Field was tempted to go to Denver by the offer of the managing editorship of the Tribune, which was owned and controlled by the railroad and political coalition then dominant in Colorado. It was run on a scale of extravagance out of all proportion to its legitimate revenue, its newspaper functions being altogether subordinate to services as a railroad ally and political organ. The late O.H. Rothacker, one of the ablest and most versatile writers in the country, was at the head of its editorial staff, and Fred J.V. Skiff, now head of the Field Columbian Museum, was its business manager. These men, with Field, were given carte blanche to surround themselves with a staff and news-gathering equipment to make the Tribune "hum." And they did make it hum, so that the humming was heard far beyond the borders of the centennial state. In studying the character of Eugene Field and his doings in Denver, it must be borne in mind that we are considering a period in the life of that city years ago, when the conditions were very different from those prevailing there now or from those to be met with to-day in any other large city in the country. Denver in 1881 was very much what San Francisco was under the influence of the gold rush of the early fifties, only complicated with the struggles of rival railway companies. All the politics, railway, and mining interests of the newly created state centred in Denver. The city was alive with the throbbing energy of strife and speculation over mines, railway grants, and political power. Life was rapid, boisterous, and rough. Nothing had settled into the conventional grooves of habit. The whole community was fearless in its gayety. It had not learned to affect the sobriety and demureness of stupidity lest its frivolity should be likened to the crackling of thorns under a pot. Into this civilization of the mining camp and smelter, just emerging into that of the railway, political, and financial centre of a vast and wealthy territory, came Eugene Field at the age of thirty-one, as free from care, warm-hearted, and open-handed as the most reckless adventurer in Colorado. Although a husband and a father, devoted as ever to his family, he threw himself into the bohemian life of Denver with the abandon of a youth of twenty. It is almost inconceivable where Field found the time and strength for the whirl of work and play in which there was no let up during his two years' stay in Denver. His duties as managing editor of the Tribune would have taxed the energies and resources of the strongest man, for he did not spare himself to fulfil the purpose of his engagement--to make the paper "hum." He mapped out and directed the work of the staff with a comprehensive shrewdness and keen appreciation of what his public, as well as his employers, wanted that left no room for criticism. He kept the whole city guessing what sensation or reputation would be exploded next in the Tribune.