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THE Crest of the Continent:
THE Crest of the Continent:
A RECORD OF A SUMMER’S RAMBLE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND BEYOND. By ERNEST INGERSOLL. TWENTY NINTH EDITION. CHICAGO: R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS, PUBLISHERS. 1887. COPYRIGHT, BY S. K. HOOPER, 1885. R. R. Donnelley & Sons, The Lakeside Press, Chicago. TO THE PEOPLE OF COLORADO, SAGACIOUS IN PERCEIVING, DILIGENT IN DEVELOPING, AND WISE IN ENJOYING THE RESOURCES AND ATTRACTIONS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH THE HOMAGE OF THE AUTHOR....
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
Probably nothing in this artificial world is more deceptive than absolute candor. Hence, though the ensuing text may lack nothing in straightforwardness of assertion, and seem impossible to misunderstand, it may be worth while to say distinctly, here at the start, that it is all true. We actually did make such an excursion, in such cars, and with such equipments, as I have described; and we would like to do it again. It was wild and rough in many respects. Re-arranging the trip, luxuries might b
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I AT THE BASE OF THE ROCKIES.
I AT THE BASE OF THE ROCKIES.
Old Woodcock says that if Providence had not made him a justice of the peace, he’d have been a vagabond himself. No such kind interference prevailed in my case. I was a vagabond from my cradle. I never could be sent to school alone like other children—they always had to see me there safe, and fetch me back again. The rambling bump monopolized my whole head. I am sure my godfather must have been the Wandering Jew or a king’s messenger. Here I am again, en route , and sorely puzzled to know whithe
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II ALONG THE FOOTHILLS.
II ALONG THE FOOTHILLS.
— Stanley H. Ray. While we were codifying our impressions of Denver, the workmen at the shops had been busy. We were busy, too, in other than literary ways, and badgered our new acquaintances at the railway offices at all sorts of times and with every manner of want. The butcher and baker were harassed, and jolly old Salomon, the grocer, came in for his share of the nuisance. But it didn’t last long, for one afternoon, just three days from the birth of the happy thought, we were in our special t
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III A MOUNTAIN SPA.
III A MOUNTAIN SPA.
— Petrarch. As well omit the Lions of St. Mark from a visit to Venice, as to pass by Manitou in a tour of Colorado. Manitou, the sacred health-fountains of Indian tradition, the shrine of disabled mountaineers, the “Saratoga” of the Rockies. Leaving Colorado Springs, a branch of the railway swings gracefully around the low hills in which the Mesa terminates, and points for the gap in the mountains directly to the west. Nearly three miles from the junction we pass the driving park, and immediatel
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IV PUEBLO AND ITS FURNACES
IV PUEBLO AND ITS FURNACES
— Bayard Taylor. It is a fortunate introduction the traveler, fresh from the Eastern States and weary with his long plains journey, gets at Pueblo to the lively, progressive, booming spirit of Colorado. Here are the oldest and the newest in the Centennial State—the fragments of tradition that go back to the thrilling, adventurous days of fur-trapping and Indian wars; the concentrated essence of later improvements; and the most practical present, mingled in a single tableau, for a telephone line
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V OVER THE SANGRE DE CRISTO.
V OVER THE SANGRE DE CRISTO.
Toward the middle of one bright afternoon we were pulled out of Pueblo, our three cars having been attached to the regular south-bound express. We had fully discussed the matter, and determined to go on to the end of the track, or, more literally, to one end—for there are many termini to this wide-branching system—on to the warm old plazitas and dreamily pleasant pueblos of New Mexico. Why not? But so inconsequential and careless an “outfit” was this, that no sooner had our minds been fairly set
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VI SAN LUIS PARK.
VI SAN LUIS PARK.
— Tennyson. San Luis Park, exceeding in size the State of Connecticut, is identified with the earliest and most romantic history of Colorado. It was here that brave old pioneer, Colonel Zebulon Pike, established his winter quarters almost a century ago, and was captured by the Mexican forces, for at that time all this region was Spanish territory. It was here the northernmost habitations of the Mexican people, the ranches at Conejos, Del Norte, and all along between, were placed, and so became t
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VII THE INVASION OF NEW MEXICO.
