Chapter XVII: El Moro and Cañon City

For Knights no more in modern days bestride
Their Rosinante and across the hills
Ride, by my halidome, to succor maids
Or couch a lance against an amorous foe;
Instead, within a Pullman Palace Car
At ease reclining and at peace with all,
We conquer space while romance groweth dull
Under the languor of the April air.
--WILLIAM E. PABOR.

"El Moro, sir,--breakfast nearly ready, sir!"

I had only closed my eyes an instant before, I was sure, yet then I had been lying quietly in the station at Alamosa, away over on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo. I couldn't remember anything of the transition. Then it was night; now it was morning. Time and space had been an utter blank for ten hours and a hundred miles.

Drawing aside my window curtain and gazing out over gray plains, my eyes caught instantly the bluish outlines of a grander castle and fortress than ever traveler on Rhine or Danube glanced upon. Almost a twelve-month before the Madame and I had spent a sunny day at St. Augustine, where the old square, four-bastioned fort stood grim on the shore of a foam-flecked and laughing sea. Here was a copy of that fortress a thousand times as large,--sloping walls, outer works, bastions, towers and all; you might almost see the huge guns, standing rigid and ready on the magnificent parapet. This was _El Moro_. It was miles and miles away, and a hundred cities had room to cluster about it and take its name without crowding one another. It is the most magnificent model of a half ruined, antique, but altogether glorious fortress in the whole wide world.

At El Moro are some of the great coal mines of this carboniferous state; but to put the matter Hibernically, they are half a dozen miles away up in the hills. We went up there on an engine which drew behind it a box-car load of Mexicans, men and women, who all squatted down on their heels on the car floor and were quite happy, chattering like magpies. It is a very miserable class of Mexicans, for the most part, that one sees in this part of the state. The fathers and mothers of most of them were _peons_ of the wealthy Spaniards, who, under the old _regime_, owned all this region as pasturage for their flocks and herds.

The coal-bed is some hundreds of feet higher than the valley of the Purgatoire, where the village is; and it can be traced for thirty miles east and west, cropping out frequently and used all along by the farmers who live near it, as a supply of fuel. Throughout this extent it varies, of course, in thickness and quality, though in no great degree. Where the El Moro mines are opened, it runs from a vertical thickness of thirty feet to thirteen, nearly all of which is solid, merchantable coal. There are two thin streaks of what the miners term "bone"--something neither coal nor slate--and little patches of refuse, now and then, but no great amount.

I do not know how many hundreds of yards of underground tunnels we walked through, but it was an immense distance, yet the foreman said we had not been half way through it all. Everywhere the roof was high overhead and the walls solid coal, so that the men did not have to crawl on all fours or lie prostrate and dig, as I have seen done in some eastern mines, but could stand full height. All the product of the mine is taken by the pick, except a small amount cut by machines, which dig a horizontal trench, level with the floor, for five feet or so under the breast of the coal and across its whole breadth. This machine works with extreme rapidity, and after it is done, a couple of blasts will topple down as much coal as can be carted out in a day.

The output each month is nearly twenty-five thousand tons, about two hundred and seventy-five miners working. The piece-work method is adopted in paying, and though a smaller rate is paid per ton in mining than is usual in the Pennsylvania or Illinois mines, the earnings of the miners aggregate much larger than the average in the East. This is due to the superior ease with which this coal can be taken out, because of its softness and the roominess of the working chambers, rather than to anything better in the miners or greater diligence in working. One difficulty, indeed, arises from the ease with which high earnings can be made here, namely, that desirable workmen will labor only during the winter, or until they have made a "grub-stake," as they say, when they will go into the mountains prospecting for mines until their funds are exhausted, for, thus far, none of them have become suddenly wealthy.

At the mines, the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, which owns this property, have built a small village of _adobe_ and wooden houses, in which the miners reside. About two hundred men were employed, many of whom had families. They were of almost every nationality, including some sixty Mexicans.

