THE SANTA FE ROUTE. 49 
Opposite Hilton siding (see sheet 9, p. 54), about three-quarters 
of a mile beyond milepost 526, is old Fort Lyon, a well-known mili- 
tary post on the Santa Fe Trail, which was an important depot of 
supplies. A regiment of soldiers was garrisoned there to give pro- 
tection to travelers. The old fort is on the top of the bluff of Dakota 
sandstone on the north side of the river, and the few remaining 
buildings are plainly visible from the railway. They are now 
utilized as a United States naval sanitarium. Seven miles northeast 
of this fort a boring was sunk 815 feet by the United States Govern- 
ment in 1881 to test the underground-water conditions. It cost 
more than, $18,000 and obtained only a very small flow of water, but 
it gave considerable information as to the succession of strata. 
At milepost 534 the railway crosses Purgatoire River, which flows 
~ from the south and drains a large area of the western Great Plains in 
southeastern Colorado; the railway reaches it again at Trinidad. 
This river was named Rio de las Animas Perdidas (river of lost souls) 
by the Spaniards because of the loss of a party of travelers in its 
treacherous waters. The French visitors translated this to Pur- 
gatoire, which the frontiersmen pronounce and spell “ Picketwire,”’ 
and that name is now in local use. 
Las Animas (ahn’ee-mas), the seat of Bent County, derives its 
name from the Spanish name for Purgatoire River. It is said 
that from this locality in 1806 Lieut. Zebulon Pike 
Las Animas. first saw the peak which now bears his name.'! One 
Elevation 3,856 feet. of the principal industries of Las Animas is a large 
Population 2,008. m ‘i ‘ 5S 
Kansas City 551 miles, Deet-sugar factory, the beets for which are raised at 
many places in the vicinity by means of irrigation 
from ditches extending along the north side of the valley. Besides 
beets, of which the yield is 25 tons to the acre, much wheat is pro- 
duced here, and all along the valley from Las Animas to Rocky 
Ford the famous Rocky Ford cantaloupes are raised. 
On the outskirts of Las Animas, not far west of the station, on the 
south side of the track, is a small settlement of Mexicans living in 
characteristic adobe houses. This is the first of these settlements 
to be observed on the Santa Fe route, but they are very numerous 
through southwestern Colorado and New Mexico. The old home of 
the noted scout Kit Carson, at Las Animas, is still in existence, and 
another survivor of the old days is the stage coach in which Horace 
Greeley toured the West in 1859. 
‘ Pike’s expedition ascended Osage | Indians to haul down the Spanish flag. 
River and crossed the country northwest- | He th I led southwestward toGreat 
ward to the P: Republic, in Republic | Bend, Kans., and ascended the Arkansas 
County, Kans., where he compelled the | to the foot of the mountains in Colorado. 
