Thus in a little over half a century from the date of its purchase by the Federal Government, the Platte Valley had become the home of civilized man, and the work of its development begun. As gold was first discovered in this valley, so was quartz mining first begun on one of the tributaries in Gilpin County. The first pioneer's cabin was erected in Denver; the first school-house was built at Boulder; the first church was consecrated at Denver; the first colony located at Greeley, and the first irrigating ditches taken out, all within the Platte Valley. As the valley had been the route of Major Long and other of the early explorers, so, following in the train of the pioneer, came first the pony express, then the stage-coach, then the locomotive and the Pullman car. And it is a fact which I believe has never yet been published, that the last stage-coach of the great overland line was dispatched from the town of Brighton to Denver, thus associating its name with an act, insignificant in itself, but far-reaching in its importance, when it is remembered that that act marked the end of our pioneer period and ushered in the new growth of the railroad era. We stand to-day at the distance of three-fourths of a century from the date when the foot of the white man first trod the valley of the Platte. The names of Pike and Long are perpetuated by the two magnificent peaks which raise their summits to the clouds and stand as guardians of the plains below. Fremont lived to see his wildest dreams realized in the progress of the West, but whatever fame he may have achieved as a soldier and a statesman, his name will longest be remembered as the pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains. Wheat-fields now flourish where once stood the trading-posts of Vanquez and St. Vrain. The trails of the early explorers and of the pioneers of 1859 are almost obliterated, and grass is growing upon their once broad and beaten pathways. A happy, contented, prosperous people possess the land. A great line of railway now rolls the traffic of a continent along the valley where once the stage-coach and ox-trains of Russell, Majors & Waddell wended their slow and weary way. Thriving towns and villages and cities dot the plain, and reflect in the activity of their commercial life the industrial development by which they are surrounded. CHAPTER XXXI. KANSAS CITY BEFORE THE WAR.