Cheyenne, Wyoming

“ Kirby slipped from the saddle and limped back to his fellows on the fence. Already the crowd was pouring out from every exit of the stand. A thousand cars of fifty different makes were snorting impatiently to get out of the jam as soon as possible. For Cheyenne was full, full to overflowing. The town roared with a high tide of jocund life. From all over Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico hard-bitten, sunburned youths in high-heeled boots and gaudy attire had gathered for the Frontier Day celebration. ”

“ Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming.
White men first explored this region in 1743, and in 1744, when Sieur de la Verendrye and his sons came down from Canada, lured by the then unexplored Rocky Mountains. But the region was fearfully wild. Not only was the face of Nature most strange, but the whole tract was overrun by belligerent savages.
In 1804 a few brave white men began hunting beaver there. But it was many long years before civilization took possession of the spot. Not indeed until mining was begun on the summit of the Rocky Mountains in Dakota. ”

“ Far out on the level stretches leading up to the plains of Wyoming, other men were working, struggling doggedly from telegraph pole to telegraph pole, in an effort to repair the lines so that connection might be made to Rawlins, and thence to Cheyenne and Denver,—to apprise the world that a great section of the country had been cut off from aid, that women and children were suffering from lack of food, that every day brought the news of a black splotch in the snow,—the form of a man, arms outstretched, face buried in the drift, who had fought and lost. ”

“ Howells saw many Silas Laphams with his own eyes; else UNCLE TOM'S CABIN were not historical. Any narrative which presents faithfully a day and a generation is of necessity historical; and this one presents Wyoming between 1874 and 1890. Had you left New York or San Francisco at ten o'clock this morning, by noon the day after to-morrow you could step out at Cheyenne. There you would stand at the heart of the world that is the subject of my picture, yet you would look around you in vain for the reality. It is a vanished world. ”

“ Bartley and Cheyenne were in the living-room that evening talking with the Senator and his wife. Out in the bunk-house those of the boys who had not left for the line shack were discussing horse-thieves in general and Panhandle and Sneed in particular. Bill [pg 111] Smalley, a saturnine member of the outfit, who seldom said anything, and who was a good hand but a surly one, made a remark.
"That there Cheyenne is the fastest gun artist--and the biggest coward that ever come out of Wyoming. Ain't that right, Lon?"
"I never worked in Wyoming," said Long Lon. ”

“ To have flourished in that golden time you need not be dead now, nor even middle-aged; but it is Wyoming mythology already—quite as fabulous as the high-jumping cow. Indeed, people gathered together and behaved themselves much in the same pleasant and improbable way. Johnson County, and Natrona, and Converse, and others, to say nothing of the Cheyenne Club, had been jumping over the moon for some weeks, all on account of steers; and on the strength of this vigorous price of seventy-five, the Stanton Brothers were giving a barbecue at the Goose Egg outfit, their ranch on Bear Creek. ”

“ The first governor, John A. Campbell, was appointed in April 1869, and the organization of the Territory was completed in May of the same year. At the first election, on the 2nd of September 1869, 5266 votes were cast. The legislature established the seat of government at Cheyenne, and granted full suffrage and the right of holding office to women. The first great inrush of population, following the discovery of gold and the opening of the railway, brought many desperate characters, who were held in check only by the stern, swift measures of frontier justice. ”

“ In his first days at Cheyenne he had constantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities with his dignity, and they, after one moment's bewilderment, had concocted apologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them much satisfaction also. Nobody would have hurt Jode for the world. In time he came to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules was published, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen, along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, and he passed his careful precise days with barometers and weather-charts. ”

“ There were several dry forks of the Cheyenne beyond, but as they had their source in the tablelands of Wyoming, we could not hope for water in their dry bottoms. The situation was serious, with only this encouragement: other herds had crossed this arid belt since the streams had dried up, and our Circle Dots could walk with any herd that ever left Texas. ”