The El Moro coal is a true bituminous coal, producing a coke of excellent quality. It is asserted by its owners to be the best coal for making gas and for blacksmithing in the state; and it is used extensively for steam and metallurgical purposes. It is also said to be the only coal yet discovered in Colorado, lying east of the mountains, which can be profitably used for heating iron in furnaces, and for this it is equal to the best grades of eastern coal. About two-thirds of the product is made into coke.

The coke-works lie five miles from the mines and near El Moro, where there are three steam pumps, a fifty-horse power engine, crushing and washing machinery and two hundred and fifty coking ovens. A charge for each of these ovens, they told us, was about four and a half tons, and the yield of coke from each, after forty-eight hours of burning, is about two and a quarter tons, making a present total product of two hundred and eighty tons of coal a day.

The following shows the analysis of this coal and coke, and also that of the well known Connelsville coal and coke:

COAL.

Vol. Fix.
Water. Matter. Carbon. Ash. Sulphur.
El Moro 0.26 29.66 65.76 4.32 0.85
Connelsville 1.26 30.11 59.52 8.23 0.78

COKE.

Fix.
Carbon. Ash. Sulphur.
El Moro 87.47 10.68 0.85
Connelsville 87.26 11.99 0.75

This analysis of El Moro coal was made from selected specimens; the average of ash in the coke will probably run up to twelve to fourteen per cent.

When we were at Cucharas once before (I have omitted to mention it in its proper place), we ran over to Walsenburg, a neat little settlement in Huerfano Park, and a headquarters for a large sheep industry, and visited the coal mines of this company near by. They own a large tract of land there, containing three seams of coal, four, nine, and five feet in thickness. Only the thickest of these has as yet been developed, sending out about seventy-five thousand tons annually. This coal analyses as follows, "No. 1" being the four-feet seam, "No. 2" the nine-feet seam:

No. 1. No. 2.

Water 3.23 2.97
Vol. Matter 40.93 40.08
Fixed Carbon 49.54 48.67
Ash 6.30 8.28
-------- --------
100. 100.

Sulphur .62 .65

It was old traveled ground, for the major part of the distance between El Moro and Cañon City, on the Arkansas, forty miles above Pueblo; and as we were anxious to save all the time we could for the new regions in the west, where we were sure the most romantic experiences awaited, we decided for another night-run, disadvantageous as they were, compared with day journeys. The next morning after our visit to El Moro, therefore, found us at anchor in Cañon City.

"What is there to see about Cañon City?" Oh, quantities of things. Here is a list of what its _Record_ keeps "set up" as its "advantages, natural and otherwise:"

"Soda springs, iron springs, hot soda baths, wide streets, excellent town site, immense water power, exhaustless coal fields, good water works, best building stone, splendid lime rock, iron mines, mica mines, lead mines, silver mines, oil wells, irrigating ditches, abundance of shade trees, peaches, plums, pears, apples, walnuts, grapes, vegetables, grain, flowers, bees, fifteen thousand dollar school house, twenty thousand dollar court house, Masonic temple, city government, low taxes, streets sprinkled, seven churches, theatre hall, first-class dentists, two newspapers, excellent physicians, good teachers, brick and stone stores, excellent society, protection from cold winds, immense stocks of goods, railroad communication, good ranches, stock ranges, excellent hotels, military college, and kindergarten."

Most of these items describe themselves, but others are worth mention. Right at the mouth of the Grand Cañon, which suggested the name, this site early attracted to a permanent home many of the earliest wanderers whom the famous Pike's Peak immigration of 1859 brought to the country. Half a century before them, though, Major Zebulon Pike had made a station for part of his troops on this spot, whence he reconnoitered the surrounding mountains.

Basing their calculations upon the fact that their settlement, which from the first was called Cañon City, was the last place to which the big emigration and freight wagons could come from the plains, the pioneers had large hopes of their town as the one entrepôt and supply-point for the mountains. Merchants came here and crammed great sheds with stocks of goods sold at wholesale, while forwarders were busy in organizing ox-trains to carry supplies into the mountains.

