ting numerous depredations on the property of the stage company. The change to the proposed new route was not made, however, until the fall of 1863, when the place of crossing the South Platte, as fixed near the Cherokee City post-office, where Latham station was established, near the mouth of the Cache la Poudre. The latter stream empties into the South Platte about sixty miles below Denver, and nearly due east of Long's Peak, some thirty-odd miles from the base of the Rockies, where the clear stream, a raging torrent, gushes from the foot-hills at Laporte. In October, 1864, after the serious troubles on the "Overland," another important change was made in the stage route. The South Platte, which had been forded from Latham station for about a year, was abandoned. By the new change the main line passed through Denver, thus doing away with the branch line of sixty miles between Denver and Latham. The new road left the South Platte at Bijou station (the Junction House) and, instead of making a crescent, its course to Denver over the toll-road cut-off was practically an air-line of about ninety miles. At Denver the stages to and from California still crossed the South Platte, but they crossed it on a bridge. From there the new route towards Salt Lake followed the east slope of the mountains for sixty-five miles, and intersected the old stage road at Laporte, only thirty-five miles from the abandoned Latham. Changing from Latham station and running the stages over the cut-off necessitated no less than thirty miles' extra staging on the main line; but the inducements held out by Denver, and the fact that there was no more fording the South Platte, also that it saved the expense of a sixty-mile branch line between Denver and Latham and the employment of an agent at the latter station, were some of the main reasons for making this important change. General Hughes, in September, 1865, partially built a mountain wagon road from Salt Lake City via Green River to Middle Park, on which a large sum of money was expended. The route was not only a perfectly feasible one for a stage line, but it was chosen so that it could be adopted, if necessary, for use by the first railroad to be built across the Rocky Mountains. Among the forty-nine stations between Atchison and Denver on the old stage line there were five on the first division, between Atchison and Fort Kearney, named for as many different Indian tribes--Kickapoo, Seneca, Otoe, Pawnee, and Kiowa; while |
Kennekuk and Oketo were also aboriginal names. All of them were seemingly pretty names, and the first five represented not powerful but very peaceable tribes. Quite a number of the names of stations were duplicated. For instance, there were two bearing the name of Cold Springs, two named Diamond Springs, two Lone Tree, two Sulphur Springs, and two Willow Springs. Between Fort Kearney and Denver, there was only one station christened for the "noble, red man." It was located on the cutoff toll road east of Denver, and was also named Kiowa. Between Denver and Salt Lake there was a station named Cherokee. In 1863 there was a post-office near the right bank of the South Platte, about 600 miles west of the Missouri river, near the mouth of the Cache la Poudre, named Cherokee City. The "city" bearing this name contained one house, and it was the stage station. Cottonwood Springs was named for some springs in the immediate vicinity of which were quite a number of cottonwood trees. In the early days of overland traffic on the plains the trees were cut down by freighters and converted into fire-wood. Since then nearly all of the fuel used by the stage line for over 200 miles along the Platte was cedar, cut in the cañons near Cottonwood Springs and hauled the entire distance, mostly by oxen. Just think of it! hauling fire-wood to old Julesburg, about 105 miles west. We have mentioned before that all of the stage stations and some of the ranch buildings for a long distance east and west of Cottonwood Springs were built of cedar logs transported by ox teams from the ground on which they grew. There were about twenty-five regular eating stations on the line between Atchison and Denver. The most of them were so provided with conveniences that they could get up a good meal on the shortest notice--better than might have been expected so far out on the plains, hundreds of miles away from a market and from many of the advantages found in an agricultural region. The station keepers went more on furnishing passengers the substantials than they did the light, dainty delicacies. Being jostled from one side of the coach to the other while going over a rough road was sufficient exercise to give almost any person an appetite for a solid, "square" meal, "just like the ones your mother used to get up." Fried bacon and ham were a regular standby at most of the stations on the upper Little Blue and Platte; still there were |
furnished an ample supply of buffalo, elk and antelope steaks in their season, for a distance of at least 300 miles. Along the lower Little Blue, down through southern Nebraska and northern Kansas--the finest agricultural section on the entire line-eggs and chickens, nice cream for the coffee, with fresh butter and plenty of vegetables, were a prominent feature of the every-day diet. Way up toward the head waters of the Little Blue, at Liberty Farm, we frequently had the pleasure of dining on wild turkey, and it was always roasted in the finest style.
