J. M. Oskison, in his "Unconventional Portrait," published in "Collier's" a year or so ago, told a great deal about Denver in a few words:
Last October a frock-coated clergyman of the Episcopal Church stood up in one of the luxurious parlors of Denver's newest hotel and said: "I am an Arapahoe Indian; when I was a little boy my people used to hunt buffalo all over this country; we made our camps right on this place where Denver is now." There is not very much gray in that man's hair.
In the summer of 1867, when Vice-President Colfax came to Denver from Cheyenne, after a stage ride of twenty-two hours, he found it a hopeful city of 5,000. Denver had just learned that Cherry Creek sometimes carried a great deal of water down to the Platte River, and that it wasn't wise to build in its bed.
Irrigation has made a garden of the city and lands about. There are 240,000 people who make Denver their home to-day. The city under the shadow of the mountains is spread over an area of sixty square miles; a plat of redeemed desert with an assessed valuation of $135,000,000.
In 1870, three years after the visit of Colfax, Denver got its first railroad: a spur line from Cheyenne; in the 80's it got street cars; to-day it has the look of a city that is made—and well made. But, as I have said before, that has, hitherto, been largely a matter of good fortune. Denver's youth has saved her from the municipal disease which threatens such older cities as St. Louis and St. Paul: hardening of the arteries of traffic. Also, nature has given her what may be termed a good "municipal complexion," wherein she has been more fortunate than Kansas City, whose warts and wens have necessitated expensive operations by the city "beauty doctor."
Now, a city with the natural charm of Denver is, like a woman similarly endowed, in danger of becoming oversure. Either is likely to lie back and rest upon Nature's bounty. Yet, to Denver's eternal credit be it said, she has not fallen into the ways of indolent self-satisfaction. Indeed, I know of no American city which has done, and is doing, more for herself. Consider these few random items taken from the credit side of her balance: She is one of the best lighted cities in the land. She has the commission form of government. (Also, as you will remember, she has woman suffrage, Colorado having been the first State to accept it.) Her Children's Court, presided over by Judge Ben B. Lindsey, is famous. She has no bread line, and, as for crime, when I asked Police Inspector Leonard De Lue about it, he shook his head and said: "No; business is light. The fact is we ain't got no crime out here." Denver owns her own Auditorium, where free concerts are given by the city. Also, in one of her parks, she has a city race track, where sport is the only consideration, betting, even between horse owners, having been successfully eliminated. Furthermore, Denver has been one of the first American cities to begin work on a "civic center." Several blocks before the State Capitol have been cleared of buildings, and a plaza is being laid out there which will presently be a Tuileries Garden, in miniature, surrounded by fine public buildings, forming a suitable central feature for the admirable system of parks and boulevards which already exists.
Curiously enough, however, by far the smallest part of Denver's parks are within the confines of the city. About five years ago Mr. John Brisben Walker proposed that mountain parks be created. Denver seized upon the idea with characteristic energy, with the result that she now has mountain parks covering forty square miles in neighboring counties. These parks have an area almost as great as that of the whole city, and are connected with the Denver boulevards by fine roads, so that some of the most spectacular motor trips in the country are within easy range of the "Queen City of the Plains."
But though the mountains give Denver her individuality, and though she has made the most of them, they have not proved an unmixed blessing. The riches which she has extracted from them, and the splendid setting that they give her, is the silver lining to her commercial cloud. The mountains directly west of Denver form a barrier which has forced the main lines of trancontinental travel to the north and south, leaving Denver in a backwater.
To overcome this handicap the late David Moffat, one of Denver's early millionaires, started in to build the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad, better known as the Moffat Road. This railway strikes almost due west from Denver and crosses the continental divide at an altitude of over two miles. While it is one of the most astonishing pieces of railroad in the world, its windings and severe grades have made operation difficult and expensive, and the road has been built only as far as Craig, Colo., less than halfway to Salt Lake City. The great difficulty has always been the crossing of the divide. The city of Denver has now come forward with the Moffat tunnel project, and has extended her credit to the extent of three million dollars, for the purpose of helping the railroad company to build the tunnel. It will be more than six miles long, and will penetrate the Continental Divide at a point almost half a mile below that now reached by the road, saving twenty-four miles in distance and over two per cent. in grade. The tunnel is now under construction, and will, when completed, be the longest railroad tunnel in the Western Hemisphere. The railroad company stands one-third of the cost, while the city of Denver undertakes two-thirds. When completed, this route will be the shortest between Denver and Salt Lake by many miles.
Nor is Denver giving her entire attention to her railway line. The good-roads movement is strong throughout the State of Colorado. Last year two million dollars was expended under the direction of the State Highway Commission—a very large sum when it is considered that the total population of the State is not a great deal larger than that of the city of St. Louis.
The construction of roads in Colorado is carried on under a most advanced system. Of a thousand convicts assigned to the State Penitentiary at Cañon City, four hundred are employed upon road work. In traveling through the State I came upon several parties of these men, and had I not been informed of the fact, I should never have known that they were convicts. I met them in the mountains, where they live in camps many miles distant from the penitentiary. They seemed always to be working with a will, but as we passed, they would look up and smile and wave their hands to us. They appeared healthy, happy, and—respectable. They do not wear stripes, and their guards are unarmed, being selected, rather, as foremen with a knowledge of road building. When one considers the ghastly mine wars which have, at intervals, disgraced the State, it is comforting to reflect upon Colorado's enlightened methods of handling her prisons and her prisoners.
Denver, in her general architecture, is more attractive than certain important cities to the eastward of her. Her houses are, for the most part, built solidly of brick and stone, and more taste has been displayed in them, upon the whole, than has been shown in either St. Louis or Kansas City. Like Kansas City, Denver has many long, tree-bordered streets lined with modest homes which look new and which are substantially built, but there is less monotony of design in Denver.