The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1910-09-28
new TRAIL THROUGH DIVIDE
MODERN WAY THROUGH RUGG-
ED STEPS AND CANYONS.
Natural Attractions For Tourists,
New Towns, New Farm Lands.
Short Cut to Pacific Ocean.

DENVER, Col.-Building rail-
road through the backbone of a con-
tinent, penetrating the great Cont
mental Divide and bringing two
oceans colser together, as the rails
run, is an undertaking that has been
considered mathematically and theo-
retically gigantic in scope, hazard
GUS in construction and wonderful
In completion.
The James J. Hill roads, in order
to reach the Pacific coast, rounded
the northern slopes of the Rockies
where the range is not so high. The
Santa Fe skirted the extreme south
ern end of the Great Divide, and
thereby found the work of cOnstruc-
ton less d ficult. The Union Pacific,
built by government subsidies, bore
to the north and found compare
lively easy path over the mountains,
but grades were heavy in places, and
work down Weber Canon in Utah
was difficult and expensive.
New Route Is Discovered.
Later the Denver & Rio Grande>
the Midland and the Colorado South
ern sought passes through the Rock
les, and then the Moffat road took up
the spirit of weaving a network of
steel between the intermOuntain re-
gion and the Pacific coast. All these
companies found the work hard and
the engineering almost beyond hui
man ingenuity. Great gOrges, abrupt
canOns, towering peaks and turbu
lent streams were battling, and rem
dered the construction expensive and
dangerous.
When it had been said that all the
available passes over the Continental
Divide were occupied and that for
another road to find its course
through the rugged sleeps and can
yons was next to impossible, there
apparently suddenly opened as if cut
with a great axe a new trail that
was declared easier, shorter and
more adapted by nature than any
that had been taken. This was dis
covered and seized upon by the Dem
yer, Laramie & Northwestern Rail-
road Co. 1t leads through Red Can
yon in the northwestern part of Colo
RADIO, then across Dale Creek and
oming, opening into the great Lara
mic plains and on toward Yellow
stone Park and the Pacific coast
Declared the Shortest Way.
1t is said that when the Laramie
route is completed into Seattle it
will be the shortest road to the Pa
cific coast, and will bring Yellow
stone Park many hours closer to Den
yer and the east than any other road.
The new road brings into closer
market the vast coal and iron fields
of Wyoming, affords shipping facili-
ties for the great herds in the north
west, and opens up a new empire
where the farmer will reign supreme.
Already the road is completed and
in daily operation between Denver
and Greeley, a distance of about sixty
miles. Construction work is being
pushed through the mountains, and
it is said by c. S. Johnson, president
of the road, that the line will be
completed to the base of the noun
tains, so miles northwest of Greeley,
by the time the first snow flies. A
new and wonderfully rich agricul-
tural country is being opened along
the line Ct the road in the northern
part of Colorado, and new towns are
springing up,
canyon Is Explored.
Within the past week, and since
the survey of the Laramie route, the
heretofore unknown depth of Box
Alder Canyon in Wyoming has been
explored. This canyon is so pre-
cipitous and rugged that, so far as
known, no human being ever vent
ured to explore it until recently,
when three adventurous men of the
mountains made the hazardous jour
ney through the crevice in the earth,
where roaring waters and hanging
rocks made the task difficult. The
canyon is to be crossed by the new
road, but at a point where grading
is comparatively easy.
The section of Box Alder Canyon
that has just been explored is drawn
by nature down to a narrow passage
through which the mountain stream
OF the same name rushes in torrents.
The water is from twenty to thirty
feet deep, and in times of a cloud
burst or heavy rain the turbulent
waters within the granite walls a
thousand feet high reach a depth
of fifty or sixty feet for several miles
in passing through the narrows, then
widen into a comparatively peaceful
river that flows to the channel of the
Cache la Poudre, in northern Col
OradO.
Attraction For Tourists.
The exploration at this time was
only made possible by the fact that
the water is lower than has ever
been known before, and many of the
big boulders showed above the sur
face, and by means of ropes and long
balancing poles the party was en-
abled to pass down the canyon and
come out into the opening.
So far as is known this was the
remaining uneXplored canyon in
Wyoming and will DrObob Iv bc -, 4 -