“ Then we would lead such a man out and show him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if he was thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-five thousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden. One of these Eastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with the Governor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to him the glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country. ”

“ Does not look good for fossils. Red predominates in rocks from Salt Lake Great Salt Lake to Evans Evans, California. and further. The tunnel 50 minutes from Evans Evans, California. (east) occupied 4 1/2 minutes at fair speed. Bluffs, probably Tertiary, appeared on both sides before reaching Granger Granger, Wyoming, bounding (sic) the broad shallow valley of a stream. At Green River Green River, Colorado the lower part of bluffs very light colored, darker above and nearly red at top.
Cheyenne, Wyo. Cheyenne, Wyoming Wednesday July 21, 1909 July 21, 1909
Bright morning. ”

“ The population of the township was nearly three thousand. At Sidney, which is a military post, I stopped at the Railroad Hotel. Sheep-farming is a leading industry of Sidney and its vicinity. My last stopping-place in Nebraska was at Evans Ranche, Antelope, a small village on the Elk Horn River.
Crossing the boundary into Wyoming Territory and reaching Cheyenne, I made my entrance into this most interesting region—a great plateau of nearly 100,000 square miles, its lowest level 3,543 feet, its highest altitude more than 13,000 feet above the sea. ”

“ The printer and publisher of this newspaper was Hiram Brundage, telegraph operator at the Fort, who had previously been associated with the Fort Kearney Herald in the Territory of Nebraska. [135] No printing is known to have been performed in Wyoming between 1863 and 1867, with the possible exception of a disputed imprint dated 1866, [136] and the first permanent Wyoming press dates from the founding of the Cheyenne Leader in September 1867. ”

“ It is served by the Union Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Colorado & Southern railways. It is situated near the southern boundary of the state, on the high plains near the E. foot of the Laramie range, at an altitude of 6050 ft.; the surrounding country is given up to mining (lignite and iron) , grazing and dry-farming. ”

“ He was mayor of Cheyenne in 1880-82; and was instrumental in having Wyoming admitted to the union as a state. In 1889-95 he was United States senator. e is governor of the State of Wyoming for the term of 1911-15; and resides in Cheyenne, Wyo.
Carithers, James Y., capitalist; born Walton County, Ga., April 13, 1854; son of Hugh A. and Mary Ann (Griffith) Carithers; educated common schools, Walton and Oconee Counties, Martin Institute, Jefferson, Jackson County, Ga.; married first, May 18, 1885 ”

“ All around them, vigilant and vengeful, lurk the Cheyennes. Every now and then the bark as of a coyote is heard,—a yelping, querulous cry,—and it is answered far across the valley or down the stream. There is no moon; the darkness is intense, though the starlight is clear, and the air so still that the galloping hoofs of the Cheyenne ponies far out on the prairie sound close at hand.
"That's what makes it hard," says Ray, who is bending over the prostrate form of Captain Wayne. ”

“ That the Cheyennes did not propose to let the besieged derive much comfort from their hopes was soon apparent. Out from the timber up the stream came sonorous voices shouting taunt and challenge, intermingled with the vilest expletives they had picked up from their cowboy neighbors, and all the frontier slang in the Cheyenne vocabulary.
"Hullo! sogers; come out some more times. We no shoot. Stay there: we come plenty quick. Hullo! white chief, come fight fair ”

“ All the families and a few officers were left at the post, and, with the daily drive to Cheyenne, some small dances and theatricals, my time was pleasantly occupied.
Cheyenne in those early days was an amusing but unattractive frontier town; it presented a great contrast to the old civilization I had so recently left. We often saw women in cotton wrappers, high-heeled slippers, and sun-bonnets, walking in the main streets. Cows, pigs, and saloons seemed to be a feature of the place.
In about six weeks, the affairs of the Sioux were settled, and the troops returned to the post. ”

