Colorado Now and Then

A detailed Summary of Colorado Now and Then

"Gold! Gold!! Gold!!! Gold!!!! Hard to get and heavy to hold." (Coel 1) Headlines in 1858 when gold was found along the Platte River. Which started a

booming economy in mining. Some struck it rich and some moved on. Some did farming and ranching, while others started a new business and some saw the

money in tourism. In time some of these people have continued to become successful and others have found wealth. But what has really happened to the businesses of Colorado as a whole? Mining, farming and ranching, and tourism were important parts of Colorado around 1900 at the turn of the century, but many wonder if at the start of a new century is it the same.

As many people look back at the beginning of this century they say mining is what built Colorado. It is true, but it has also hurt us in the future. The positive side of mining is that it brought great revenue to Colorado. It also built cities and helped businesses grow. A great example of this is the town of Leadville. It did not seem like Leadville would grow in 1876 because, "the region itself was like an

empty beach, washed by two tides of mining activity and littered with abandoned sluices, empty cans, and rotting cabins.

The trouble with farming in the early days was finding the right land in Colorado. Many people became discouraged and stopped moving to Colorado until December 4, 1869. On this date Nathan C. Meeker wrote an article in the New York Tribune discussing the process of irrigating Colorado to make it a productive farming state. Also in the article he was selling land, but called it a membership fee of $155 to

known as the town of Greeley. Meeker again bought land and started the same project for the town of Longmont. Other business men saw what was going on and

Samuel Bowles said that Colorado was the Switzerland of America. (Brettell 29) This attracted much attention to Colorado. Many early explorers offered guided summer trips to the mountains. Ranchers and some miners started to build cabins to rent to the tourists. Most of the tourists came to hunt, fish, hike, go to the hot springs, and do adventures on horseback or stage-coach. These were only summer

activities so the pure businesses on tourism knew that they needed something for winter. It took almost thirty years to get this with the invention of the automobile. The new tourist attraction was skiing and brought great revenue to these tourist business men. This tourist attraction has also been growing ever since, along with all of the other tourist attractions.

tried to do the same thing, but had liquor stores, saloons, and billiard halls. Each town that was started with these stores failed. Meeker was quoted in the Denver Tribune saying that, "the immoral values that these shops brought could not help start a town, but only hurt the town." (Crutchfield 49) When land that could be used for irrigation ran out many people looked into ranching. Many people began ranching in Colorado, but many also moved their herds from Texas, Nevada, and New Mexico to the abundant grasses in Colorado. There were two other benefits to ranching; money and the railroad. John Wesley Iliff said that he had a yearly cost of only $2 a steer and he received as high as $25 for each steer. (Crutchfield

Some common words found in the essay are:
Colorado Mining, HAW Tabor, America Brettell, Poison Rockies, Wesley Iliff, York Tribune, Colony Hall, Denver Tribune, Platte River, Leadville Leadville, farming ranching, mining farming ranching, tourism colorado, mine run-off, colorado colorado, ranching tourism, mining farming, colorado mining, poison rockies, gold gold, mining towns, farming ranching tourism, stores saloons billiard, tourism colorado 1900, liquor stores saloons,

Approximate Word count = 1577
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous