Denver, Colorado 1901 History

August 2003	1901 History	Last updated on 08/10/2003

Progress of Cherry Creek Towns - New Business Enterprises - First Hotel - "County Murat" - First Ferry - First birth in the Settlements - Career of the First-Born - Isolation in that First Winter - Further Improvements and Business Enterprises - Arrival of Saw Mills - Political Movement - Pioneer Newspapers - Transactions of the town Companies - Homicide - First Stages to Denver - Progress Made by Midsummer of 1859.

       That winter of 1858-59 had been neither an idle nor a resultless one in Auraria and Denver "cities."

       Thomas Pollock who had arrived from New Mexico on December 29th, opened the first smithery here on January 10^th.  It was an Auraria enterprise, located at the southwest corner of Market and Eleventh streets.  Pollock was handy and effective with a gun or a revolver and became a most worthy and useful citizen.  At the same time Kasserman, Luttrell and Hemphill set up a log carpenter’s-shop in Auraria - the first of its kind in that settlement - at the southwest corner of Lawrence and Tenth streets, where they later built a two-story dwelling.  Simultaneous with these events Henry Reitze, from Omaha, and E. Karezewsky, from Chariton, Iowa, began the first bakery business, which was hailed with the utmost satisfaction by the population which was, with a few exceptions, wholly masculine, and had long been enduring the makeshift results and consequences of their own bread-making.  This pioneer bakery was located on the east side of Eleventh street, between Market and Wazee streets - at present number 1426 Eleventh.  In this same month of January, John Ming brought out a stock of groceries which he installed in a cabin he built as an addition to "Indian Row," which was no becoming quite an array of business establishments.

       The first saloon at the mouth of Cherry creek was opened by Rice & Heffner in January, 1859, in a cabin which stood on the northwest corner of Market and Eleventh streets, in Auraria.  The house and business afterward passed into the hands of a man named Duncan, and from the character of effects produced by Duncan’s liquor, the establishment became commonly known as "Hotel de Drunk."

       On the 1st of February one of the Aurarians, David Smoke, opened his cabin as a public house, the first at Cherry creek.  It was a one-story cabin, like all the others, had the soil for a floor, and stood on the southeast corner of Larimer and Tenth streets.  To this hostelry he gave the name “El Dorado Hotel” and felt that he had done well his part.

       Subsequently associated with Smoke was a queer genius, a Frenchman named H. Murat, who was commonly called "the Count," and who claimed to be a nephew of Bonaparte’s King of Naples.  The County shaved men’s beards and his wife did laundry work - occupations more useful than those in which noble personages usually engage. Little was known of the origin, identity and history of this couple who had drifted to this car country in those primitive days.  They were of the large party from Missouri, eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska which arrived here October 24, 1858, and represented that they had come "from the upper Mississippi."  Notwithstanding his charge of one dollar for shaving a customer, the Count in later years became an invalid inmate of the Arapahoe county infirmary, and died there.  His widow still survives and resides at Palmer Lake.

       When Mr. Greeley was here in the summer of 1859 the "Count" served as his barber.  The exaction of one dollar for each shave and the charge of three dollars for Mrs. Murat’s services in laundrying [sic.] a half-dozen pieces of linen, led the noted editor to remark that the country harbored at least one man determined to make the best of his opportunities.

       Mrs. Murat is frequently mentioned as having been the first white woman in the Cherry creek settlements.  She was not the first, but the third; Mrs. S. M. Rooker and her daughter, of the Mormon family we have mentioned, were respectively the first and second; giving the mother precedence, though both came at the same time.  The Murats soon after they arrived here went to “Montana” where they build a cabin.  In the spring of 1859 they located in Auraria, where they remained until the spring of 1860 when they moved over to Denver City into a cabin they had built on the ground now occupied by the Chamber of Commerce building.  Mrs. Murat claims to have made in 1859 the first United States flag fabricated in this region

and which she floated from "El Dorado Hotel."  She is now far advanced in years, but the other women at Cherry creek in 1858 are dead.

       Early in February - about the 7th - William McGaa, Charles Nichols, L. W. Smith, Josia T. Hinman and an associated named Morrow received from the Kansas Territorial Legislature a "charter" to run five years, to operate a ferry across the South Platte river at the mouth of Cherry creek; Nichols having procured the "charter" upon his return to eastern Kansas.  The reader will recall that for the "benefit" of John S. Smith and McGaa, the ferry privilege had been accorded and reserved to them by the Auraria Town Company when that organization was effected.  John Smith gave it no further attention, and it appears that these "charter" holders did not exercise their privilege; for Thomas Warren, a Kentuckian, at that time began operating the ferry from the foot of Eleventh street which, in anticipation of such a public convenience, had originally been named Ferry Street.  The new enterprise was a "rope ferry" contrived by stretching a heavy rope across the stream and making it securely fast at both ends to convenient trees.  From the ends of a flat-boat other ropes reached to the thwart-stream one and were attached to pulleys running along on the cable.  By lengthening one and shortening the other of these connecting ropes, the boat would be set at such an angle that the current impacting upon its sides, would send it across the stream. "So, operating expenses were light and profits heavy.  The ordinary charge for ferrying a wagon and team was one dollar, through Richardson, who was here in June, 1859, says his party paid two dollars and fifty cents.  The ferry did a great business after the Clear creek gold discoveries, was far more profitable than the average mining, and called for little of the hard labor required in the mountains, gulches and bars.

