Colorado Outings

Fourteen miles further westward is Georgetown, and the road thither is simply an extension of the Clear Creek Cañon, here taking the form of a sloping-sided and very narrow valley. The town has a population of nearly four thousand people. These mountain towns, sheltered by the high ranges, have all a more equable climate than Denver. There is hardly one that is not both a winter and summer health resort. Strong men who came to this country many years ago with weak lungs, seeking the one great desideratum of a climate where they could live all the year out of doors, have gone wherever occupation and circumstances drew them in the mountains, and are conscious as a rule of no great difference in locality within certain well-defined and very wide lines. Winter does not interfere with any industry of the country. The sheltered valley, wherever it lies in central and southern Colorado, at least, furnishes a residence for that large class who would surely die in two years in the east, who know that fact, and who live here in health until they are old.

Perched high above Georgetown is the famous “Loop,” a wonderful piece of railroad engineering skill. The mining town of Silver Plume is perched at the apex of this work. Many eastern roads have “Horseshoe” and “Muleshoe” curves, and make lithographs of them, and speak of them as engineering triumphs worthy of the passenger’s particular attention. So they were in their time, but they have been incalculably surpassed in dozens of cases in Colorado.

The word “Loop” is in this case largely a misnomer. It is a railroad coil. The doubles and turns are carried to an extent to the date of its building unknown to railway engineering. There are places where one can count five tracks below him from his window, apparently having no connection with each other. The entire entanglement lies about ten thousand feet above sea level. Still higher above the uppermost turn there are working mines, the little square openings to which are like dormer windows let into the immeasurable sloping roof of the world. The casual traveler does not understand, the present writer does not know, how these openings are reached from the lower world. There are said to be lateral paths, not seen from the railway, where the patient and remarkably clear-headed burro hath his mission as a very common carrier. It was once thought beneath the dignity of the average American to use this plodding beast as his assistant, but the exigencies of steepness bring him at once far to the front. All over Colorado he is a factor, eating little, working much, patient, plodding, long eared and long lived, content as always with thistles and sunshine.

Two and one-half miles from Georgetown is the famous Green Lake. It is 10,000 feet above the sea. It is full of fish, largely mountain trout, not now, however, as easily caught as they were in early times. It is a huge basin full of perfectly clear, deep water, but there is a prevailing tint of green; water, sand, moss, and even the oar drippings, are all green. At certain hours in late afternoon, when all the shadows and reflections are right, it is possible to catch glimpses of its great depth. There is a forest there, the trees still standing, but turned to stone.

Seven miles away is Argentine Pass, where the highest wagon road in the world is. From this pass there is a view that is remarkable, and for this alone, the delightful road excursion to the pass is made by hundreds of people every year. Four miles from Green Lake is Highland Park, a resort and famous place for picnics. One day’s ride by stage takes the tourist to Grand Lake, the largest body of water in Colorado. This lake is also full of trout, and its numerous tributaries afford fishing in plenty to those who like running water. The surrounding region has grouse and large game in plentifulness quite remarkable for these late times.

In Clear Creek Cañon, coming up, a rather remarkable railway junction is found. It is called “Forks of the Creek,” and there does not seem to be much room for car yards and switches, since the place is merely the running into the main cañon of a lateral one, with its walls little less steep and high than those of the main gorge are. But the branch line from here goes to Black Hawk and Central City, famous mining towns. These places can be reached also from Idaho Springs—by stage across the six miles intervening, done in one hour. On this stage road lies Russell Gulch, where in 1858 the first paying gold east of California was discovered by a man named Russell from Georgia, one of the original pioneers from that state to Colorado. The gulch was a great camp thirty years ago, and the remains are there to-day. Three miles further on is Central City, crawling up the mountain side. It is in the little rich county of Gilpin, previously mentioned. Mining industries abound in every direction.

