DENVER & EIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



165 



Beyond the moraine the railroad passes through a swampy flat, 



which is possibly the cirque of a much older glacier than those just 



described. The traveler will see on the right the sta- 



Marshall Pass. j-Jqj^ q^ ^ ranger who guards the national forest. 



Elevation 10,856 feet. Although his station is desolate and the passing trains 



Denver 240 miles. i • i t • i • 7 • i 



are his only diversion this ranger must remain here 

 on duty to prevent forest fires and to look after the interests of the 

 Forest Service. At last the train stops in a small cut, and the traveler 

 is at the summit of Marshall Pass, more than 2 miles above the level 

 of the sea. This pass as it appears from the hills on the south is rep- 

 resented in Plate LXIX, A. The view from the summit, like that 

 from many high mountains, is not so striking as a view from a point 

 lower down, but it includes a vast expanse of country, especially on 

 the west. Few real mountains can be seen in that direction, and the 

 high land in sight consists mostly of vast plateaus which lie at differ- 

 ent elevations. The pass was named in honor of Lieut. William L. 

 Marshall, who was the first white man to cross it, in 1873.^^^ 



"* Marsliall Pass was di-scovered in 

 1873 by Lieut. William L. Marsliall, 

 later chief of engineers in tiie United 

 States Army, not as the result of sys- 

 tematic exploration, but in order to 

 find relief from toothache. The fol- 

 lowing account of the discovery is con- 

 densed from a recent article on the 

 subject by Thomas F. Dawson in " The 

 Trail" (Sept., 1920), the official organ 

 of the Society of Sons of Colorado. 



In 1873 Lieut. Marshall, in charge 

 of the Colorado branch of the Wheeler 

 Survey, had spent the summer and 

 autumn in the San Juan region, but 

 on the approach of winter the snow 

 became too deep for mountain explora- 

 tion and he decided to abandon work 

 and go to Denver. It was arranged 

 that the party should follow the regu- 

 lar route by way of Cochetopa Pass, 

 but as Lieut. Marshall had a very 

 painful toothache, he decided to strike 

 out on some shorter route so as to 

 reach Denver ahead of his party and 

 to find relief from his suffering. He 

 accordingly started with one compan- 

 ion, Dave Mears, on mule back and 

 with one pack animal to find a short 

 cut. He first tried to cross the I'ange 

 west of Twin Lakes but found the 

 80697°— 22 12 



snow too deep ; then he tried an en- 

 tirely new route at the head of Gun- 

 nison River, and after a hard struggle 

 through fallen timber and deep snow 

 he reached the summit in a pass which 

 he had seen from a distance but never 

 crossed. Lieut. Marshall realized that 

 the pass he had discovered was one 

 over which a road or even a railroad 

 could easily be constructed, so despite 

 the toothache and the icy wind the 

 party spent a day and night on the 

 summit making observations of the 

 temperature and barometer and pre- 

 paring a profile showing the ap- 

 proaches on both sides. 



When the observations were com- 

 pleted the party pushed on to Den vet, 

 where a dentist soon relieved the tooth- 

 ache. In a short time the news of the 

 discovery of the pass became noised 

 about and Lieut. Marshall was waited 

 upon by a delegation of prominent 

 citizens who, with true western push, 

 organized the Marshall Pass Toll Road 

 Co. and in a few months completed a 

 wagon road through the pass. 



AVhat would the traveler of to-day 

 think of making a mule-back journey 

 of 300 miles in the snow across the 

 mountains of Colorado to find relief 



