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Many good books have been written about westward migration, the subject of this chapter, so this will be a summary selected for the purpose of illuminating the factors which stimulated and shaped settlement of this area.  First, is a look at our deep roots which provides perspective on human activity in Colorado and the surrounding region. Next, I identify the factors affecting large scale movement - immigration - into the region with emphasis on the specific factors affecting the settlement of our community.  The material in this section is based primarily on the Historical Atlas of The American West, and Encyclopedia Britannica (CD). Colorado means “red,” or “ruddy” in Spanish.

Our Deep Roots: A Chronology of Colorado's Early Inhabitants, Explorers and Territorial Claims

Native American tribes lived in Colorado for thousands of years: the Arapahoe and Cheyenne in the east (the "plains Indians"), the Kiowa in southeast, and the Ute (Great Basin Indians) west of the Continental divide, in Utah and surrounding areas.

1700s.    From opposing directions, the Spanish from the south (Santa Fe) and the French from northeast (Great Lakes) sought to settle and claim the lands of the great plains. The activities of the Spanish are better known than those of the French since fir trappers were not disposed to keep records, whereas the Spanish military explorations were required to do so.

1706    Spanish explorer Juan de Urribarri traveled from Santa Fe into southern Colorado to ransom Christian Indian captives from plains tribes, crossing the Arkansas River near Pueblo.

1763    The Treaty of Paris, ends the Seven Year war between Britain and France, with the later transferring western land claims to Spain (why, I don’t know).

1776    Fray Silvestre de Escalante, seeking a northern route to connect Santa Fe with Monterey California, explored a route in western Colorado through Utah, without success.

1779     Juan Bautista de Anza took an expedition into southeastern Colorado.

1783    France claims all land west of Mississippi.

1800    Spain claims all land west of Mississippi.

1803     Louisiana Purchase: the U.S. purchased from Spain eastern Colorado along with north Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South and North Dakotas, western Montana, and most of Wyoming; Spain retains remaining land to the West, including Colorado west of the Continental Divide.

1806     Zebulon Pike, army Lieutenant, explored the Arkansas and Red rivers seeking information about the adjacent Spanish territory. Established an outpost near the site of present-day Pueblo, Colo., then led his party northwest, where they encountered the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. After trying unsuccessfully to scale the mountain peak later named for Pike, the party proceeded southward to northern New Mexico, where they were apprehended by Spanish officials on the charge of illegal entry into New Mexico. They were escorted across Texas to the Spanish–American border at Natchitoches, La., where on July 1, 1807, they were released.

1820     Stephen Long, a Major in the Army, led the only scientific expedition of the period, in the hope of securing American control of the fir trade and end British dominance of the Indians of the Upper Missouri. They advanced as far north as Council Bluffs Nebraska. Longs Peak (14,255 feet) in Rocky Mountain National Park is named in his honor and is the northernmost "fourteener" in Colorado.

1821     Mexico declares independence from Spain, thus those lands, including western but not eastern Colorado, are now Mexican territory, which lasts 27 years until the lands are transferred to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

1843     John C. Fremont, was sent by the War Department to survey a route west to Wyoming .  On second expedition  came up North Fork through Livermore area, in error since he was intending to explore the main canyon of the Poudre.

I place the factors influencing western migration into two categories, (1) Personal Motivation, why people wanted to (or had to) leave their home environment, and (2) Enabling and Shaping Factors, external events which made westward migration possible, or easier, or otherwise affected where people went and settled. The importance of some of these factors is self evident, some are briefly explained in the annotated list below, while others are discussed in more depth subsequently.

• Improving one’s life, seeking what we would now call the "middle class" lifestyle, comfortable but not luxurious,

• Fortune seeking, desire to accumulate great wealth,

• Adventure, desire for excitement,

• Major social calamities: Civil War, Chicago Fire, wherein people lost their home or farm

• Utopian dreams (e.g. Greeley) or desire for religious freedom (Mormons)

• Escape from a scandal or rejection by a community

European Migration to the U.S. The 1840s was the beginning of the "Great Migration" from Europe to North America, the largest migration in history according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite CD (EB-CD). The first major wave involved millions emigrating from Ireland and Germany. A second and larger wave involved emigrants from eastern and southern Europe, some 17 million between 1880 and 1910. Altogether about 37 million Europeans emigrated between 1820 and 1980. Pressure to move west developed as the best land in the East and Midwest was taken.

1843 -1865     the Great Migration. During this 22-year period 400-500 thousand people (about 20,000 per year) leave their homes in the East and Midwest for Oregon, California, and Utah (principally the Mormons). Some don’t go the whole distance but stay in Colorado and other points along the way. Note, during the early years these people are emigrants because from a legal point of view, they are leaving the U.S. to live in a foreign country since at this time the land did not belong to the U.S. This legal situation soon gets resolved as the British give up their claims in Oregon in 1846 and in 1848 it is organized as a U.S. territory. The Mexican Session brings the remaining areas under U.S. control.

1848     Mexican Session. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo terminates the war between United States and Mexico and transfers Mexican territory to the U.S. for a payment of $15 million and assumption of $3.25 million in claims held by U.S. citizens against Mexico.

             Discovery of Gold in California, 35,000 men (mostly) depart the East and Midwest to seek their fortunes (Holliday, 94). This is followed shortly in 1859 by the discovery of Gold in Colorado, near present-day Denver and nearby towns of Central City, Black Hawk, Gold Hill, and Cripple Creek.

1861   Colorado becomes a territory; Territorial Legislature creates Larimer as one of 17 counties

            Ben Holliday acquires the Overland Stage Route (sells to Wells Fargo 1866) facilitating travel.

