62 



GUIDEBOOK OF THfe WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



The course of the railroad from Pueblo is directly up Arkansas 

 River to its headwaters at Tennessee Pass, near Leadville. East of 

 Canon City the river has cut for itself in the plain a valley which 

 ranofes from half a mile to a mile in width and from 50 to 150 feet in 

 depth. As the railroad is generally only a few feet above water level 

 the traveler has few opportunities of seeing the country through 

 which he is passing, except at places where the hills recede or their 

 height is less than usual. The principal views that he gets will be 

 those of the valley bottom and of the cliffs that bound it on either 

 side. 



The region through which the train is now passing, as well as that 

 which it has traversed since it left Denver, was once included in the 

 fanciful Territory of Jefferson,^^ which was fully organized and car- 

 ried on for a number of years but which failed to be sanctioned by 



^''Few persons of the present gener- 

 ation are aware that a Territory, 

 called the Territory of Jefferson, was 

 organized in the mountain region of 

 Colorado and Wyoming at the time of 

 the great " rush " to the Pikes Peak re- 

 gion, and that not only was the Ter- 

 ritory organized but a serious attempt 

 was made to organize a State without 

 the preliminary steps of passing 

 through a Territorial form of govern- 

 ment. Such a statement now reads 

 like fiction ; but when this attempt 

 was made the people were in deadly 

 earnest and imagined that by taking 

 vigorous action t'ney could compel 

 Congress to recognize and legalize 

 their action. 



When the Territory of Kansas was 

 organized, in 1855, it included all of 

 what is now known as Colorado that 

 lies east of the crest of the Rocky 

 Mountains. Thus the site of the city 

 of Denver as well as all of eastern 

 Colorado was within the jurisdiction 

 of the Territorial government of Kan- 

 sas. The control by that government 

 was merely nominal, and as its seat 

 was far off and difficult to reach the 

 people of the mountain district were 

 inclined to pay little attention to its 

 autliority. 



AVlien gold was reported in the Pikes 

 Peak region, late in 1858, the few 

 pioneers here became imbued with the 



idea that this was the richest part of 

 the continent and that when its won- 

 derful stores of the precious metal 

 became known people would flock here 

 in numbers so great that some sort of 

 government other than that afforded 

 by far-off Kansas would be necessai-y 

 for the protection of life and prop- 

 erty. These pioneers, although they 

 were but recent arrivals, did not be- 

 lieve in waiting for action by the Ter- 

 ritory of Kansas or by Congress ; they 

 proceeded to organize a government 

 which they hoped Congress might ap- 

 prove and legalize. In the autumn of 

 1858 a few men from the settlements 

 about Cherry Creek (the site of Den- 

 ver) assembled for the purpose of cre- 

 ating a new State or Territory in the 

 Pikes Peak region. This new political 

 division was to be considerably larger 

 than the present State of Colorado, as 

 shown by the accompanying sketch 

 map (fig. 14), and was to be called 

 Jefferson, in honor of the President of 

 the United States, who had been in- 

 sti-umental in executing the Louisiana 

 Purchase, which included most of this 

 region. This convention met in Den- 

 ver City in April, 1859, and passed 

 a series of resolutions preparatory to 

 the organization of the State of Jeffer- 

 son, hoping by this action to start it 

 full-fledged upon its career of state- 

 hood. The convention also is^sued a 



