The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1883-11-29
Letters from Colorado Springs and
Manitou.
NUMBER ONE.

NUMBER ONE.
/ Especial Correspondence for THE VIRGINIAN.]
| Far in the west there lies a desert land where
| the mountains
iftthrough perpetual SHOWS their lofty and lu-
minous SUBMITS,
| And to the South from Fontaire Qui
| Bout and the Spanish sierras
Fretted with sand and rocks and swept by the
wind of the desert,
| Numberless torrents with ceaseless sound de-
| scend to the ocean,
Like the great chords of harp in loud and SOL
| emn vibrations
| Spreading between these streams are thewon-
/ derous, beautiful praries,
! Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow
/ and sunshine,
Brightwith luxuriant clusters of roses and pur-
! pie amorphas
| Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the
elk and the roebuck,
Over them wandered the wolves and herd OF
rderless horses.
And over all is the Sky, the clear and crystalline
| heaven,
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above
/ them.'
! LoNGFELLow.
! HISTORICAL.
| Thousands upon thousands of years ago,
in the chaotic past of the earth, when her
seething crust was rent by forces from
within, of gas, motion, rocks and metal,
and yoltanic fire beginning with the age
which the geologist catalogues as the Siluri-
an, the Rocky mountains were gradually
evolved as islands, peering above the waters
of a great salt sea, which, in the slow pro-
eesses of natures cycles, receded, and left
them mountain ranges, hiding in their
rock-barred Businesses relicso these early
aeons; animals that padded IN the luke.
warm seas, and shells stranded upon forgot
ten beaches, cycads that grew in forests,
which remain to us strati6ed beds of lig-
nite-ranges that formed the boundary
against which the ocean of the plains, ris-
| ing from the Mississippi basin in gradual
slope, losses in broken waves.
In about 800 north latitude, dominating
spur which has broken away from the
main line, is that mountain, reaching a
height Of 14,147 feet above the sea-level,
which we call Pixies Peak.
Centuries of winter storm whitened it's
head, and uncounted summers yelled it's
ruddy sides with torn cloud-fringes and OPP
| aline mists, before it had place in histo-
ry. The Indians passed it on their way to
the. seven springs lying at its foot, that
they called sManitou,n in honor of the
hpfS aGo LODI ho;, rio1y
at certain seasons of every year, they
brought the ailing and the crippled and laid
them by the edge of the springs. Captain
RuXton, who visited Manitou in 1S47, says
he found the basin Of the Navajo soda fill
ed with beads, wampum, and arrowheads,
and the surrounding trees hung with deer
skin-cloth and moccasins, left as votive Of
| ferings.
The Utes passed the peak in winter on
their way to fight the Cheyennes ON the
plains, and hunt in summer the Cheyennes
returned the compliment by taking the
same trail to the mountains to hunt and to
fight the Utes. Coronado came and went,
laboriously crossing the San Luis park in
1910, but the beauty and grandeur of the
country further north were not dreamed Of
by the Spaniards. In 1906, Lieutenant
Zebulon Pike, officer of the U. S. A.. was
ordered to proceed westward and explore
theregion between the Missouri river and
the Mexican frontier. On November 10Th,
he saw a s'small blue cloud"-our noun
tain-far in the distance. TWodays after
ward he marched briskly on with his party
thinking he would reach the range by
nightfall, but he is compelled to record the
fact that he 'sfound at night no visible diff
ference in its appearance from yesterday"
So he followed his pillar of blue cloud, as
suming clearer outlines, above all white,
below all purple. until it stood revealed in
rough sublimity, dark with retiring re-
cesses, shaggy with pines, scanned with
snow-filled clefts, and gloomy in the gath
ering twilight of November 25th, when he
camped, at last, at it's base.
Mexican mountain, as Pike modestly
dubbed preserving to later corners the right
to name it latter its discoverer, was left to
the keeping of silent skies and the impen-
etrable guardianship of the waste, until
Longs expedition came that way, and DR..
E. James, serving in the threefold capacity
OF doctor, botaniSt and historian for the
party made himself famous as the first
white man who assembled the peak, and as
the discoverer Of the Manitou Springs.
Nearly forty years after Pike. came Ere
mont, the ''Pathfnder,n who camped on
the present site of Colorado City.
The CLEAN of gold was the beacon light
which brought the Spaniards to the coun-
Try south OF Colorado; it was also the
golden fleece" for which searched the
Argonauts of 1S59-'59.
Pixies Peak Pilgrims swept across the
plains in a tide which disregarded Indians
and privations, and found it's motto in the
terse pixies Peak Or Bust George
Earle, Of Lawrence, Kansas, had told his
story OF sands of gold at the sources of the
Kansas river, shown his dust, and set all
the country, depressed after the panic of
81, ablaze with eXcitement-a fire gather
ering fuel from every vivid imagination.
The early names showed the absorbing idea
| ,Auraria." West Denyer) Golden, and
others. Certain of the searchers, perhaps,
satisfied that they had found Pixies Peak
-,r perhaps busted under the leader
ship OF John Turney, arrived in July, 1858.
and mapped out on paper the magnificent
town of FL laso. FL Paso never existed
off the maps. but ii ought to have covered