       Another important "first event" came to pass in this period of Denver’s development; one which afforded proof of enterprise and substantial progress, and which, because of its occurrence on the east side of Cherry creek instead of the west, was hailed as a most favorable and significant omen by the partisans of "Denver City."  It was the birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. William McGaa - the first birth at the mouth of Cherry creek aside from what may have previously happened in strictly Indian society. "Hitherto published mention of this interesting event accords to it the date of March 3, 1859; but the descendants of this pioneer mother, including the principal figure in the domestic drama, say in letters to the editor of this work, that the date was March 8th.

       At that time William McGaa was living in a shack or wigwam on the southeast corner of Fourteenth and Lawrence streets, where the old Methodist Episcopal church building now stands.

       The mother was not an Arapahoe, as has so frequently been stated in published accounts, but a half-breed Sioux.  She was a daughter of a white frontiersman named John Adams and a full-blood Ogallala Sioux mother, who later became, after the frontier fashion, the wife of Alphonse La Roque, a French trader, and is still living in South Dakota, aged eighty-eight years.  They were at Cherry creek in the autumn of 1858.

       Mrs. McGaa, a few years after William’s death, married Joseph Brown, a Denver pioneer of 1858 and a shareholder in the Auraria Town Company.  Brown is still living, at Pine Ridge Indian Agency, South Dakota.  Mrs. McGaa-Brown died by drowning in the Cache-a-la-Poudre river at Laporte, Larimer county, in 1877, and is buried there.  This information came from her sons, William Denver McGaa, and George R. Brown, the latter of the Rosebud Sioux Agency, South Dakota.

       William Denver McGaa, Denver’s first born, worked as a cow-boy in Colorado and Wyoming from the time he was old enough to ride until he was twenty-one.  He then entered the government service at Pine Ridge Agency as Indiana census-taker, herdsman, scout, guide, and interpreter, serving in those capacities about twelve years.  In 1892 he was appointed Assistant Farmer at Pine Ridge, and taught the Sioux how to farm, and rear and care for cattle.  In 1894 he became Indian Trader at Pine Ridge.  He is now a prosperous stock-raiser in Pennington county, South Dakota, and has a most creditable record at Pine Ridge Agency and among the Sioux Indians.  In one of his letters to us he said:

"I am now in the cattle business and have over one thousand head of cattle; and quite a herd of fine, well-bred horses. Am married and have six children; the oldest, a boy, is named after myself,

William Denver McGaa, as I am proud of the name ‘Denver,’ and I want to have it remain in the McGaa family forever."

       The inhabitants of the two towns had passed through the winter with a fair degree of comfort in their log cabins.  They had plenty of fuel, and had prepared their houses to withstand severer blasts of the Frost King’s icy breath than they had received.  For most of them it was a first experience in a region where the winter winds might be expected to come sweeping and howling out of the wilds and solitudes of the great mountain ranges rising far above them close by in the west.  It was fear of winter’s rigors that had prompted some who had come out the previous summer and autumn to go back to their former homes with the purpose of returning in the spring, rather than brave the conditions of winter’s sojourn here - conditions which many imaginations had surrounded with most appalling frosty terrors.  But the winter had proved very mild, and far less rigorous than those from corresponding latitudes in the east had ever experienced there.  The autumn had been a delightful one, merging far into the first winter month, and spring opened upon the communities before the people realized that they had actually passed through a Rock Mountain winter without having been frozen to death or blown away, or both, as they should have been to have kept in line with the old stories they "used to read about."

       Through these times and up to the first of the following May, when the stage-coaches began their trips, the people of the Cherry Creek towns had to depend mostly on chance opportunities for getting their mail and for sending their letters away.  The nearest two regularly established postoffices were at Forts Keaney and Laramie, to which places messengers were occasionally sent on postal errands.  This was not only a tedious way of doing, but an expensive one.  The cost of getting a letter through was usually fifty cents, and as newspapers were so much more bulky, the expense was practically prohibitive to them and few were seen in Denver and Auraria.  No feature of life here during the winter of 1858-59 was more trying, more wearing to those who bravely went through the experience, than this isolation; and in no way was the isolation more sensibly felt than during the long waiting for letters from friends beyond the plains.  The intense feeling of homesickness it engendered led some of the heart-sick into lives of recklessness through a desire to escape the depression that wore upon them.

