America’s Byways
|
America’s
Byways Timeline
|
| 150 Million Years Ago Dinosaurs leave
footprints through what is now the Comanche National Grasslands
(SFT). |
| About 20,000 BC Herds of mammoth graze
the wetlands of the San Luis Valley. |
| 10,000 BC – 100 AD Paleo-Indian
and Archaic people hunted bison and other wild game in the San Luis
Valley. |
| 1300 AD San Luis Valley visited by
the Ancestral Puebloans. Tewa, Navajo, Apache and Utes inhabited
the area seasonally (LCA). |
| 1598 Explorer Don Juan de Oñate
claimed the San Luis Valley for Spain (LCA). |
| Early 1600s Spanish Conquistadors (explorers)
enter the area that is now Colorado lured by tales of gold and silver
(LCA). |
| 1700s Francisco Torres accompanies
a Spanish expedition looking for gold. He names the Sangre de Cristo
(blood of Christ) mountain range (LCA). |
| 1776 Thirteen American colonies declare
independence from Great Britain. |
| 1803 Louisiana Purchase includes acquisition
of northeastern Colorado (SFT). |
| 1806 Zebulon Pike explores headwaters
of Arkansas River and Rio Grande. |
| 1821 Mexico becomes an independent
nation. |
| 1821 Santa Fe Trail opens with legal
trade between the United States and Mexico (SFT). |
| 1842 El Pueblo Trading Post founded
(FP). |
| 1845 John L. O’Sullivan labels
the idea of Manifest Destiny (SFT). |
| 1846 Susan Magoffin arrives at Bent’s
Fort (SFT). |
| 1846-48 Mexican-American War occurs
(LCA). |
| 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transfers
western lands from Mexico to the United States, including southern
and western Colorado (LCA). |
| 1849 California Gold Rush begins. |
| 1849 Eighty families settle in the
San Luis Valley (LCA). |
| 1851 First permanent Hispanic settlement
in Colorado is established at San Luis. Conejos and San Acacio are
settled soon thereafter (LCA). |
| 1854 Utes attack El Pueblo Trading
Post; the post is then abandoned (FP). |
| 1857 First Catholic church is established
in the San Luis region—Our Lady of Guadalupe in Conejos (LCA). |
| 1858 U.S. government establishes Fort
Garland as a military outpost to protect settlers from Utes (LCA). |
| 1859 Gold is discovered along Clear
Creek; Pikes Peak Gold Rush begins (PTP). |
| 1859 John Gregory strikes gold on the
North Fork of Clear Creek (PTP). |
| 1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president. |
| 1860s U.S. settlers claim most of the
Ute lands in the San Luis Valley (LCA). |
| 1861 Colorado Territory is established
(LCA). |
| 1861 Civil War begins. |
| 1862 Homestead Act makes available
160 acres to settlers (FP). |
| 1863 Former Colorado governor William
Gilpin and William Blackmore purchase a large portion of one of
the Hispanic Land Grants to be mined for gold and silver. Hispanics
who were unable to produce a title to the communal lands lost them
to Americans. This battle over land is still being fought in the
courts today (LCA). |
| 1864 Sand Creek Massacre occurs. |
| 1864 Earliest segment of road that
would become the Peak to Peak used by ore wagons (PTP). |
| 1865 "Uncle Dick" Wooten
opens a road over Raton Pass (SFT). |
| 1865 Civil War ends. |
| 1865 President Lincoln assassinated. |
| 1868 Major John Wesley Powell leads
first group to summit of Longs Peak (PTP). |
| 1868 U.S. government negotiates a treaty
that confines the Utes to western Colorado. Hostilities continue
until 1880 when the Utes are banished to reservations in Colorado
and Utah (LCA). |
| 1869 Chin Lin Sou arrives in Black
Hawk, Colorado (PTP). |
| 1869 Transcontinental Railroad is completed. |
| 1870 Colfax Colony is founded in the
Wet Mountain Valley by German immigrants from Chicago (FP). |
| 1870 William Jackson Palmer begins
construction of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad from Denver to
Mexico through the San Luis Valley. Industry enters the Valley for
the first time (LCA). |
| 1870s Mining strikes in the San Juan
Mountains are common. Pressure increases to take land away from
the Utes and use it for mining (SJS). |
| 1871 Colfax Colony disbanded (FP). |
| 1871 Denver is connected to the national
railroad system. |
| 1873 Isabella Bird journals her climb
up Longs Peak (PTP). |
| 1874 The town of Silverton is established,
which is now the oldest continuous settlement in the San Juans (SJS). |
