Half Hours in the Wide West (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1875 Excerpt: ... AT COLORADO SPRINGS. YOU may imagine Colorado Springs, as I did, to be in a sequestered valley, with bubbling fountains, green grass, and shady trees; but not a bit of it. Picture to yourself a level, elevated plateau of greenish brown, without a single tree, sloping down about a quarter of a mile to the railroad track and Monument Creek (the Soda Springs being six miles off), and you have a pretty good idea of the town-site as it appeared in November, 1871. The streets and blocks were only marked out by a furrow turned with the plough, and indicated faintly by a wooden house, finished, or in process of building, here and there, scattered over half a mile of prairie. On the corner of Tejon and Huerfano Streets stood the office of the Denver and Rio Grande Kailway, a small wooden building of three rooms, in which all the colony work was done till the new office should be finished; and next to it was my home. It was a wooden shanty, sixteen feet by twelve, with a small window of four panes on each side, and a door in front. Over the door M. put up his tent, with a rough board floor, which served for our sitting-room by day, and he slept in it at night. The shanty was lined with thick brown paper, so that it was quite air-tight; and though it had only been ordered on Thursday, and finished on Saturday, was really quite comfortable. In one corner we put my little camp bed; in the other my trunks. Our furniture had not arrived from Denver; so M. found an old wooden stool, which had been used for mixing paints upon, tacked a bit of coloured calico over it, and deposited upon it a tin basin; and there was an impromptu wash-hand stand. A few feet of half-inch board were soon converted into corner shelves; and, with warm red and yellow Californian blankets on the be...