Marcy claims that while waiting at the mouth of Cherry Creek for a ferry-boat to be constructed to take them over the Platte River, which was very high at the time, one of his employees washed a small amount of gold dust from the sands of Cherry Creek. This employee was discharged soon after and went direct to St. Louis, where he told of his discovery, and Marcy claims that this was the beginning of the mining excitement in the Pike's Peak region. This is different from other versions of the event, the most probable of which is that the discovery of gold was first made by the semi-civilized Cherokee Indians on their way to California.
What was known as the old Cherokee trail came up the Arkansas River to a point about twelve miles below the mouth of the Fontaine qui Bouille. From that place it ran in a northwesterly direction across the hills, striking that creek about eight or ten miles above its mouth; thence up the valley of the Fontaine to a point near the present town of Fountain; turning northerly by the way of Jimmy's Camp to the head of Cherry Creek, and down Cherry Creek to its mouth, where Denver now stands. From this place, after running northerly along the base of the mountains for a considerable distance, it struck across the mountains through Bridger's Pass, and then turned westerly along the usual traveled road to California. This trail was used by the first gold-seeking parties which came to the present State of Colorado in 1858. The first of these parties arrived at Cherry Creek only about two months after Marcy left. The second party followed a week or two later, and the third party, of which Anthony Bott, of Colorado City, was a member, was close behind it. Members of this third party explored the region around where Colorado City now stands, and later, with some others, returned and laid out the town.
In 1859, occurred the memorable visit of Horace Greeley to the Pike's Peak region. He arrived in Denver, June 16th, having come by the Smoky Hill route. Writing from Denver, he says, among other things:
I have been passing, meeting, observing, and trying to converse with Indians, almost ever since I crossed the Missouri River. Eastern Kansas is checkered with their reservations,—Delaware, Kaw, Ottawa, Osage, Kickapoo, Potawatamie, while the buffalo range and all this side belong to, and are parceled among the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, and the Apaches, or perhaps among the two former only, as Indian boundaries are not well defined. At all events, we have met or passed bands of these three tribes, with occasional visitors from the Sioux on the north, and the Comanches on the south, all these tribes having for the present a good understanding. The Utes who inhabit the mountains are stronger and braver than any one of the three tribes first named, though hardly a match for them all, are at war with them. The Arapahoe Chief, Left Hand, assures me that his people were always at war with the Utes; at least he has no recollection, no tradition, of a time when they were at peace. Some two or three hundred lodges of Arapahoes are encamped in and about this log city, calculating that the presence of the whites will afford some protection to their wives and children against a Ute onslaught, while the braves are off on any of their fighting—that is stealing—expeditions. An equal or larger body of Utes are camped in the mountains some forty or fifty miles west, and the Arapahoe warriors recently returned in triumph from a war party on which they managed to steal about one hundred horses from the Utes, but were obliged to kill most of them in their rapid flight so that they only brought home forty more than they took away. They are going out again in a day or two, and have been for some days practicing secret incantations and public observances with reference thereto. Last midnight they were to have had a great war dance and to have left on the warpath to-day, but their men sent out after their horses reported that they saw three Utes on the plain, which was regarded as premonitory of an attack, and the braves stood to their arms all night and were very anxious for white aid in case of the Ute foray on their lodges here in Denver. Such an attack seems very improbable and I presume the three Utes who caused all this uproar were simply scouts or spies on the watch for just such marauding surprise parties as our Arapahoe neighbors are constantly meditating. I do not see why they need to take even this trouble. There are points on the mountain range west of this city, where a watchman with sharp eyes and a good glass could command the entire plain for fifty miles north, south, and east of him, and might hence give intelligence of any Arapahoe raid at least a day before a brave entered the mountains; for though it is true that Indians on the warpath travel or ride mainly by night, I find that the Arapahoes do this only after they have entered on what they consider disputed or dangerous ground; that they start from their lodges in open day and only advance under cover of darkness after they are within the shadows of the mountains. Hence the Utes, who are confessedly the stronger, might ambush and destroy any Arapahoe force that should venture into their Rocky Mountain recesses, by the help of a good spy-glass and a little "white forecast"; but the Indians are children. Their arts, wars, treaties, alliances, habitations, crafts, properties, commerce, comforts, all belong to the very lowest and rudest ages of human existence. Any band of schoolboys from ten to fifteen years of age are quite as capable of ruling their appetites, devising and upholding a public policy, constituting and conducting a state or community, as the average Indian tribe.
