That Broad and Beckoning Highway: The Santa Fe Trail and the Rush for Gold in California and Colorado Dr. Michael L. Olsen 1 Preface The motto of the Santa Fe Trail Association is “The Santa Fe Trail Lives On.” This study of the role of the Santa Fe Trail in the California gold rush of 1849 and the “Rush to the Rockies” in 1859 echoes and reinforces that motto. It portrays the trail as a living entity for those who trod it during these two epic eras in American history. For them it was a broad and beckoning highway, literally their road to riches. They followed the trail for weeks and dreamed their dreams of untold wealth. The organization of this study is somewhat idiosyncratic for three reasons. First, the audience that will read and use it is highly varied. Second, as will become apparent, there are fundamental differences between the rush in 1849 and that of 1859 and they must be treated separately. And finally, since this piece will appear only as an Ebooks, it is broken into “user friendly” segments that can be accessed from a variety of electronic devices. The audience that might read or consult this analysis stretches across a spectrum from elementary, middle and high school students pursuing questions or class research to scholars referencing it for their own interests. Those folks in between will include the occasional trail traveler, trail “buffs” and aficionados, members of the Santa Fe Trail Association, anyone delving into the history of the two gold rushes, and all those interested in protecting, preserving, or interpreting the Santa Fe Trail. As a consequence, the study is not written or laid out as a traditional published work. It relies heavily on material quoted from emigrant diaries, letters, journals and memoirs. It draws extensively on contemporary newspaper coverage. Further, it can be “accessed” wherever a reader’s interest might lead without scrolling through many pages of narrative. 2 In certain basic ways this study is really two “books” because there is little connection between emigrant use of the trail in 1849 and emigrant and freighting activity in 1859. As a result it broken into two parts with a separate annotated bibliography for each. Part One, on the 1849 gold rush, is more lyrical given that emigrants then were encountering a trail that still ran largely through a “wilderness” which both frightened and enchanted them. Part Two, for the 1859 rush, is more analytical since the trail was more settled and “tamer” heading east from Missouri and because in 1859, as contrasted with 1849, the trail was a major freighting route to the Colorado mines. These two sections of the study are each introduced by a singular account. For 1849 the diary of emigrant H. M. T. Powell is incorporated. For 1859 the musings of William N. Byers, editor of the Rocky Mountains News are considered. These narratives are deliberately designed to engage a reader and prompt interest in the entire study. The layout of every component of this study has been planned for its publication as an Ebook rather than in traditional print format. There is a story here and it is written as such, but its elements are broken out into easily accessed and understood segments. With the aid of the Table of Contents a reader can reference any portion of the study and not wonder “what happened before this and how did we get here?” That necessity resulted in some duplication of source material from one section to another but in the end it serves readers, both casual and otherwise. The author would like to thank those who encouraged him and gave generously of their time: Frank Norris, historian with the National Park Service; Joanne VanCoevern, Santa Fe Trail Association Manager; Tim Blevins with Special Collections, Penrose Library, Pikes Peak Library District; and Patti Olsen and Kirsten Olsen who braved various editorial duties. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS OVERVIEW 5 PART ONE: HO! FOR CALIFORNIA – THE GOLD RUSH OF 1849 10 H. M. T. Powell and The Santa Fe Trail to California 13 “We Are on the Brink of the Age of Gold” – Horace Greeley 22 Why Choose the Santa Fe Trail as Your Route to California? 