VII THE INVASION OF NEW MEXICO.
— Mrs. C. L. Whiton. Our stay was comparatively not as long as our talk in sandy San Luis, for we soon left its pastures behind and were steaming southward, but with slower and slower speed. Again we were twisting our toilsome way up the valley’s “purple rim,” since it was easier to go over the high bank than down through the rugged cañon, where the wagon-road runs. The summit of this ridge, beyond which lies the valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, is not attained until you reach Barranca (“
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VIII EL MEXICANO Y EL PUEBLOANO.
VIII EL MEXICANO Y EL PUEBLOANO.
Then they descended and passed through the luxuriant yellow plains, the sunset blazing on the rows of willows and on the square farm-houses with their gaudy picture over the arched gateway, while always in the background rose the dark masses of the mountains, solemn and distant, beyond the golden glow of the fields.— William Black. Home just in time from Ojo Caliente, we hooked our cars the same evening to the never-tiring express, and trusted ourselves to its guidance without a thought of dange
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IX SANTA FE AND THE SACRED VALLEY.
IX SANTA FE AND THE SACRED VALLEY.
— Joanna Baillie. I have referred to Española as the southern terminus of the railway. From this point, however, another company is actively engaged in constructing a line to Santa Fe, a distance of thirty-four miles by the survey, and its prospective early completion will afford a direct and desirable connection with the ancient capital. At present the communication is by means of stages, which run in conjunction with the trains, and, not being restricted in the matter of grades, accomplish the
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X TOLTEC GORGE.
X TOLTEC GORGE.
— King Lear. Having at last turned our heels reluctantly on the simple-hearted, prettily-chequered life of the Pueblos, we raced back in a single night to the plains of San Luis. A long line of telegraph poles stretches out from Antonito into a true vanishing point across the park, and the train follows it San Juanward. The noble Sangre de Cristo looms up higher and higher behind us as we proceed, a mirage lifting the line of cottonwoods along the Rio Grande into impossibly tall and spindling ca
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XI ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER.
XI ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER.
— Bayard Taylor. Though the climax of the pass to the sight-seer is Toltec Gorge, the actual crest of the Pinos-Chama divide is at Cumbres, some fifteen miles westward, and several hundred feet higher. After leaving Toltec, the brink of the cliff is skirted for some time, and many grand and exciting views are presented; but the stream is broken into cascades, and rapidly rises to the plane of the track. Passing a number of snow-sheds, the train is soon twisting around shallow side ravines, and a
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XII THE QUEEN OF THE CAÑONS.
XII THE QUEEN OF THE CAÑONS.
— Walter Scott. When, some ten years ago, the writer had let his mule down into Baker’s Park, by hitching its wiry tail around successive snubbing-posts, the prediction was ventured that at some distant day a railway would penetrate these solitudes; and that it would approach from the southward, through a cañon which not even an Indian had ever been known to traverse,—the trails in that direction then leading over a terrible range, at a height far above the limit of vegetation. The prophecy has
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XIII SILVER SAN JUAN.
XIII SILVER SAN JUAN.
— Tennyson. In introducing some account of the southern side of the San Juan mountains, as a district producing precious metals, it may be said, in the first place, that it is a section in which productive mining has only very lately been prosecuted in earnest. Its prospects are well-founded; but almost up to the present time, its inaccessibility and other disadvantages have been obstacles to a development that, under more favorable conditions, would doubtless have occurred. The scrutiny to whic
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XIV BEYOND THE RANGES.
XIV BEYOND THE RANGES.
— Longfellow. Three districts require mention before this corner of the state is bidden farewell,—Ophir, Rico and the La-Plata mountains. Ophir lies fifteen miles east of Silverton and on the Pacific slope, for it is at one source of the Rio Dolores. It is reached by a wagon-road up Mineral Creek, which is one of the most “scenic routes” I know of in Colorado. At first there is not much to call forth admiration; nearing the top, however, a remarkable picture presents itself. In a closely guardin
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XV THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE RIO SAN JUAN.