       Therefore it was with great rejoicing that the people of both towns welcomed the trains containing the local outfit for the first overland stage and express line to Denver, which arrived late in March - on the 28^th, in charge of Beverly D. Williams, who soon became a man of much worthy prominence and influence in the community.  Auraria expected that the office would, of course, be located with her, but she was doomed to a bitter disappointment. Williams temporarily located the stage office in a building on Larimer street near Fifteenth, but soon afterward built a frame structure on the north side of Blake street between the "Denver Hall" and the northeast corner of that street and Fifteenth, on ground adjoining, or very near, the later site of the building in which the First National Bank began business in1865. The alert Denver Town Company had promptly attended to that.  Fossett, in his "Colorado," says the stage and express company - the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak - was given 1,460 town lots by the Leavenworth men as consideration for establishing its headquarters in Denver City; which would appear to have been a pretty heavy subsidy if town lots were worth anything.   However, Fossett was

Greatly in error in the number of lots in the subsidy.  The express company was given fifty-three lots scattered over the territory between California street and the Platte river.  The company also became the owner of nine shares in the Denver Town Company on the same basis as individuals, and on which it paid assessments the same as other shareholders.  William H. Russell, President of the Express Company, personally became a shareholder, and as an addition to that interest six lots were donated to him.  Referring to this transaction between the Denver Town Company and the express company, Colonel S. S. Curtis has well said:

"To my mind it was the vital move in the making of the city, as I believe that being the terminus of the stage line, thus compelling everybody to come or send to it for their letters, was what made Denver the commercial and financial center of Colorado."

Improvements in Auraria were fast moving forward, and that town was still much in advance of Denver City in population, notwithstanding the latter’s encroachments upon her business circles. Many of the newscomers of this spring had, temporarily at least, halted there.  A considerable number of people had arrived early in March and the increase in population was shown by an election - the first one - for "county officers" which was held on March 28^th.  Auraria cast two hundred and thirty-one votes; Denver, one hundred and forty-four; and there were three hundred and ninety-nine cast outside at five different voting places in the region round about, of which two classed themselves as "cities."  Some details of this election appear elsewhere in this volume.

       Early in the year Wooton had begun the erection of a business house in Auraria, that town’s first business palace.  It was built on the east side of Eleventh street between market and Wazee, on the ground now represented by numbers 1413 and 1415 Eleventh; of hewn logs, and was two stories high; or, to be more exact, one and three-quarter stories.  It was twenty by thirty-two feet, roofed with clap-boards or rived shingles, and had glazed windows, the latter being generally regarded as giving it a decidedly metropolitan aspect.  The second story was reached by an outside stairway, and its floor was made of whip-sawed boards, the first planking, according to its owner’s story, used in a Cherry Creek business house.  Whether the building was finished before the large building of Blake & Williams, in Denver City, is questionable, as both were built at practically the same time; but Wooten’s account says it was the first building in either town intentionally erected exclusively for business purposes.

       As spring opened many new mercantile enterprises were advancing across the plains to the new metropolis of the far west.  Some of these had set out the previous autumn, but hearing disturbing reports of Indian depredations, had gone into winter quarters on the Platte, in eastern Nebraska.

       Several noteworthy business changes and expansions occurred at this time, notwithstanding the depressing effect which the delay in locating the gold-bearing lodes in the mountains had on the two communities.  Blake & Williams left Auraria with their stock of goods and established themselves in Denver City.  They had erected a log building on the north side of Blake street on the fourth and fifth lots from the corner of Fifteenth street.  Constructed by the pioneer carpenters, Willoughby and Avery, it was a structure thirty-two by one hundred and ten feet in ground dimensions, and one story and an attic in height - the largest in either town.  The accompanying engraving which is a reproduction of one of Richardson’s sketches does not show the building as large as it was.  In the absence of other adequate material it was roofed with canvas which served through that summer.  Blake & Williams occupied part of it with their stock, and the remainder was used for "hotel" purposes, and in that capacity it was Denver City’s first hotel.  It was commonly known as "Blake & Williams’ Hall," otherwise "Denver Hall."  A short time later its owners moved their goods to another location, and soon afterward quit merchandising to engage in other enterprises.  The building continued to be used for hotel purposes, with the usual drinking and gambling accessories, through the summer and autumn of 1869.  It then degenerated into a "resort" of a vile and dangerous character, and still later became the "Elephant Corrall" headquarters, for which purposes it was used until it was destroyed by the fire of 1863.  The building was the pride and headquarters of the town in 1859, and the favorite place for holding public meetings. Elbridge Gerry, a frontier trader, came to Denver City and assisted Blake & Williams in the management of their business.  Both members of this firm became and long remained prominent and influential men in the community and throughout this section of the west.

