CATHEDRAL ROCKS, CLYDE PARK, CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT LINE
Another group of the sandstone shapes, under the transformation of moonlight, resolved itself into a band of angels, and still another mountain-side seems to be the scene of ballet dancers. The splendid heights of Dolores Peak and Expectation Mountain, the Lizard Head, the Cathedral Spires, the Castle Peaks of the Sangre de Cristo—what points and groups that fairly focus all conceivable sublimity they form! Here is a state more than a third larger than all New England; it is the state of sunsets and of stars; of scenery that is impressive and uplifting, rather than merely picturesque; a state whose plains, even, are of the same altitude as the summit of Mount Washington in the White Mountains, and whose mountains and peaks ascend to an altitude of over two miles above this height. Of the total extent of Colorado, the mountains, inclusive of parks and foothills, occupy two-thirds of the area. So it is easily realized to what extent they dominate the scene. But great and impressive as they are in effect, the mountain features have an undoubted influence, however unconsciously received, on the character of the people. The effect of beauty on character is incalculable. When to beauty is added sublimity, how much greater must this effect be! It was not mere rhetoric when the Psalmist exclaimed, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.... The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul." It is this train of thought which is inevitably suggested to the mind in gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the mountain scenery. Nature has predestined Colorado for the theatre of noble life, and the influence is all-pervading.
Great engineering feats are in evidence all over Colorado. Miles of railway tunnels pass through the mountains. No mountain, not even Pike's Peak, is regarded in Colorado as being in any sense an obstacle to any form of the extension of travel. The railroad either passes through it or climbs it. The matter is apparently simple to the railroad mind, and evidently all the peaks of the Himalayas piled on Pike's or Long's peaks—"Ossa piled on Pelion"—would not daunt the Coloradoan enterprise. In fact, the greater the obstacle, the greater is the enterprise thereby incited to overcome it. In the most literal way obstacles in this land of enchantment are miraculously transformed to stepping-stones. But what would you,—in an Enchanted Country?
Colorado has four great systems of parks whose elevation is from seven to nine thousand feet: North Park, with an area of some twenty-five hundred square miles; South Park, one thousand; Middle Park, three thousand; and San Luis, with nine thousand four hundred square miles,—all sheltered by mountains, watered by perpetual streams, and so rich in grass lands as to afford perpetual grazing and farming resources. Colorado has nearly one thousand inland lakes, and over two hundred and fifty rivers fed from mountain snows. Its grand features include mountains, cañons, gorges and deep chasms, crags and heights; its mountain systems cover more than five times the area of the Alps, and its luminous, electrically exhilarating air, its play of color, and the necromancy of distances that seem near when afar—all linger in the memory as a dream of ecstatic experiences. Colorado is all a splendor of color, of vista, and of dream. It is the most poetic of states.
Now the fact that this country has been importing over two million tons of sugar a year lends importance to the beet sugar factories already largely established. Colorado has a future in beet sugar hardly second to her gold-mining interests, if her interests receive the national safe-guarding that is her due.
Colorado and the Philippines were brought into collision of interests by the attempt to reduce the tariff on sugar imported from those islands. This would ruin the beet sugar industry in the Centennial State, which is already beginning to transform it into one of the richest agricultural states in the Union.
This industry is absolutely identified with the irrigation interests of Colorado, as it is the arid land irrigated that offers the best facilities for the sugar beets.
The beet sugar enterprise means remunerative work for the farmer, good business for the railroads and merchants, and an incalculable degree of prosperity for all Colorado. Thomas F. Walsh, of Ouray, Colorado, and of Washington, made an earnest protest against this movement.
Mr. Walsh is a great capitalist, but while he has not one dollar concerned in the beet sugar enterprise of his state, he is a loyal and devoted son of Colorado. In a convincing manner he said:
"... It is not a small thing, this robbery of American farmers and home-makers for the benefit of sugar corporations and exploiters of Philippine labor. It means the ultimate ruin of an industry that is full of the brightest promise for thousands of Americans. It means that the people of the United States shall pay tribute to a trust forever for one of the necessaries of life.... The removal of protection to Colorado sugar growers would simply mean that the sugar trust, or cormorants in human form like it, would go to the Philippines, employ the peons at starvation wages, and send millions of tons of sugar to the United States. Would the consumer here be benefited? Not at all. Has the consumer benefited by reciprocity with Cuba? The sugar trust has received a gift from the treasury of the United States—that is all."
