19th Century Colorado Foothills
19th Century Colorado Foothills
Just a slice....
Oh, what a rabbit hole I have tumbled down.
The written history of Colorado goes back only to the early-1800s’ when the west slowly began to open up after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. But the action really starts in the 1850s. From there a fire hose of information begins with stories, world events, wars and treaties, robberies, bear attacks, and GOLD. Horses, wagon wheels, and trains bring in people. People that made and traveled the roads, people that sought better lives and people that found gold and silver, people that provided the goods and services for the people who traveled. People that fought to not be pushed off their homelands, and the people that pushed. Towns seemingly built up overnight, and then vanished just as quickly leaving behind only a few cabin foundations. Boom and bust repeated in dozens of places on rumors of gold. The fur trade, lumber, and mining each created an enticement to come west, to be a part of the potential prosperity of wide open lands and surely limitless resources. Each industry needed access to remote places via trail routes, wagon roads, and trains. The government was trying to get a handle on the potential of the land. They didn't know what all was there, but they very much knew that other countries (Spain, Mexico, France, and England) had their eyes on the same land.
It starts with access. In the early 1800s, thousands of ‘Mountain Men’ moved on foot and horseback through the Foothills and higher mountain regions. Some were individuals working to sell pelts through various forts and outposts. Others were a part of larger, organized companies living a nearly military life in work-crew camps of trappers. Beaver hats became fashionable, so beaver was harvested until there were none left here, (greatly harming the ecosystem, and that’s another story!). Fashion waned with the supply. So, move on to buffalo hide until that supply dwindles also. These Mountain Men were well familiar with the area and were able to gain additional cash by guiding government mapping expeditions. ‘Kit’ Carson was hired by the Fremont Expedition to search out railroad access routes in the 1840s, for one example.
Indigenous walking trails became horse trails, became wagon roads - back-breaking hand work with shovels to widen the road and cover it with boards in muddy or rough areas. Other routes, where the terrain would allow, became railroad beds, often following rivers.
Roads soon connected to stage stops where a host of goods and services could pass, including the US mail. Transporting goods, lumber (remember the old-growth forest from the previous post?), people, and livestock was a booming business as most of the roads were toll managed. My property has wheel ruts from one of these wagon routes that are still visible. Oh, to have a time machine to have seen that traffic move past.
With access, more industrious folks wandered into the area. In 1863, German artist Albert Bierstadt and his guide, William Byers, climbed the highest peak of the front range, what we now call Mount Evans, 14,265ft in elevation, (soon to be re-named Mount Blue Sky, due to the sour history of Gov Evans, and that is another story). At the time though, it was called Mount Rosa, after a peak in Switzerland. Bierstadt preferred to call it Mount Rosalie, after his fiancé. (Locals, are these names sounding quite familiar?) Rosa (Rosalie) was changed to Mount Evans in 1895 after Colorado’s second governor, and nearby peaks were also renamed Mount Rosalie, 13,375ft, and Mount Bierstadt, 14,065ft.
Bierstadt would paint many landscapes of the American West, his painting “Storm in the Rocky Mountains” depicts Mount Rosa (Rosalie, Evans, Blue Sky), but with heavily enhanced dramatic storm clouds and an exaggerated peak in scale and shape, as a way to market the west for Eastern and European tastes.
As for William Byers, he was much more than a mountain guide. He came to Denver when gold was discovered (another story!) and brought with him a printing press he purchased from a defunct newspaper and hauled by oxcart from Omaha, NE. He produced handbooks to the gold fields on his little printing press and went on to found the Rocky Mountain News, the first printed newspaper in Colorado, which lasted for 150 years.
Each founding personality of Colorado has a colorful history with some wild stories. Very few were saints and freedom was as valuable as cash. It is far too easy to look back at this time in history with a sense of judgment, shock, and notable grief in what was lost in this frenzied time of exploration and abundance. The mindset was not of evil intent per se, but more of a sense of ‘God-given blessing’. Manifest Destiny for all those tough enough to endure the conditions to take hold of what is there to be had. Certainly, a subject to explore further.
This will be a rich treasure trove of material for posts on those winter weeks when the flowers aren’t blooming and the birds and animals are quiet in this deep winter cold we are having. Good grief it’s STILL January!
Sources:
- The Secrets of Elk Creek: Shaffers Crossing, Staunton State Park, and Beyond, Bonnie E. Scudder, 2013 Elk Creek Publishing
- https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/2004/2828/SIM2828.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bierstadt
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Byers
- https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-territorial-expansion/
- https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/walking-colorado-introduction-origins-section
- http://hermes.cde.state.co.us/drupal/islandora/object/co:1303/datastream/OBJ/view