(Tribune, Kans,)—Eads—Ordway—Pueblo—Westcliffe; State 96. Kansas Line to Westcliffe, 214.2 miles. Graded dirt road between Pueblo and Wetmore, west of Greenwood, and between Querida and Westcliffe; elsewhere graveled. Missouri Pacific R. R. parallels route between Kansas Line and Pueblo. Accommodations limited east of Pueblo.              

In its approach to industrial Pueblo, Colorado's second largest city, State 96 crosses a plains region. West of Pueblo the highway traverses an irrigated belt along the Arkansas River, ascends the foothills, and threads its way through a series of canyons into the Wet Mountain Valley country.

Section a. KANSAS LINE to PUEBLO; 157.2 miles State 96

The semiarid plains of southeastern Colorado once were the grazing lands of the buffalo and the hunting grounds of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche Indians. Droves of longhorn cattle, driven north from Texas, supplanted the buffalo, and between the 1860's and 1890's the open range was held by a few large ranch owners. Construction of the Missouri Pacific R. R. opened the country to homesteaders, and a number of small towns, named in alphabetical order, sprang up along the tracks.

State 96 crosses the KANSAS LINE, 0 miles, 18 miles west of Tribune, Kans. (see Kansas Guide).

TOWNER, 2 miles (3,923 alt., 175 pop.), is a village in the dry farming area. South of Towner, in March 1931, a rural school bus was caught in a spring blizzard. The driver left his 22 charges in the bus and set out afoot to bring aid. He perished in a field a few miles away. Five of the children died from exposure. Others would probably have met a similar fate had it not been for Bryan Unteidt, one of the pupils, who compelled the others to exercise and play games and thus keep warm. In recognition of his heroism Bryan was invited to the White House by President Hoover and publicly honored.

SHERIDAN LAKE, 13.8 miles (4,080 alt., 100 pop.), a small farm community, was once the seat of Kiowa County.

Beyond SAND CREEK, 26.2 miles, a small stream that in 1864 was the southern boundary of the territory then held by the Plains Indians, is CHIVINGTON, 27.9 miles (3,890 alt., 65 pop.), named for Colonel John Chivington, who commanded Colorado territorial troops at the Sand Creek Massacre (see below).

Right from Chivington on a dirt road (inquire directions locally) to the SITE OF THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE, 10 miles, perhaps the most disputed incident in Colorado's early history. The scene of the conflict in which an Indian village was virtually wiped out in a surprise attack by white soldiery, is unmarked.

When many Federal troops were withdrawn from Colorado Territory at the beginning of the Civil War, the Plains Indian tribes began to attack settlers and wagon trains. Sporadic forays continued despite the signing of a treaty with the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Fort Lyon, whereby the two tribes agreed to give up all lands east of the mountains between the Arkansas and the Platte in return for $450,000, to be paid in five yearly installments. The Federal Government's failure to fulfill the treaty obligations resulted in starvation among the Indians and precipitated trouble.

Conditions grew steadily worse—the Santa Fe Trail being closed at times to travel—until the summer of 1864, when Territorial Governor John Evans called a grand council of Indian chiefs to settle the difficulties. Black Kettle, chief of the Cheyenne, insisted that the raiding was being done by the Sioux and Comanche, together with a few irresponsible members of his own tribe, and asserted that there was no offensive alliance between his people and the Arapaho with the "hostiles." While admitting that most of the raiding was done by the Sioux, the white leaders blamed the two tribes that had signed the peace treaty. A deadlock resulted, and Governor Evans turned matters over to the military.

Colonel John Chivington, formerly a presiding elder of the Rocky Mountain District of the Kansas-Nebraska Methodist Conference, had shown talent as a soldier and his promotion had been rapid. Declaring that his policy always was to fight his enemies "until they are beaten and lay down their arms," he ordered all Plains tribes to report at the nearest garrison post and surrender. Governor Evans authorized the mobilization of an emergency Third Regiment, then departed for Washington to remain until the following spring.

According to Major Wynkoop, commandant at Fort Lyon, Black Kettle and his Cheyenne soon appeared at the post to surrender under Chivington's terms. Major S. G. Collery, Indian agent at the fort, and John Smith, an interpreter, supported Wynkoop in this statement. Yet Major Scott J. Anthony, a friend of Chivington, who relieved Wynkoop as post commander in the fall of 1864, swore that the Indians encamped near the fort on his arrival were not Cheyenne but Arapaho. Actually, they were of both tribes, although the majority were Cheyenne. In light of the controversy that subsequently raged, much depends upon whether Chivington knew that the Indian encampment on Sand Creek was that of Black Kettle's band, or whether he believed it to be a hostile camp. Black Kettle's good faith has also been questioned by some historians who assert that he was continuously in contact with the hostiles and had merely adopted the not uncommon Indian strategy of surrendering during the cold season while preparing to take the war trail in the spring after his people had. rested and gathered supplies. In any event, Major Anthony ordered the band away from the fort, saying that he could no longer feed them. He admitted that when a delegation of Cheyenne later expressed a desire to make peace he informed them that he had no authority to establish treaties and could not permit them to visit the fort.