And again Mr. Walsh truly says:
"This proposition is merely a design on the part of enormously rich, greedy speculators, who are willing to adopt any means for the accumulation of more money. Money, money, money! They have already a thousand times more than they need, and are simply money mad. They propose to exploit the Philippines for their own selfish ends. Help for the poor Filipinos, indeed! Imagine the generosity of these get-rich-quick sharks towards the peons in their employ. Think of the wages that would be paid, contrasted with the standard of living in the United States! I'd rather have the people of this country exterminated than to be brought to such a level."
Regarding the arid land Mr. Walsh said:
"With the application of water to this land under the National Irrigation Act—one of the greatest acts of statesmanship accomplished under our broad-minded and far-sighted President—the people of Colorado will furnish an outlet for a great population, and the cultivation of beets for sugar will enable thousands of American citizens to establish homes of their own. That is what is now being done in Colorado, and the industry is in its infancy. The people have gone in there at the suggestion of the government, planted beets provided to them by the agricultural department, and started a great industry. There was an implied, if not expressed, promise that they were to be protected in this new industry. Yet it is now proposed to place them in competition with the peons of the Philippines, at the most critical time in the history of the industry. The people of the East," continued Mr. Walsh, "do not seem to be able to grasp the great possibilities of the arid West under the operation of the national irrigation law. The West, properly irrigated with water that we know can be developed by drainage, wells, and underground flow, will easily support fifty millions of people. Think of what this means! Fifty millions of American citizens owning their own homes! It is an incalculable addition to the wealth and strength of the United States."
One of the very valuable and exceptional resources of Colorado is in its stone, which equals the world's best product in its quality. Millions of tons of almost every variety of building stone lie unclaimed on the hills and plateaus. There are quarries in Gunnison County that would make their owners multi-millionnaires, could the stone be made easy of access or transportation. The difficulty of the former, and the high freight charges, combine to delay this field of development. In Pueblo there is a marbleized sandstone that is very beautiful. Its "crushing" strength, as the architectural phrase goes, is between eleven and twelve thousand pounds to the square inch,—a strength which exceeds the most exacting requirements of any architect. This stone is found in unlimited quantities. In the country around Fort Collins there is a red sandstone which is very popular, and this is also found in large quantities at Castle Rock, south of Denver. Near Trinidad is a gray sandstone of great beauty, and the Amago stone, which is used for the Denver Postoffice, is a favorite.
In stone for decorative purposes also, Colorado is plentifully supplied. Specimens of marble from the vicinity of Redstone show characteristics as beautiful as are seen in the finest Italian marble found at Carrara.
Besides the marble for building there are also vast beds of the purest white marble, which will soon be placed on the market for statuary purposes.
Vast deposits of granite are to be found in many different sections of the state. In Clear Creek County, about Silver Plume and Georgetown, there are mountains of granite. In the southern part of the state deposits are found which are used extensively for monumental purposes, and great quantities of this granite are shipped out of the state.
Although only a limited amount of work in the way of development and seeking markets has been done for Colorado stone, the value of the sales is already an appreciable source of revenue.
Statistically, Colorado ranks first in the United States as to the yield of gold and silver; first in the area of land under irrigation; first as to the quality of wheat, potatoes, and melons, and as to the percentage of sugar in the sugar beet. The state ranks fifth in coal and iron; sixth in live stock, and eighth in agriculture. It is true, however, that irrigated agriculture is considered to be the most important interest in Colorado. The Centennial State is not, primarily, as has often been supposed, a mining state; the mines, rich and varied in products as they are, offer yet a value secondary to that of agriculture. A mine is always an uncertainty. A rich pocket may be found that is an isolated one and leads to nothing of a permanently rich deposit. A vast outlay of time and expensive mechanism can be made that will not result in any returns. An apparently rich mine may suddenly come to an end; the miner may have reason to believe that if he could go down some thousands of feet he would again strike the rich vein; he may do this at great cost of machinery and labor only to find that the vein has totally disappeared, or does not exist. All these and many other mischances render mining something very far from an exact science,—something, indeed, totally incalculable, even to the specialists and experts,—while agriculture is an industry whose conditions render it within reasonable probabilities of control and calculation. The great problem which continues to confront Colorado, and to a far greater extent Arizona, is the more complete understanding of what Prof. Elwood Mead, the government expert in national irrigation problems, calls "the duty of water" and the conditions which influence it as a basis for planning the larger and costlier works which must be built in the future.