XV THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE RIO SAN JUAN.
— Stanley Wood. Time forbade a side excursion from Durango to the Mancos Cañon, though we were extremely anxious to make it,— I because I had been there before, and the rest because they were eager to see what I had told them of. The Rio Mancos is the next tributary of the Rio San Juan west of the Rio de la Plata. When, in 1874, I was a member of the photographic division of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey, one of the main objects of our trip was the exploration of this remo
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XVI ON THE UPPER RIO GRANDE.
XVI ON THE UPPER RIO GRANDE.
O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful and after that out of all whooping. — Merchant of Venice iii, 2. Off to Del Norte and Wagon Wheel Gap! That meant a long run. We might have gone afoot across the Cunningham Pass and down the Alpine fastness of the Rio Grande’s birthplace almost as speedily as the train would take us, back to Durango, over the heights and glories of Toltec, down the mazy labyrinth of the Whiplash, and across the sheep pastures of San Lu
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XVII EL MORO AND CAÑON CITY.
XVII EL MORO AND CAÑON CITY.
— William E. Pabor. “E l Moro , sir,—breakfast nearly ready, sir!” I had only closed my eyes an instant before, I was sure, yet then I had been lying quietly in the station at Alamosa, away over on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo. I couldn’t remember anything of the transition. Then it was night; now it was morning. Time and space had been an utter blank for ten hours and a hundred miles. Drawing aside my window curtain and gazing out over gray plains, my eyes caught instantly the bluish
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XVIII IN THE WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY.
XVIII IN THE WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY.
— Tennyson. Cañon City was by no means a bad place to stay, and we would have prolonged our visit to the benefit of our table, had not the railway yard been so busy a one that there was no rest for our cars, which were pulled about, here and there, by the necessities of train-forming, in a way we were far from enjoying, so we decided to go on. At the last minute, nevertheless, this happy-go-lucky crowd concluded that they were extremely anxious first to take a run over into the Wet Mountain vall
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XIX THE ROYAL GORGE.
XIX THE ROYAL GORGE.
High overarched, and echoing walls between. — Milton. The Grand Cañon of the Arkansas, and its culminating chasm, the Royal Gorge, lie between Salida and Cañon City, and form a sufficient theme for a chapter by themselves. It was on our return from Silver Cliff that we went there. Situated only half a dozen miles west of Cañon City, the traveler going either to Leadville or Gunnison, begins to watch for the cañon as soon as he has passed the city limits, the penitentiary and the mineral springs.
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XX THE ARKANSAS VALLEY.
XX THE ARKANSAS VALLEY.
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.— Jonathan Swift. The interest of the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas, though it culminates between the narrow walls of Royal Gorge, by no means ceases there. For many miles after, immense piles of rocks are heaped on each
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XXI THE CAMP OF THE CARBONATES.
XXI THE CAMP OF THE CARBONATES.
— Scott. If the men who sprang from the stones Deucalion cast behind him set themselves to make homes, the result must have been a close counterpart of Leadville, Colorado.” Such was the phrase with which the present writer began an article upon the “Camp of the Carbonates,” printed in Scribner’s Monthly for October, 1879. Though the Leadville of to-day has graduated from the over-grown mining camp it then was, into a pretentious city of twenty thousand people, and boasts all the “improvements,”
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XXII ACROSS THE TENNESSEE AND FREMONT’S PASSES.
XXII ACROSS THE TENNESSEE AND FREMONT’S PASSES.
— Percy’s Reliques. According to the virtuous intention of the last paragraph, we went one day over to Red Cliff and the Eagle river. The branch of the railway which runs thither, leaves the main line at Malta, and takes in some very pretty scenery. From Malta the line skirts the wide hay-meadows between the village and the Arkansas river; I saw men spreading manure there, too, and was told they had raised oats successfully. The whole mouth of California gulch, here, is a vast bed of clean, drif
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XXIII FROM PONCHO SPRINGS TO VILLA GROVE.
