Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1867-05-10
Letter from Colorado.
DENVER Cry. April u. 1857.

y
where Denver city now stands, the
red man danced unmolested around
his camp fire. To-day she is city
of magnificent proportions. For'this
there is cause. Cities do not grow
on deserts, DO more than apple trees.
A tree must come in contact with |
fertile forces or it will perish. A
city must be fed, must have resources,
or it will soon become lifeless, and |
powerless. Hence, it is a common
question, when some little place takes
on titles, and assumes name, "what's
there to make a city ?" And the peo-
pie, in the last ten years, have been
so often eDsnared by these "paper
cities" of the West, that they persist,
with an unpleasant and provoking
stubbornness, in putting the question.
Now the circumstances under which
Denver has attained her present sta
tus, have not been helpful. She is
but seven years old-just a child's
age-yet her population is near 1000;
no mean growth.
Between Denver and civilization
eastward, lie 500 miles O: desert ex-
panse; westward are 600 miles of
ravine and ridge, chasm and peak,
snow-clad and storm-clad forever
Coming. or going, eastward or west.
ward, the pilgrim incurred "perils by
land" perils by the Indians, and
"perils by his own countrymen."-
Denver was once consumed by fire,
and once partially washed away by
a food; yet, above all these, and in
spite Of them, she has risen to a popu-
lation Of 1000 in seven years.
| Bayard Taylor says: Denver is
as substantially built as any town in
the Mississippi valley" This is true.
Her business buildings are solid, ar
tistic, and unusually commodious.
Her private dwellings are respectable,
many of them elegant. But the do
mestic side of a city like this cannot
keep pace with the business sidc.-
Denver is belted on the one side by
the beautiful Platte, which runs a
full, strong stream the year through.
1t is led by the mountains, and cannot
fail. Water is a great power and
wonderfully productive of wealth :;
what it has done for Lowell it NAV
do for Denver. Further, Denver is
the centre of tens of thousands of
acres of the best farming and grazing
land in Colorado. Then comes the
mineral interests, iron, coal, lead, cop
per, salt, silver and gold. Denver's
relation to this immense mineral
wealth is central and practical. The
silver and gold are in the mountains.
but the coal and iron are at our
doors. The way to either is by Den
yer, and Denver is the base from
which they are touched and handled
Is the commercial fountain of supply.
Denver is almost on a line with New
York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on
the east, and Sacramento and San
Francisco on the west. She so stands
between the two great rival cities of
the West, Chicago and st. Louis, as
to make herself the local point upon
which they urge themselves in their
westward pulsations BY Denver is
the natural route from the Atlantic
to the Pacitic-from New York to
San Francisco. She is to be the
great middle station between the
seas. Nor is this all in climate and
scenery Denver has few rivals. The
pure dry airs that sweep down upon
US from the mountains, made holy by
their height and solitude, are balm to
the lungs and stimulus to every func-
ton. Says Bowles, in his book,
across the Continent" "all my many
and various wanderings in the Europ-
can Switzerland, three summers ago.
spread before my eyes no panorama
OF mountain beauty equaling that
which burst upon my sight at sunrise
upon the Plains, when fifty miles away
from Denver; and which rises up be-
fore me now, as | sit writing by the
window in this (Denver) city. No
town that l know of in the whole
world has such a panorama of perpet-
ual beauty spread before it as Den
yer has in this best and broadest
belt of the Rocky Mountains, and |
that rises up from the valley in which |
If is built, and winds away to the
right and left as far as the eye can
reach-felds and woods, rocks and
snow, mounting and melting away to
the sky, and sending back the rays of
the sun in colors and shapes that
paint and pencil never reproduced,
and poetry never described" These
stern, vast ranges stand by you in an
awful presence. They seem like the
bulwarks of Jehovah; and when the
storm darkens their gorges, and mar
h l- -