| 1874 Otto Mears begins building a network
of toll roads throughout the San Juan Mountains (SJS). |
| 1876 Colorado becomes a state. |
| 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents
his invention of the telephone. |
| 1878 Central City Opera House is built
(PTP). |
| 1879 Culture clashes and tensions between
the Utes and Caucasians over control of the San Juans results in
a group of Ute warriors killing Indian agent Nathan Meeker and 10
male civilian employees. This event came to be known by some as
the "Meeker Massacre" (SJS). |
| 1880 Santa Fe Trail is abandoned in
favor of railroad route to Santa Fe (SFT). |
| 1880 William Palmer builds first steel
mill (Colorado Fuel & Iron) in Pueblo (FP). |
| 1880 Denver and Rio Grande station
is built in Antonito. This railroad is now called the Cumbres &
Toltec Scenic Railroad (LCA). |
| 1880s Mining continues to be prosperous
in the San Juan mountains (SJS). |
| 1881 The Utes reluctantly sign a treaty
that banishes them from Colorado forever. Most relocate to Utah
(SJS). |
| 1884 The toll road through Uncompahgre
Gorge is completed and is considered a major engineering feat (SJS). |
| 1888 The Wetherill brothers come upon
ancient cliff dwellings near their ranch in Mancos (SJS). |
| 1889 Pueblo’s Union Station is
built (FP). |
| 1890 Gold is discovered at Cripple
Creek. |
| 1890s Virginia McClurg organizes a
lobby of women's clubs to save the cliff dwelling ruins at Mesa
Verde (SJS). |
| 1893 The price of silver crashes causing
numerous silver mines to close (SJS). |
| Late 1800s Telluride is known as "The
Golden Gem of the Silvery San Juans" (SJS). |
| Early 1900s Tungsten is discovered
near Nederland, Colorado (PTP). |
| 1901 Union workers strike at Telluride's
Smuggler-Union mine and demand $3 for an eight-hour workday. Owners
refuse and instead hire non-union workers at that rate (SJS). |
| 1901 Mining company guards kill three
union members at Telluride's Smuggler-Union mine (SJS). |
| 1902 Smuggler-Union mine manager Arthur
Collins is assassinated, presumably by union members (SJS). |
| 1903 Mine workers strike again. Colorado
Governor James Peabody sides with management and sends in the National
Guard to evict union members from the state. The union breaks up
(SJS). |
| 1903 F.O. Stanley drives first Stanley
Steamer to Estes Park (PTP). |
| 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright make
the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, NC. |
| 1906 U.S. Congress passes a law creating
Mesa Verde National Park (SJS). |
| 1909 Stanley Hotel opens in Estes Park
(PTP). |
| 1910 Only 48 people remain in the formerly
prosperous mining town of Ironton (SJS). |
| 1914-18 World War I occurs (United
States enters the war in 1917). |
| 1915 Rocky Mountain National Park is
established (PTP). |
| 1916 Road that will become the Peak
to Peak is promoted to tourists (PTP). |
| 1919 U.S. Forest Service hires Arthur
Carhart as its first recreational planner for San Isabel National
Forest (FP). |
| 1919 Squirrel Creek Campground opens
(FP). |
| 1920 Ironton's post office closes and
the town becomes a ghost town (SJS). |
| 1921 Arkansas River floods Pueblo (FP). |
| 1923 Work begins on the Moffat Tunnel
through the Continental Divide (PTP). |
| 1927 Moffat Tunnel is completed (PTP). |
| 1929 Stock market crashes. |
| 1931-39 Dust Bowl destroys land along
the Santa Fe Trail (SFT). |
| 1933 Federal Government purchases land
in Colorado to repair damage from the Dust Bowl: area later becomes
Comanche National Grasslands (SFT). |
| April 14, 1935 Black Sunday: dust clouds
block out the sun (SFT). |
| 1939 World War II begins (U.S. enters
the war in 1941 after Japanese attack Pearl Harbor). |
| 1940 Ski Train begins runs from Denver
to Winter Park through the Moffat Tunnel (PTP). |
| 1942 President Roosevelt orders evacuation
of all people of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast (SFT). |
| 1942 Governor Carr (CO) is the only
governor to welcome Japanese-Americans to his state (SFT). |
| 1942 Amache internment camp is established
near Santa Fe Trail (SFT). |
| 1945 World War II ends. |
| 1947 Flood washes out Squirrel Creek
Road and the campground is abandoned (FP). |