       Following Blake & Williams, the hardware men Kinna & Nye, left Auraria and located themselves on the east side of Fifteenth street, between Blake and Market streets, and on the southward corner of the alley.  Their stock included some sheet-iron, and from this they fashioned the first stove made in what is now Colorado.  It was a large affair for heating Blake & Williams’ Hall, and they were paid one hundred and fifty dollars for it - a price that was most encouraging to the enterprising pioneer stove-makers.

       About the first of April two saw-mills arrived from the Missouri river; one was brought by N. S. Wyatt and Hiram P. Bennet, and the other by D. C. Oakes, who had first come here in the previous autumn and had returned to his former home in Iowa for the winter.  The Bennet and Wyatt mill came a few days before the other and was operated by an associate named Cooper. Oakes’ mill was set up on Plum creek, about two miles south of what later became known as the "old Coberly place," and some thirty miles south of the mouth of Cherry creek ; the Wyatt-Bennett mill was put in operation on Running creek, in that same general locality, where there was good supply of standing timber suitable for saw-mill purposes. The mills were welcome additions to the resources of the towns, and immediately began sawing lumber for improvements. The first lot of it came from Cooper’s mill and was delivered on April 21^st to R. L. Wooton and Thomas Pollock, who built frame houses in Auraria; Wooton’s a small dwelling, and Pollock’s a two-story building at the southwest corner of Eleventh and Market streets for a hotel.  Wooton claimed that his was finished first, which gave Auraria the credit of having the first frame dwelling, with Pollock’s hotel as the second frame building at the mouth of Cherry creek.  Subsequently Jones & Cartwright established a store in the Pollock building.  Of his dwelling, Wooton says in his book:

"After I completed my log store-building, I built a frame house for a residence, which by the way is still standing, and was the first frame house for a residence, which by the way is still standing, and was the first frame building put up in Denver."

This pioneer structure is standing on the rear of the lot next north of the "Milwaukee Brewery," on the west side of Tenth street, between Larimer and Market streets; and is now used for a stable.

       Soon after the first two mills were established another was brought out by a man named Little, and he was followed by Whittemore with the fourth one.  The demand for lumber for the construction of new and better buildings in the towns was greater than the supply, and the output of the mills was absorbed as fast as produced, at prices ranging around the extravagant figure of one hundred dollars per thousand feet.

       Amid all the confusion of the incoming troops of gold-seekers, the opening of stores, the racing up and down, the despondency over the elusiveness of the real cause for all of them being here, and the drinking and gambling, a few of the people found time and inclination for attention to politics.  They declared that a new commonwealth must be organized at once. The particulars of what they did at this time and how they did it appear elsewhere in this story.

       Among these would-be State-founders were ambitious and, let us say, clear-sighted men, intent upon the immediate creation of a new State here in the west, who pointed out that before three years could pass there would be in the rocky Mountain country between Fort Laramie on the north and Taos on the south, a white population of more than one hundred thousand people, and that the sooner a State were organized the better it would be for everybody.  They urged that this army of men in the full vigor of their prime, separated by many miles of Indian country from the existing States, should not be obliged to rely on their own resources, practically each for himself, for self-protection and protection of their rights and property, however able they might be to take care of themselves in an unorganized state of society.  The Territorial jurisdiction of Kansas in this remove locality was a mere theory, and for all purposes of practical government and authorized enforcement of law the country might as well have been under the nominal jurisdiction of Massachusetts.  They gave too wide a limit to their prophecy, for within a year after their first convention met there were one hundred thousand people, and more, too, in the region above defined; but it was a good many years before the hopes and ambitions of those pioneer statesmen were finally fulfilled.

       On April 13^th John L. Merrick arrived in Denver City with the first newspaper printing office outfit brought to Cherry creek.  It was a small equipment with a small press, but it was capable of printing a little newspaper.  Notwithstanding that Merrick’s material reached here on April ^13th he did not issue the first newspaper published here.  Right behind him were the men who did that, for Merrick in the meantime had been indulging his somewhat convivial habits.

