Denver had two real "sensations," while we were there—one, the alleged usurpation of Gov. Cumming, the other the arrival of Gen. Sherman. It seemed there had been a territorial election, for delegate to Congress, and the returns not being clear, Gov. Cumming assumed to give the certificate of election to Hunt, an Andrew Johnson man, rather than to Chilcott, a radical Republican—notwithstanding the Board of Canvassers decided otherwise. The governor claimed that the law and facts were with him, but the Board of Canvassers protested to the contrary, and popular opinion seemed to sustain them. There was a breezy time in Denver for awhile. The papers savagely denounced the governor's conduct, as an outrage and usurpation, and fell into a vein of coarse vituperation they seemed incapable of before. The saloons were filled with excited crowds at night; knots gathered on the streets by day; and presently, one morning out came the papers with the old-time suggestion of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," if His Excellency did not yield. An explosion was now hourly expected, but it did not come. Denver evidently had grown in grace. The mob-spirit of her early days could not be revived, and all good citizens rejoiced to see it. No doubt she liked Judge Lynch still; but she liked Eastern immigration and English capital better, and would do nothing to startle either. The governor wisely appeared in public but little, and for several nights found it convenient to sleep elsewhere than at home. Finally, it was given out, that the military were on his side, as in duty bound, and the storm presently blew over. Subsequently it appeared, that said military consisted of only two officers, without a single soldier; but His Excellency attributed his safety to them, all the same. General Sherman's arrival immediately after was just in the nick of time. It followed on the heels of the election imbroglio, and was a good salve to the public sore. All Denver turned out to welcome him and his distinguished brother (the Ohio Senator), and a cavalcade of horsemen and carriages met them miles away. Next night there was a reception, banquet, speeches, ball, etc. and hundreds assembled to do them honor. There was a lamentable lack of ladies; but brighter, keener men, you could find nowhere. What there were of ladies, were intelligent and sprightly, and all were richly attired and adorned; but Denver needed more of them. Everybody vied in doing Sherman honor, as a great soldier who had fought nobly for the country. They did not know his views yet on the Indian question, which a few months afterwards they denounced so severely. By an ambulance tour of two thousand miles, from post to post, through the heart of the Indian country, he was trying to study the Indian question for himself, as the great question of his Military Division; and yet Denver, fond of contracts, claimed to understand that questio vexata better than he!
We left Denver one bright September morning for Central City and the Mines. A stage ran daily, but wanting to travel more leisurely we went by ambulance. Across the Platte, and over the Plains again for fifteen miles, brought us to the mountains and Golden City, just within the foothills. Clear Creek dashes through the "city," a broad swift stream, furnishing fine water-power for several mills already, with plenty to spare for more. Coal, iron, lead, copper and kaolin were said to exist in the mountains adjacent, and this water-power was therefore justly esteemed very valuable. Four or five miles farther on, the mountains seem to close up—a solid rampart—before you; but suddenly the road shifts and at Gate City, through a narrow rocky cañon you again pass on. The road here follows up a diminutive mountain stream, crossing and re-crossing its bed every few yards, and by a very sinuous course slowly makes its way forward between abrupt masses of red and purple rock, that everywhere seemed to block its progress. Farther on, the hills open out, and wild currant and gooseberry-bushes appear, with pines and firs here and there—many charred by former fires. The road gets wilder the farther you proceed, and the mountain views become more and more superb. You catch glimpses of the great Snowy Range from time to time; but after awhile you cross the first range, and then you have the great white-capped Sierra almost always before you. Three peaks there are especially superb—Old Chief, Squaw and Papoose—their white and glittering summits flashing gloriously in the sunshine. Sometimes we got long views of the Snowy Range, for miles on miles; and then again, deep down in some wild gorge, its rocky sides would suddenly expand, and there would stand these three grand peaks projected against the clear sky, framed in like a picture. A right "kingly spirit throned among the hills," Old Chief seemed to be keeping watch and ward over these Rocky Mountain fastnesses in solemn and solitary grandeur; but the Yankee and the miner had been too much for him.
We dined en route, getting a good meal for seventy-five cents, and reached the Conner House at Central City, about 6 p. m., forty miles from Denver. What a strange place was this, and how surprising it all seemed! A busy, active, bustling town, with all the appliances of eastern civilization, in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains—our ultima thule but a few years ago! Or, rather, four towns—Black Hawk, Gregory Gulch, Mountain City, and Central City—all now grown into one. It never was any place for a town; but there had to be one there, and so American genius and pluck went to work and created it. Imagine a narrow, winding mountain-gorge, with Clear Creek flashing through it, with scarcely standing-room on either side for an antelope even, and you have about all Nature has done for a town-site there. Yet our miners had stuck mills, and stores, and saloons, and dwelling-houses, and churches here, almost everywhere, in the most delightful and picturesque confusion. Some were astride of Clear Creek, as if wading up stream. Others were propped up on its edges, as if about to topple in. Others again were mounted on lofty stilts, all along the mountain side, as if just ready to start and walk away. About and through them all, following the general course of Clear Creek, wound one long and narrow street—too narrow for side-walks—and here in this bizarre place, walled in on all sides by the Rocky Mountains, lived and flourished six thousand souls, all apparently busy and well-to-do—with banks, schools, churches, newspapers, telegraphs, theatres, and pretty much all the institutions and destitutions of modern society. There only remained one need, a railroad, and that was already in contemplation, down Clear Creek to Golden City, and so away to Denver. This would bring the ores and coal together at Golden City, for fuel was becoming scarce among the mines; would save much of the cost of travel and transportation by the wild mountain roads; and be a great blessing to the mining regions every way.[5] After tea, we strolled through the town for a mile or more, and found the streets full to overflowing. The theatres were crowded, and the drinking and gambling-saloons in full blast; yet the streets were comparatively orderly. The population seemed of a better class than one would suppose, all things considered. There were scarcely any women, it is true, and what there were had better been elsewhere, as a rule; but the men carried keen, clear-cut, energetic faces, that well explained the enterprise and elan of this audacious town. Of foreigners, there were far fewer than one ordinarily meets east, and the Americans as a rule were athletic and live men—fit to be the pioneers of empire. The inevitable African, of course, cropped out here and there; but usually he had risen from the dignity of a barber or a bootblack, to be a merchant or a miner. Everybody talked of "feet," and "claims," and "dust;" and bets were made, and drinks paid for, in "ounces" and parts of an ounce, as determined by the universal scales and weights. Greenbacks were still taken, but they were regarded as a depreciated currency, unworthy of the Mines and Mountains.
Indications of mining operations appeared first at Denver, where gold was first discovered at the junction of the South Platte and Cherry Creek. But the "diggings," or placer mines, here were soon worked out, and then the miners naturally ascended Cherry Creek to Clear Creek, and so into the heart of the mountains. All along North Clear Creek, you see where the stream has been turned aside, and its bed "panned" over, and as we approached Black Hawk we found a few miners still humbly at work this way. But placer-mining in Colorado