XXIII FROM PONCHO SPRINGS TO VILLA GROVE.
The visitor to Poncho Springs is pretty sure to get into hot water, and, strange to say, the visitor is pretty sure to like it. There are several reasons for this peculiarity, and among the most important is this, that like the wind to the shorn lamb, the water is tempered. It needs to be tempered, indeed, for when one literally gets into hot water, one does not like to have its warmth so emphatic as to make a veal stew of the first leg that is thrust into it. Hot springs whose temperature makes
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XXIV THROUGH MARSHALL PASS.
XXIV THROUGH MARSHALL PASS.
— Keats. One of the wonders of Colorado progress is the Gunnison valley. The “Gunnison,” as it is usually termed, embraces a wide area, being, in popular parlance, everything in Colorado west of the Continental Divide, north of the San Juan mountains and south of the Eagle River district. In fact, this is correct enough, for nearly all this great region is tributary in its drainage to the Gunnison river,—the third great stream which unites with the Grand and the Green to form the Rio Colorado. T
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XXV GUNNISON AND CRESTED BUTTE.
XXV GUNNISON AND CRESTED BUTTE.
— Edgar A. Poe. At its lower end, as the mountains in the range we have crossed begin to grow indistinct in the distance, the Tomichi valley pushes aside the hills which have hitherto confined it, and broadens into a wide, grassy plateau, encircled by mountains, in the center of which stands Gunnison, the chief town of Western Colorado. Westward, where the river comes down, sculptured cliffs rise near and abrupt; but elsewhere the mountains are far away enough to make invisible all their lesser
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XXVI A TRIP TO LAKE CITY.
XXVI A TRIP TO LAKE CITY.
— Whittier. Lake City is a mining town at the foot of the San Juan mountains thirty miles south of the railway station of Sapinero (the latter named after a sub chief among the Utes who was looked upon by the whites as a man of unusual sagacity). It was at that time reached by a buckboard, carrying the mail and passengers. The stage-road led up a long, long hill to the top of the mesa between the Cochetopa and the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. This much of the way was in the track of the old southe
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XXVII IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK CAÑON.
XXVII IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK CAÑON.
By what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what wheels of earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea waves it was engraven and finished into perfect form, we may hereafter endeavor to conjecture. — John Ruskin. It was with eager interest that we despatched a hasty breakfast, and attached our cars to the early morning express westward bound from Gunnison. The Grand Cañon of the Gunnison lay just ahead. An open “observation” car, crowded with sightseers, wa
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XXVIII THE UNCOMPAHGRE VALLEY.
XXVIII THE UNCOMPAHGRE VALLEY.
— Walter Scott. The station at the western end of the cañon of the Gunnison is called Cimmaron after the river upon whose banks it stands. In the prehistoric days before the railway, this was Cline’s ranch, where all the stages from the Gunnison to the San Miguel region stopped. He was one of the few pioneers who got on well with the Indians, and his monument stands in the name of a peak down by Ouray. From Cimmaron upward stretches one of the steepest grades between Denver and Salt Lake, in ord
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XXIX AT OURAY AND RED MOUNTAIN.
XXIX AT OURAY AND RED MOUNTAIN.
— Bayard Taylor. Ouray is—what shall I say? The prettiest mountain town in Colorado? That wouldn’t do. A dozen other places would deny it, and the cynics who never saw anything different from a rough camp of cabins in some quartz gulch, would sneer that this was faint praise. Yet that it is among the most attractive in situation, in climate, in appearance, and in the society it affords, there can be no doubt. There are few western villages that can boast so much civilization. Ouray stands in a b
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XXX MONTROSE AND DELTA.
XXX MONTROSE AND DELTA.
— Tennyson. The compassion I had been feeling for probable ennui endured by the two who had been left behind at Montrose was quite unnecessary. They had amused themselves very well during my prolonged absence. “Montrose is better than it looks,” they told me. “But what did you do?” I asked. “Well, we studied the situation,” said Chum, who is becoming thirsty for knowledge in these latter days. “And we got acquainted with some very pleasant people, who told us good stories, and took us out riding
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XXXI THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY.