       They were William N. Byers and Thomas Gibson, who were accompanied by John L. Dailey, an experienced practical printer man, and several others.  They had started across the plains from Omaha early in the spring with a printing equipment, and upon coming to Fort St. Vrain, Dailey and Gibson halted there with the wagons while Mr. Byers went forward to Cherry Creek to see what prospects for their venture might exit here.  Mr. Byers arrived here on April 17th, and quickly decided that Auraria was the place for them, whereupon the newspaper outfit was brought up, and drew into town on April ^20th.  Auraria was delighted by this important acquisition and by the

fact that she had been chosen by its proprietors as its abiding place, instead of the boastful Denver City over on the other side.  But her enthusiasm experienced a slight chill when the first issue of the Rocky Mountain News appeared bearing at its head the date-line legend "Cherry Creek, K.T.," instead of "Auraria City, K. T."  But she had the newspaper, and her feelings soon warmed up again.

       The outfit had been speedily installed in the second story of Wooton’s "business block" - and this, by the way, made that structure the first "office-building" here, the herald of the magnificent edifices now gracing the city - and on Saturday, April 23, 1859, the first issue of the Rocky Mountain News was taken from the press that had traveled so far to perform that historic service.

       On April 22^nd, the day before the first issue of the News, the Auraria Board of Directors, without waiting for a printing press to have been maintained for a year before giving it a lot subsidy, as provided in their resolution of the previous autumn, met and adopted the following:

"Resolved, That there be donated to Byers & Co. four Shares in the Auraria Town company for the establishment of a Printing Press; also that there be donated to Messrs. R. L. Sumner, E. C. Sumner, Thos. Gibson, and E. M. Byers [Mrs. W. N. Byers] one share each."

       In the meantime John L. Merrick had established his outfit and was hastening to issue his Cherry Creek Pioneer before his rivals could place themselves in front of him with their News.  In this he was about a half-hour too late.  The Pioneer’s issue of April 23, was its first and last appearance.  Merrick traded its mechanical outfit to Mr. Gibson, of the News, for a little stock of provisions and some other things needed by a miner, and went up Clear creek on a prospecting expedition.  Late in the summer of that year he returned and went to work as a compositor on the News, remaining with the paper until the outbreak of the civil war.

       In an address recently (December, 1899), delivered at a meeting of Colorado pioneers Mr. W. N. Byers gave the following circumstantial account of his coming to Denver and bringing his newspaper plant with him.

"The discovery of gold in Colorado was the signal for a considerable influx of adventurers this way.  My home at that time was in Omaha and I saw a good deal of the people who were going back and forth to the West.  Some of those who were returning carried with them samples of gold dust in goose quills.  I naturally took an interest in the new country.  One day in the winter of 1858 and 1859 some gentlemen were in my office in Omaha and the suggestion was made that it would be a good idea to bring a printing press to this country and print the news of discoveries from the point where the discoveries were made.  I was instructed to go ahead and purchase an outfit.  I brought it up to Omaha, where the machinery was set up. Some of the type was set up and two pages were printed.  Everything was in shape so that it was easy to get out a paper as soon as we arrived in this place. "We left Omaha on the 8th of March, about the time the frost had begun coming out of the ground.  We encountered a great many difficulties, but on the last day of March we reached the banks of the Platte river opposite Fort Kearney.  I was wagon boss, and I used a little ingenuity in distributing my train along the road, apprehending that my party might object to crossing the stream - which was then running high - if an opportunity to confer was given.  So, I got the first wagon into the water before the drivers of the others had a chance to protest.  I had learned never to camp on the near side of a stream.  The others were very indignant, but I pushed them all in successively without giving them a chance to compromise; whereupon each became still more opposed to the proceedings.  The heaviest wagon got into a sinkhole of quicksand and we did not reach the other bank until dark.  There was no road on the other side, but we managed to get through the night.  If we had not crossed the river that evening we would have been, as matters turned out, delayed several days; for the next morning the river was full of floating ice that did not disappear for nearly a week. "We located a camp at St. Vrain so as to give some of the men a chance to prospect.  I then went on in advance and reached here April 17, finding the people were a good deal more anxious about the arrival of the newspaper than had been reported. "At the beginning of the second day I sent a messenger on horseback to hurry up the train, and two days later it arrived.  One of the wagons stuck in Cherry creek - at Blake street, so we did not get across until after nightfall.  I immediately drove over to the little office I had secured.  Old Uncle Dick Wootton had built a log cabin which contained a little attic and this he had offered to me.  There we set up our press and began setting type.  I have here the first sheet that was printed. "We improvised a shelter under the roof to protect the press.  This was a sort of tent. The clapboard roof of the building was covered with snow, which, as it melted, ran through upon us.  Before the first issue of the paper was made a little dodger

was struck off for a man who had lost a horse and a dog. This was the first printing done in this territory. "Now, there was another paper came out that same evening called the "Cherry Creek Pioneer."  When I was at Fort Kearney I heard that a man named Merrick had preceded us by some days.  He did nothing until we arrived and then he became very anxious to print a paper too.  He got a log cabin and started to work.  The result was to get out a paper the same evening.  The citizens constituted themselves a committee to see which of us got out first.  The consensus of opinion was that we came out twenty minutes ahead of the other.  This paper of Merrick’s was issued only once.  The next day he hunted up my partner and sold his outfit for some flour and bacon."