1862     Homestead Act (and later amendments), establish the means to acquire land

1876     Colorado becomes the 38^th state, 104,091 square miles.

1879     Arrival of Intercontinental railroad, Union Pacific, at Cheyenne, brings people and more land for purchase. Completed May 10, 1869, with joining of two ends at Promontory, Utah.

1879     Agricultural College of Colorado, established in 1970, begins offering classes (name changed to Colorado State University in 1957). Educational institutions are magnets that attract people and help communities grow and prosper.

Discussion of the factors

My favorite book for understanding many of these factors is Centennial by James Michener. While he is emphatic that his book is fiction, it is solidly based upon factual research; his four pages of acknowledgements thank people in the following categories (a partial list): geology, paleontology, early man, Oregon Trail, cattle trails, ranch life, railroads, irrigation, and the cattle industry. In this later category he thanks Russell Staats of Chugwater Wyoming who is the custodian of the great Swan Land and Cattle Company operations. This is a real company in Wyoming, and the story of our community includes Swans. The Swan Land and Cattle Company is discussed in another illuminating book Roadside History of Wyoming by Candy Moulton, "a third-generation Wyoming native who grew up on a ranch near Encampment in the south-central portion of the state." (Encampment is at the headwaters of the North Platte and only a few miles from the Colorado border.) Here are excerpts from her book (p. 152, emphasis added to highlight two enabling factors listed above).

".. the Swan family came from Iowa to seek their fortunes. ... The period from 1883 to 1886 was prosperous for Swan and his Scottish investors. From an initial investment of $15,000 in 1873, the empire grew in value to $15 million. ... By 1885 Swan was a true cattle baron, controlling more than 200,000 head on a range that extended from Ogallala, Nebraska, to near Saratoga, Wyoming, a distance of well over 200 miles. But his Scottish investors began to accuse him of mismanagement when only 480 of the 11,500 Texas steers bought in 1884 could be accounted for in 1885."

Doesn’t that sound like the scenario for the Venneford Ranch in Centennial? An Englishman, Oliver Seccombe, was the brains behind the Venneford Ranch. He understood the scarcity of water, how he could capitalize on the Homestead Act to monopolize the water and thereby make use of the vast acres of waterless federal land to raise cattle, and finally he knew how to raise money in England from wealthy barons. Some excerpts from Centennial follow (p. 521 - 523):

"That’s what you and I are going to do Levi. You help me get the land, I’ll get the cattle and we’ll use the money of Englishmen sitting on their fancy bottoms in Bristol."

How was Levi to get the land? The Homestead Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, providing 160 acres of public land free of charge (except for a small filing fee) to anyone either 21 years of age or head of a family, a citizen or person who had filed for citizenship, who had lived on and cultivated the land for at least five years.

Levi "produced a rough map of northeastern Colorado Territory, with the Platte River drawn conspicuously and showing numerous small streams running into it from the north. ... Under this act the trick is to get title only to those parcels of land that control water. Get a hundred and sixty acres of such land, and you control ten thousand acres of range land that has no water.

The story of how they – under the leadership of John Skimmerhorn – brought cattle from Texas is fascinating, and real, although the details are invented. The cattle trails described in Centennial– the (Charles) Goodnight-(Oliver) Loving Trail, the (Jessie) Chisholm Trail – are in fact real trails which Moulton describes in her book. For me, then, Michener in his novel fills in the details, the level beneath the "bare" historical facts.

The Homestead Act had a major impact on western migration. By the turn of the century, more than 80 million acres had been claimed by a total of 600,000 homestead farmers. Homestead act provided 3 ways to claim ownership: living on the land, tree farming, and mineral extraction. 

It is interesting to note that (EB-CD)

"opposition to the Homestead Movement came from Eastern employers who did not want workers to have the option of leaving low-paying jobs for a farm in the West, from eastern landowners who feared the threat to land values posed by a huge public domain given away to anyone willing to settle on it, and from Southern slaveholders who saw homesteaders as antislavery advocates. Only when Southern participation in the federal government ceased in 1861 because of the Civil War did homestead legislation become a genuine possibility."

Michener (Centennial p. 523) connects several of these immigration factors

"In the years following the Civil War, when rootless families threatened to menace stabilized society, they were adroitly converted into self-respecting citizens by the homestead act, and much of the greatness of states like Kansas and Minnesota and Colorado stemmed from the application of this wise law.

Moulton (p. 266) says this is the case for the Swan brothers, at least the branch which settled in the Encampment Valley.

The end of the American Civil war displaced many men who lost homes, some fell in love with the wandering life, and others sought fortunes in the west.

Remittance Men

Remittance men came from England and played an important role in the settlement of the West and the cattle business. In England where all the land has been owned for centuries, if you are the eldest son of the landed gentry, you inherited your father’s land. The other sons were out of luck, generally speaking, or if the family fortune were adequate, you became a remittance man, that is you received an allowance. It is not clear whether the remittance came in the form of a monthly or annual payment, or a lump sum at the beginning; perhaps all three forms of payment were used. Centennial describes the importance of remittance men and is certainly worth reading both for the education and the sheer entertainment. The largest landowner in his book was the Venneford Ranch, founded by Oliver Seccombe with assistance from Levi Zendt.  Some names of Remittance Man in our area are Cecil Moon, Maude Roxby, Charles Halliday (Ashby Grange), Harry Gilpin Brown and Cradock.  For more on this subject see the book Marmalade and Whiskey.  

Chicago Fire (EB)

Four square miles of Chicago, including the business district, were destroyed by fire on October 8–10, 1871. Starting in the southwest, fed by wooden buildings and pavements and favored by a long dry spell, flames spread northeastward, leaping the Chicago River and dying out only when they reached Lake Michigan. About 250 lives were lost, some 90,000 people were made homeless, and almost $200,000,000 in property was destroyed.