About July first, the Union Pacific Railroad sold lots for one hundred and fifty dollars per lot. A month later, they were worth one thousand dollars apiece, increasing in price at the rate of one thousand dollars per lot each month for some time after.
On July 1, 1867, Cheyenne was simply a little corner of the wilderness.
On January 1, 1868, it was a city of six thousand inhabitants.
Was it not indeed a "Magic City," which could furnish a six months' record like the above?
However, this was but the Quatre Bras before the Waterloo.
Cheyenne's real struggle for life, for advancement, for culture and permanent prosperity, was to begin with this new year of 1868. We know how grandly the young city conquered, not by "magic" this time, but better still, by patience, pluck, and indomitable will. But to her honest and law-abiding citizens, at the outset of 1868, things looked dark indeed.
Cheyenne was the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad that winter, and the scum of the floating Western population drifted thither.
Houses were insufficient, and many wintered in tents and dugouts.
To make things worse, great numbers of squatters came, and began seizing town lots.
"Shootings were frequent, and every manner of vice abounded. A canvas saloon would answer as well as another for gambling, drinking, and the purposes of the dives. Various men and women made the place intolerable. It was never disputed that this town exceeded in vice and unwholesome excitement any of the new cities of the West." The police were overwhelmed. Crime, theft, and assault were rampant. Patience ceased to be a virtue.