22 



GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



MAIN LINE OF RAILROAD FROM DENVER TO 

 COLORADO SPRINGS. 



Soon after leaving the Union Station at Denver, on the main line 



of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, the train crosses 



Cherry Creek near the place where Gen. Larimer built the first 



house, in 1858. As this creek heads out on the 



plains it is intermittent in its flow ; in dry seasons 



Elevation o 19T feet \[ii\q qj. ^o water runs in it at the surface, but when 



ropulation 256,491. 



" cloudbursts occur on its upper course a tremen- 

 dous volume of water comes down, engulfing everything in its way. 

 Such a catastrophe occurred in May, 1864, when great damage was 

 done. Recently the channel of the creek, where it passes through 

 the city, has been cemented, so as to prevent the loose sandy soil 

 from washing away, and a boulevard bordered by trees has been 

 constructed along it, giving its banks here the appearance of a park. 



The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad traverses the manu- 

 facturing part of Denver, and at Burnham, 2 miles out from the 

 city, it passes the shops of the railroad system. About half a mile 

 beyond the shops is the interesting though unpretentious laboratory 

 building erected by the National Radium Institute for experimental 

 work in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Mines to 

 devise a cheaper method of extracting radium salts from the ores 

 found in Colorado. This work has been accomplished, and the plant 

 has now passed into the hands of a private company to continue the 

 work of extracting radium.^ 



A short distance farther along South Platte River may be seen on 

 the west (right), and the railroad runs up its valley for a distance of 

 about 15 miles. The valley is well irrigated and contains many fine 

 farms and country places. Loretto Academy stands out clear and 

 distinct as one of the landmarks of the upland on the farther side 

 of the river. Fort. Logan, just beyond, is a regimental Army post 

 established about 25 years ago. 



'The figures given for population 

 throughout this bool? are those of the 

 United States census for 1920; for 

 places that were not incorporated the 

 figures given represent the population 

 of the election precinct, township, or 

 other similar unit; such figures are 

 marked with an asterisk (*). 



*The National Radium Institute 

 was organized by Dr. Howard A. 

 Kelly, of Baltimore, and Dr. James 

 Douglas, of New York, not for pri- 

 vate gahf but for the purpose pri- 

 marily of studying the curative prop- 



erties of radium and secondarily to 

 show that radium can be produced 

 here at a much lower cost than abroad. 

 When the institute was organized 

 radium was selling for as much as 

 $120,000 a gram. As Congress had 

 failed to reserve for public use the 

 land containing radium ores or to fos- 

 ter the development of the radium 

 industry in this country, the National 

 Radium Institute undertook to provide 

 the ways and means for experimental 

 work to determine whether or not the 

 ores could be reduced at a smaller 