A few minutes’ ride or walk down the cañon brings one to Black Hawk, though by rail it is four miles—a slight illustration of the exigencies of railway building in this country. On this four miles still further exigencies are illustrated by probably the only permanent “switchback” now in use. While going backward and forward down the sloping mountain—five hundred feet of descent in the four miles—one can look out of the car window and see, hundreds of feet below, the winding cañon down from Central City.

From Black Hawk the train may be taken back to Denver, going eleven miles to the junction mentioned in the heart of Clear Creek Cañon.

Gray’s Peak, one of the highest in Colorado, and its ascent by horses is an excursion often made either from Georgetown or Idaho Springs. The ride, to the beginning of the ascent by carriages, is one of the choicest of Colorado excursions. It is past Silver Plume to Graymont, at which point one may stop if scenery and views are the sum of his desires. Gray’s Peak is a little higher than Pike’s, but the ascent is easier. It is not unusual to start the horseback journey so early in the summer morning that the summit may be reached in time to see the sun rise. It is, of course, true that a description of this scene does not lie within the power of language, of colors, of the camera, or within any field but that of the remembering imagination. Painters, poets and writers come back discouraged. It changes the current of thought for the remainder of a lifetime, and tinges the creeping sordidness of the common world with a color that hereafter never entirely fades. To all, in whatever estate, this sordidness is an enveloping fog; accustomed unseen. There does not live a man or woman to whom the heights of Colorado are not necessary, once in their lives if no more.

It will be understood that it is not intended to do more here than give a sketch of an easy journey out of Denver into a celebrated mountain region. This little journey may be made over the “Loop” and back in one day. It may last a month or all summer. It is one of the remarkable features of Colorado travel that this trip among the heights and fastnesses of nature, and all other delightful journeys here, can be made without a moment of hardship, or even of inconvenience. Civilization is everywhere. Roads, railways, bridges, towns, dot the mountain world. Yet that world remains unchanged, lovely and magnificent in single phrase, and capable of being seen and enjoyed with an expenditure little greater than that which is always necessary at home or elsewhere.

CHAPTER V.
Nooks and Corners.

The State of Colorado contains four thousand three hundred and fifty-seven miles of railroads in a mountain area of a hundred and five thousand square miles. In any other state every mile of this would be “scenic,” and the most uninteresting part of it would elsewhere serve to divert extensive travel.

In this area, penetrated in every part by the astonishing railway mileage given, there are a hundred and fifty-five mountain peaks that are over thirteen thousand feet high. That is ten times as many as all Europe holds. One of these, situated so as to be seen sometimes a hundred miles across the plains, is forsooth climbed by a human railroad, and can be scaled and descended and the traveler be far on his way toward home within the daylight hours of one eventful day. When one begins to describe this country he has to deal with all the majesties, mountains, parks, crags, cañons, glens, waterfalls, geysers, lakes, caverns, cliffs, buttes, all spread out on a tremendous scale, none of them small. There are, it is said, seventy-two high peaks that yet stand nameless, waiting for some form of concurrent opinion as to how these colossal sons of nature shall be best called in mere human speech.

There are about five hundred lakes, large and small, some of them distinguished by a famous name, and many still asleep in mountain hollows almost unknown, where every wanderer who finds them is a discoverer for himself.

There are about six thousand miles of running water, born of snow, filled with fish, most of their countless windings still untraced by him who bears a rod and basket and would like to lure to unequal combat and certain death the mountain fishes, all “game” and difficult of capture. In the far recesses of the mountains there are places still unknown to all save one—the prospector—and here linger the mountain lion, the panther, black, cinnamon, grizzly and silver-tip bears, wildcats, lynxes, porcupines, deer, elks, antelope, and all the creatures of the wilds. These are never common; all the hunters’ tales do not ever make them that, and they must be hunted. He who finds and slays them is an adventurer, and was always such.

Mineral springs abound. No one knows how many there are, yet there is a long list of them already well known. The names Manitou, Glenwood, Poncha, Pagosa, Buena Vista, Ouray, Idaho, Cañon City, have been heard by all. Every town has its especial waters. At some of these there has been a lavish expenditure of capital and hotel palaces have arisen. Some are so especially endowed with outlying attractions that the waters are a secondary consideration, and of these is Manitou. Others have extraordinary temperatures and volume, so that nature’s chemistry is the pastime of hundreds, and of these is Glenwood. Others are the favored of a few. Every prospector knows of one or more, where isolated cases believe that they must drink or die; have drunk, and did not die.

