6 2 HE IRRIGATION AGE. 



railroad construction in Kansas reached the west line of that state in 

 1885, and it soon became evident that it was ready to flow over into 

 Colorado if given a little timely aid. 



Heretofore the efforts of the Santa Fe land department under the 

 direction of Col. A. S. Johnson, land commissioner, and the writer, 

 then chief clerk of the land department, had been directed wholly to 

 the settlement of central and western Kansas along the line of the 

 Santa Fe in the sale and development of its magnificent land grant, 

 but it was becoming more plainly evident every day that great results 

 could be secured in the peopling of the Santa Fe territory in eastern 

 Colorado by giving it proper attention. With this thought in mind, 

 but before any definite plans had been formed we were ready to handle 

 the matter in a practical and consistent way when a small coterie of 

 enterprising men who had been instrumental in the development of 

 western Kansas and in close touch with Colorado interests, and who 

 had been, as we were, close observers of the trend of immigration, 

 came to us one day and suggested that we give them our co-operation 

 in the work of starting a new town and of opening the fertile lands of 

 the upper Arkansas valley in Colorado to settlement. 



The leaders in this enterprise were Mr. J E. Golding, now presi- 

 dent of the State Bank of Rocky Ford; Mr. I. R. Holmes, then local 

 agent at Garden City, Kansas, of the Santa Fe land department for 

 the sale of its western lands, now residing at LaPorte, Texas, and I 

 believe Mayor of that thriving little city, and Hon. Robt. W. Steele, 

 then a young Denver lawyer, now on the bench of the Colorado Su- 

 preme Court. They suggested that the time had come to start a new 

 town in eastern Colorado, and after giving the matter careful thought 

 we decided that the enterprise was a good one and very much in the 

 interest of the Santa Fe Railroad Company, and after securing the 

 approval of the Santa Fe management we gave the matter our hearty 

 aid. 



There was at that time in that region a large area of government 

 land unoccupied and unused except for range cattle, which land we 

 believed to be of a high degree of fertility and which we thought 

 would be rapidly settled if the attention of the public were called to it 

 and the way made easy for settlers to secure it. 



The principal reason why the great multitude of settlers then loca- 

 ting in western Kansas had stopped short at the Colorado line was, in 

 onr judgment, because the Uuited States land office for that district 

 was located at Pueblo, 150 miles west of the line. 



Practically all of these settlers came from the east and could 

 make their entries for government land east of the line at Garden 

 City, Kansas, but in order to make filings on the Colorado side they 

 were obliged to go to Pueblo. 