29 The Emigrant Experience of the Trail 64 The Significance of the Santa Fe Trail in the Gold Rush Emigration of 1849: Review and Observations 123 Ho! For California: 1849 Gold Rush Bibliography 134 PART TWO: HO! FOR COLORADO – THE SANTA FE TRAIL AND THE GOLD RUSH OF 1859 164 The Gold Rush, the Santa Fe Trail and the Rocky Mountain News 166 Changes along the Trail in the 1850s – Prelude to the “Rush to Colorado” 175 1858: The Santa Fe Trail and the Opening of the Colorado Gold Fields 181 Colorado Gold Rush Guidebooks 197 Emigrants on the Trail in 1859 209 Freighting on the Santa Fe Trail to the Colorado Mines, 1859-1870 222 The Significance of the Santa Fe Trail in the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859 236 Ho! For Colorado 1859 Gold Rush Bibliography 240 4 OVERVIEW The California gold rush of 1849 is one of the iconic events in American history. After more than 150 years “California” and “gold” remain synonymous in the American mind. For many the details of the momentous discovery at Sutter’s Mill may be hazy, but even today almost everyone can hum a few bars of Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susanna,” perhaps recalling its famous lyric of 1849, “I’m going to California with my washpan on my knee.” And every football season, multitudes of fans cheer on the “San Francisco ’49ers.” (The lyric in “Oh! Susanna” celebrating the California gold rush was not written by Stephen Foster, but was a later adaptation. Foster’s original composition was first published in 1848.) The “Rush to the Rockies,” the race for Colorado gold in 1859, does not similarly register to any like degree with the American public. It does define the history of the Intermountain and Rocky Mountain West, but while Coloradans acknowledge the gold rush as central to the development of the state, they most likely associate the names of the historic mining towns like Cripple Creek, Breckenridge, and Aspen with casino gambling, ski resorts, and upscale shopping. Nonetheless, the residual wealth of the Colorado mines is still in evidence and influential in the state, such as in the philanthropic endeavors of the El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs, endowed by the mining fortune of Spencer and Julie Penrose. This present study, “That Broad and Beckoning Highway: The Santa Fe Trail and the Rush for Gold in California and Colorado,” will investigate the role of that historic trail in the events of 1849 and 1859. While much has been written on the Santa Fe Trail as a trade route and economic link between the western fringe of American settlement and the Republic of Mexico and then the American Southwest, and as a road to conquest in the Mexican-American War of 5 1846-1848, it has not been interpreted as a highway to the gold fields. Yet, in 1849 thousands of California-bound emigrants used the trail as a link to the Pacific Coast via the Gila Trail and other routes through the Southwest deserts. In 1859, more thousands of men and women hopeful of finding their fortunes in Colorado opted to travel the well-known and well-trodden Santa Fe Trail. In both instances, these emigrants blazed no new route to the west. Instead, they reinforced the importance of the Santa Fe Trail as the first and most historic road leading Americans on their quest for new frontiers beyond the Missouri River. There are two sections to this study. Part One will address the role of the trail in the 1849 California gold rush, and Part Two will similarly consider developments for the 1859 Colorado rush. An evaluation of the significance of the trail in each emigration and suggestions for new or further interpretations and research follows at the conclusion of these chapters. A highly detailed annotated bibliography is provided for each part. In the bibliography for Part Two – the 1859 gold rush – the extensive list of guidebooks for the “Rush to the Rockies” is set apart from other works on the topic. These annotated bibliographies in particular identify those primary sources which pertain very specifically to the use of the Santa Fe Trail in the “rushes” of 1849 and 1859, a distinction which has not generally been made previously in trail studies. This study does not include a general overview of the history of the Santa Fe Trail, though each emigration is considered in the context of its time and place. The literature of the Santa Fe Trail is vast – in fact, the written “history” of the trail dates from 1844 and the publication of Josiah Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies. There are excellent general treatments, from Robert Duffus’ somewhat romanticized The Santa Fe Trail to Jack D. Rittenhouse’s scholarly introduction in The Santa Fe Trail: A Historical Bibliography. Since 1986, Wagon Tracks: The Santa Fe Trail Association Quarterly magazine has published hundreds of articles 6 and news items concerning the history and heritage of the old trail, the Santa Fe National Historic Trail, and current trail-related developments. There are also numerous resources, including the full text of 25 years of Wagon Tracks, online at a host of Internet sites. This study particularly emphasizes the burgeoning technological resources for both the historic and contemporary Santa Fe Trail. The approach taken toward the 1849 California gold rush and the 1859 Colorado gold rush in the following pages will be similar in that the same basic questions will be asked of each.