Sept. 23, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
487 
The Cache La Poudre Country in 1845 
By A. J. WOODCOCK 
I N the summer of the year above written the 
United States Government pushed a military 
reconnaissance under the command of Col. 
S. W. Kearney from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas 
Territory, up the valley of the great Nebraska 
River to and through the South Pass of the 
Rocky Mountains, returning by Ft. Laramie over 
the old trail of the fur traders and free trap¬ 
pers in the valleys of the Laramie, Chug Water, 
Crow Creek, Cache Le Poudre and South Platte 
rivers, and on over the divide some hundred 
miles north of the peaks of Wahtoyah (the Ute 
Indian name for the Spanish peaks) to Bent's 
Fort on the Arkansas, thence over the Santa Fe 
trail to Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River 
—a military march of more than 2,400 miles. 
It was a beautiful—to the hostile horse Indians 
of the higher plains—a most unwelcome sight, 
that mobile column of the old army, each war 
horse carrying himself so proudly, so gallantly, 
the dragoon astride him armed and equipped 
with a carbine, a saber, two Flarper’s Ferry 
pistols in scabbards at the right and left of 
his saddle pommel, two blankets and an over¬ 
coat strapped to the cantle, his ammunition, 
picket rope and an iron picket pin, the arms and 
accoutrements glittering, the horse’s shoes gleam¬ 
ing and twinkling on the moving feet. Up the 
continental divide to the pass, fifty blacks lead¬ 
ing, fifty grays following, then fifty bays, next 
fifty chestnuts and fifty more blacks. Behind 
them, strung out on the trail, rolled their wagons 
and howitzer, while the greater portion of their 
back track, certainly more than 1,000 miles of 
it, was dotted here and there with the white 
wagon covers of the 5,000 emigrants that Marcus 
Whitman of the long winter trail, one of the 
builders of the Greater America, him of the 
good, big, strong heart, had set in motion with 
their flocks and herds, bound for Oregon, “the 
land of their hearts’ desire,’’ which they had 
willed should be American. 
On July 20, 1845 (on the return march), in his 
book, “Scenes and Adventures in the Army,” 
Col. Philip St. George Cooke (at the time a 
captain commanding one of the squadrons), says: 
“We marched again over flat, barren ground, 
and in view of the great mountain range, hid to 
the snow line or above, by the secondary but 
lofty Black Hills. Our course was still down 
Crow Creek for twelve miles. Before we left 
it we got water by digging, then after ascend¬ 
ing, we came in pleasant view of the South 
Platte; but before us, apparently two or three 
miles, down a smooth gentle slope, was Cache 
La Poudre, but it proved to be seven. Very 
warm and dry we were when we arrived at the 
bank of that beautiful crystal stream, large as 
Laramie. Several elks scampered off at our 
approach, abandoning some luxuriant grass, the 
very sight of which was refreshing, but much 
more so was a bath which a number of us en¬ 
joyed, while the horses grazed with a most ex¬ 
cusable avidity. 
Then we rode six more miles over a weary, 
dusty, level road to the Platte; forded it and 
encamped under some pleasant cottonwods with 
more green grass. Long's Peak, though about 
sixty miles off at the southwest, rises proudly 
above all the fine view of mountains; its outline 
here makes an angle at the apex of 120 degrees. 
“July 21.—We marched south, following the 
river, here rapid and clear, a mountain stream 
running at the foot of the Black Hills. We 
were on a hard, level road, over prairies and 
river bottom, too, of great barrenness, the effect 
being heightened by ruins of several adobe trad¬ 
ing forts. I only wondered that man could be 
tempted to tarry here where animals come not 
even for security. 
“We have had a true prairie day with its in¬ 
cessant fierce south wind. As we approached 
our camp ground a black and threatening thun¬ 
der storm was gathering unusually far down 
from the region of snow; they had seldom 
reached us, but now the first big drops, mingled 
with large hail, were falling as the wagons came 
trotting recklessly down the bluff to the low 
grounds which had been selected. With haste 
the well experienced men got out the tents, and 
just as the fourth corner pin of mine was in 
hand, and I could slip under its shelter, down 
came the hard rain, and it has continued for two 
hours. Some of my neighbors I suspect know 
more about it. 
“The Snow Mountains looked grand to-day. 
We are so much lower than at the South Pass 
and on Sweet Water that their height compara¬ 
tively is much greater than of the mountains 
there. Long’s Peak, which from this view is 
sharpened to 60 degrees, is now almost behind 
us; while Pike’s Mountain, which is more lofty, 
begins to rise. It looks blue, with the distance 
of ninety miles. It is at the southwest, and we 
pass near it. It is said that for about 400 miles 
we shall not cross a stream.” 
“This is the first good rain we have had since 
May. Some say this country has a soil, but 
that the difficulty lies in its dry climate. All 
effects have some cause. It is certainly a barren, 
desolate country. We came hundreds of miles 
and see scarcely an Indian or an animal; it is, 
in fact, a desert.” 
To every high plains wanderer of the old days 
this description of the plains, mountain-born, 
meandering, sand-choked South Platte River ap¬ 
peals most strongly. Noting the old abandoned 
adobe trading posts, the colonel wondered that 
man could be tempted to tarry where animals 
come not even for security. Security per se 
and accessibility to the lines of Indian travel 
governed the selection of the sites for the old 
fur traders’ forts, a chain of which in the old 
days, “When Beaver Skins Were Money,” was 
built on the South Platte River. The four 
papers under this caption, printed more than a 
year ago in Forest and Stream, were of the 
greatest possible interest and value to the history 
of our great Southwest, treating of Bent’s Fort 
and the pioneer settlement of Colorado. 
Taking the old free traders’ posts in the order 
passed by Colonel Kearney’s line of march, this 
chain of posts began with Fort St. Vrain at the 
confluence of the Cache La Poudre system of 
waters with the South Platte River. It was 
built in 1838, ten miles above Ft. St. Vrain, and 
of course on the South Platte River was Fort 
Lancaster. Fifteen miles above Ft. Lancaster 
was the ruin of an old post, the very name of 
which was forgotten—it may have been Robi- 
deau’s. Five miles above Robideau’s (?) post 
was Fort Sarpy, and five miles above the site of 
Fort Sarpy, Vasquez, the old free trader in the 
year 1832, built his trading post—Fort Vasquez, 
some five miles northeast of the present city of 
Denver, Colorado. 
Beyond—over the divide between the two 
rivers—was “El Pueblo,” "The Pueblo” or 
“Pueblo” on the bank of the Arkansas River 
seventy-five miles above Bent’s Fort. It may be 
said to have been a fortified agricultural station 
or ranch whose people, mostly Mexicans, irri¬ 
gated and tilled the soil and hunted and traded 
a little in season. In the old days many traders, 
trappers and prairie travelers stopped there. The 
Indians annually cleaned the green corn crop up 
when it was in the milk, per force by invitation, 
and generally left enough for the needs of the 
Pueblo. On the 3d, 4th and 5th of July, 1865, 
John Luman shoveled snow to get over the 
divide on the Brackinridge side of the main 
Summit Pass, and continuing on with his bull 
wagon outfit to Pueblo, loaded with corn and 
rolled for Denver. 
COMPANIONS OF THE TRAIL. 