Every railway line in Colorado is truly an excursion line; to ride over it is a pleasure tour, and one that the man in health and seeking rest and recreation alone will enjoy first before he calmly chooses a spot wherein to rest, and which will thereafter be his chosen place before all others. In this way thousands of tastes are gratified every year, and each one wonders why all others cannot see with him in his place advantages incomparable and quite inexpressible. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad can reel off, so to speak, two dozen mineral springs and health and pleasure resorts on its lines in one small publication, not mentioning at all the places that are famous as scenery, passes, heights, cañons, mountains and astounding feats of railway construction. These number scores.

The Colorado Midland road, with less mileage and covering a much smaller extent of country, mentions fourteen resorts, besides twice or thrice as many famous pieces of scenery.

And here it may be remarked that of the famous resorts of Colorado one is reached by both the Denver & Rio Grande and the Colorado Midland. This is Glenwood Springs, sharing with Manitou an almost equal fame. The place is at the junction of Grand River and Roaring Fork, in a valley that is like an elongated bowl. The springs themselves are phenomenal, running out on both sides of the river, and varying from twenty to a thousand cubic inches a second—among the largest in the world. Those on the north side of the river discharge an immense body of water at a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and this stream is made to flow through an aqueduct on both sides of an island. On this island stands the famous bathing house. Here is found every species of bathing arrangement housed in magnificent style. There are twenty-two large two-room bathing apartments for each sex—forty-four in all—and each is supplied with hot, cold or warm mineral water, and the same temperatures of fresh water, and also showers of either. Here in the heart of the mountains will be found all the appliances of the highest grade of civilization, electric lights, smoking, billiard and eating rooms, linen rooms, hair-dressing rooms, laundries, etc. The feature of the place is perhaps the swimming bath. It is a huge out-of-doors oval tank, full of hot water, and ranging in depth from three and a half to five and a half feet. Two thousand gallons a minute of hot mineral water pours into this huge artificial swimming place, the high temperature being reduced by colder water as it enters.

These features—chief among which is, of course, the hot mineral water in immense volume, making the place remarkable among the resorts of the world—are backed by a hotel which takes rank among the palaces. It has two hundred guest rooms, in nearly all of which are open fireplaces, and there is every convenience that pertains to civilization, mention of which in detail is merely tiresome to the accustomed Colorado visitor. One of the features of our national life is seldom mentioned, and there is now only a small class for whom the mention is worth while. It is that wherever the American establishes himself he takes with him all there is. The refinement, the culture, the “style” of Newport and Saratoga are all duplicated at Manitou and Glenwood, housed magnificently of themselves and environed by scenes in comparison with which those of most of the pleasure places of the world are tame.

A third line, the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf, has all the famous country beyond Clear Creek Cañon, full of scenery, resorts and mines; the South Park line to Leadville and Gunnison—a trip often made by the Colorado tourist for the pleasure of the journey—with the most famous mining “camp” of the world at the end of it.

The Burlington Route has a line running northwest from Denver to Lyons, whence one of the few remaining famous mountain stage rides may be taken to that which is by many—by all who know it well—considered to be the gem of the Colorado parks, Estes.

