Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-17
SNOW-BOUND CITIES.
Great Suffering Caused by the Block
adeS in ColOradO-Mining Camps Cut
of from Communication

Great Suffering Caused by the Block
adesin COlOradO-Mining Camps Cut
of from Communication.
The rigor of the present winter in Colo
RADIO can scarcely be imagined, says a
Denver special to the St. Louis Globe
Democrat. Its equal is unknown. A
great many of the outlying camps in the
mining districts have been virtually
snow-blockaded since November, and a
half dozen towns of from 1000 to 5000
Inhabitants, and scores of mining camps,
have been snow-bound for the past
month. The San Juan country was
the first sufferer, and Rico, Silverton
and Durango, the largest towns in the
district, are still snOW-bOund. No train
has entered SilvertOn for nearly TWO
months, and Durango has had only one
train in five weeks. The region of country
north and northwest of LeadYille has been
showed under for the past three weeks.
Breckenridge is in an almost destitute
condition, and MonteZuma, a small town
ten miles away, is in truly pitiable con-
ditiOn.
A telegram from there gives a graphic
account of the tribulatiOns through which
the people of that snOW-blocked camp are
now passing. ''This town has had no
snOW-shOes since the Goth of February,
and communication with other towns is
almost entirely cut off. We are showed
up. No mail has come here yet,
and it is impossible to tell when it
VIII come. Both grocery stores
i'll the town are nearly closed
out. We have no beef, no potatoes or
other vegetables, and no candles, and the
miners will be compelled to close down
on this latter account if the road is not
soon opened. Times are hard here on
account of the blockade, and getting
worse every day. There is no money in
the town, and when the mines shut down
III day or two everybody will be out of
employment"
ABOUT GUNNISON CITY.
Gunnison City, a place of 5000 people,
is the latest to complain of the storm. A
dispatch from there says:
The most fearful storm witnessed has
continued with but mOmentary inter-
ruptiOns ever since. Fully one foot of
snow has fallen, and tonight it is drifting,
making it next to impossible to move
about the street. None of the trains On
the Crested Butte branch have made a
trip for four or five days, nor those of the
Castleton branch for ten days. The
town is now on the eve of a coal
famine. There is not ton in the CITY for
sale, and no prospect of getting to our
mines for two weeks. The coal dealers
are making an effort to have wood sled
ded in from the hills. If the storm con-
tinues during the next tWenty-fOur hours,
the town will be in a condition to sympa-
thiZe with SilyertOn and Durango. We
do not expect the South Park Road to run
train west of the range again for thirty
days"
The Elk Mountain country, in which is
located the Crested Butte, the scene of the
recent mine catastrophe, in which fifty
nine men lost their lives, is now under
eight feet of snow on the level and in
places it has drifted to fifty and even
hundred feet deep. The people there
have been fighting snow ali the winter.
The only means of communication is
snow shoes, and while the situation is
dangerous few men will venture out of
their beleagured homes. Such ponderOus
masses of snow have of late, of course,
produced snow slides innumerable, and
caused immense destruction to property
and great loss of life, but the slides that
are to cCme are more to be feared than
those Of the past. The spring thaw will
set the mountains of snow to moving, and
the result will inevitably be disastrous.