Arizona republican., 1903-04-02
A Rocky Mountain Empire Builder.


 Commenting upon the death of the famous Colorado pioneer, William N Byers, at Denver a few days ago, the St. Louis Globe Democrat pays truthful tribute to the western empire builders of whom Byers was a leader.
 "The activity, the versatility, the daring and the romance typical of the successful American pioneer were eIn- bodied in a striking degree in the career of William N. Byers. Without having any knowledge of the newspaper bust ness in any of it's departments, he es- tablished the first paper ever printed anywhere on the line of the great Cor dilleran divide. This was the Rocky Mountain News, which appeared in Denver in April, 1859, before the towi, existed except in the faith of the few hundred prospectors and adventur- CTS who occupied the cluster of tents and log huts on Cherry creek and when Colorado was only a county of Kansas, which itself was still but a territory. The transcontinental railroad was ten years in the distance. The nearest post office to the Denver of that day was the Rocky Mountain fur companys old post of Fort Laramie, 220 miles to the north ward. The postage on a letter to O. from Denver was 50 cents. But Byers made his venture a success from the start, he continued in control of the News for over a quarter of a century. and it is today one of the most prorni- nent and prosperous newspapers in the Rocky mountain territory.
 Those were stirring days in the his tory of American empire building. Eleven years before Byers' first edi- tion of the Rocky Mountain News saw | the light John M. Marshall made his gold discovery in the raceway of Suu- ter's mill on the American fork of the Sacramento. which created California. A few years afterward that gold dis covery of 1S4S, when California's placera seemed to have given up their riches, hoards, scattered thousands Of adven- turers through every ravine and gulch in the Cordilleras. One party of these, led by w. Green Russell, struck gold in 1858 few miles from the site of Den yer, other finds were made in the same region about the same time, and then, the news of the discovery reaching the
 
 communicated to tho east, the .Pike's peak or bust rush to the Rocky mount aims began. Byers and his little print ing press arrived on the scene before i the Pike's peak diggings were a year old. Two issues of his little weekly ap- peared before John H. Gregory, on May 10, 1S59 struck the gold lode on Clear creek which made Colorado's for tune, and established stable commun- ity in the Rockies. Just month later. 500 miles to the westward, Comstoci struck the great silver reef which bears his name that put Nevada on the map. The whole vast empire on which Mar shall. Russell, Gregory and ComstocN made their momentous mineral finds had only recently, through conquest and purchase from Mexico, come under tho stars and stripes.
 "Byers helped to make much of the history which his paper recorded. Dur ing his life of forty-four years in Colo rado he played many parts, and played all of them well. With the ready adapt ability of the frontiersman, he engaged at one time and another in many wide Iy different sorts of activities and helt many posts of honor and responsibility. The whole Cordilleran collection of communities. from Cherry creek west ward to Carson river. on Nevada'5 5 western verge, and northward to the Marias river and the Kootenai, up near Canada's line in Montana and Idaho have been established since the days ic 1859 when he carted his little printing 1 outfit across the plains from the Mis- of I1iS ct. tn " rh thirty years after he settled in Colora- | do, is now the richest gold field of its area on the globe, except the Rand dis trict in South Africa. The supremacy | in gold production in the United States, which was held for many years by Cal | ifornia, has long since swung eastward | to the Pike's peak region. In the inter- | val the center of the country's popula- | ton, which had just crossed into Ohio when the foundations of Denver were being laid, has since then passed | through that state and is in Indiana, | not far from the Illinois line. At the same time the coUntry's center of poll ! tical gravity has swung still farther westward, and new forces and inf1u- | ences have been dominant in the af- l fairs of the country. A stirring chapter | in American history has been enacted | in the four and half decades which | saw the rise and development of empire | in the Rocky mountain region.' 
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