"One of the leading objects of expert irrigation investigation is to determine the duty of water," says Professor Mead, and he adds:
"In order to do this it is necessary to deal with a large range of climatic conditions, and to study the influence of different methods of application and the requirements of different crops. Farmers need an approximate knowledge of the duty of water in order to make intelligent contracts for their supply. It is needed by the engineer and investors in order to plan canals and reservoirs properly. Without this knowledge every important transaction in the construction of irrigation works, or in the distribution of water therefrom, is very largely dependent on individual judgment or conjecture.... In constructing reservoirs it is as necessary to know whether they will be filled in a few years by silt as to know that the dam rests on a solid foundation; and it is as desirable to provide some means for the removal of this sedimentary accumulation as it is to provide an adequate waste way for floods."
The problems of irrigation are evidently highly complicated ones. There are large tracts of irrigated land selling at three hundred dollars an acre which, fifty years ago, were held as worthless desert regions. The value of water rights has risen from four to thirty-five dollars an acre. The Platte River and its tributaries, alone, irrigate one million nine hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-five acres. In the South Platte the average flow of water is two thousand seven hundred and sixty-five feet a second. The North Platte and its tributaries irrigate about nine hundred thousand acres. There are now over two million acres in Colorado under actual irrigation, with an agricultural population of some one hundred and fifty thousand, with a total income of over thirty millions. The agricultural population is increasing so rapidly that the day cannot be distant when it will reach a million, with a total production of more than one hundred and fifty million dollars. It is believed that an expenditure of forty millions in irrigation at the present time would immediately result in an increment of from two hundred to three hundred millions. The irrigation bill that passed Congress in 1904 proved of the most beneficial nature to Colorado; not only for its immediate effects, but for the promise it implied and the confidence inspired in the immediate future. The encouragement of irrigation in Colorado is the influence that enlarges and develops the agricultural efforts, promoting the growing industry of beet sugar and extending all resources. Beyond the material results there lie, too, the most important social conditions of the greater content and industry of the people and the corresponding decrease of tendencies toward anarchy and disorder.
In the quarter of a century—with the sixth year now added—since Colorado became a state there has passed over twenty million acres of government lands into the individual ownership of men whose capital, for the most part, consisted solely of the horses and wagon that they brought with them. Of this vast area there are some two and a half million acres under agricultural cultivation, which are assessed at a valuation of some twenty-five millions. The Boston and Colorado smelter, established in 1873, has produced a valuation in gold, silver, and copper of nearly ninety-six millions. In the year of 1905 the Colorado mines,—gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc,—all told, produced nearly ninety million dollars.
The population of Colorado is increasing rapidly, not only by the stream of immigration that pours in of those who come con intentione, but to a considerable degree by those who come only as tourists and visitors, and who become so fascinated with Colorado's charm, and so impressed with her rich and varied resources, that they remain. The development of this state is one of the most remarkable and thrilling pages in American history. It is the story of personal sacrifice, personal heroism, personal devotion to the nobler purposes and ideals of life that no one can read unmoved.
"There can be no backward movement, not even a check in the steady tramp of such a conquering army," said the "Denver Republican" editorially. "Before it, mountains melt into bars of gold, of silver, of copper, lead, zinc, and iron. It passes over virgin soil, and behind it spring up fields of grain and groves of fruit. It brings coal from distant fields, rocks from far-away hills, and its artisans mould and weld and send out tools of trade and articles of merchandise to all the world.
"It pushes the railroads it needs to where it needs them, and the world comes to marvel at its audacity. It finds to-day what yesterday it needed and to-morrow it must have. It waits only the world's needs or pleasures to find yet other ways to supply them."
The prosperity of Colorado is a remarkable fact in our national history. By some untraced law, defects, faults, misfortunes, or crimes are always made more prominent than virtue and good fortune. The crime is telegraphed everywhere, the good deed is passed over in silence—as a rule. And so the strikes, and the outlawry, and the discords and troubles of Colorado have been very widely heralded, while there has been less general recognition of the firm and just governmental authority that has held these outbreaks in check, and has almost succeeded in ending them entirely.