 DETAINED BY A "HOT BOX." Page 91. Occasionally there would be a passenger
who, before starting out from Atchison west, would fill his
pockets and grip with crackers and cheese, dried beef,
herring, or "Bologna," and make the long trip of six days
and nights to Denver without eating a meal at a station.
This was a rather difficult feat to perform, but now and
then one would be found, even worth his thousands, who would
do it; his "grub" for the entire trip amounting to but
little more than the price of a single meal at a station. No
meal was furnished passengers on the east end of the line
for less than |
fifty cents; between Fort Kearney and Julesburg they were seventy-five cents; and from the latter station to Denver one dollar was the uniform price in 1863. As a usual thing, the messengers were not charged for their meals, they having to do often a dozen or more errands each trip for the station keepers or their wives at Atchison and Denver. There were a few stations, however, that came under another class, and they were more than even a driver who had spent the greater part of his life on the box could stand. Some of them were indescribably filthy, for even an overland station far out on the frontier. No one ever dreamed that all the necessaries and comforts of life could be obtained at an overland eating place. At one station over 500 miles out on the plains things were perhaps not quite as neat as they might have been, or as they were at some other places. One passenger, who evidently had not "roughed it" much on the plains, sat down at the table with a half-dozen others, and at once commenced making some discreditable remarks about the food, complaining that there was a good deal of dirt, etc. The landlord, who at the time happened to be standing behind him, at once spoke up: "Well, Sir, I was taught long ago that we must all eat a 'peck of dirt.'" "I am aware of that fact, my dear Sir," hastily responded the passenger, "but I don't like to eat mine all at once." At another station it was observed that one of the drivers frequently played sick; he could n't eat, he said, because of his weak stomach. He had for a long time been hanging about the house, and had watched the landlady fondling the dogs and cats, and shortly afterwards, without washing, thrusting her hands into the flour and mixing up the pan of biscuit. This driver with a delicate, weak stomach would go hungry and wait until he reached the next station rather than attempt to eat after he had watched the process of cooking. Those who knew nothing about the dogs and cats declared that "Mrs. ----- could beat any woman on the overland line making nice biscuit." Along the Platte west of Fort Kearney, for a considerable distance, we for weeks had nothing in the pastry line except dried-apple pie. This article of diet for dessert became so plentiful that not only the drivers and stock tenders rebelled, but the passengers also joined in, some of them "kicking" like Government |
mules. As a few of the drivers expressed it, it was "dried apple pie from Genesis to Revelations." Finally the following gem, which very soon had the desired effect, was copied and sent on its way east and west up and down the Platte:
A great many of the stock tenders out
on the frontier who lived between "home" stations kept
"bachelor's hall" and lived by themselves. At one of the
stations on the eastern slope of the Rockies northwest of
Latham was one; and at the hour for dinner one day in the
summer of 1864 a weary pilgrim from the East, making his way
overland, chanced to stop for a drink of water and to rest.
He was invited by the host to dine. "I do n't care if I do,"
quickly responded the anxious footman, and he took a seat at
the table. The host cut off a slice of fat pork and the
guest was asked to pass his plate. "Thank you," said he "but
I never eat it." "Very well," said the host; "just help
yourself to the mustard"; and the host proceeded with his
meal. It happened that fat pork and mustard comprised the
entire list of edible articles then in the stock tender's
house; and he offered his guest the best he had. For a long
time it was a regular standing joke of the stage boys along
the line, when any one refused anything at the table, to
say, "Help yourself to the mustard." |
MARYSVILLE, KAN., 1876. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW. stage line. The schedule from Atchison to Salt Lake,
which had been eleven days and a few hours, was in the
summer of 1865 reduced to ten days and two hours. To Denver
the schedule time was reduced from six to five days, or an
average of nearly six and a half miles an hour. |
Omaha west across the continent. For two years before the road was finished, the Concords ran from the terminus of the railroad, it being necessary every few weeks to move the starting stations ahead from 50 to 100 miles on account of the rapid track-laying. Originally the stage enterprise for nearly three years was known as the Overland Mail Company--the southern or Butterfield line. Next, after it was transferred north and ran in connection with the stages to Denver, which line it absorbed, it was known as the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company. Later, after passing into the hands of Ben. Holladay, it became the "Overland Stage Line"; and during the last two years, while it was operated by the latter, the name was changed to the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company. It should be noted, however, that in 1866 the line had been consolidated with the Butterfield Overland Despatch, a stage company organized in 1865, with