Meanwhile the 100-day recruits of the Third Regiment in Denver became tired of camp life. They wanted action and got it when Chivington suddenly and secretly marched them south in a blizzard. On the way they were joined by Captain Wilson and 125 men of the First Colorado Cavalry. On Nov. 28, 1864, they reached Fort Lyon. Chivington threw a cordon around the post so that word of their arrival would not leak out. Anthony told Chivington that in a village on Sand Creek were a number of lodges of hostile Arapaho.

His force augmented by 125 more First Colorado Cavalrymen and a howitzer battery, bringing the total number of soldiers to 750, Chivington marched north that same evening, and at dawn his troops closed in upon the sleeping village and opened fire. Chivington had given orders that no prisoners were to be taken, and his orders were obeyed. Smith, the interpreter, who was in the camp at the time, later testified that of the 650 Indians in the encampment, 450 were women and children. The exact number of Indians killed has never been determined, estimates ranging from 150 to 500, but their losses were unquestionably heavy. The majority of the victims were old men, women, and children, who were shot down indiscriminately. Black Kettle escaped, but his brother chief, White Antelope, was killed. Left Hand, a head chief of the Arapaho, was slain in front of his tent as he stood with folded arms defying his foes. By midafternoon the troopers had broken all resistance and that night burned the village.

The Sand Creek Massacre aroused such a country-wide storm that a Senatorial investigation resulted in January 1865. Chivington was cited for court martial but was never brought to trial. Testimony before the committee brought out that the bodies of slain Indians, women and men alike, had been horribly mutilated by the soldiers. Lieutenant Cramer of the First Colorado Cavalry stated, "The slaughter was continuous; no Indian, old or young, male or female, was spared." Some soldiers declared that fresh white scalps were found hanging in the Indian lodges, indicating that the braves had been on the warpath, but if this were true, the scalps were burned with the village.

Chivington stated in his official report: "My reason for making the attack on the Indian camp was that I believed the Indians in the camp were hostile to the whites. I believed that they were of the same tribes as those who had murdered many persons and destroyed much valuable property on the Platte and Arkansas Rivers. ... I had reason to believe that Black Kettle and the Indians with him were not in good faith at peace with the whites. ... I do not know that any Indians were wounded that were not killed. It may perhaps be unnecessary to state that I captured no prisoners." Chivington added that in his opinion most of the women and children in the camp escaped.

The highway traverses prairie lands to EADS, 42 miles (4,262 alt., 518 pop.), seat of Kiowa County, named for James B. Eads, engineer, who built the suspension bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis. The town is the center of a dry farming area growing wheat, barley, and cane for forage; the Missouri Pacific Railroad maintains a stockyards here. The annual Kiowa County Seed and Poultry Fair is held in Eads during the fall.

West of Eads the route crosses a succession of desolate brown hills relieved by clumps of yucca and matted stretches of prickly pear and ball cacti. In spring the silky yellow blossoms of the prickly pear blend with the deep pink flowers embedded among the spikes of the .ball cactus. The yucca, better known as Spanish bayonet or soapweed, bristles with dagger-like leaves and bears tall spikes of ivory white blossoms, often referred to as Madonna candles. From the fiber of this plant Indians made a stout rope; the roots, which produce a lather in water, were used for soap; early Spanish colonists planted the yucca around their fortifications as protection against invaders, hence its name.

TODD POINT (R), 90.5 miles, a large butte looming above the flat prairie, served as landmark and signal point in early cattle days.

SUGAR CITY, 99.1 miles (4,325 alt., 598 pop.), is the center of a prosperous stock raising and general farming district. The NATIONAL CITY BEET SUGAR FACTORY (open 9-4 weekdays on application) has a daily beet-slicing capacity of 800 tons.

At 99.5 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on this road to LAKE HENRY (duck hunting and fishing), 25 m,

At 100.8 miles is the junction with another dirt road.

Left on this road to LAKE MEREDITH (fishing, boating, and swimming; duck hunting), 1.3 miles

ORDWAY, 104.5 miles (4,300 alt., 1,139 pop.)> is a shipping point for melons, an important crop in this area.