This park was in its time the most famous of the natural feeding grounds for all the Colorado animals. It is largely so yet, though in visiting it there is always a half regret that its location was ever divulged in type, so that it might have remained always a chosen spot for those only who could appreciate its original loveliness and were willing to share it with the animals who live there. It is skirted by mountains nine, eleven and fourteen thousand feet high. Two peaks of granite stand on either side of its only feasible entrance. The interior is shaped irregularly and there is little level ground. It is made up of natural lawns and of slopes and grades. It is but twenty miles in length and is not more than two miles wide in any place. One bright, swift trout stream, known prosaically as the Big Thompson, is born in the snow of Long’s Peak and flows crookedly through it from end to end. This is really one of the loveliest streams in the world. There are waterfalls and little lakes, fine groupings of trees, lawns that seem the work of the landscape gardener on a large scale. Nevertheless, sublimity is the dominant feature of Estes Park, after all. There are pinnacles of rosy granite, the streams are lost in cañons almost or quite inaccessible, and the upper end of almost every valley is closed in mystery. There are, though it seems so far removed from the actual heart of the Rockies, seven mountain ranges between Estes Park and the plains.

The lowest part of the park is 7,500 feet high. The summer midday is very warm, but every night is cool, almost cold. People live there and farm and there is no lack of either accommodation or hospitality. Still it is isolated, with the charm of nature utterly unbroken, a good place to fish and near the best remaining hunting grounds, perhaps, after all, the loveliest summer-time resting place in all this wonderland of nature.

All this northern region of which Estes Park is the gem calls loudly to that large class who imagine they have enough of society at home, and who wish for two or three blissful summer weeks to go where the Red Gods call them; to fish, or hunt, or to lie under pines and blink at the mottled sunshine, forgetful of newspapers and telegrams, and stiff collars and polished boots. Of such as these are the churls who build railroads and conduct enterprises and write real books, and torment their days with action and their nights with thinking. Some of these shamelessly bestow their women folk and their young men at Glenwood or Manitou, or elsewhere beneath a mingling of mountain shadows and electric lights, and then abscond with other temporary satyrs like unto themselves to Estes Park and places even further away.

And there is a line of travel thus far, and amid many other enforced omissions, not mentioned at all. It is operated by the Denver & Rio Grande road, and may be said to begin at that point mentioned in a preceding chapter, a little station beyond Salida, where in the early morning a train mysteriously vanishes within a side cañon, seemingly on a prospecting tour amid unknown depths and distances. The tour of this train they call familiarly “Around the Circle”—a circle several hundred miles in circumference.

This journey traverses the San Luis Park. It crosses the southern boundary line into New Mexico and throws out an attenuated and very crooked arm to Santa Fe, in the heart of a civilization that is the oldest and quaintest in America. One would hardly credit the fact that at the moment of disappearance this vanishing train is crossing the huge northern rim of San Luis Park, and that emerging on the inner side it proceeds to make a beeline, without a curve, across this vast mountain amphitheater for a distance of fifty-six miles. While crookedness is a wonder elsewhere, it is straightness that is a wonder here, and this unwonted tangent is deliberately mentioned as a curious thing. The grades immediately precedent were two hundred and eleven feet to the mile, and the look downward and backward through Poncha Pass was something as indescribable as any scene in Colorado. But it may be added that this is the longest stretch of straight railroad track, not alone in Colorado, but in the world.

On this circle route lies the famous Toltec Gorge, where the train crosses the range at an elevation of 10,015 feet. The line passes the corner of the Ute and Apache Indian reservations, and the aborigine has never lost his interest in the still inexplicable power that was the principal indirect cause of his being placed at last in this corner of the realm he once owned. He sits in the sun and waits for the train.

There is a place where the line is laid on a shelf in a cañon that is five hundred feet from the bottom and five hundred feet from the top, and where the cost of construction for a single mile was $115,000.

At Mancos station the ethnologically inclined may stop and visit the ruins of the cliff dwellers in Mancos Cañon. Rico, Lost Cañon, the Valley of the Dolores, Rio de Las Animas Perdidas—“the River of the Lost Souls”—the queer, sharp pinnacles known as the Needle Mountains, Sultan Mountain, Lizard Head Pass, Trout Lake, the celebrated piece of engineering known as Ophir Loop, the Black Cañon, are all places on this “circle” journey.

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.

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.

