Rio Colorado

“ It is called Colorado, or coloured, from the water being tinged red by the clay of its banks. This river rises in the Sierra Verde, it is navigable for a considerable distance, and very deep where it is joined by the Rio Gila, which issues from the same mountains in Pimeria, further to the south. ”

“ The mountains are covered with dense forests and are rugged and wild. The higher peaks rise above the timber line and are naked gorges of rocks. In them the Platte and Arkansas rivers head and flow eastward to join the Missouri River. Here also heads the Rio Grande del Norte, which flows southward into the Gulf of Mexico, and still to the west head many streams which pour into the Colorado waters destined for the Gulf of California. Throughout all of this region drained by the Grand, White, and Yampa rivers, there are many beautiful parks. ”

“ Besides the monotonous desert, with its apparent lack of interest to the traveler, the region contains the greatest natural wonder on the continent—the [219] Grand Cañon of the Colorado River. It also possesses unnumbered other natural phenomena and some of the grandest mountain and forest scenery. With all its lack of rain, it is watered by two of the great rivers of the continent—the Colorado and the Rio Grande.
In its human life it is equally prolific in diversities. In few other places in the world is there such a commingling of dissimilar human elements. ”

“ Colorado said “Play ball,” and in the first inning he won the respect of the other players and the applause of the people. He has been successful because he deserved success.
Three months after the completion of the line to Creede, each train brought to the camp from two hundred to three hundred people, all the side-tracks were blocked with freight and a ceaseless stream of silver was flowing into the treasury of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company. The lucky prospector built a cozy cabin in the new camp and saw a city spring up almost in a day. ”

“ In cold weather many of the nations in the neighborhood of the Colorado, carry firebrands in their hands, as they assert for the purpose of warming themselves, which custom led the early visitors to name the Colorado the Rio del Tizon. ”

“ Bill Williams' fork does not head in Bill Williams' mountain, being cut off from that by the Rio Verde, etc.; its basin lies entirely W. of Aubrey and Chino valleys, and of the Prescott plains. This river drains westward from the Santa Maria, Granite, Juniper, Weaver, and other ranges in Arizona, and falls into the Colorado from the E. at a place called Aubrey City, the site of which was pointed out to me by a native when I navigated the Colorado in 1865, though I saw nothing like a city. 2. ”

“ When you stand on the rim of the canyon, the river looks like a little thread of silver ribbon, but if you were to descend 6000 feet, you would discover that the Colorado is a wild, dashing, terrible river—so wild that only a few men have ever tried to launch their boats on it, and some of those few have lost their lives in the attempt. ”

“ To-morrow you will be ferried over Green River, as near its source,—a stream whose cradle is in the same snow-peaks as the Platte,—whose mysterious middle-life, under the new name of the Colorado, flows at the bottom of those tremendous fissures, three thousand feet deep, which have become the wonder of the geologist,—whose grave, when it has dribbled itself away into the dotage of shallows and quicksands, is the desert-margined Gulf of California and the Pacific Sea. ”

“ Upward we climb, amid thickly-wooded mountain tops, round thrilling bends and tortuous precipices and over the rockiest of roads. The end is in sight. A depression in the sky-line ahead shows where the Raton Pass (7,620 feet to be exact) reaches its highest point and gazes forwards into the heart of New Mexico and behind into the vastnesses of Colorado.
A gradual bend, a sudden swerve, and then—the summit is reached. Colorado is passed. Before us lies a great and thickly-wooded valley, broad and deep and beautiful. ”

“ It would be vain recapitulation to tell just how many times each of the poor struggling communities had to rally back on the sands of the river bed to built up anew the structure of gravel and brush that must be depended upon, if bread were to be secured from the land. The Little Colorado is a treacherous stream at best, with a broad channel that wanders at will through the alluvial country that melts like sugar or salt at the touch of water. ”

“ And the beautiful undulating meadows continue, sprinkled over with shrub-like trees, and populous with rabbits and prairie-dogs and chapparal hens. Here and there we come upon small companies of cattle and horses, most contented with their pastures; but what an utter desolation this vast tract seems to be! The "stations" are, as yet, mere single houses, and we hardly see a human being in an hour. And then comes Colorado, a queer makeshift-looking town, with apparently only one permanent place of habitation in it—the jail. ”

“ After receiving the waters of the Yampuh and the White River, it flows south for about 150 miles without any important augmentation till it meets with the great rival stream of the Grand River, which by means of its numerous confluents drains so large a portion of the western versant in the State of Colorado. The united stream continues to force its way south, till at its junction with the Colorado Chiquito, or Little Colorado, which takes its rise in the Sierra Madre of New Mexico, it turns almost due west, and cuts right athwart the line of the mountain ranges. ”

“ Unlike the Niagara, the Colorado is far away from civilization. Making its devious way through inaccessible mountains and arid deserts, very few human beings live near it. But the Colorado flows under the earth rather than on the top; for hundreds of miles it rushes through vast gorges thousands of feet in depth. The greatest gorge of all is well called the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. ”

“ Thus are the rills and the rivulets from the summits collected in these beautiful alpine lakes to give birth to the Colorado in white cascades, typical, at the very fountainhead, of the turbulence of the waters which have rent for themselves a trough of rock to the gulf. [1] Springing from these clear pools and seething falls, shadowed by sombre pines and granite crags, its course is run through plunging rapids to the final assault on the sea, where wide sand-barrens and desolation prevail. ”