CROWLEY, 111.5 miles (4,275 alt., 323 pop.), was named in 1880 for the owner of a large ranch on which wild horses were caught, broken, and shipped to England for use in the army. West of OLNEY SPRINGS, 116.5 miles (4400 alt., 228 pop.), the western end of the irrigated belt, State 96 parallels US 50 (see Tour 9a) into Pueblo, the two roads following opposite banks of the Arkansas River.

NORTH AVONDALE, 142.6 TTZ. (4,500 alt., 73 pop.), is populated chiefly by Italians and Slavs who supplement farm earnings by working in the Pueblo steel mills.

PUEBLO, 157.2 miles (4,700 alt., 50,096 pop.) (see Pueblo), is at the junction with US 50 (see Tour 9) and US 85 (see Tour 12).

Section b. PUEBLO to WESTCLIFFE; 57 miles State 96

Along this section of the route are reminders of the old Texas cattle trails, the Mormons' trek to their promised land, and the explorations of Lieutenant Pike and Kit Carson. From barren prairies the highway penetrates forest growth that cloaks the mountains. Here and there are crumbling ghost towns that knew a glamorous past. Many generations of Spanish and German farmers have wrested a living from the fertile lands of the Wet Mountains.

West of PUEBLO, 0 miles, the highway passes the old GOODNIGHT RANCH (R), 2 miles, once owned by Colonel Charles Goodnight, noted in western annals as a cattle king and the founder of the Goodnight Trail, over which thousands of longhorns were driven from Texas to Colorado. Fields of alfalfa, oats, and other crops border the Arkansas River.

The highway crosses the BESSEMER DITCH, which conveys water from the Arkansas River to the steel mills at Pueblo, and traverses rough prairie land; weathered frame and adobe farmhouses appear at intervals. Small herds of cattle graze upon the plain; the presence of artesian wells is indicated by the green fields of corn and hay as the route approaches the WET MOUNTAINS, once the hunting ground of the Ute. Crossed by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and his company in 1806, the mountains were named by a party of Mormon immigrants (see Pueblo), who rejoiced to see these green and wooded slopes, with heavy rain clouds hovering above them, after their long march across the dry prairie. Curiously, both the Spanish and the Indians had so named the range in their respective tongues. The gently rolling eroded summits and the lower heights of the Greenhorn Range of the Wet Mountains, one of the oldest geologically in the State, rather more resemble the mountains of the East than of Colorado.

WETMORE, 28 miles (6,000 alt., 75 pop.), site of a stagecoach station in pioneer days, was named for pioneer rancher Billy Wetmore. Old frame buildings jostle log cabins of summer residents in this once much larger town, framed by a forest of conifers. Stock raising and farming are chief occupations of the region.

Right from Wetmore on State 67, a graded dirt road, to MINERAL CREEK, 5 miles, which with its tributaries, Adobe and Newlin Creeks, furnish the water supply for the town of Florence (see Tour 9b). The OIL WELLS, 7 miles, are in a field developed in 1876, one of the earliest in the United States; a few of the original wells are still producing. At 9 miles are a number of coal mines and an old oil field, dating back to the early 1860's.

FLORENCE, 12 miles (5,187 alt, 2,475 pop.), is at the junction with US 50 (see Tour 9b).

The route follows Hardscrabble Creek, along which a band of Ute fled in 1855 after the Christmas Day Massacre at Pueblo. The Indians were pursued and later declared, so it is said, that they had a ' 'hard-scrabble" to escape. Scrub oak and willow hug the banks of the creek; fields on the steep slopes grow potatoes, lettuce, and celery.

The highway crosses the eastern boundary of SAN ISABEL NATIONAL FOREST, 30.1 miles, a preserve containing 613,652 acres of Federal land and 47,119 acres of private, State, and municipal land.

On KIT CARSON ROCK (L), 30.3 miles, the famous scout carved his name and the initials of his wife, J. J. (Josepha Jaramillo). The rock is cemented and protected with iron rods. When first set up, it was stolen; the thief was threatened with lynching and the stone reappeared as mysteriously as it had vanished. This section of the road, known as the KIT CARSON TRAIL, was often used by the frontiersman in his expeditions into the mountains.

