To speak feelingly of the Mormon exodus, of that venture into the western wilderness of a few men of our own blood and faith, is to be misunderstood. Some day that flight of a few brave exiles for conscience sake, from their brother men to the heart of a continent, where a relentless nature seemed, with her isolation and her desolation, doubly equipped for cruelty--some day that flight, worthily and justly told, will find a place in history.[15] The gold seekers of California, who crossed by thousands the land the outline of whose human history we are trying to sketch, these have, perhaps, received their due. Such, then, in broadest outline, is the background of Denver's history. It is almost depressing to consider how little the outline holds of that recognition element which makes "historic" for us a country, a scene, a person, an event. Here is a wide and wonderful country; here have been done great deeds by brave and true men. Coronado, Escalante, Pike, Lewis and Clark, among explorers; Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, the Bents, Jim Baker, among scouts, trappers, and traders; the names could be multiplied many times. Their deeds are fit to provoke emulation or national pride. But mention of either names or deeds stirs the emotions only of the few. This is inevitable. They are not yet part of universal knowledge. They are not yet types of men or actions, as are Ulysses, Agamemnon, Hampden, and the voyage of the _Mayflower_. Things are not "historic" until later generations have made them so. Perhaps the dominance of Old World types in literature and art, together with the swift rush of affairs of the passing day, will crowd much of the story of America's development out from the domain of history as known to men at large. If so, the story of the taking by our forebears and our brothers of the great West beyond the Mississippi will always remain as little "historic," as barren in its emotional content, as it is to-day. This were a pity, tho' perhaps best. But even then it would seem proper to suggest, in the bare outline I have drawn, the historic possibilities which lie back of, lead up to, explain, the Denver of to-day. [Illustration FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE IN DENVER.]