OCR Text |
Show THE CENTENNIAL STATE. 471 ritory, if they had stood in the way of consecrating the gold to Cath-olic uses. Many other expeditions did the Spaniards make, but few of them came north of the Arkansas. Finally, some two hundred years ago, Northern New Mexico was settled, and thereafter by degrees the Spanish outposts extended up to the Raton Mountains and into the rich parks and valleys where head the affluents of the Rio Grande. So those who speak of Colorado as so new a country, would do well to remember that a part of it is older than Ohio. Two hundred years passed away and under the auspices of President Jefferson, Colonel Zebulon Pike explored " that part of Louisiana which lieth along the foot of the Sierra Madre" ( Rocky Mountains), and in the summer of 1806, gazed with wonder on the snow- capped summit of Pike's Peak. This he set, with some hesitation, at 17,500 feet high. Later and more accurate explorers have reduced his estimate some 3,000 feet. Proceeding southward he was captured and imprisoned by the sus-picious Captain- General of New Mexico; and to this day many are the legends among the Mexicans about the " fair- haired Americano," and the gallantry ( in its double sense) of his men. As early as 1820, Colorado was traversed in all directions by white hunters and trappers, and in 1840 the eastern section contained several trading posts, among which Fort Lancaster, on the Platte, and Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas, were most prominent. In 1842, twelve Amer-icans took unto themselves Mexican wives, and employed their dark relations in erecting a fort, which was the foundation of the present American city of Pueblo ; and about the same time twenty families of whites and half- breeds made a settlement on or near the Fontaine Que Bouille. Thus stood the population for many years. From midsum-mer till Christmas there was hunting, trapping and fighting Indians; then the nomadic inhabitants they could not by any stretch of lan-guage be called settlers gathered to the trading- posts and spent the proceeds of their season's work. At each post was a medley of traders, trappers and hunters, white, Mexican and Indian; their amusements, racing, gambling, dancing and drinking, varied by fre-quent bloody fights, whereof the accounts are sometimes amusing, oftener disgusting. These contests were nearly always over dis-puted property chiefly horses or women, both of which were very valuable helped in no small degree by the villainous whisky dis-pensed by the American Fur Company. Almost every prominent point in Eastern Colorado received its name from some tragic occur-rence. Instance the following: Fifteen Mexicans from Taos quar- |