It may seem almost too much to say that nearly every prominent scenery place in the state is contiguous to good hunting. “Over the range” is always, in certain respects at least, another world. There are numbers of men here who habitually prospect in summer and hunt in winter. There is not one of these who does not know where large game is to be found. The trouble is not so much with the place as it is with the unaccustomed man. Find your appropriate and mountain-accustomed man as guide and you will get the game—if you can hit a gray or a light brown spot four hundred yards or such a matter away. It will hardly pay to come to these mountains in order to learn, for the first time, how to shoot at a mark, or how to go hungry because it was not touched.

The forests still cover a large portion of Colorado. Many of these lying away from other interests so far, are almost as silent as they were in the beginning. They are the natural covert for elk, deer, antelope, the mountain sheep and a variety of smaller game. Any prospector will tell one that there is nothing more common than the fresh bear track near the stream, looking like the footprint of a barefoot negro baby. All mountain men encounter droves of elk and deer. Farmers will tell you where they think they are, because they have often seen them there.

For many sportsmen, the northwestern and parts of the northern portions of the state are the best large-game hunting grounds; Routt, Grand and Garfield counties, and the region of which Estes Park is the center. Parts of this northern region are more easily reached by the Burlington’s line from Denver northwest to Lyons than by any other. The region of the foothills, the land between plain and mountain, and including both, is the natural home of the elk. It is in the more outlying regions, of course, that the big shy game now live. Once, in the days of Indian occupation, all Colorado was a hunting field, perhaps the best known. Natural fastnesses, plenty of food and a mild climate made it so. The encroachments of civilization have naturally restricted the field, but with the result that there is now more game in the places they still occupy than there was in former times. This unoccupied region is still in the aggregate, and notwithstanding all the railroad lines, as large as the entire state of New York. One would be illy occupied in prescribing given localities to an accomplished hunter under these circumstances. Every resident hunter knows, if he would always tell, of half a dozen good hunting fields.

In brief, it may be said that there is still game all over Colorado except on the plains, and there the jackrabbit lives in large numbers. In localities where there is fine fishing every summer, such as the Gunnison River, near Montrose or Delta, there is also fine deer hunting in the season, and that is a region largely interested in farming and grazing. Or an inquirer will be rewarded with valuable pointers about the region of the mildest climate in the state; the nooks and valleys on either side of the San Luis Park. A little inquiry developed, perhaps, after the employment of a companion or guide, who is undoubtedly necessary to a stranger, will elicit facts about the hunting grounds and their possibilities that a man might wander over the state for a year and not discover for himself. The best hunting here and elsewhere, is obtained only by him who departs deliberately out of civilization for a period, lives in a cabin, does nothing but hunt while he is thus engaged, and stays long enough to learn the country and the haunts of the beasts for whose life he thirsts. It is not now so easy as it was, even in Africa. The time is coming when it will be a lost art.

People who hunt in Colorado unite in the opinion that the choicest hunting grounds of the Utes were those wilder places that still remain unoccupied. Among such places the country back of De Beque, a town on the line of the Colorado Midland, is prominently mentioned. North of this place lie the Book Cliffs, and through these wind narrow gorges that at places widen out into little parks. There are in these never-failing springs. The region is of large extent, full of trees, and the natural covert of wild animals. A late writer states that he has seen in this region in one morning and counted three hundred and fifty deer. There is also on the mesas an abundance of quail, grouse and sage hens.

In fishing, the case is slightly different. The watercourses of Colorado comprise eight principal rivers, which flow from their sources in the mountains in all directions, increasing in volume from almost countless tributaries. In all these streams the mountain trout is a native. For many years trout fishing has been the principal pastime of the people. The trout is a fish that is particular in his habits to a degree almost absurd, and when he has a place he usually stays there, with an occasional change from pools to riffles, until he grows too large, or until he becomes disgusted with the society of intruders in the persons of large fishes, many of whom have a taste for him when he is young. Like other fishes, they are deaf but they can see quickly, and are known to be gifted with an acuteness above the average. And yet they are great fools, shortsighted and capricious, biting a certain kind of bait one day and refusing it the next, always hunted first by the angler, always a little hard to get, yet caught by the thousands.