I have learned to appreciate better than hitherto, and to make more allowance for the dislike, aversion, and contempt wherewith Indians are usually regarded by their white neighbors, and have been since the days of the Puritans. It needs but little familiarity with the actual, palpable aborigines, to convince anyone that the poetical Indian—the Indian of Cooper and Longfellow—is only visible to the poet's eye.
The Utes seldom visited Colorado City and the region round about in the early days, except in the winter, which was the only time they could do so with a fair degree of safety. A majority of the tribe had been on friendly terms with the English-speaking people from the time of their earliest contact with that race. It is true that straggling bands of Utes occasionally committed acts of depredation, and such bands on one or two occasions killed white people, but these acts were not approved by the majority of the tribe.
One of these exceptions occurred on Christmas day, 1854, at Fort Napesta, on the present site of the city of Pueblo. It is said that the men who occupied the fort were celebrating the day with the liquid that both cheers and inebriates, and in the midst of their jollity, a band of wandering Utes came by and was invited to join in the revelry. The Indians, nothing loath, partook of the white man's Taos lightning, the product of a distillery at Taos, New Mexico, and the natural consequence was an attack upon the whites which resulted in all the latter being killed.
In 1866, a small band of Utes began a raid upon the settlers on Huerfano Creek, but when the news reached Ouray, the head chief of the tribe, he sent runners out at once to warn the settlers and then went to the scene of action with a band of his faithful warriors. He soon afterwards took the hostile Indians prisoners and compelled them to go to Fort Garland and remain there, in this manner quickly ending the trouble. Ouray was always the friend of the whites, and is entitled to the very greatest credit for the able manner in which he held the Utes under control up to the time of his death, in 1881.
Ouray was born at Taos, New Mexico, in 1833. His father was a Tabeguache Ute and his mother a Jicarilla Apache. His boyhood was passed among the better class of Mexicans, chiefly as a herder of sheep. He learned Spanish and always preferred it to his native tongue. When eighteen years of age, he joined the band of Utes of which his father was leader, then located in southwestern Colorado. From that time until about 1860, he led the life of a wild Indian, passing his time hunting in the mountains and on the plains, varied by an occasional battle with the hereditary enemies of his people, the Kiowas, Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes of the plains, in which he acquired the reputation of a courageous and skillful warrior. In 1859, he chose a wife, named Chipeta, from among the Tabaguache maidens, to whom he was always devotedly attached, and who bore him a son. This child was captured by the Cheyennes in 1863, they having surprised a hunting camp of Utes under Ouray's command, near the present site of Fort Lupton on the Platte River. The boy was never recovered and, indeed, was never heard of afterwards.
In person Ouray was of the almost invariably short stature which distinguishes his people from those of the plains tribes. He stood about five feet seven inches high and in his later years became quite portly. His head was strikingly large and well-shaped, his features were regular, bearing an expression of dignity in repose, but lighting up pleasantly in conversation. In his ordinary bearing his manner was courtly and gentle, and he was extremely fond of meeting and conversing with cultivated white men, with whom he was a genial companion, compelling their respect and favor by the broad enlightenment of his views. In his habits he was a model, never using tobacco, abhorring whiskey, and taking only a sip of wine when in company with those who were indulging, and then merely as a matter of courtesy to them. He never swore nor used obscene language, was a firm believer in the Christian religion, and about two years before his death united himself with the Methodist Church.