headquarters at Atchison, and later in operation from the western terminus of the Kansas Pacific railway to Denver, over the Smoky Hill route. When the Union Pacific road was finished to North Platte, 300 miles west of Omaha, a portion of the stage stock on the eastern division between Fort Kearney and Rock Creek, and that between Omaha and Fort Kearney and Fort Kearney and North Platte, was pulled off. On the stage road west of North Platte the stock had to be "doubled up." The stage business bad grown immensely, and the company was obliged to run a tri-daily line of coaches to carry the rapidly increasing travel. In addition, it was necessary to run an express wagon every other day. Those connected with the early management of the great stage line before it passed into the hands of Holladay had a hard task to perform. The hostility of the Indians in the early '60's, the difficulty in obtaining supplies on a route so remote from civilization, and the numerous perils incident to floods, snows, tornadoes, etc., rendered the "Overland" one of the great enterprises of the century. A man of less courage, energy and capacity than Gen. Bela M. Hughes would have signally failed. To add to the annoyances in operating the line, scattered here and there over the plains and in the mountains were small bands of desperadoes from Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the West, ostensibly hunting buffalo and other animals for their hides; but really it was plain that their object was to steal stock, rob the express |
coaches and passengers, and at times murder was resorted to in carrying out their hellish designs. On the eastern division, in 1866, the overland stages were, protected by a military escort west from Big Sandy, in Jefferson county, Nebraska. There was a mounted patrol accompanying each stage west-bound and inbound, and at each station there was a corporal or other non-commissioned officer and from six to ten privates who went along as a mounted escort to the next station west, who were there relieved by a similar escort which continued on to the next station, and on through. On their return they had these same escorts; thus, where military protection was given, there was seldom any trouble from Indians with any of the stages on the line. About the time of the completion of the Union Pacific road from Omaha, another great transcontinental line of railway was begun-the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (the "Santa Fe" for short), now one of the greatest lines of road on the face of the globe. Ground was first broken on this line at a railroad celebration in Atchison on the 13th of June, 1860, but on account of the civil war no active work was begun at the initial point until 1869. The road was then pushed rapidly to the Southwest, diagonally across the state of Kansas, up the Arkansas valley into southeastern Colorado, then into the heart of New Mexico. Almost immediately after it was begun a vast immigration set in, and this necessitated the organization of important new stage lines, not only in southwest Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, but on through Arizona and beyond to the Pacific. For ten to twenty years following the building of the Union Pacific and the Santa Fe roads there was a great amount of staging done in the Rockies. All over the West, Northwest, and Southwest, from points on these two important railways, lines were started to scores of new and rapidly growing mining camps which were from time to time being developed all through the mountain regions. The most of these new stage lines were short ones. Some of them, however, were hundreds of miles in length and grew to be important stage, express and mail routes. One line which soon grow into prominence ran through to California from the western terminus of the great Santa Fe road, then rapidly building through New Mexico and Arizona. But during the era of unprecedented railway construction throughout |
the great West, in the later '70's and '80's--during which time thousands of miles of new road were built--the staging business in the mountains and west of them to the Pacific coast was, in a great measure, paralyzed. In the early '80's there was some lively staging done in Colorado by Barlow & Sanderson's overland line, before the Denver & Rio Grande and the Denver, South Park & Pacific roads had crossed the summit of the Rockies. Previous to the building of these two roads, this well-known firm ran a first-class mountain stage line, equipped with Concord coaches, which covered a goodly portion of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In the summer of 1880, following the San Juan mining excitement and the wonderful silver discoveries in the Gunnison region, when the eyes of the country were turned toward that then new El Dorado, J. L. Sanderson & Co. ran a four-and six-horse line of Concord stages on the Otto Mears toll road over Marshall Pass, crossing the back-bone of the continent at an elevation of over 10,750 feet, and another line across Alpine Pass, 12,500 feet above sea-level. It was over Marshall Pass, on the Otto Mears toll road, that General Grant and his son, Col. Fred. D. Grant, rode into Gunnison City in the summer of 1880, from which place they made a hurried trip by private conveyance into the Elk Mountain mining region, on a tour of recreation and also to inspect the wonders in silver mining then being uncovered near Irwin and Crested Butte, in Ruby Camp, about 10,500 feet above tide.
Team driven by Buffalo Bill, out of Fort Kearney. |
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