The road ascends through a narrow canyon, its steep slopes covered with white pine, fir, ponderosa pine, and blue spruce. The latter, also known as silver or Colorado spruce, the unofficial State tree, is in demand for landscape planting. Only occasional specimens show the desirable silvery bloom on the needles. Lance-leaf cottonwoods fringe the narrow creek, which cascades down in miniature falls as the ascent becomes steeper; goldenrod, larkspur, Indian paint brush, and mountain daisies bloom profusely in the meadowland. Scattered through this area are picnic grounds with bertches and fireplaces. The route crosses the western boundary of San Isabel National Forest, 36.5 miles, to the junction with State 76 (see Tour 8A), 37 miles

CARTER FLATS (9,000 alt.), 41 miles, offers an impressive view of the Sangre de Cristo Range to the west.

At 42 miles is the junction with State 143.

Right on this narrow rough road, which follows Oak Creek through interesting farming and mining country, to ISLE, 4 miles, an old mining camp. At the western border of San Isabel National Forest, 12 miles, juniper and pinon give way to pine, spruce, and fir.

BASIN RANCH, 16 miles, in a mountain hollow, is a rendezvous for hunters of predatory animals; from this point is an excellent view of the Arkansas Valley and the fruit orchards in the vicinity of Florence.

The route crosses the eastern boundary of San Isabel National Forest, 17 miles, and descends abruptly to ROCKVALE, 19 miles (5,260 alt., 710 pop.), a coal-mining hamlet.

At 21 miles is the junction with US 50 (see Tour 9b), 2 miles west of Florence (see Tour 9b).

The highway passes through rough, barren country to the BASSICK MINE (R), 46 miles, once one of the richest gold and silver mines in the State, now an abandoned tunnel, marked by a deserted shack bearing the name of Mount Tyndall. The mine was discovered in 1887 by John M. True, who opened the first shaft but abandoned it as worthless. Later, E. C. Bassick sank a deeper shaft and received more than $12,000 from the first shipment of ore; the mine continued to pay large dividends; $750,000 of ore was taken out under Bassick's management; in 1889 it was sold to a New York company for $330,000. The richness of the mine encouraged development of the region and resulted in the founding of Silver Cliff, Rosita, and Querida (see below).

QUERIDA (Sp. sweetheart), 47 miles, now a ghost town, was founded in 1887 by David Livingstone, nephew of the noted African explorer. At one time it had a population of 500, largely employed in a concentration mill and the offices of the Bassick Mining Company.

Left from Querida on a dirt road is ROSITA, 2 miles, so named for the profusion of wild roses in the vicinity. Once the seat of Custer County, it is now another ghost town; the settlement was founded about 1872, and by 1875 had a population of 1,500.

State 96 traverses the weed-grown prairie of WET MOUNTAIN VALLEY. "The altitude, the climate, and the surroundings of this valley," remarked a writer in the 1870's, "are calculated to produce the highest types of human energy and intellect, and also the finest beef and butter in the known world."

SILVER CLIFF, 55 miles (8,000 alt., 201 pop.), once a boom silver camp, was named for the great argentiferous cliff that faces the town. The discovery of horn-silver, so termed because it is found in tinfoil-like layers between rock strata, brought the settlement into existence in 1879. Two years later, claiming a population of more than 5,000, it was the third largest city in the State and aspired to become the capital. Until a waterworks was constructed, water was hauled from a spring several miles away and delivered to consumers at 40¢ a barrel. It had a police department of five men, "handsomely uniformed"; an "efficient chain gang" conditioned the streets.

During its heyday Silver Cliff had two daily and three weekly newspapers. In the summer of 1880 the Daily Prospect complained that a blast from a near-by mine "threw a rock that fell with considerable force in front of the Little Chief Saloon, barely missing Harry Dougan. This sort of thing is becoming an everyday occurrence and will end with somebody being brained." The same issue carried the news that Louis Phillips, agent of the Colorado State Lottery, "will give you a chance to make your fortune for $2," and that "the Canon stage came in yesterday loaded to capacity, among its passengers being several bodies."

Silver Cliff and Rosita contended fiercely to become the seat of Custer County. Westcliffe (see below), then a station on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, supported Silver Cliff's claim. Silver Cliff won and, in appreciation of Westcliffe's support, built the county courthouse between the two towns. After the demonetization of silver in the 1890's Silver Cliff rapidly declined; today it is a town of empty buildings. The fire station, housing old fire-fighting equipment, stands as it was in the last century. A church, its belfry crumbling, its pews dusty and long unoccupied, has an antiquated street lamp at its door. But on Main Street the sparks still fly from the old-fashioned anvil in Stockle's blacksmith shop. The OLD CUSTER COUNTY COURT-HOUSE (L), 55.5 miles, is abandoned.

WESTCLIFFE, 57 miles (7,800 alt., 335 pop.) (see Tour 11B), is at the junction with State 69 (see Tour 11B).