as interference by that government, and that their political salvation lay nearer home. They saw that four territorial governments were involved in the Pike's Peak country, and that the country was in itself an economic unit. It was this understanding which pressed upon Congress early in 1859 with a new territorial scheme, and which even earlier than this had produced a spontaneous political activity in the mountain camps.
The beginnings of Colorado politics are to be found in the movement originating in Denver in November, 1858, and culminating in the territorial organization of Jefferson in November, 1859. The origin seems to have been in a typical early snowfall that drove the miners into their cabins in November, 1858, and by enforcing idleness upon them gave an opportunity for talking politics.[1] Perhaps two hundred miners were in Denver when the snowfall came, of whom some thirty-five attended a meeting on November 6, and determined to erect a new government for the Pike's Peak country. "Just to think", wrote one of them, "that within two weeks of the arrival of a few dozen Americans in a wilderness, they set to work to elect a Delegate to the United States Congress, and ask to be set apart as a new Territory! But we are of a fast race and in a fast age and must prod along."[2] To secure an attention to their demand they chose one Hiram J. Graham to appear in their behalf at Washington, and one A. J. Smith to represent them in the legislature of Kansas.[3] The arrival of these men in Omaha seems at once to have confirmed the report of the discovery of placer gold in the western streams and to have announced the birth of a new centre of population. Four months after this first election a new political whim struck Denver camp, and a set of local officers was chosen March 28, 1859, for Arapahoe County, Kansas, in spite of the fact that Kansas had on February 7, 1859, foreseen the coming emigration, reshaped Arapahoe, and cut out of it five new counties of Montana, Oro, El Paso, Fremont, and Broderick.[4] The only significance of this March election, for its officers seem never to have held power, lies in the fact that nearly eight hundred votes were then cast. Already
- ↑ Ovando J. Hollister, in his Mines of Colorado (Springfield. Mass., 1867), 17, is responsible for the statement that ten inches of snow fell on October 3:. 1858.
- ↑ Ibid., 18.
- ↑ Ibid., 90; Smiley, 305, 530; Frank Fossett, Colorado: a Historical, Descriptive and Statistical Work on the Rocky Mountain Gold and Silver Mining Region (Denver, 1876), 17; Frank Hall, History of the State of Colorado (Chicago, 1889-1895, 4 vols.), I. 208; H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, vol. XX., Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming (San Francisco, 1890), 402.
- ↑ Smiley, 246, 531; Hall, I. 183; Bancroft, 402; Baskin and Co., History of the City of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado (Chicago, 1880), 187.