But it is only a question of time when the native trout will have disappeared from Colorado waters. Since the propagation of the California rainbow trout in these streams, and the eastern brook trout, he has in many localities already disappeared. The exchange is not a detriment. The rainbow trout grows to a great size here, specimens weighing twelve pounds being often caught. It is rapid in growth, game, and very fecund.

Great care is taken in the preservation of the fishing waters. A notable example of this is the South Platte, one of the ideal trout streams of the state. The railroad company plants here each season about two hundred thousand young trout. Platte Cañon, a few hours’ ride from Denver is a favorite ground. The Gunnison River, east of Grand Junction, is another famous fishing stream. There are a great many smaller brooks and streams. Every mountain stream that has not had its waters spoiled by tailings and the refuse of smelters has fish in it. As a rule, the further away from the haunts of many anglers one goes, the more fish there are to be caught. The hunting grounds are fishing grounds as well. The broad statement may be made that no other region of the world has so many streams where game fish naturally live, and that with continual stocking and great care by the railways and the state, the supply has not perceptibly diminished. Many streams are spoiled; many others still remain. They are well known. The accustomed angler knows his fishing place when he sees it, and besides the places where everybody goes he can easily find a domain where he and the fishes can have it out together. There is a United States fish hatchery located at Leadville, and the game laws of the state are well enforced. There is not the essence of truth behind any statement that the days of sport in Colorado are at an end.

The statutes of the state protecting game permit the killing of game birds from August 15 to November 1; waterfowl from September 1 to May 1. Deer and elk may be killed from August 1 to November 1. The killing of buffalo and mountain sheep is prohibited. It is lawful to take fish with hook and line from June 1 to December 1. Netting, poison and explosives are prohibited.

How to Go to Colorado.

There is perhaps an impression in the public mind that is an inheritance from the old time—that the long road across the plains is a dreary monotony—that the “Great American Desert,” as the region between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains was called until recent years, is an uninteresting waste, tiresome to traverse. But a surprise is in store for anyone having this picture in his mind, for the fact is that in the Nebraska of to-day is found a continuation of that exquisite panorama of farm-land scenery that is passed while traveling through Illinois and Iowa, or Northern Missouri. The journey is one full of interest from the beginning until the climax is reached, when on arriving within seventy-five miles of Denver the first glimpse is seen of the great rocky range of snow-capped mountains, which seem to stand as a barrier to further progress toward the west. Again, to one unaccustomed to extensive travel, the distance from the Great Lakes to Denver, for instance, seems very great, but when one stops to consider that it was only a few months ago that a special train over the Burlington Route covered the 1,025 miles from Chicago in 1,047 minutes, without unusual effort, and in the regular course of business, the long journey seems shortened and glorious Colorado appears to be as it is, easily accessible.

There are several railroads reaching from eastern territory to Colorado, but none which have the many advantages of the Burlington Route. This road owns its own tracks from Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis to Denver, and it has a world-wide reputation for the excellence of its equipment, the high standard of its dining-car service, and the regularity with which its trains make schedule time. For the individual bent on either pleasure or business, it is the most desirable from every point of view, and it appeals in particular to those entrusted with the selection of an official route for delegates attending a convention, for the reason that the Burlington’s system of lines reaches all the principal cities between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, thus enabling the entire delegation to concentrate and travel together under a contract made with a single railroad. A glance at the map will demonstrate this.

Take the Burlington Route to Denver; it is the best line.

The World’s Record.
1,025 miles in 1,047 minutes.

On the morning of February 15, 1897, a telegram was received at Chicago from H. J. Mayham, asking for a special train from Chicago to Denver. No details could be arranged until Mr. Mayham’s arrival at 9.15 a. m. Not until then was it known that Mr. Mayham was hurrying to the bedside of his dying son. Instructions were hurriedly given to get an engine ready, and at ten o’clock a private car, attached to an engine which had just brought in a suburban train and was most available, left the Union Passenger Station with instructions merely to “make a good run.”