In general aspects and conveniences the towns and cities are under excellent municipal regulations. Leadville, formerly one of the most lawless of great mining camps, is to-day a peaceful and prosperous city on a great trans-continental highway. The Western towns begin with wide, clean, beautiful streets. They begin with the most tasteful architecture. It may not be the most expensive or the most colossal, but it is beautiful.
Northern Colorado is in many respects a distinctive region of itself. It offers rich agricultural facilities; the beet sugar factories at Greeley are making it a commercial centre; the electric trolley line which will soon connect Greeley with Denver will multiply the homes and settlements within this distance of fifty miles, and this part of Colorado is enriched with great coal fields. The latter promise not merely their own extension of industries in digging the coal and putting it on the market, but they also indicate another and far more important result, which stimulates the scientific imagination,—that of making Northern Colorado a power centre whose strength can be applied in a variety of ways and transmitted over a large area of country. For more than two years the Government has been conducting a series of experiments in a very thorough manner, endeavoring to ascertain the gas values of the great lignite coal fields between Boulder and Denver. It has been discovered that the converting of the coal into gas gives it double the efficiency for use as a motor power for engine or for fuel than can be gained from the coal in its natural state. A ton of coal converted into gas will, as gas, give twice the power that the coal would have yielded, and give the same power that two tons of coal, that has not been converted into gas, would afford. In order, however, to produce this power economically, it must be done at the point of mining. It is there that the gas producers must be located; and from these points the gas can be transported in pipes, or can be converted into electricity and sent by wires at far less cost than would be that of sending the coal itself by freight. These discoveries not only suggest that this region in Colorado is destined in the near future to become a power centre which will be tapped from the surrounding country for a great distance in all directions, and will thus render Boulder one of the most important of Western cities; but they also suggest the evident tendency of the age toward intensity rather than immensity,—toward the concentration of energy in the most ethereal form rather than its diffusion through large and clumsy masses of material.
Colorado contains over twenty-five thousand square miles of coal fields, distributed over the state, with an average annual product of over seven million tons. No other corresponding area in the entire world exceeds Colorado in its great storage of coal, and the state ranks as one of the first in the production of iron.
There are already fifteen beet sugar factories in operation, representing investments amounting to over twelve million dollars, and which are estimated to have produced, in 1906, an aggregate of some two hundred and twenty thousand pounds of sugar, the percentage of saccharine matter being higher than that of the sugar beet of California.
SULTAN MOUNTAIN
Statistically, Colorado ranks first in irrigation, and there are some eighteen thousand miles of irrigating canals already in operation, with the system being so rapidly extended that it almost outruns the pace of calculation. Three million acres are under cultivation in Colorado, and two million eight hundred and fifty thousand acres are irrigated; the storage reservoirs already constructed are sufficient to place another million of acres under cultivation. This irrigated land sells from sixty to one hundred dollars per acre. Colorado has a reputation for being a great potato state, and in the year 1905 the town of Greeley alone shipped over three hundred thousand dollars' worth of potatoes, while tomatoes are a feature often yielding ninety dollars to the acre, and celery has been estimated to yield one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. There are tracts of from two to three thousand acres devoted to peas alone, producing forty to fifty thousand cans; and asparagus grows with great success.
Colorado is a fruit country offering the best of conditions. The peaches of Southern Colorado lead the world in flavor, beauty, and size; the canteloupe flourishes with such extraordinary vitality that it often yields a revenue of fifty dollars an acre; and the watermelon also grows in unusual perfection. The valley of the Arkansas River is the great region for producing melons, and Colorado exports these to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. Apples, plums, and pears grow with equally bounteous success, and there are fruit farms that with their orchards and small fruits sometimes realize fifty thousand dollars a year, when the season is a good one and the market conditions favorable. The seasons of irrigated land are largely under control, and surpass those regions which are at the mercy of excessive rains or of droughts. So the law of compensation still obtains. The resources of horticulture, alone, in Colorado are very important, and they form one of the most alluring features of this beautiful and richly bountiful state.