XXXI THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY.
As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in Paradise was more favorably situated, on the whole, than a backwoodsman in this country. — Thoreau. A very honest little circular—quite a phenomenon among prospectuses—had come into our hands, which gave in terse language the claims that Grand Junction made to the notice of the world and upon the attention of the man who was looking for a place of residence in western Colorado. This honest little circular, toward its end, contains the
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XXXII GREEN RIVER.
XXXII GREEN RIVER.
— Fannie I. Sherrick. The sweet clear twilight was fading from the cliffs, and had long since left the valley, when it came time to leave Grand Junction. The rising moon beckoned us on, however, and we look forward with eagerness to our journey, for to-night we are to cross “the desert,” to span the cañon-begirt current of Green river, and beheld the mountains of Utah. Doubtless the silent hours of the dog watch would finally close our eyelids; but now we bade Bert be sure that the lamps in the
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XXXIII CROSSING THE WASATCH.
XXXIII CROSSING THE WASATCH.
— Tennyson. With the first full light of dawn, on the morning after leaving Grand Junction, the vigilant Madame was awake, and we heard her calling upon us from her curtained corner to wake up and look out of the window. Well, as the Shaughran said when punished for his fox-hunt on the Squire’s horse, “It was worth it,” even at the expense of the morning nap. Here was something different from anything seen before. We were far inside the boundary of Utah Territory and were already beginning to cl
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XXXIV BY UTAH LAKES.
XXXIV BY UTAH LAKES.
— Milton. Nebo does not long remain in sight from our windows; for speedily we swing out into the sloping valley land, bringing into close companionship on the right the northern half of the Wasatch range, which, were it a trifle more arctic and bristling aloft, would remind us strongly of the Sangre de Cristo. On each side now are spread wide areas of grain field and grassland, with abundant hedges and thickets and orchards surrounding clusters of houses and barns. The train makes frequent halt
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XXXV SALT LAKE CITY.
XXXV SALT LAKE CITY.
“I have described in my time many cities, both of the east and west; but the City of the Saints puzzles me. It is the young rival of Mecca, the Zion of the Mormons, the Latter-day Jerusalem. It is also the City of the Honey Bee, ‘Deseret,’ and the City of the Sunflower—an encampment as of pastoral tribes, the tented capital of some Hyksos, ‘Shepherd Kings’—the rural seat of a modern patriarchal democracy; the place of the tabernacle of an ancient prophet-ruled Theocracy.” — Phil Robinson. It was
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XXXVI SALT LAKE AND THE WASATCH.
XXXVI SALT LAKE AND THE WASATCH.
— Bayard Taylor. One day we all went out to the great Salt Lake, as in duty bound. You might as well go to Mecca and fail to see the tomb of the Prophet, as to visit Deseret and avoid the lake. It is a ride of twenty miles by rail, and the fare for the round trip is only fifty cents. Two trains are run every day in summer, and they are especially well-filled on Sundays. The cars used are chiefly open ones, with seats crosswise, like those run to Brighton and the other Beaches from New York, and
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XXXVII AU REVOIR.
XXXVII AU REVOIR.
End things must, end howsoever things may. — Browning. This was our last excursion, and all three of us knew it as we gathered in our own coach again at Bingham Junction. “At last,” remarks Madame, cheerfully—she is thinking that before many more days an apple-cheeked little damsel in far New England will be back in her arms—”we have come, sir, to the final chapter. The emptiness of your utmost corner-pigeon-hole will reproach you no longer. A few days more and Finis will be written across the c
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NOTES
NOTES
[A] If the reader cares to know more about the lively times that used to occur now and then in Granite, years ago, he can find some incidents in my “Knocking ’Round the Rockies” (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1882), on page 70 and following. [B] If anybody doubts the full veracity of this tale, he is referred to Colonel Nat. Babcock, of Gunnison City. Transcription of the text of Garfields’s Memorial . IN MEMORIAM. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DIED SEPTEMBER 19,
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