THE TERRITORY OF COLORADO 69 



William N. Byers was important in that it brought an active advocate 

 of statehood into the field, and produced on April 23 the first number of 

 the Rocky Mountain News^ 



When the statehood convention, called on April 15, met in Denver 

 on June 6, the time was inopportune for concluding the movement, for 

 large numbers of the pioneers who had rushed out over the plains for 

 "Pike's Peak or Bust" were already on their disconsolate way back, 

 "busted." The first reputation of the diggings was based upon light 

 and exaggerated discoveries of placer gold; when productive lodes 

 came into view they called for more capital and experience than most 

 of the early prospectors possessed.^ The height of the gold boom was 

 over by June, and the return migration made it somewhat doubtful 

 whether any permanent population would be left in the country to need 

 a state. So the convention met on June 6, appointed some eight drafting 

 committees, and adjourned, to await developments, until August i.^ 

 But by the first of August a line had been drawn between the confident 

 and the discouraged elements in the population, and for six days the 

 convention worked upon the question of statehood. As to permanency, 

 there was by this time no doubt; but the body divided into two nearly 

 equal groups, one advocating immediate statehood, the other shrinking 

 from the heavy taxation incident to a state establishment and so pre- 

 ferring a territorial government with a federal treasury to meet the bills. 

 The body, too badly split to reach a conclusion itself, compromised 

 by preparing the way for either development and leaving the choice to 

 public vote. A state constitution was drawn up on one hand,^ while, 

 on the other, was prepared a memorial to Congress praying for a terri- 



' The State Historical and Natural History Society of Colorado has in its collection a file of the 

 Rocky Mountain News which is substantially complete, and which has been used in the preparation of 

 this paper. Byers reached Denver April 21 with his printing outfit. He had prepared for prompt issue 

 by printing in Omaha two pages of his first four-page sheet. But even thus the honor of the first issue 

 in Colorado is contested by John L. Merrick's Cherry Creek Pioneer. Both papers appeared first on April 

 23> 1859, Merrick's first being also his last, for Byers at once bought him out and gained control of the 

 field for himself. Smiley, 247, 248; Hall, I. 184; Bancroft, 527, has a useful note upon Colorado 

 journalism. 



' Horace Greeley visited Denver, arriving Jime 6, 1859. Horace Greeley, An Overland Journey, 

 from New York to San Francisco, in the Sttrnmer of iSsg (New York, i860), 137. 



3 Smiley, 277; Hall, I. 208; Bancroft, 404, gives a list of officers; Rocky Mountain News, June 

 II, 1859. 



■• Byers, in an editorial, ibid., July 23, had supported the statehood argument by reference to the 

 admission clause in the Louisiana treaty of 1803. 



