The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1891-07-03
FROM THE ROCKIES.
DENVER, Colo, June Is, 1891

l arrived in Denver last Sunday
morning just IN time to go to church
and upon entering the first one came
to, was shown a seat in the midst of {
congregation of seven or eight hundred
persons. Immediately after taking
my seat the minister began to pray
and from the chorus of "amens," "bless
the =" ETC., which simultaneously
came from all parts of the congregation
I at once recognized their denomina-
tion. listened for two hours to a
soul-stirring sermon and exhortation
at the conclusion of which three sin
ners signifed desire for change oi
heart. The choir, of sixty voices, in
cludinga a splendid quartette, rendered
excellent music and led the congrega-
ton in singing Crock of Ages" all Of
which had tendency to make your
correspondent homesick.
Denver in some respects resembles
our Portland, but 1 hardly think the
wholesale and retail trade is so extern
sive in proportion to the territory Of
which Denver is the principal center
But Denver undoubtedly is ahead in
the matter of reduction works and
manufactures.
Colorado Springs, the next town
south of Denver, is a lovely little place.
The streets are very wide and perfectly
smooth and covered with white glis-
tening sands and pebbles all rolled in
as hard AS a floor. 1t seems too bad
that our Oregon towns have such rough
and muddy or dusty streets. The great
difference attracts an Oregonian's at
tention at once In Greenwood ceme-
terry and on a street in Denver, no.
ticed heavy steam rollers which were
in constant use. A few men would be
working the streets, scraplng up the
loose gravel and dirt and after distrl-
buting it uniformly over the surface
the roller would mash it down and it
would become almost as hard as stone.
Now it occurs to me that when our
street committee in Corvallis has gravel
hauled on to the streets, if they should
not have quite so much hauled and the
difference applied on distributing it
smoothly over the ground and have
some good, substantial rolling done,
we would have better streets. You
might say, Every good, but Corvallis
cannot afford steam roller" Admit
ing the truth of this; still we could
easily afford one or more rollers which
horses could pull and which would be
infinitely better than none. 1t really
does no particular good to dump "a load
of gravel here and there in a mud hole
and round the top off a little and have
it wash down all in lump. Good
enough as far as it goes, but it is get
ting comparatively little for the amount
expended. [ have seen good many
streets recently, which are no easier i'm
proved than those of Corvallis and
with no better material or facilities
than we have, which are kept as
smooth as floor and at no greater
expense relatively than we expend on
similar street work in Corvallis, and
streets too over which heavy loads of
freight are constantly passing. l do
not believe that it is essential, in or
der to have good streets, that we have
a sandy Or gravelly soil. Not by any
means Our soil is good enough, es
pecialIy the clay, and gravel is conven-
lent and plentiful enough to enable the
city Of Corvallis to have just as good
streets as any town, and to my mind
there is no reason why we should have
= main steeet which would disgrace
town of half our size. We need many
improvements in Corvallis, and the
improvement of our streets is by no
means the least in Importance. I only
intended to mention incidentally, the
beautiful streets of Colorado Springs,
and here I find myself devoting quite,
a little Space to the subject, but to pro-
coed: Manitou and the ssGarden of
the Gods" are attractions here. The
former is small village of three or
four hundred people residents and ten
or twenty thousand visitors. Not all
visiting at once, you know, but that
many during the season. It's popu-
1arity is due to the healthfulness of the