Then came the War of the Rebellion. All travel along the southern trail across the plains was cut off by the Indians, and immigration ceased, particularly from the Southern states, whence had come into this part of Colorado a large portion of the early settlers. More from lack of anything else to do than because of strong convictions on the subject, some two hundred and fifty young men enlisted from here into the Union service and were sent to New Mexico on that campaign against Sibley, wherein Colorado's regiments distinguished themselves. While the war raged Colorado was at a standstill, and the settlers had hard shift to live, all goods having to come by the way of Denver, subject to great risk.

Then the war closed, emigration westward revived, and Cañon City, along with the rest of the region, took a new lease of life. A committee of Germans came from Chicago seeking a place for a colony of their compatriots, and were guided by Mr. Rudd until they hit upon the Wet Mountain Valley and located Walsenburg. A little later, hopes of a railway cheered the hearts of the southern Coloradoans. The Kansas Pacific Company sent engineers up the Arkansas to locate their road across the range. They surveyed to this point, estimated upon the cost of grading through the cañon, and over the range by two or three routes. Then they abandoned the locality and deflected to Denver. This was no sooner done than reports of the advance of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe came to cheer the citizens, but disappointment ensued until early in the last decade the Denver and Rio Grande staked out their narrow gauge, and had the cars running regularly hither by the Spring of 1874.

All this time the town was slowly progressing and its vicinity being taken up for ranches, claimed for coal lands, quarried for building-stone and lime, and prospected for the precious metals. In 1879 came a "boom." Leadville flashed into sight and the Rosita and Silver Cliff district sprang to the front to rival it in excitement. To both these centers of rushing crowd Cañon City was one point of ingress. The town suddenly became thronged with men and women who were straining every nerve to get into the new regions, and with the undertow of a returning army of men disgusted with their reception and ill-luck, or jubilant over quick success, or going east only to return with machinery or goods or more money and friends.

To the task of catching toll from this careless, hurrying, fat-pocketed stream of humanity Cañon City set herself. The hotels charged big prices, lodging houses started up right and left, restaurants and boarding tents thrust out their signs every few steps, merchants urged your renewing your outfit at their replenished counters, and every form of wild amusement led to revelry and hideous headaches. Of all the wild towns it has been my fortune to see in the West, I think the Cañon City of those days was the worst. Ruffianism was the only fashionable thing, seemingly, and from the tangle-headed, dusty and drunken bull-whacker or the professional card-sharper to the staid old citizen, everybody had caught the spirit of a grand spree and the devil reigned.

But the railway was at last built through the cañon, the loud-swearing, quick-shooting teamsters followed their principals to the end of the track at Cleora, Salida, Buena Vista, and so on to Leadville itself; the gamblers and dance-houses and harlots followed; the host of railway laborers no longer made the village streets scenes of debauchery, and the town counted its gains, reckoned the loss its manners and morals had suffered, and returned to its normal quiet.

But its waking up had set its blood flowing faster and it has been a live town ever since, growing steadily, making public improvements, building houses and finding occupants faster than they could be put up, and all without any fictitious excitement.

It is for its coal mines--and these are half a dozen miles eastward--that Cañon City has the highest repute, however, and to these it owes much of its prosperity. They are the property of the ubiquitous Coal and Iron Company, who supply from here a large part of the fuel--and of the hardest and cleanest quality--used in the household all over the state. The railway consumes a great quantity too, for it has long been recognized as the best steam-maker. Two veins are now worked, one five feet and the other four feet in thickness. The mines are worked by slopes furnished with steam hoisters. The Coal Creek mine has been in operation for nine years. The company has recently opened two new slopes at Oak Creek, and are prepared to furnish 1,500 tons of coal per day from them. The total annual output of these mines is about 125,000 tons. The following are the analyses of these coals:

Water 4.50 6.15
Volatile Matter 34.20 36.03
Fixed Carbon 56.80 52.82
Ash 4.50 5.00
----- -----
Total 100 100

Sulphur .65

Everybody will understand from this statement that this coal is worthless for coking, but most desirable as fuel. Our cook will swear to this, but declines to tell how much he stole at various times for culinary use.

