The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1878-05-25
LETTER FROM COLORADO.

OOLohADO CPRlNGS, May III, 1910.
Editor Register: Having just returned
from trip to the mines of California
gulch, will try to give you a descrip-
ton of this country. Leaving Manitou,
the famous watering place and summer
resort, you enter the Ute pass. This is q
narrow winding valley, running north
and west, connecting the plains with the
high table land, known as South Park.
The pass proper is nine miles long, and
through this a road has been made at
great expense, cutting through spurs of
the mountains where the walls rise per-
pendicularly from ten to sixty feet, then
crossing small torrent only to enter
another mass of rocks that look as if a
breath of wind must surely tumble them
down upon your head, and fragments
have fallen, some of which are as large
as ALT. Burnett's house. This road has
grade of nearly four hundred feet to
the mile, yet with ten. mule team they
put twelve thousand pounds upon two
wagons, placed one behind the other,
and walk up this-I was going to say
stairway - with apparently as much
ease as our farmers teams do with thirty
bushels of corn. In this way, and al
most entirely by this route, Leadville,
Fairplay, Alma and other of the mining
camps are supplied with everything but
wood and mineral the only things
that that are produced in this high alti-
tude.
After travelling through mountain
scenery for fifty miles, passing Summit
Park, Hayden Park and Divide (named
in honor of Prof. Hayden) you come to
the edge of South Park. This plateau is
surrounded by range of mountains,
some of the peaks of which are the lof.
test in the State. 1t is nearly sixty
miles from north to south, and from
thirty to forty miles wide. The soil OF
this park, though looking like a sand
bank, is said to be very productive, and
furnishes for large herds of cattle, one
man having thirty thousand head. The
elevation of this park is nearly nine
thousand feet.
Crossing the range that forms the
western boundary of the park, you begin
the descent into California Gulch, the
mining country of Colorado. California
Gulch has nothing of the gulch charac-
ter until you pass (going north) Lead.
vile, above which point it narrows-
crowded up by the mountain spurs
and assumes all the peculiar features of
gulch. The bottom of this ravine,
from below Leadville to Orc City, (near-
ly three miles above), was literally torn
to pieces by placer miners ten years ago.
Its whole course was so thickly strewn.
down to bedrock, with the yellow dust,
that one might fancy that the mountain
gods had emptied their treasure bag at
its head, leaving the floods to bury the
precious gold along the course of the
dirty stream that was one day to assist
1 in its resurrection. Nothing is now left
to tell the story save the continuous walls
and cribs of mammoth cobble stones; the
remnants of dams and sluices; the ten.
antless ruins Of the inevitable log cabin
or dug>out, and an occasional miner, who
is still rocking OUT some neglected
corner, that CHANGED to escape the gen
eral onslaught.
At Leadville, just where the gulch be.
gins to widen, there is enough gold-bear.
ing soil to warrant the use of expensive
hydraulic works, which will soon be in
active operation. The location of Lead.
vile is really beautiful foot.hill on
the east suddenly broadens to width Of
miles, with its gentle bottom slope pro-
Ijecting westward along the gulch to it
mouth. The outline north and south il
gently rounded, terminating on the
south at Trout creek. The drainage is
most thorough-mainly to the west and
south. The TOWNSHIP is not only high
and open, but looks upon fine mountain
scenery. The great Sagauche range
just across the valley of the Arkansas
lifts its glacier-scarred peaks in full view
for many mile to the northward and
southwark Mission mountain rises di
rectly west. Elber, southwest and Home
stake, northwest. The great eastward
trend of. the range toward Buckskin
Lincoln and Bross is plainly visible, and
the eye wanders with interest along the
minor peaks and spurs of the PARK
!! ronga on tho eost Tho Ioration of this