       We shall, of course, go much further into Denver newspaper annals, but at this juncture will only add the following from the narrative of the gossipy Wooton:

"The first newspaper published there was started in 1859 by W. N. Byers - who still lives in the city he has done so much to build up - and was printed in the second story of my log "business block."  It wasn’t a very pretentious sheet, and was published under great difficulties.  Sometimes the publishers were able to get hold of the right kind of printers’ supplies, and sometimes they failed to get hold of anything better than fools-cap or wrapping paper, upon which to print an issue of the old 'Rocky Mountain News,' now a great metropolitan newspaper keeping pace with the growth of the city and this rapidly developing western country.   The difficulty of procuring printers’ supplies was not the most serious with which the publishers of this pioneer newspaper had to contend. * * * About the first question Byers asked of an employe in those days was whether he could handle a gun to good advantage, and a printer who was handy in this respect, stood well with the proprietors of the paper, even though he had a multitude of shortcomings as a compositor."

       Wooton does not mention another serious difficulty encountered in publishing the News in those days.  The sale of liquor constituted a large part of his business, and frequently his customers would become boisterous, and very reckless with their weapons.  Some of the newspaper men slept in the printing office, and as a safeguard they found it expedient to lay an extra thickness of planks under their beds to intercept stray bullets which fired at short range, could pass from below through the single flooring of the room.  Wooton’s establishment became a rough one, and later it had a bowling-alley attached to it.  Subsequently, after having been put to so much better uses, the vacated second story became a noted gambling room.

The managers of the Town Companies were not idle during those winter and spring months of 1859. On January 14th the Aurarians made a sort of "lot dividend," as provided for in the following, adopted by their Board of Directors:

"Resolved, That each and every Original Stockholder be entitled to one choice lot for each Original Share he may own, said lots to be selected by the Stockholders out of any lots in the City that have not been selected or otherwise appropriated by the Boards; but in no case allowed to select more than two corner lots."

At this meeting the Directors also "granted E. Karczewsky privilege of selecting a lot for the purpose of building an ice house."

       On the 17th of January these Directors resolved that "there be and is hereby Donated to the Masonic and Odd Fellows’ Associations one lot each."  Their generosity did not end with this, for, at the same meeting, they resolved to give a lot each “to the first four Religious Societies” that built churches in Auraria.

       The hotel projects which had been given lot subsidies in the previous December do not appear to have promised well, for the Auraria Directors at this meeting of January 17^th, adopted the following:

"Resolved, That there be Donated to Messrs. Dudley and Russell twenty lots to construct a Hotel of the following dimensions, to-wit: to have a combined front of two hundred feet on two streets, two stories high, to be finished for the reception of guests by the first day of July, 1859; they to have the privilege of selecting the lots."

       On the 18^th of February they donated one share in the Auraria Town Company to General William Larimer of the Denver Town Company, as an official courtesy.  They also appointed committee of three "to confer with a like Number of the Several Town Companies for the protection of Town Sites from mining operations."

       A large part of the business before the Auraria Directors in the first four months of 1859 was that of donating lots to persons who agreed to build on them.  Such donations were made to James Knight, and Daniel Knight; two lots to H. Murat provided he built two houses, each twenty by one hundred feet in size, one and one-half stories high of hewed or sawed lumber - which he did not build; to R. P. Smith, R. L. Wooton, Thomas Pollock,

       "Mr." Boughton, William Hilliard, "Mr." Foster (the surveyor), "Mr." Ming, Jarvis Richardson, and Heifman and Brauner; to ‘Jessey’ Heismar, one share; one share to "Messrs. Gilman, Edwards, Thompson and Putnam - one lot each;" to William Parkinson six lots on which he was to build three houses, one forty by eighty, and the others twenty by thirty feet; to D. W. Griffith, G. F. Griffith, W. H. Bassett, and R. H. Lusby, one share each; a lot to Wooton "for the purpose of building a store-house;" a lot each to H. P. A. Smith, N. G. Wyatt, J. W. Cooper, John J. Reithmann, "Marshall" Cook, James Winchester, P. Halsey, W. J. Boyer, H. E. Hunt, and J. T. Younker; to D. D. Cook, Allen Ira Town, and L. M. Beall one share each; and to Governor S. W. Beall four shares.

