What and where is the "Divide," you may ask --The above is from Early Days around the Divide, by Carl F. Matthews and E.C. Matthews, Sign Book Co., St. Louis, MO, 1969.
Between Colorado Springs and Denver, beginning about at Monument and extending to Castle Rock, an elevated plateau reaches eastward from the mountains. It is about thirty miles in width at the Front Range and tapers to a point a few miles north-east of Peyton; it ranges in elevation from 7,000 to 7,500 feet. This ridge is the birthplace of a number of creeks which run into the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers and on many old maps is shown as the "Arkansas Divide," but today it is simply termed the "Divide" by most of those people who live upon or near it...
The Divide area comprises parts of El Paso, Elbert and Douglas counties...
A century ago the Divide was heavily timbered with fine Ponderosa pine which gave the name of the "Pineries" to large areas of it; today that name is almost forgotten.
These days, people talk about the Divide, but they may also refer to the Palmer Divide or even to Monument Hill. I'm not sure how far eastward Matthews thought the Divide extended. These days, it's considered to extend eastward to Limon.
Part of the area once known as the Pineries is today referred to as the Black Forest region. Front Range and Rampart Range are used interchangeably, though the Rampart Range is only one part of the much-longer Front Range.
Here's another interesting snippet from Carl F. Matthews:
In these modern times people may wonder how a family of six or seven managed to live in a one room house. They just pushed the furniture around, and it was all very simple. At meal time it was a dining room, at night it was all bed room. If they had company and there wasn't enough beds; some covers were spread on the floor.Carl F. Matthews was born in the region in 1885 and spent his life here. He died sometime before the book was published. His younger brother finished it and guided it through publication.
People were glad to have a house of any size and we never heard anyone complain.
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I don't think people quite realize how big the timber industry used to be around here. There were sawmills all over the place from the mid-late 19th century through the mid-20th century. This is in spite of several large fires. The trees went for firewood, telephone or telegraph poles, railroad ties, mining timbers, general lumber, and charcoal manufacturing. Pike National Forest was established in part to keep the Rampart Range and environs from being devastated by over-cutting.
Here's a quote from another book that explains something I've wondered about.
In 1875 ties were being cut on top of Mt. Herman and slid down the mountain. Some of the big slides on the Mountain can still be seen.That's from Through the Years at Monument, Colorado, by Lucille Lavelett, Palmer Lake Historical Society, Palmer Lake, CO 2004.
We've seen some very steep and straight trail-like features on, for example, Raspberry Mountain. We had speculated that they were some old water-piping route. But perhaps they're old timber slides.
Ms. Lavelett has a very odd sense of humor. She includes a section on Halloween pranks. Apparently, it was considered the height of hilarity to fool around with outhouses. One year, the women's outhouse had a sign saying "Democrats Vote Here," while the men's outhouse was given a sign saying "Republicans Vote Here." Most of the other examples of humor, both Halloween and non-Halloween-related, also involve poop.
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Since I'm on the subject of the old timber industry, here's a quote from The USGS: Geological Survey Bulletin 707 (Itinerary): Guidebook of the Western United States: Part E. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Route. The author is listed as Marius R. Campbell, and the publication date is 1922. He quoted Smith Riley, a former district forester, for much of the following.
The Pike National Forest includes the mountains west of Denver and Colorado Springs. It includes most of the drainage basins from which Denver, Colorado Springs, and many smaller towns, having altogether a population of about 350,000, derive their domestic water supply. In addition to this supply its streams furnish water for irrigating 400,000 acres of rich agricultural land at the foot of the mountains.
The region now included in this forest furnished an immense amount of timber during the early development of local industries, about 500,000,000 feet b. m. having been cut prior to its establishment as a national forest...
In Gilpin County considerable areas of forest land were practically denuded, for trees of all sizes and even stumps were removed and utilized. This cutting was followed, from time to time, by fires which fed upon the "slash" left on the cut-over areas and killed the remaining trees. The bare hills then permitted a rapid run-off of water after heavy rains, which caused considerable destructive erosion. Similar conditions mark other parts of the Pike National Forest, but erosion has not cut so deeply into the slopes, and owing to generally favorable conditions, many areas have naturally become reforested.
In the early days all ranch buildings were constructed of logs, and even furniture was made by the settlers. The trees also furnished the entire supply of fuel. In many localities they serve the same purposes to-day—the ranchers and new settlers put up their own buildings of logs obtained from the national forest under free-use permits, or established ranchers can purchase at a low price, equal to the cost of administering the sale.
From 1875 to 1895 most of the railroads of the mountain region were built, and practically all construction was done with local timber. Most of the cutting was done by small operators, with sawmills of 6,000 to 10,000 feet b. m. daily capacity, who would locate or purchase a small tract of timber land and then cut not only that but the timber on adjoining Government land. The operators of that day paid little or no stumpage for their timber and cut only that which was the most easily obtained or which was best suited to their purpose.
Since 1905, when the forests came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, the Government's timber has been sold to private purchasers at fair rates of stumpage, and cutting has been restricted to trees whose removal would benefit the remaining stand...
The amount of timber cut in the Pike National Forest for the year ending June 30, 1921, was 3,420,000 feet b. m.... In addition, about 1,000,000 feet b. m., mainly of dead material, was granted free to settlers and miners for their own use....
In the early days of settlement in this country the forest suffered considerably from fires... The present fire-fighting methods and organization were unheard of. In 1869 a fire started by hunters on Pikes Peak is said to have burned intermittently for eight months and to have covered many thousands of acres, though there were several times during this period when a small crew of men could have extinguished it. Similar fires covered about 250,000 acres in the Pike National Forest...
Forest fires still cause great destruction in the national forest... The possibility of fires in the Pike National Forest is great, because eight railroads traverse it, 5,000 people live in it, and 250,000 tourists seek recreation within its borders.
Since it is such a cool online resource, here's where to find it. I might well quote from it again someday.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/geology/publications/bul/707/
Although logging is not a huge industry here at the moment, the fire danger remains. I'm pretty sure that the big fire near Pikes Peak referred to in the above is the one thought to have covered almost the exact same area as the big Hayman fire of 2002. There are references in other local history books to particularly devastating local forest fires, including several on and near Mount Herman. That's one of the reasons we have the Monument Fire Center here. It used to raise seedlings to replant areas burned in previous fires.
The title of this post promised "not too much" local history. I'd better stop writing soon unless I want to change it to "way too much."
One of the things I want to do in this blog is ramble about the local area, including its history. Get used to it.
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