THE SUBSTANTIAL PROSPERITY OF COLORADO. 109 



ceding year, that year came to the front with more than $17,000,000. California 

 gave to the world the same year $18,000,000, and Nevada contributed nearly 

 $22,000,000. But their insignificant triumph of that year was their last. The 

 infant had grown into a man^ aye, it became a giant, for in 1880 Colorado, from 

 its river beds and mountains made the world the richer $23,000,000, while Cali- 

 fornia and Nevada followed in the rear, the one with $19,000,000 and the other 

 with but $15,000,000. 



But unapproachable as is our State in the production of the royal metals, ex- 

 ploration and experiment have shown that States gray with age and decorated 

 with a century's industrial badges for achievements in the arts where coal and 

 iron are used, have just reason to fear the rivalry of this youngest of the sister- 

 hood in all branches of mechanical industry where the intervention of the humble 

 metals is invoked. Colorado, while it leads the van in furnishing the material 

 for the world's money — the metals of which crowns are made, and flashing coro- 

 nets and tinsel, and fashion's baubles, is equally in the front with vast stores of 

 what commerce terms the baser metals, but which in their universality of use and 

 adaptability to every phase and necessity of a world's rugged and healthful wants 

 are i» fact by far the nobler. 



The age of gold and silver in Colorado has been supplemented by the age of 

 iron and coal. Pennsylvania through its blast furnaces and coal beds has become 

 the second State in the Union, both in wealth and population. California, from its 

 golden sands, has wrought itself into a giant commonwealth, the gateway to the 

 Union for the commerce of the Pacific Islands, and 400,000,000 of Asiatic peo- 

 ple. Colorado has within her borders the metals and minerals of both these 

 great States in equal degree. While she has outstripped the one in the joint pro- 

 duction of gold and silver, she has of iron and coal, that which ere a generation 

 passes, will make her the rival of the other in that vast net-work of mechanical 

 devices fashioned from them, which are so interwoven with human life that they 

 form a part of its warp and woof. Every quarter and section of the State is 

 pregnant with the wealth which forms the sum of its greatness. The golden 

 fissures of Gilpin and Boulder, the silver fissures of Clear Creek, Summit, Custer, 

 the Gunnison and San Juan, are reservoirs of the two metals which will not be ex- 

 hausted until the primeval curse dooming man to labor shall be revoked. The 

 coal beds of Las Animas, Fremont and Gunnison, the iron joined in nature's wed- 

 lock to them, the clays, silicates, timber, grasses, soils in every section of the 

 State where the sun shines and the winds blow, make up a grand total of material 

 elements which invites capital to profitable investment and labor to generous re- 

 muneration. 



The world recognizes that Leadville is the most magical city of the age. 

 From its mines and smelters more silver annually flows into the arteries of the 

 world's commerce than is supplied by any entire State or foreign land. In Pueblo, 

 with its vast steel works and iron furnaces, its product of Bessemer and pig, its 

 proximity to vast beds of coal and iron, its railroad facilities and geographical 

 position, we but anticipate the future Birmingham or Pittsburg of the great and 