       Many of the original "stockholders" in the Auraria Town Company did not build on the lots assigned them, and a large number of the donation lots were not improved.  On January 14, 1859, the Directors had ‘rescinded’ most of the donations made in the previous two months, and scolded the derelict original "stockholders" for their delay in making improvements.  Indeed, the record shows that through that winter and spring the Directors were almost continually threatening and haranguing the laggards, and frequently declaring donations to have become void.  It was an exceedingly paternal form of town government in which "the Board" claimed jurisdiction over everything. "Improvements must not be made without the Company’s approval," is one recorded flat of this period.  Judson H. Dudley sold a lot to a newcomer in the spring of 1859, but “the Board” denied his right to do so and resolved that "we hereby cancel said sale," after which the Directors generously donated the lot and three more with it to the pioneer would-be investor.

       Then they had a rumpus with John S. Smith and William McGaa who were claiming more than "the Board" thought they ought to have, which led to the adoption of the following on April 1st:

"Resolved, That in the contract with William McGaa and John S. Smith for their claims it was distinctly understood by the Auraria ? Town Company that the said William McGaa and John S. Smith, their heirs or assigns, were to have all the lands laying north of front street and south of the Platte river; commencing at the North East corner of said town, thence running westwardly along the line of Front Street to the Platte river, thence following the meanderings of said River down to the mouth of Cherry Creek.  The Said Town Company claiming and reserving the right of way through the said lands for Streets and Alleys."

This was followed on April 8th by Smith’s resignation as Treasurer and his declaration that he would have nothing more to do with them.  The Directors elected as his successor, John Scudder by whom in an encounter with P. T. Bassett of the Denver Town Company, a few days later, the latter was killed.   Scudder left the settlements, and on May 13th Thomas Pollock was elected Treasurer "to fill vacancy occasioned by the absence of John Scudder."

       The intense rivalry between the two towns indirectly gave rise to the causes which resulted in Bassett’s death.  He had been a Missouri river steam-boat Captain, and was of an arbitrary disposition.  As was afterward shown, he had defamed Scudder in consequence of some personal differences and feeling that had arisen between the two.  On the morning of April 16^th they met at Bassett’s cabin, on the south side of Larimer street between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets, when some words about the reports circulated by Basset ensued.  Bassett at first denied them, but becoming angry said he was responsible for them; and seizing a pick-handle, according to the later testimony, made at Scudder, who then fired and mortally wounded him, death ensuing before the next morning.  Scudder left Denver and went to Salt Lake, where he remained nearly a year, engaging in the meantime with William H. Russell in preparing for and outfitting the Pony Express.  In the spring of 1860 he voluntarily returned to Denver and asked to be tried for his act.  A People’s Court was organized with Charles A. Lawrence as Judge, and the trial took place on April 18th.  The testimony presented proved his act to have been in self-defense and he was unanimously acquitted. In the trial his case was presented by H. P. Bennet, and John C. Moore; while the prosecution was in the hands of W. P. McClure.  Scudder subsequently engaged in mining operations with William H. Russell, with whom he was associated many years.  He is still interested in mining and is now a citizen of Denver.

       The Directors of the Denver Town Company were also employed during these times on about the same lines as those followed by the Aurarians.  The major portion of the entries in their record are concerning "grants" and "donations" of lots; the grants being for some unusual and important improvement, and the donations for the ordinary consideration of houses being built by the recipients.  As in Auraria, many donations in Denver City were "rescinded," and with all the doings there was also much menacing scolding of the non-progressive citizens.  It is plain to be seen that the managers of the pioneer towns did not always lie on beds of roses.

       At a meeting of the Denver City Directors held January 22, 1859, William McGaa made a proposition "to build a building 300 feet long with houses not less than 16 feet square, to be completed on or before the 1^st of June next; the buildings to be hewed logs, and good, merchantable dwelling houses, or stores, or offices, for which Mr. McGaa asks one-half block, or Sixteen lots together.  Said lots to be selected by Wm. McGaa, assisted by

the donating agent, and at a point not now taken by individuals, and in the direction of the Court House."

       This proposition was accepted, but William McGaa never went any further with his ambitious enterprise, with its three hundred feet of stores, offices, and "good, merchantable dwellings."

       At this same meeting the Directors expressed their dissatisfaction with the progress of the town survey by resolving that the Treasurer be instructed "not to pay over any more funds on surveying to Messrs. Curtis & Lowrey until further orders from the Board."  This was not a great hardship to the surveyors for the poor men were getting in driblets only a little "funds" for their work.

       In common with their neighbor officials on the west side of the creek, the Denver City officials were having continued bother over improvements on donated town-lots.  Buildings were not erected by some according to stipulations, and the Donating Agent was not always making himself agreeable to the Board.  On January 29, 1859, the Directors resolved that that officer be instructed "to stop donating lots; that all donations, if any, be referred to the board of directors hereafter."  According to their record the Denver City Directors did not meet again until the 8th of the following May.

