color to the palest cheek, strength to the weakest body.
OURAY.