While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
In telling of the great quantities of
game in this region, Ruxton says:
Never was there such a
paradise for hunters as this
lone and solitary spot.
Game abounded on every hand. Bear, elk,
deer, mountain sheep, antelope, and grouse
were in abundance in the surrounding
mountains and valleys. Of buffalo there were
few except in the valleys west of Pike's
Peak and in the Bayou Salado, or South Park,
as it is now known.
Ruxton further says:
It is a singular fact that
within the last two years the
prairies, extending from the
mountains to one hundred miles
or more down the Arkansas, have
been entirely abandoned by the
buffalo; indeed, in crossing
from the settlements of New
Mexico, the boundary of their
former range is marked by skulls
and bones, which appear fresher
as the traveler advances
westward and towards the waters
of the Platte.
The evidence that Ruxton here mentions
were still apparent twelve or fourteen years
later, when the first settlers of this
region arrived. Buffalo skulls and bones
were scattered everywhere over the plains,
but live buffalo could seldom be found
nearer than one hundred miles east of the
mountains.
The reason for this has been variously
stated, some claiming that a contagious
disease broke out among the buffalo in the
early forties, which virtually exterminated
those along the eastern base of the
mountains. Others say that about that time
there was a tremendous snowfall in the early
part of the winter which covered the whole
country along the eastern base of the
mountains to a depth of six to eight feet,
and that as a result all the buffalo within
the region of the snowfall starved to death
during the following winter. It is very
possible that the latter reason may have
been the true one, as a heavy fall of snow
in the early part of the winter is not
unknown. In the winter of 1864-1865 the
antelope of this region nearly starved to
death, owing to a two-foot fall of snow, on
the last day of October and the first day of
November, 1864, which covered the ground to
a considerable depth for most of the winter.
While it is true that there were no buffalo
in this immediate region at the time Ruxton
was here, nor afterwards, it is well-known
that they had been fairly plentiful in
earlier years. Lieutenant Pike tells of
killing five buffalo the day he reached the
present site of Pueblo in 18o6, and a day or
two afterwards he killed three more on
Turkey Creek, about twenty miles south of
where Colorado Springs now stands, and saw
others while climbing the mountains in his
attempt to reach the "high point," "as he
calls it, now known as Pike's Peak.
In 1820, Long's expedition, on its way from
Platte Canon, killed several buffalo on
Monument Creek, a few miles south of the
Divide; and later, while camped on the
Fountain a short distance below the site of
the present city of Colorado Springs, killed
several more.
Sage says that in 1842, during a five days'
stay at Jimmy's Camp (ten miles east of the
present city of Colorado Springs), he
"killed three fine buffalo cows."
After Ruxton had been camped near Manitou
Springs for two or three weeks, while out
hunting one day, he ran across an Indian
camp, which startled him very much. No
Indians were in sight at the time, but later
he got a glimpse of two carrying in a deer
which they had killed. The next morning
Ruxton concluded that as a matter of safety,
he had better remove his camp to some more
secluded spot. The following day a fire was
started on the side of the mountain to the
south of the springs, which rapidly spread
in every direction. He says:
I had from the first no doubt that the fire
was caused by the Indians who had probably
discovered my animals, and thinking that a
large party of hunters might be out, had
taken advantage of a favorable wind to set
fire to the grass, hoping to secure the
horses and mules in the confusion, without
risk of attacking the camp.
In order to be out of reach of the fire,
Ruxton moved his camp down the Fontaine qui
Bouille six or seven miles. He says:
All this time the fire was spreading out on
the prairies. It extended at least five
miles on the left bank of the creek and on
the right was more slowly creeping up the
mountainside, while the brush and timber in
the bottom was one mass of flame. Besides
the long, sweeping line of the advancing
flame the plateaus on the mountainside and
within the line were burning in every
direction as the squalls and eddies down the
gullies drove the fire to all points. The
mountains themselves being invisible, the
air from the low ground where I then was,
appeared a mass of fire, and huge crescents
of flame danced as it were in the very sky,
until a mass of timber blazing at once
exhibited the somber background of the
stupendous mountains.
The fire extended towards the waters of the
Platte upwards of forty miles, and for
fourteen days its glare was visible on the
Arkansas River fifty miles distant.
The testimony of Ruxton bears out
information I have from other sources, that
a large portion of the great areas of dead
timber on the mountain-sides of this region
is the result of fires started by the
various Indian tribes in their wanderings to
and fro. Old trappers say that the Ute
frequently went out upon the plains on
horse-stealing expeditions; that when they
had located a camp of their enemies, they
would stealthily creep in among their ponies
in the night, round them up, and start off
towards the mountains with as many as they
could hastily gather together. They were
sure to be pursued the following morning
when the raid had been discovered, and often
the Ute with the stolen herd. would find
their pursuers close after them by the time
they reached the mountains. In that case,
they knew that if they followed up Ute Pass
they were likely to be overtaken, but by
crossing over the northern point of Cheyenne
Mountain and on to the west along a trail
that ran not very far distant from the route
now followed by the Cripple Creek Short
Line, they could much more easily elude
their pursuers. If, when west of Cheyenne
Mountain the Ute found their enemies gaining
upon them, they would start a timber fire to
cover their retreat. These fires would, of
course, spread indefinitely and ruin immense
tracts of timber. This is doubtless one of
the principal reasons why our mountainsides
are so nearly denuded of their original
growth of trees. These horse-stealing raids
were no uncommon occurrence. Colonel Dodge,
in his book Our Wild Indians, tells of one
made by the Ute in 1874, which was daring as
well as successful. He says:
A mixed band of some fifteen hundred Sioux
and Cheyenne, hunting in 1874, went well up
on the head-waters of the Republican River
in search of buffalo. The Ute found them out
and a few warriors slipped into their camp
during the night, stampeded their ponies at
daylight, and. in spite of the hot pursuit
of the Sioux, reached the mountains with
over two hundred head.