       In April, Recorder Bassett was succeeded by Richard E. Whitsitt, who also acted as Donating Agent, and general manager of the company’s affairs.  The duties of this first-named position, as we have stated, were to make assignments of lots to all who would engage to build on them within a stipulated time.  Whitsitt made provisional "deeds" for these lots, and when conditions were complied with saw that the company’s "regular deeds” were given.  In making lot donations the Denver Company was careful to so assign them that their improvement would enhance the value of those it retained.

       While General William Larimer was a leader among the energetic and forceful men who organized the Denver Town Company, his immediate associates in that enterprise possessed a full share of requisite qualities.  This was conspicuously so of Richard E. Whitsitt, who was a man of ability, decided force of character, and fairly educated.  He had operated in real estate at Leavenworth and elsewhere in eastern Kansas during the then recent era of mushroom "boom cities" in that section, and his experiences accumulated there probably suggested the course he and his associates followed here.  Indeed, the party included none who lacked energy and fertility of resource. After the death of Bassett, Whitsitt had practically full control of the Town Company’s affairs.

       A great tide of immigration was now rolling in bringing with it many new and important business enterprises, and the towns were in a turmoil.  The discovery of the mother lodes had not yet come, and the streets were crowded with noisy, discontented men lamenting their folly in coming to such a country and denouncing everything and everybody in it.  But the long night of waiting, and groping, and hoping was about ended; and the golden sunrise was nearly at hand.

       The most important event of these times in the history of the two towns, aside from the great gold discoveries, was the arrival of the first coaches of the Leavenworth & Pike’s Peak Express Company which had been making its preparations throughout the spring.  On May 7th two of the company’s coaches swung gaily up to the previously located stage office in Denver City, nineteen days from the Missouri river.  A construction train accompanied them, and it was because of work that had to be done along the way, that the initial trip took so much time in covering the distance from Leavenworth, which by odometer measurement was six hundred and eighty-seven miles.  These coaches and their accompanying trains, which were in charge of B. D. Williams, made the first tracks on the greater part of the route, which was by way of Fort Riley and the divide between the Solomon and Republican Forks, to the Republican river between the one hundred and first and one hundred and second meridians.  Thence following that stream to near its source, thence across Beaver, Bijou, and Kiowa Creeks, through the pineries to Cherry creek, and thence along that historic alleged water-way to Denver City.

       The late Henry Villard was the only passenger on that trip.  In a reminiscent paper which he recently prepared and deposited with the State Historical Society, and from which we have derived valuable information, he states that his fare was two hundred dollars.  This must have been a special price for the regular fare was soon fixed at one hundred dollars.

       With the advent of the stage-coaches communications by mail became regular, and, as compared with previous conditions, very expeditious, with half the attendant expense.  But the miners in the mountains had either to come here for their mail or have it carried out by the makeshift local expresses which began operating irregularly to and from the town.  When the regular stage-lines became established between Denver and the mining camps, the carriage of mail at twenty-five cents a letter grew into a large and profitable part of their business.  Most of them had pretty rough roads to travel.  In going up Eight Mile canon on the way to Mountain (Central) City, the stage crossed the little canon creek fifty-eight times in the course of that eight miles.

By the middle of June many new buildings had been added to both towns, and the saw-mills had been instrumental in making a number of the later ones of a much better character than the primitive constructions of unhewn logs, though some of the newest ones were of hewn timber.  Auraria was much in advance of Denver City, both in the number of her edifices and in population, having upward of two hundred and fifty buildings to the approximately one hundred and fifty of her rival.  The two places contained about one thousand more or less permanent inhabitants.  With the great inrush of people bound for the "gold diggings" any way and every way, but how and where they did not exactly know, there were many who were predestined in their calculations to stop in the Cherry creek towns to engage in business, to engage in speculation, to engage in anything that might happen to turn up; and more than were necessary, who came hither to engage in hook and crook.  In this great tide additional individual enterprises in new business undertakings were lost sight of from a historical point of view, and the greater number of them can no longer be separated into their chronological order, even if it were desirable and important to do so.

       But neither of the towns had flung away ambition to over-shadow, outstrip, and eventually absorb the other and wipe it off the face of the earth, in name, at least. The softening, soothing influences of that open-headed barrel of Christmas whiskey did not outlive the holidays, and the jealousy and rivalry were now as great as ever.  About this time Auraria, among her other accessions, attained the distinction of Pollock’s new hotel built in two stories.  This was also pointed to with much pride, and held out as further evidence, if that were needed, to justify her claims of superiority.  At this moment Denver City had not gone more than one and one-half stories from the earth, except in the mental flights of some of her partisans; and this new, double-storied hotel building across the creek was reluctantly admitted by them to indicate some progress over there.

Denver County, Colorado GenWeb Coordinator: Denise Wells
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