St. Charles village was a failure, and the founders of Montana soon
moved away and joined Auraria. Then came some men, such as are called
"hustlers" in the West, and they went to work in mighty earnest to make
a city of St. Charles. They agreed that each should build a house, and
in less than fifty days (by January, 1859) there were twenty houses
standing. They named the place Denver, using the name of an ex-Governor
of Kansas Territory, and they gave the town a full set of officials.
Then began a great rivalry between Denver and Auraria. Auraria seemed to
get the business places. The merchants went there, and there Mr. William
N. Byers established the first newspaper--the _Rocky Mountain News_. He
and the paper are both active to-day. But little Denver captured the
express company when it came, and that ended the rivalry, for all
communication with civilization was had through the express company. In
1860 the two towns became one, and were called Denver.
It was in 1859 that the prairie-schooners going to Denver most nearly
resembled great swarms of moths. There had been a money panic in the
United States, and hard times followed. This led to a rush for the new
gold-fields. The truth was that there was not gold enough to pay the
crowds for coming, but two remarkable events happened. In the first
place, a miner named Gregory, who had been drifting about in the West,
happened just then to come upon rich "diggings" not far away. The people
came from the East as in a stampede. Some heard that the finding of gold
was a hoax, and turned back to go home, meeting other thousands on their
way to the diggings. In the East no one knew what to believe; but just
then three newspaper men--Horace Greeley, the great editor, Henry
Villard, and A. D. Richardson--arrived in this region, investigated the
new diggings, and wrote an account of them for all the world to read.
They told how a great many miners were making a great deal of money, and
how a much greater number were not finding any gold at all. Then they
warned the public not to come in such great numbers. I will repeat in
substance what they wrote, as it makes a picture of the surroundings of
Denver when it was a tiny baby city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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