THE WONDERFUL HANGING LAKE, NEAR GLENWOOD SPRINGS, COLORADO
Grand Lake is in Middle Park, sixty miles from the nearest railroad station. (With the incredible celerity with which life progresses in the Centennial State, of course by the time this description is materialized in print Grand Lake may have become a railroad centre—who shall say? It is not safe to limit prophecy in Colorado.) At present, however, a railroad journey of forty miles from Denver, supplemented by sixty miles of stage, brings one to the lake, a beautiful sheet of water two miles in length and more than a mile in width, whose water is icy cold. The locality has become something of a summer resort for many Denver people, and also, to some extent, to those from Chicago and Kansas City, and a group of cottages have sprung up. Some seven years ago the Grand Lake Yacht Club was duly organized, with Mr. R. C. Campbell, a son-in-law of Senator Patterson of Colorado, Mr. W. H. Bryant, a prominent citizen of Denver the Beautiful, Major Lafayette Campbell, and other well-known men, as its officers. The club has now a fleet of yachts; it has its regatta week, and altogether holds its own among nautical associations; it takes itself seriously, in fact with what Henry James calls the "deadly earnestness of the Bostonians," which is paralleled by this inland and arid-land yachting club.
Besides the joys of yachting in an arid state where that nautical pastime is apparently carried on in mid air, is the local diversion of climbing mountain peaks that are pronounced impossible of ascension. This is one of the favorite entertainments of Colorado young women, who have conquered Long's, Gray's, Pike's, and Torrey's peaks, Mount Massive, the "Devil's Causeway," and various lesser heights, which they scale with the characteristically invincible energy of their state. The summit of Mount Massive is fourteen thousand five hundred feet above sea level, and of one of these expeditions a Denver journal says of this party of several ladies and gentlemen:
"Camp was struck at Lamb's ranch, where, in the early morning, the wagon was left with all the outfit not absolutely necessary. The trail sloped steadily to the boulder field, where the party stopped for lunch. They were now at an altitude of twelve thousand feet. A cold wind swept across the range and chilled them, so that the climb was soon renewed.
"The boulder field is two miles long and seemed five, for walking over the great stones is a wearisome business. At the end of the boulder field, which is much like the terminal range of an old glacier, is a great snowbank. From a long distance the mountain climbers saw the keyhole,—a deep notch of overjutting rock through which goes the only trail to the summit of Long's. It is a gigantic cornice to a ridge that extends north from the main cone.
"After passing the keyhole, which had loomed up before them through weary miles of tramping, a great panorama of mountains stretched before them.... There was a precipitous slope of rocks jammed together in a gulch. This rises for about seven hundred feet, every inch stiff climbing.
"The danger at this point was that some climbers might dislodge rocks which would come bounding down on the heads of those in the rear. For this reason the orders of the leader were urgent that the party should not get separated. The trail at this point led up the sharply sloping eaves of the mountain roof, from which the climber might drop a dizzy distance to the depths below. Clinging to the rocks and hanging on by hands or feet, the party pushed up to a ledge from which they looked over an abyss several thousand feet sheer down."
In Southern Colorado the cliff-dwellers' region offers some of the most remarkable ruins in America, and their preservation in a government reservation, to be known as the Mesa Verde National Park, has been assured by a bill that has been recently passed by Congress and which is one of the eminent features of latter-day legislation. It is Representative Hogg who introduced this bill providing for the permanent protection of those cliff-dweller ruins which, with those in New Mexico and Arizona, constitute some of the most valuable and interesting prehistoric remains in the United States. Already much of this archæological treasure of inestimable scientific value has been carried away by visitors, while, instead of permitting this region to be thus despoiled, it should be made easily accessible to tourists and held as one of the grand show places of the great Southwest. Like the Grand Cañon and the Petrified Forests of Arizona, like the Pike's Peak region in Colorado, Mesa Verde would become an objective point of pilgrimage to thousands of summer tourists. In the winter of 1904-5 Representative Lacey, of Iowa, the eminent chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands, made in behalf of his committee a favorable report on the Colorado Cliff-dwellers' Bill, presenting, with his characteristic eloquence of argument, the truth that the permanent preservation of these wonderful and almost prehistoric ruins is greatly to be desired by the people of the Southwest, as well as by those interested in archæology elsewhere. "The ruins are situated among rocky cliffs, and may be easily preserved if protected," said Mr. Lacey, and added:
"With the exception of two or three small, fallen, and totally uninteresting ones, all the ruins of the Mesa Verde are in the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. It is an extremely arid region, and little or no agriculture is practised by the Utes, although they range sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies on the mesa and in the cañons. It is a poor range at best, and the Indians appear to need all they can get. Moreover, the reclamation service has made some estimates regarding storage reservoirs in the upper Mancos, and it may be at some future time a part of this land in the reservation will be irrigable and greatly increased in value. The Utes are not going to destroy these ruins or dig in them. They stand in superstitious awe of them, believing them to be inhabited by the spirits of the dead, and cannot be induced to go near them."
These dwellings are excavated in cliffs from five to nine hundred feet above the plateaus. Of these, two dwellings stand out prominently,—the "Spruce Tree House" and the "Balcony House," the former of which contains a hundred and thirty rooms, of each of which the average measurement is about eight by six feet. Much pottery, weapons, armament, and many skeletons and mummies are found in these dwellings.
The later conclusions of scientists are that these cliff-houses were designed as places of refuge and defence rather than as ordinary habitations. The parallelogram and circle forms predominate, and they are often forty feet in diameter. There are sometimes double, or even triple walls, solidly built of hewn stone, with a circular depression (council-chamber) in the centre.
Pueblo is the metropolis of Southern Colorado. It is the second city in the state, ranking next to Denver. It is an important industrial centre, being the location of the great steel works of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and two large smelting plants in constant activity. It is a town with unusual possibilities of beauty, rambling, as it does, over the rolling mesas with a series of enchanting vistas and mountain views of great beauty. The Spanish Peaks are in full sight from the new residence region of Pueblo, and here is the home of ex-Governor and Mrs. Alva Adams, with its spacious, book-lined rooms; its choice and finely selected souvenirs of foreign travel; its music and pictures; and far above all, the gracious sweetness and charm of Mrs. Adams, who has that most perfect of gifts—that of transforming a household into a home. Governor Adams, although in his modesty he would deprecate the distinction, is easily the first citizen of Colorado. Twice the Governor of the state, he has impressed the entire people with his flawless integrity of character, his noble ideals, and his energy of executive power in securing and enforcing the best measures for the people and carrying onward into practical life the highest moral and educational standards.
Governor Adams is always greatly in demand as a speaker, and in September of 1906 he was again nominated for Governor of the state.