“ This war party of Cheyennes which left the camp of these tribes above the forks of Walnut creek about the 2nd or 3rd of August went out against the Pawnees, crossed the Smoky Hill about Fort Hayes, and thence proceeded to the Saline, where there were 10 lodges of Sioux in the Cheyenne camp when this war party left, and about 20 men of them, and 4 Arapahoes, accompanied the party. The Cheyennes numbered about 200; nearly all the young men in the village went ”

“ There is as much difference between mountains as between people, as mountain-lovers know, and like people they present characters and individualities of their own. The noble lines of Mount Cheyenne are full of a strange dignity; but it is dignity mixed with an indefinable charm. The canyons nestle about its base, as children at a parent's knee; its cedar forests clothe it like drapery; it lifts its head to the dawn and the sunset; and the sun seems to love it best of all, and lies longer on it than on the other peaks. ”

“ Once the Cheyenne’s pony was secured, the paleface would scalp and strip his victim; then, using his lariat, he would drag what he didn’t want to the precipice adverted to, and toss it over.
Full two hundred leading citizens of Bear Shield’s village had been blotted out, before the Cheyennes became aware of their fate and the grim manner of it; for the paleface never exposed his ambush by letting any Cheyenne get away. If the census of the Cheyenne party exceeded the count of rifles on the knoll, they were permitted to ride by in innocent drunkenness, unconscious of the death they had grazed. ”

“ The blizzard that had swept across the land had caught the Indian tribes on their way to the coverts of the Wichita Mountains, and forced them into winter quarters. The villages of the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, and the Arapahoe extended up and down the sheltering valley of the Washita for many miles. Here were Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne braves—they of the loving heart at Fort Hays, they who had filled all the fair northern prairie lands with terror, whose hands reeked with the hot blood of the white brothers they professed to love. ”

“ Cheyenne's real struggle for life, for advancement, for culture and permanent prosperity, was to begin with this new year of 1868. We know how grandly the young city conquered, not by "magic" this time, but better still, by patience, pluck, and indomitable will. But to her honest and law-abiding citizens, at the outset of 1868, things looked dark indeed.
Cheyenne was the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad that winter, and the scum of the floating Western population drifted thither. ”

“ On the north-east, the two branches then unite in one large river, styled by way of contrast “The Big Cheyenne,” which ultimately falls into the vast rolling tide of the Missouri, some hundred miles further on due east, at a place called Fort Bennett.
The branches of the Cheyenne are not the only streams of the region, for many others, some of considerable dimensions and volume, and others mere tiny brooklets, wander in every direction through the country. The Black Hills are divided from the adjacent prairie by a series of valleys some two to three miles across ”

“ Some competent Indian authorities say, however, that the sign is intended to indicate “stripe people,” or “striped-arrow people,” referring to the fact that the Cheyenne usually feathered their arrows with the striped feathers of the wild turkey. This agrees with the interpretation of the name for the Cheyenne in several different languages.
SKETCH OF THE TRIBE
The Cheyenne are one of the westernmost tribes of the great Algonquian stock. In one of their ghost songs they sing of the “turtle river,” on which they say they once lived. (Cheyenne song 3.) ”

“ The general disposition agrees to it; even the resolute Enright sees no reason to object.
“Cheyenne,” says Enright, “we don't have to take this chance, an' it's a-makin' of a bad preceedent which the same may tangle us yereafter; but Wolfville goes you this time, an' may Heaven have mercy on your soul. Cherokee, turn the kyards for the ace.”
“Turn squar', Cherokee!” remarks Cheyenne Bill with an air of interest. “You wouldn't go to sand no deck, nor deal two kyards at a clatter, ag'in perishin' flesh an' blood?” ”

“ The road leading out of Cheyenne through Fort Laramie to the Black Hills was thronged with pedestrians and mounted men, with wagons and without—all en route to the hills which their fancy pictured as stuffed with the precious metals. Not all were intent upon mining or other hard work: there was more than a fair contingent of gamblers and people of that kind, who relieved Cheyenne and Denver and Omaha of much uneasiness by their departure from those older cities to grow up with the newer settlements in the Indian Pactolus. ”