Withal, Cañon City is a pretty town; one of the pleasantest places to live in in Colorado. Rows of large trees shade all the side-walks (and they are side-walks of planking, not mere gravel paths), and the ample spaces left about each house are filled with fruit trees, flowers and garden vegetables. To go into such a garden as one I visited in town is a surprise. A picturesquely built house, its adobe walls hidden by much climbing vinery, has its porch turned into a thickly-leaved bower by masses upon masses of clematis, whose white, thistly puffs of seed-down, each as large as a snow ball, are strung upon the green stem like monstrous beads. The garden, of which this cottage is the center, abounds in apple trees, pears, quince, plum, and peach trees, through whose spring blossoms thousands of bees go to and fro bearing burdens of honey to the neat store-houses under the shade. The lower part of the garden falls away, terrace fashion, to the river, and here are arbors of grapes, thickets of currant and gooseberry bushes, beds of asparagus, celery, and all sorts of good plants to make the pot-boiler happy. Down by the river stands a windmill, by which water is pumped to a reservoir, whence the whole garden and orchard can be irrigated and sprinkled.

This is only one of hundreds of gardens small and great where fruit and vegetables are raised for home use and for sale. Marvelous stories are told of the weight of the cabbages, of the girth of the beets, of the solidity of the turnips and strength of the onions that go hence. And as for apples, scores and scores of acres are being newly set out in apple trees, and almost square miles of "truck" fields will next year add their quota to the unsatisfied market. I was astonished when I saw how extensive and successful was the culture of fruit and garden sauce in and about Cañon City.

This comes from good soil and easy climate. They say some winters here are so mild that one hardly needs an overcoat at all; it must be remembered that though the elevation is high the latitude is low. I saw a field where clover had been cut three times a year for twelve years, yet showed no signs of running out; and as for alfalfa, they cut the crop quarterly.

The citizens think that their town is likely to prove a manufacturing center. I see no reason why it should not. The river falls there at a rate which furnishes a fine water power, already utilized to propel the public water-works. With the best of coal close by, and iron in abundance only a little way off, I should think the future would see machine shops and foundries placed at this point; while factories for woolen cloth, for making wooden-ware from pine and for various other industries adapted to the resources and market of the neighborhood, shoe factories and leather-work by machinery generally ought to be flourishing here some day, since hides ought to be tanned here instead of being sent wholly to the East.

In the State prison, which is situated here, there is already a shoe-factory, but most of the prisoners are engaged in quarrying and cutting stone. The quarries are in the side hill, and the stone is a yellowish sand-rock, very good for building. The fine-appearing prison-buildings and the lofty wall which encloses them are built of this stone, as can readily be seen from the car-windows. Much stone, in the rough and shaped, is shipped from these quarries to Denver and elsewhere, and the railway makes extensive use of it.

Just outside of the foot hills, where the sand stone is procured, are the "hog-backs"--elongated ridges of white lime-rock. These, also, are being leveled to supply the lime-kilns and also to be sent to Leadville, Argo and elsewhere for the use of the smelting furnaces as flux. Something like two hundred car-loads a week, I am told, go to Leadville alone; but the competition of lime-ledges near Robinson and elsewhere north of Leadville is likely to diminish this shipment in future to that point. Possibly, though, if the newly discovered silver prospects over the hills near Blackburn turn out to be of any value, a home demand may make up for Leadville's discrepancies. Finally, petroleum seems to have been found here in quantities which will ultimately prove highly remunerative. Wells are being bored, and unexpectedly good results are obtained, so that high hopes are entertained that to her list of productions Colorado shall add in profitable quantities this wonderful substance--mineral oil--and the spirit of speculation and industry be given a new channel for its activity.