To Burlington, Iowa, the distance is 206 miles, and the trip to this point was made in 228 minutes, including seven stops. After leaving Burlington for the run across Iowa nothing of moment occurred until after leaving Creston. Then it was discovered that the engine truck was running hot, but nevertheless the 36 miles to Villisca was made in 34 minutes, and then it was found necessary to telegraph ahead to Red Oak, 15 miles away, and order another engine to take the train to the Missouri River. These last 15 miles were made in 15 minutes. Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, was reached at 8.11 p. m., Hastings, 638 miles from Chicago, at 10.03 p. m. The run from Hastings to Oxford, Neb., 78 miles, was made in 75 minutes, and from Oxford to McCook, 54 miles, in 51 minutes. The remainder of the trip through eastern Colorado and up the gradual but very long grade into Denver was accomplished without incident, and the train arrived, after the usual delays at crossings, at 3.53 a. m., mountain time. From the Union Passenger Station, Chicago, to the Union Depot, Denver, a distance of 1,025 miles, the time was eighteen hours and fifty-three minutes—breaking the world’s record for long-distance running.

Two features in connection with this achievement make it unique. First, no preparation of any kind was made for the run. Forty minutes after the order was given for the train it started, and was handled all the way through in the ordinary manner and with no idea of making a record. An emergency had arisen, and the aim of the operating department was simply to give a patron of the road, who paid for it, the best service possible under the circumstances. Second, it so happened that all of the division superintendents and chief dispatchers on the C., B. & Q. were in Chicago attending a meeting, and the details of the trip were, therefore, entirely in the hands of their subordinates. Both of these facts emphasize the perfect state of discipline which exists, and which made it possible to accomplish such a run without a hitch or impediment of any kind.

Burlington Route Through Train Service

From Chicago.

To Minneapolis and St. Paul—Two trains daily. Connection is made at St. Paul in Union Depot for Duluth and for all points in the northwest, including Puget Sound.

To Omaha, Denver and California—Three trains daily. Connection is made at Denver in Union Depot with the Denver & Rio Grande R. R. for all points in Colorado, Salt Lake City, Ogden and California. Personally conducted excursions to California, in through special cars, every week.

To Montana, Yellowstone Park and the Pacific Coast, via Omaha, Lincoln and the Black Hills—One train daily. Passes by the Custer Battlefield. Connection is made at Billings, Mont., with the Northern Pacific Ry. for Yellowstone Park, Helena, Butte and the Pacific Coast.

To Kansas City, St. Joseph, Leavenworth and Atchison—Two trains daily. Connection is made at Kansas City in Union Depot for all points in the southwest.

To Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, Galveston and San Antonio, via Hannibal and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry.—Two trains daily. Connection is made for all points in Texas.

From St. Louis.

To Minneapolis and St. Paul—Three trains daily; one via east side Mississippi River and two via west side Mississippi River. Connection is made at St. Paul in Union Depot for all points in the northwest.

To Kansas City, St. Joseph, Leavenworth and Atchison—Two trains daily. Connection is made at Kansas City in Union Depot for all points in the southwest.

To Lincoln, Denver and California—One train daily, via St. Joseph and Lincoln. Connection is made at Denver in Union Depot with the Denver & Rio Grande R. R. for all points in Colorado, Salt Lake City, Ogden and California.

To Montana, Yellowstone Park and the Pacific Coast, via St. Joseph, Lincoln and the Black Hills—One train daily. Passes by the Custer Battlefield. Connection is made at Billings, Mont., with the Northern Pacific Ry. for Yellowstone Park, Helena, Butte and the Pacific Coast.

Note—All through trains on the Burlington Lines are equipped with Vestibuled Pullman Palace Sleeping Cars, Reclining Chair Cars (seats free) and Burlington Route Dining Cars (meals served on the European plan). Some trains are equipped also with Pullman Compartment Sleeping Cars and Composite Cars, fitted with smoking room, sideboard and compartments for card players.

POOLE BROS. CHICAGO.

Transcriber’s Notes

• Silently corrected a few typos.
• Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
• In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.