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306771

COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY J. E. SNOOK.

OLKEEN

Cheeked

May 1913

COLORADO HISTORY

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PRELIMINARY.

The State of Colorado comprises lands obtained by the United States at different times from three different nations. The northeastern section, containing nearly onehalf the area of the state, bounded on the south by the Arkansas river and on the west by a line running due north from the source of that stream, was a part of Louisiana, purchased from France in 1803 by President Jefferson. The section between the Arkansas and the Rio Grande was claimed as a portion of Texas when that independent nation was by mutual consent annexed to the United States in 1845, and with other lands was purchased by the general government in 1850. The remainder, or western section, was a part of the territory obtained from Mexico at the close of the war with that country. The name Colorado was given it from the magnificent river that carries a portion of its waters to the western sea, the stream having received its name from the early Spanish explorers on account of the red coloring of its canons.

Probably the first white explorer within its border was Coronado, who with his Spanish soldiers hunted from Arizona northeastward far out on the great plains for the fabled "Seven Cities of Cibola," but found nothing more civilized than poverty smitten pueblos. They doubtless traversed the southeastern corner of the state. Two centuries later (1776) Escalante and Dominguez, Spanish priests, crossed the southwestern portion of the state from the settlements of New Mexico to the great basin.

ZEBULON PIKE, EXPLORER.

The first American explorer was Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who was sent by General Wilkinson, then commander of the United States army, to map the Arkansas and Red rivers and incidentally to make peace between the Pawnee and Osage Indians on the great plains west of the Missouri river.

Leaving St. Louis in 1806, his command proceeded through the Indian country of western Missouri and southern Nebraska, and then turning south struck the Arkansas river in southwestern Kansas. Here Lieutenant Wilkinson was detached with a small command to follow the stream toward the Mississippi, while the dauntless Pike with his remaining followers pushed toward the unknown west. On the 15th of November he caught his first glimpse of the snow clad Rockies, and ten days later tried to climb the giant mountain that now bears his name. Two days of toil and storm-buffeting brought him to the snow-covered top of Cheyenne mountain, where, half starved and nearly frozen, he saw the mighty peak yet far away, mantled in cloud, majestic, unattainable. Then he turned again to his task and pushed into the mountains in a desperate attempt to find the source of the Arkansas in the winter season.

At the gateway to the Royal Gorge he was obliged to leave the stream. Passing to the north of that wonderful chasm he entered South Park and discovered a river which he rightly thought to be the Platte. Turning again to the south and crossing a stream which he believed to be the Arkansas, he determined to reach the Red river, which he imagined rose farther west than the Arkansas, and reaching it, as he supposed, followed down the stream only to find, after terrible privations and almost incredible exertions, that he was at his old camping ground below the Royal Gorge. Here he passed Christmas day, 1806, and on the little prairie where Canon City now stands, his party had the good fortune to secure several deer and buffalo for provisions.

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Starting again for the elusive Red river, Pike traversed the famous Wet Mountain Valley of Custer county, crossed the Sangre de Christo range into San Luis Park, and was arrested by Spanish soldiers while flying the American flag on foreign territory in the valley of the Rio Grande. Active, brave, resourceful, determined, generous Zebulon Pike! He died for his country on the battlefield in the war of 1812. His enduring monument is the monarch among mountains which he was the first American to see.

A MOUNTAIN AND A DESERT.

In 1820, Major Stephen H. Long, in charge of another government exploring expedition, entered Colorado by way of the South Platte river and skirted the base of the range toward the south. He, too, beheld tain grander and more majestic looking than its fellows. -and Long's peak it has ever since been called.

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On their way south, Long's party passed over the pine-clad foothills of the Arkansas divide, tasted the waters of the bubbling "Fontaine qui Bouille" (now Manitou Springs) and some of them climbed the peak that Pike had deemed impossible. They followed Fountain creek to its junction with the Arkansas and journeyed eastward along the latter stream. They found no habitation of white men in Colorado.

The dry and brown appearance of the short prairie grass, the shifting sands of the shallow river courses and the numerous dry creek beds deceived Major Long into spreading the report of a "Great American Desert," which for half a century disfigured our maps and misled our people. After passing what has since proved to be as fine wheat and potato land as the continent affords, in Morgan and Weld counties, and wondering why such great herds of buffaloes came to that "desolate region," Prof. Edwin James (botanist and historian of the party) exclaims: "The Rocky Mountains may be considered as forming the

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