92 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



into the gold diggings before actual government had been established 

 there and long before the frontier had reached the Rockies. From this 

 sudden emigration in 1858 came the settlement of Colorado. 



The earliest suggestion of a new State to be erected at Cherry Creek, 

 where Denver now stands, came in the autumn of 1858, two weeks after 

 the first miners reached Auraria and when there were hardly two hundred 

 settlers in the whole district. Distance from the seat of territorial gov- 

 ernment, absence of courts, and the lawless character of much of the 

 mining population made some sort of local organization necessary in 

 the gold camp. And the suggestion of 1858 developed in 1859 into the 

 spontaneous territory of Jefferson. At a preliminary convention held in 

 Denver on April 15, 1859, l it was determined to erect an independent 

 government there, and the boundaries within which the new State was 

 to claim jurisdiction were the thirty-seventh and forty-third parallels, 

 and the one hundred and second and one hundred and tenth meridians. 

 The movement for statehood failed, but the constitution of the "terri- 

 tory" of Jefferson which was adopted by the people on October 10, 1859, 

 claimed those boundaries. 2 



The "territory" of Jefferson thus constituted lived a precarious 

 existence for almost two years. At no time, however, was its control of 

 the situation in the Arkansas and Platte Valleys complete, It was 

 admittedly an illegitimate organization, existing without federal authority, 

 and in defiance of the laws of Kansas and Nebraska. Its only justifica- 

 tion was the need for a government and the absence of any effective 

 authority; and this excuse became better after Kansas had been admitted 

 as a State with boundaries excluding the gold country. 



Most of the southern boundary of Colorado was defined in the Utah 

 and New Mexico acts of 1850. The eastern boundary was first drawn 

 by the act of January 29, 1861, under which Kansas was admitted. And 

 this act accepted the boundary provision of the Wyandotte constitution. 

 Through three constitutional conventions, at Topeka, 3 Lecompton, 4 and 



1 The first number of the Rocky Mountain News, April 23, 1859, contains the account of the steps in the 

 formation of a State constitution. Compare also J. C Smiley, History of Denver, p. 309, and his map on p. 310. 



'Rocky Mountain News, October 20, 1859; Hollister, The Mines of Colorado, 92; Bancroft, XXV, 406' 

 Smiley, 314; Hall, History of Colorado, I, 211. 



3 Poore, I, 580. 4 Poore, I, 599- 