“ From Canyon City to the Royal Gorge has been built a wonderful piece of road, winding and climbing into the very heart of Colorado's rugged bosom. The gradient in places is terrific. Every ounce of power was sometimes necessary to surmount certain stretches, and blind S-bends carved from the solid face of the rocks made travelling a danger as well as a test of skill. At every bend and every turn some new panorama would spring to view and farther and farther away would fade the distant horizon of the east. ”

“ The new tributary was Grand River, and when our boats floated on the united waters, we were at last on the back of the Dragon. Away sped the current of the Colorado, swirling along, spitefully lashing with its hungry tongue the narrow sand-banks fringing the rugged shores, so that we scarcely knew where to make a landing. ”

“ In the river Colorado—is the labyrinthian terrifying chasm, filled with the terrific rush and deafening roar of the pounding waters, of the turbulent tidal waters laboring under the mighty swells from the tempestuous ocean. While in Colorado the State—there is peace, peace everywhere; the silent mountains, the quiet plains, the mellow skies, the sunny lakes, the balmy air, the murmuring streams—all soothe and charm and thrill, and life is all too short for the enjoyment of its perfections. ”

“ We next visited Pueblo, where this giant was exhumed, but were not at all pleased with the town or its surroundings, and suffered greatly from thirst rather than drink the offensive water for which the residents are so heavily taxed. It was so apparently poisonous in odor, that if it had been in the malarious climate of Chicago, instead of the exhilarating atmosphere of Colorado, all would have died from its effects.
We have never visited a State which held such diversified interest as that of Colorado, a fitting resort for the invalid, the pleasure seeker, artist, scientist or poet. ”

“ Climb out, laboriously and cautiously, ascend one of the fantastically-formed buttes that rise above the level of the plateau, and what a world of grandeur is spread before the eye! Nothing one can say will give an adequate idea of the singular and surprising landscape,—nothing in art or nature offers a parallel. Below lies the cañon through which the Colorado begins its wonderful course. ”

“ The ranges of the Colorado Rockies form rank upon rank of ridges and peaks, roughly north-south in trend, about 100 miles across from east to west, extending from the northern to the southern border of the state. Here, in mountain springs and lakes, are born the rivers of Colorado: the Platte, the Arkansas, the Yampa, the Colorado. Crags and cliffs tower above tree-covered slopes, the rocks always a dominant part of the landscape. The continental divide runs through the state along the summit ridges. West of the divide, all streams flow to the Colorado River and the Pacific ”

“ The adjacent gorge of the Cimarron, a tributary stream, gives also a splendid display of Rocky Mountain wildness, and below it the river passes through the Lower Gunnison Canyon, bounded by smooth-faced sandstone cliffs, and finally it falls into Grand River, one of the head-streams of the Colorado. The combined magnificence of these canyons and mountains makes the environment of the Colorado mining region one of the most attractive scenic districts in America. ”

“ After absorbing the Gila the river sweeps round in a W. direction for 7 or 8 miles, and soon expands to a width of 1,200 feet. Thence it pursues a tortuous course of 180 miles, the last portion being through Mexican territory to its mouth in the Gulf of California. From the sources of the Green river the Colorado measures a total length of about 2,000 miles. It is navigable for steamers as far as Callville, 612 miles from its mouth, and can be made navigable, it is thought, to the foot of the Grand Cañon, 57 miles higher. ”

“ There are two grand divisions: the lowland or desert, below the Virgen, and the plateau, but the topography of the immediate river course separates itself into four parts, the Green River Valley, the canyon, the valley-canyon, and the alluvial. The canyon part is the longest, occupying about two-thirds of the whole, or about 1200 miles. It is cut mainly through the plateaus. The last of these southward is the Colorado, a vast upheaval reaching from the lower end of the Grand Canyon south-east to about where the 34th parallel crosses the western line of New Mexico. ”

“ The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing ranges and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy mountains through narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through canons of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented in this one grand canon of canons. ”

“ But there is a larger class, that portion of our population throughout the East and South suffering from some pulmonary trouble, which should be much more interested in Colorado than either the pleasure-seeker or the money-getter. For such there is a wealth of life stored up in the dry, sunny climate of this State, more precious than the hidden treasures which the mountains contain. ”

“ There are more than twice as many peaks of fourteen thousand feet in Colorado as in all the other States of the Union. An enormous area is entirely above the limits of tree-growth; but these heights above the timber-line are far from being barren and lifeless. Covering these mountains with robes of beauty are forests, lakes, meadows, brilliant flowers, moorlands, and vine-like streams that cling to the very summits. This entire mountain realm is delightfully rich in plant and animal life, from the lowest meadows to the summits of the highest peaks. ”

“ This immense domain, thus acquired by purchase from France and Mexico, has been occupied by an intelligent and enterprising population, and divided into states and territories, each an empire in its dimensions, and has been cultivated, developed, and embellished by all the arts and inventions of the most progressed civilization. One portion of this domain is Colorado, destined by her position, resources and climate to enjoy an immortal precedence among the States of our great Republic. ”

“ II. BRIAN BORU.
Sir Bryan Parkhurst, a young Irish sportsman just over from the old country, was rather disappointed in Colorado; and that was a pity, considering that he had crossed an ocean and half a continent to get there. The climate, to be sure, was beyond praise, and climate is what Colorado is for, as any resident of Springtown will tell you. Nature, too, was very satisfactory. He liked the way the great mass of Rocky Mountains thrust itself up, a mighty barrier against the west, perfectly regardless of scenic conventionalities. ”

“ Now, if Colorado is a hunting country at all, it is one most of whose preserves can be nearly approached in a Pullman car. The climate, even in midwinter, is mild. There is always a town, a mine, a ranch, somewhere within tramping distance ”