CONSTRUCTION OF WAGON ROADS.

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Very fair roads had been made into the Mountains one via Golden Gate, one via Bradford. They were not so perfect as now, but were a vast improvement upon the first hill-road, over which in places twenty yoke of oxen were required to climb, without dragging anything worth mentioning, perhaps a wagon containing a sack of flour. A road from Denver to the South Park, via Mt. Vernon and Bergen's Ranch, had been projected and was vigorously pushed through the Winter. So also was the St. Vrain, Golden City and Colorado Wagon Road, which avoided Denver entirely. A fair wagon road ran from Canon City into the South Park, also one from Colorado City. There were trails from the South Park to the Middle Park, and one from Gregory. On the 4th of March, 1860, Kehler & Montgomery's express coach arrived in the mines from Denver, the first ever run on the line.

CHAPTER V.

Development of Mining through 1860-1-2-3-Opening ProspectsImmigration and Emigration-Quartz-Mining and Milling-Difficulty in Saving the Gold-Placer Mining-Organization of the Territory of Colorado by Congress-Mining Legislation-Miscellaneous.

NEVER did Spring open on a more hopeful people than the inhabitants of the Territory of Jefferson in 1860. The richness and great extent of the new gold fields were considered proven. The pioneers had penetrated the previous season from Taylor's Park, away south of the Arkansas and a hundred miles in the Mountains, to the Cache-a-la-Poudre, north-west of Long's Peak, and the Black Hills. Between was a bewildering scope of country, scratched indeed, but not prospected thoroughly; and in view of the unparalleled richness of the lodes and gulches in the Gregory District, the most sanguine expectations were not unreasonable. Under the greatest disadvantages, mining had been prosecuted there with the most gratifying success. Now they were to have the benefit of experience; of machinery, saw-mills, cheap provisions, implements and supplies; of established laws and regulations; of roads and means of transportation; of

THE IMMIGRATION OF 1860.

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postal facilities; of a great influx of people, many of them women, many of them bringing more or less capital, and coming at least prepared for the emergencies of the season. The agricultural capacities of the country had been found much greater than was at first expected, and the settlers were better prepared to make use of them. The Winter had been chiefly spent in prospecting and many rich discoveries had thence resulted.

It was not long after the opening of the year before the old miners began to seek the Mountains. By the first of May immigrants were arriving from the States at the rate of a hundred a day. It was estimated that up to that time eleven thousand wagons had passed Plum Creek, bound for Pike's Peak. The Platte Route may be said to have contained, for a full month, but a single train, extending from the Mountains to the Missouri River. A great many came up the Arkansas, and went directly into the South Park. The Gregory District was the especial destination of most of the new comers, however. It is hardly necessary to say that the general aspect of affairs appeared gloomy and forbidding to them. All the known claims were of course occupied; and there was such an almost universal willingness to sell at good figures as to justly raise suspicion. There was little else to do but work by the day in the poorly secured lodes, or the deep, wet gulches, and wages were not much higher than in the States in proportion to the nature of the labor, and the expense of living. It does not seem very strange, either, that the old settlers

who had been in the mines a year!-were somewhat cold toward the immigrants. They felt that they had earned what they had got, and that there was chance enough for others to do likewise. Surely, they said, all these strangers cannot expect employment here on our ground; let them branch. out and find mines for themselves, or if not, go back. So the dwellers in wagons, in tents, in booths, prospected-which is a discouraging business except to the prospector by nature, who must have the faith of a martyr-made continual purchases of claims which they knew not how to work, gold washing being a nice business, and were obliged to throw up; cut saw-logs or cord-wood, or engaged in such other work incidental to mining, as the case admitted; or finally, laid round and consumed the grub they had brought with them. The whole district was full of tents and camp-wagons; it was overrun with people. An amusing story is told of a party that had concluded the Pike's Peak mines did not amount to much, and were about to return to the States. They had heard that the lode dirt in the Maryland would wash out four dollars to the pan. They went there as a last resort before leaving, and asked permission to try it for themselves. They were let down into the shaft, and shown where to fill a pan of dirt, which they did. They closely watched its washing, and were, we suppose, painfully surprised to have all their conclusions upset by finding $8.68 in the pan. They thought they would look round a little more before they left.

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A heavy snow storm about the first of May was also well calculated to dampen the spirits of the new men. The Consolidated Ditch had not been finished, and water was scarce. Buildings, it is true, were springing up as if by magic, and operations were extending; "big things" there were, too, in old and new discoveries ;-one man in Russell Gulch rocked out ninety pennyweights in a day;—but wages were quite low; it seemed there were no more big things to strike; it was hard to get letters from home; and is it wonderful they felt discouraged? Still they poured in. Sowers & Co. started a line of coaches between Denver and the Mountains. In June the Western Stage Company put on a line; the two could not begin to accommodate the travel. The Russells came in from Georgia via the Smoky Hill Route, on which they made a favorable report. Gregory came in with a party and a quartz-mill, which he erected in a few days, ran awhile, taking out two hundred dollars a day, and sold for six times its cost. John H. Gregory not only knew how to find mines, but it appears he knew how to sell out at the right

moment.

The discovery of California Gulch, very rich and five or six miles long, and of a half dozen other less considerable gulches on the Arkansas, Blue and Swan Rivers, drew attention from the Gregory Mines; and of the unexplored fields the Middle Park and the Arkansas Park absorbed thousands; but by the first of June men might be seen facing homeward with a dejected air, as if under convic