The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond. Ernest IngersollЧитать онлайн книгу.
link to the transcontinental chain, which now binds the East to the West, the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. At Pueblo, the Denver and Rio Grande, meeting the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, was already prepared to make this new route available to Denver and much of Colorado, and adopting a liberal policy, at once exerted an immense influence upon the speedy development and prosperity of the State.
Thus, in a year or two, the young city found itself removed from total isolation to a central position on various railways, east and west, and to its mill came the varied grist of a circle hundreds of miles in radius. Now blossomed the booming season of business which sagacious eyes had foreseen. The town had less than four thousand inhabitants in 1870. A year from that time her population was nearly fifteen thousand, and her tax-valuation had increased from three to ten millions of dollars. It was a time of happy investment, of incessant building and improvement, and of grand speculation. Mines flourished, crops were abundant, cattle and sheep grazed in a hundred valleys hitherto tenanted by antelope alone, and everybody had plenty of money. Then came a shadow of storm in the East, and the sound of the thunder-clap of 1873 was heard in Denver, if the bolt of the panic was not felt. The banks suddenly became cautious in loans; speculators declined to buy, and sold at a sacrifice. Merchants found that trade was dull, and ranchmen got less for their products. It was a “set-back” to Denver, and two years of stagnation followed. But she only dug the more money out of the ground to fill her depleted pockets, and survived the “hard times” with far less sacrifice of fortune and pride than did most of the Eastern cities. None of her banks went under, nor even certifieda check, and most of her business houses weathered the storm. The unhealthy reign of speculation was effectually checked, and business was placed upon a compact and solid foundation. Then came 1875 and 1876, which were “grasshopper years,” when no crops of consequence were raised throughout the State, and a large amount of money was sent East to pay for flour and grain. This was a particularly hard blow, but the bountiful harvest of 1877 compensated, and the export of beeves and sheep, with their wool, hides and tallow, was the largest ever made up to that time.
DENVER
The issue of this successful year with miner, farmer and stock-ranger, yielding them more than $15,000,000, a large proportion of which was an addition to the intrinsic wealth of the world, had an almost magical effect upon the city. Commerce revived, a buoyant feeling prevailed among all classes, and merchants enjoyed a remunerative trade. Money was “easy,” rents advanced, and the real estate business assumed a healthier tone. Generous patronage of the productive industries throughout the whole State was made visible in the quickened trade of the city, which rendered the year an important one in the history of Denver’s progress. So, out of the barrenness of the cactus-plain, and through this turbulent history, has arisen a cultivated and beautiful city of 75,000 people, which is truly a metropolis. Her streets are broad, straight, and everywhere well shaded with lines of cottonwoods and maples, abundant in foliage and of graceful shape. On each side of every street flows a constant stream of water, often as clear and cool as a mountain brook. The source is a dozen miles southward, whence the water is conducted in an open channel. There are said to be over 260 miles of these irrigating ditches or gutters, and 250,000 shade-trees.
For many blocks in the southern and western quarter of the town—from Fourteenth to Thirtieth streets, and from Arapahoe to Broadway and the new suburbs beyond—you will see only elegant and comfortable houses. Homes succeed one another in endlessly varying styles of architecture, and vie in attractiveness, each surrounded by lawns and gardens abounding in flowers. All look new and ornate, while some of the dwellings of wealthy citizens are palatial in size and furnishing, and with porches well occupied during the long, cool twilight characteristic of the summer evening in this climate, giving a very attractive air of opulence and ease. Even the stranger may share in the general enjoyment, for never was there a city with so many and such pleasant hotels, the largest of which, the Windsor and the St. James, are worthy of Broadway or Chestnut street.
The power which has wrought all this change in a short score of years, truly making the desert to bloom, is water; or, more correctly, that is the great instrument used, for the power is the will and pride of the intelligent men and women who form the leading portion of the citizens. Water is pumped from the Platte, by the Holly system, and forced over the city with such power that in case of fire no steam-engine is necessary to send a strong stream through the hose. The keeping of a turf and garden, after it is once begun, is merely a matter of watering. The garden is kept moist mainly by flooding from the irrigating ditch in the street or alley, but the turf of the lawn and the shrubbery owe their greenness to almost incessant sprinkling by the hand-hose. Fountains are placed in nearly every yard. After dinner (for Denver dines at five o’clock as a rule), the father of the house lights his cigar and turns hose-man for an hour, while he chats with friends; or the small boys bribe each other to let them lay the dust in the street, to the imminent peril of passers-by; and young ladies escape the too engrossing attention of complimentary admirers by busily sprinkling heliotrope and mignonette, hinting at a possible different use of the weapon if admiration becomes too ardent. The swish and gurgle and sparkle of water are always present, and always must be; for so Denver defies the desert and dissipates the dreaded dust.
Their climate is one of the things Denverites boast of. That the air is pure and invigorating is to be expected at a point right out on a plateau a mile above sea-level, with a range of snow burdened mountains within sight. From the beginning to the end of warm weather it rarely rains, except occasional thunder and hail storms in July and August. September witnesses a few storms, succeeded by cool, charming weather, when the haze and smoke is filtered from the bracing air, and the landscape robes itself in its most enchanting hues. The coldest weather occurs after New Year’s Day, and lasts sometimes until April. Then come the May storms and floods, followed by a charming summer. The barometer holds itself pretty steady throughout the year. There is a vast quantity of electricity in the air, and the displays of lightning are magnificent and occasionally destructive. Sunshine is very abundant. One can by no means judge from the brightest day in New York of the wonderful glow sunlight has here. During 1884 there were 205 clear days, 126 fair, and 34 cloudy, the sun being totally obscured on only 18 days; and yet this record is more unfavorable than the average for a number of years. Summer heat often reaches a hundred in the shade at midday; but with sunset comes coolness, and the nights allow refreshing sleep. In winter the mercury sometimes sinks twenty degrees below zero; but one does not feel this severity as much as he would a far less degree of cold in the damp, raw climate of the coast. Snow is frequent, but rarely plentiful enough for sleighing.
Denver is built not only with the capital of her own citizens, but constructed of materials close at hand. Very substantial bricks, kilned in the suburbs, are the favorite material. Then there is a pinkish trachyte, almost as light as pumice, and ringing under a blow with a metallic clink, that is largely employed in trimmings. Sandstone, marble and limestone are abundant enough for all needs. Coarse lumber is supplied by the high pine forests, but all the hard wood and fine lumber is brought from the East. The fuel of the city was formerly wholly lignite coal, which comes from the foothills; but the extension of the railway to Cañon City, El Moro and the Gunnison, have made the harder and less sulphurous coals accessible and cheap.
DEPOT AT PALMER LAKE.
And while she has been looking well after the material attractions, Denver has kept pace with the progress of the times in modern advantages. She is very proud of her school-buildings, constructed and managed upon the most improved plans; of her fine churches, of her State and county offices, her seminaries of higher learning, and of her natural history and historical association. Her Grand Opera House is the most elegant on the continent, her business blocks are extensive and costly, and the Union Depot ranks with the best of similar structures. Gas was introduced several years ago, and the system, which now includes nearly all sections of the city, is being constantly improved and extended. The Brush electric light has been in very general use for nearly three years, and the Edison incandescent lamps are now being employed. The telephone is found in hundreds of business