THE BOUNDARIES OF COLORADO 9 1 



northern boundary of the territory was the southern boundary of Utah, 

 the thirty-seventh parallel. But in the north-east corner of New Mexico 

 was a "pan-handle " extending into the present limits of Colorado. The 

 one hundred and third meridian, which was the eastern boundary of 

 New Mexico, extended north to the thirty-eighth parallel; the line ran 

 west along this parallel to the summit of the Sierra Madre mountains, 

 and south along the mountains to the thirty-seventh parallel. Thus so 

 much of Colorado as lay between the thirty-seventh and thirty- eighth 

 parallels, the one hundred and third meridian, and the Sierra Madre 

 was part of New Mexico. 



That portion of Colorado, bounded on the west by the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and on the south by New Mexico had been without any government 

 since the passage of the Missouri enabling act, when the Kansas-Nebraska 

 measures were taken up in 1854. Here, as in the measures of 1850, the 

 struggle between the slave and free States dictated the terms of the 

 territorial division. By the final agreement, in the act of May 30, 1854, 

 the territory between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains was divided 

 between two territorial governments. A southern strip, 1 lying between 

 the thirty-seventh and fortieth parallels, and bounded on the west by the 

 Rocky Mountains and the New Mexico "pan-handle," became the 

 territory of Kansas. What was left of the undivided territory north of 

 the fortieth parallel and east of the Rockies 2 was established under the 

 territorial government of Nebraska. And now, for the first time, the 

 whole area of Colorado was covered by territorial governments, by 

 Utah, New Mexico, Kansas, and Nebraska. 



The settlement of the western States moved forward with great 

 thoroughness until Kansas and Nebraska were reached. Until this 

 time the wave of population had covered the ground evenly, and had 

 not advanced in one direction much more rapidly than in another. But 

 the discovery of gold in Cherry Creek, on the north fork of the Platte, 

 transformed this even movement, and brought about a rush of settlers 



» Poore, I, 574; Rhodes, History of the United States, I, 439, has failed to notice this irregularity 

 in the southwest corner of Kansas; Gannett, 125. The map in Gannett, facing p. 122, gives the incorrect 

 impression that Kansas extended to 36° 30' on the south, and on the west only to the Arkansas River and the 

 hundredth meridian; while his map facing p. 126 corrects the former blunder and repeats the latter. 



2 Poore, I, 569; Gannett, 126. 



