Miscellaneous Back Matter [pp. A17-B66]

Overland Monthly.
A PICTURESQUE AND DELIGHTFUL TRIP THROUGH
COLORADO.
" Into a world unknown -the corner-stone of a nation."
Haveyou ever tasted of the delights of a Colorado
trip? No? Well, I will tell you all I know about it.
Leaving Ogden in the evening, we made the thirty
miles to Salt Lake City in an hour. Traveling
nearly all the way along the borders of the Great
Salt Lake, the mystic "Dead Sea of America," on
through the city of temples and tabernacles and
Mormon fame, and through the basin of thile Great
Salt Lake, to where in the early morning we come
upon Grand Junction basking in the new-born sunshine, rightly named, being the converging point
of the lines of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad,
and the confluence of the two largest rivers in Colorado, the Gunnison and the Grand. It is the
commercial center of a great agricultural region.
The scenery between Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, is a delightful variety of mountain,
valley and river views. Traversing the downward
course of the Grand River, the line offers attractions
of a charmingly varied character, to royal Glenwood Springs, fully five thousand two hundred feet
above sea-level, protected on every side by lofty
mountains. Above the springs, as they rush out
of the rocks, are large open caves, which, somewhere within their recesses, must have comnmunication with the hot sulphur water below, because
they are filled with the hot sulphur vapor or steam,
which rushes out from their mouths in dense clouds.
The trout fishing is superb. Trout of two to
eight pounds weight are taken in great numbers,
and with little trouble. In the fall and winter the
hunting is very fine; deer, elk, bear, grouse, and
ptarmigan being driven into the park in great
numbers by the heavy snows on the surrounding
mountains.
The Springs are noted for their curative properties, and the climate is so mild that it is customary
to bathe the year around in the open air, and hundreds of invalids remain at the Springs the entire
season.
Seeing the wonders of a beautiful world among
the mighty colonnades and minarets of nature in
grand canlons of the Rio Grande and Eagle River
Caflons, winding among the everlasting mountains,
the trains of the Denver and Bio Grande Railroad
break the stillness of the air with the sibilant sound
of escaping steam, or the strident, shrill cry of
whistle echoing from one mountain giant to another,
one grand "fan-fare" announcing to the traveler
the entry into the only "wonderland" in the world.
Darkness falls, and should there be a moon, the
scene in part revives in light, a thousand spectral
forms projected from inscrutable gloom, dreams of
mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things
eternal.
The town of Gilman! Suddenly the emotion
aroused by our view of the wonders of nature is
arrested by incredulous surprise at the handiwork
of man! The shaft houses and abiding places of
adventurous mniners that can be seen from the railroad track two thousand feet below. Admiration
and awe may well take possession of the mind in
viewing the grandeur and beauty of nature in Tennessee Pass.
Long may we loiter powerless to shake loose from
the charm, breathlessly intent upon the beauty of
the landscape.
The caions sink into mysterious purple shadows,
until the sun is sunk low in the west; the farther
peaks are tipped with a golden ray, and above the
horizon is reflected a light, softly brilliant and of
indescribable beauty,- a light that surely never
was on land and sea.
Then historical Leadville, known to fame in
1859 as "California Gulch."
From 1859 to 1864, $5,000,000 in gold dust were
washed from the ground of this gulch. The camp
was afterwards nearly abandoned, and it was not
until 1878 that the carbonate beds of silver were
discovered. Immediately after this discovery a
great rush ensued to the carbonate camp, which
was named Leadville, and the population rose from
a nominal number to 30,000. It is the greatest and
most unique carbonate mining camp in the world.
Salida the beautiful! Salida the picturesque!
On through the grand and unrivaled beauties of
Royal Gorge to Cafon City. Florence is the junction point to the far-famed Cripple Creek mining
district. Pueblo is the center of the Rio Grande
system; it is situated in a basin surrounded on three
sides by mountain l.nges. It is a delightful place.
Pike's Peak, snow-capped, towering above its
brothers, and lifting its mist-shrouded summit far
into the Heavens, -sentinel of the centuries, keeping watch and ward for hundreds of miles over the
plains to the east, casting its shadow far in the direction of Denver, " Queen City of the Plains," one
of the portals through which all the grandest wonders of nature ever sung by poet or apostrophized
by author may be reaclleld.
The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad offers to
the traveler "' all the comforts of home," the rmost
complete passenger equipments in the West, and
the unequaled advantages of a trip of a thousand
miles through the glorious grandeur of the Rocky
Mountains.
The Denver and Rio Grande is," par excellence,"
the "Scenic Line of the World."
Mr. S. K. Hooper is the General Passenger and
Ticket Agent at Denver, Colorado, and W. J. Shotwell, General Agent of the Pacific Coast, 203 Front
St., San Francisco, California.
When you write, please mention "The Overland Monthly."
42