Bathing Scene at Glenwood Springs—A “Chute.”
The mines and mining interests of Colorado are immense. They form a special feature, and about them there is already an extensive literature. It is the richest mineral region in the world, a fact illustrated by the ease with which it can turn from silver to gold, calling itself the “Silver State” for a period of years, and producing in a year immediately succeeding more than thirty millions of gold. Through all these wanderings, in every nook and corner, are the mines. The country is known truly and in detail by but one class—the prospectors. Thorough experts in mining are found in every walk in life. Information in detail would fill a space ten times as large as can be given here. The two largest mining camps, Leadville and Cripple Creek, are both easy of access by rail from Denver, and, while as towns they possess features that are unique, there is little in them outside the lines of average American citizenship and human nature, except the vast interests to which they are exclusively devoted. The home is there as elsewhere; the school, the church and the average man and woman. The frontier story has been told and is out of date. The community of a great mining center is not so strange, nor apparently half so extraordinary in its methods, as that which clusters daily around the shrine in the Chicago Board of Trade.
To the miner, the farmer and the cattle raiser of Colorado the scenery has in time naturally become as is Niagara to him who lives with the thunder of the cataract always in his ears. It is to those to whom these wonders are not a part of daily life that they appeal. The interest involved in industrial Colorado is immense. The capital involved mounts easily into millions. But it is a separate topic, interesting only to business, appealing not at all to the man and woman whose cares and toils are lessened, whose lives are strengthened by the touch of nature once a year; for whom, since the first railroad line was laid across the plains, there has existed no outing like that amid the Springs and peaks and pines of Colorado.
A Full Cargo—Children and Donkey at Manitou.
Life out of doors—Summer camping party in Cascade Cañon, near Manitou.
CHAPTER VI.
Hunting and Fishing in Colorado.
One region after another in this country has been proclaimed to be, and was in its day, “A Hunter’s Paradise.” One after the other these places have come under the dominion of the plow until now the situation of that poor man who wants to do above all others that thing he does not have to do at all, is deplorable. In the matter of fishing the question is not so exigent. In that of hunting the question that is oftenest unanswered when asked is “where shall I go to find something to kill; something, too, that I may fancy will kill me if I don’t kill it.”
Now, if Colorado is a hunting country at all, it is one most of whose preserves can be nearly approached in a Pullman car. The climate, even in midwinter, is mild. There is always a town, a mine, a ranch, somewhere within tramping distance; somewhere to go, something to eat, a fire, good women, hospitable men. There is no Nimrod so hearty that these are not to him valuable considerations; if not in the morning, at least at night.