In the way of crops, alfalfa takes the lead in Colorado, as wheat does in Kansas. It requires the very minimum of care; the land being once planted with alfalfa, there is need only of turning on the irrigation, and mowing it, at the right time. Alfalfa produces three crops a year, and yields from one to two tons per acre. It sells at from three to ten dollars a ton, and this makes a revenue quite worth considering. The difficulties encountered everywhere in Colorado, in every branch of industry, or in domestic work, are those of securing labor. Wages are high in every conceivable line of work, but to a large extent the labor and service, even when procured, is of a very poor order. In many of the larger hotels employés are often kept on the pay-roll for two months at a time when not needed, simply because it is impossible to fill their places when the need comes. From requirements of the seamstress, the laundress, the cook, the maid, the farmer's working-men, or the employés in almost any line of work, the same difficulty exists. Much is heard regarding strikes and other forms of the eternal conflict between labor and capital; and yet the high rates paid, the concessions constantly made to the demands of employés, the conditions provided for them, would seem, at a superficial glance, to be such as to bridge over every difficulty. Domestic service is something that presents the greatest problem on the part of the employer. If there is so large a number of "the unemployed" in the East, why should not the conditions balance themselves and this superfluous element find good conditions for living in Colorado? This question involves the problem of economics, with which these pages have nothing to do; but no traveller, no sojourner, can linger in Colorado who is not simply lost in wonder that the varied work that is waiting, with the most liberal payments for the worker, and the multitude of workers in the East who need the liberal payment, cannot, by some law of elective affinity, be brought together.
When it is realized that the Rocky Mountains occupy in Colorado more than five times the entire space of the Alps in Europe, their importance in climatic influence as well as in scenic magnificence can be understood. The forests of Colorado are found on the mountains and foothills. The heights are covered with a dense growth of pine woods, while in lower ranges abound the silver spruce and the cedar. Colorado has a state forestry association which aims to secure as a reservation all forests above the altitude of eight thousand five hundred feet, as this preservation is considered most important to the water supply. In the Alps there are nine peaks over fourteen thousand feet in height; in the Rocky Mountains, within the limits of Colorado alone, there are forty-three peaks, each one of which exceeds in height the Jungfrau. There are in Colorado more than thirty towns, each of which is the theatre of active progress, and each of which lies at an altitude exceeding that of the pass of St. Bernard. The sublime cañons and gorges are eloquent of the story of Titanic forces which rent the mountains apart. The vast plateaus were once the bed of inland seas. In the cañon of Grand River towering walls rise to the height of half a mile, in sheer precipitous rock, for a distance of some sixteen miles. The strata of these rocks are distinctly defined, and the play of color is rich and fantastic. The vast walls are in brilliant hues of red and amber and green and brown,—the blending of color lending its enchantment to the marvellous scene. Each cañon has its own individuality. No one repeats the wild charm of another. Excursions abound. There is "the loop," an enchanting mountain ride made from Denver within one day for the round trip; the "Rainbow" tour, and others, besides that of the "circle" already described. In each and all these journeys the route is often on the very verge of the abyss, and the sublimities, the splendor of coloring, exceed any power of language to suggest.
In Northwestern Colorado, along the White River and northward, lies the sportsman's paradise, now reached only by a stage drive of from forty-five to ninety miles from the little town of Rifle on the "scenic route" of the Denver and Rio Grande, beyond Glenwood Springs. Trapper's Lake and the Marvine lakes are well known, and the Marvine Hunting Lodge is a favorite resort of English tourists.
Estes Park, some seventy miles from Denver, a favorite summer resort, is a long, narrow plateau of two or three miles in width and fifteen in length, a mile and a half above sea level, and enclosed in mountain walls that tower above the park from two to seven thousand feet. A swift stream, well stocked with trout, runs through the park. The four great systems of parks divide Colorado into naturally distinct localities: North Park, with an area of twenty-five hundred square miles; Middle Park, with its three thousand; the smaller South Park of one thousand; and San Luis, with over ninety-four hundred square miles,—all, in the aggregate, presenting a unique structural plan. Every journey in Colorado has its vista of surprise. No artist can paint its panoramas. Every traveller in this Land of Enchantment must realize that its exhilaration cannot be decanted in any form. It is a thing that lies in character, moulding life.
Colorado is the Land of Achievement. It offers resources totally unsurpassed in the entire world for an unlimited expanse. These resources await only the recognition of him who can discern the psychological moment for their development. That nothing is impossible to him who wills is one of the eternal verities, and even the expert census taker, or the supernatural tax collector whom nothing escapes, might search in vain, within the limits of the splendid Centennial State, for any man who fails to will. The resplendence of this state of stars and sunshine is due to this blaze of human energy. The Coloradoans are the typical spirits who are among those elect