Still, It Was Truly Grand,
Although It Was Sixty Miles Off, And We Were Looking At It From A
Platform 5,000 Feet In Height.
As I write I am only twenty-five
miles from them, and they are gradually gaining possession of me.
I can look at and FEEL nothing else. At five in the afternoon
frame houses and green fields began to appear, the cars drew up,
and two of my fellow passengers and I got out and carried our own
luggage through the deep dust to a small, rough, Western tavern,
where with difficulty we were put up for the night. This
settlement is called the Greeley Temperance Colony, and was
founded lately by an industrious class of emigrants from the
East, all total abstainers, and holding advanced political
opinions. They bought and fenced 50,000 acres of land,
constructed an irrigating canal, which distributes its waters on
reasonable terms, have already a population of 3,000, and are the
most prosperous and rising colony in Colorado, being altogether
free from either laziness or crime. Their rich fields are
artificially productive solely; and after seeing regions where
Nature gives spontaneously, one is amazed that people should
settle here to be dependent on irrigating canals, with the risk
of having their crops destroyed by grasshoppers. A clause in the
charter of the colony prohibits the introduction, sale, or
consumption of intoxicating liquor, and I hear that the men of
Greeley carry their crusade against drink even beyond their
limits, and have lately sacked three houses open for the sale of
drink near their frontier, pouring the whisky upon the ground, so
that people don't now like to run the risk of bringing liquor
near Greeley, and the temperance influence is spreading over a
very large area.
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