To Pike's Peak and Denver E-Book

Thomas W. Knox

• Herausgeber: Full Well Ventures
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

This article, "To Pike's Peak and Denver," originally published in the August 1861 issue of The Knickerbocker magazine, gives some highlights of the history of Denver and Colorado in the 19th century, at a time when wagon trains were rolling across the prairies of the United States. 

Leseprobe

To Pike’s Peak and Denver

© 2020 Full Well Ventures

Originally published in August 1861 issue of “The Knickerbocker” magazine

KNICKERBOCKER

To Pike’s Peak and Denver

By Thomas W. Knox

READER, WERE YOU ever at Pike’s Peak? If you have visited that auriferous and Indian-iferous region, where whiskey and white men, sure evidences of civilization, have but recently been introduced, you may read these pages to learn how the author’s experience compares with your own. If you have unwisely staid at home when ‘out west’ in a land covered knee-keep with huge ‘nuggets,’ you may now, without leaving your sofa or easy chair, journey with me seven hundred miles over the ‘sea of grass and sand’ between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains, to the Central Dorado of our continent. Packing up a few rough garments, among which woolen shirts form the most important item, we bid adieu to Lucy and the children, and betake ourselves to one of the several outfitting points on the Missouri river. Omaha, St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth and Kansas City, will each be represented by interested property holders, as better than all the others combined. As St. Joseph is at present the terminus of the farthest and most direct western railroad, (the Hannibal and St. Joseph,) and can furnish every thing needed on a Pike Peak’s trip, it has a slight advantage over its rivals. The question now is, not the commonplace one, ‘How do you do?’ but ‘How do you go?’ As we would cross the plains in the shortest possible time, we book ourselves at the office of the ‘Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company,’ where we find the affable and genial Jo Roberson, ready to give any desired information. The coaches of this line make tri-weekly trips to and from Denver, and accomplish the distance in a little less than six days. They travel day and night, stopping for about an hour at each of the thirty-two ‘stations,’ where the teams are changed, and the passengers furnished with ‘wittles.’ Novices generally dread the fatigue of this journey, and are solicitous about the sleeping question; but after a day out, nature asserts herself, and one finds his sleep as sound, sweet and refreshing, when sitting bolt upright in a rapidly moving vehicle, as when wrapped in the drapery of his couch, and reclining on the softest of downy pillows. Commend me to the ‘Central Overland’ whenever I cross the plains.

Another mode of travel is with a stout but light carriage, or ambulance, drawn by mules — these animals being far better than horses for service on the plains. If this mode is selected, you will camp out at night, and be obliged to keep careful watch over your animals, to prevent gentlemen with confused ideas of meum and tuum appropriating them to their own use and behoof. Many an emigrant, by neglecting this precaution, has waked in the morning and found his wagon minus motive-power, and himself feeling as much akin to an ass as any of the four-footed beasts of which he had been deprived. The pleasures of sleeping on the ground, with a blanket for a covering, will here be yours. After a day’s travel you will find the bosom of Mother Earth a welcome resting place, and will fall asleep before you can count a hundred stars. In the morning, shake well your blanket before folding it, for the plains and Pike's Peak, like poverty, acquaint one with strange bedfellows. On several occasions descendants of the celebrity that beguiled Mother Eve have shared my couch, and been with me in my slumbers. Wolves will come quite near—near enough to steal the boots of a sound sleeper — but they will offer no indignity to, his person. As these animals have confused notions of the Eighth Commandment, it is well to secure all eatables before retiring for the night. If you do not, farewell to that ten-pound ham you threw under the wagon, and supposed would be ‘all right’ in the morning. ‘Blessings brighten as they take their flight,’ and you now prize cold bacon better than ten hours ago.