Surroundings change rapidly in the rush of a new community, and 1870 saw Cheyenne established, strengthened, purified, settled.
The floating riff-raff had passed away, leaving a solid, intelligent population of sixteen hundred.
The city had at that time one public school and two private ones; the latter containing about sixty pupils. It had five well built and well furnished churches. The orders of Masons, Knights Templar, Odd Fellows, and Good Templars were all represented in Cheyenne at that time. The city had two large banks, three tobacconists, three hardware houses, two shoe stores, one confectionery, two bakeries, one livery stable, two first-class hotels, many common ones, a daily newspaper, two weeklies, a well organized fire department, and "an acqueduct, nearly completed, for bringing water from a source seven miles away into the city."
Cheyenne was now well governed, orderly, at peace, and only three years old.
She has not stood still—the brave little "Magic City!"
She keeps on growing, becoming more beautiful, more prosperous. The best we can wish for her is that her future may prove as phenomenal and brilliant as her past has been.