Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo...

Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo.... . Bent's Ranch on the Purgatoire River , In the fall of 1846, William Bent, supervising partner of Bent's Fort, selected a site on the Purgatoire River, about five miles downstream from here, to create one of Colorado's first farming-ranching ventures. , He hired John Hatcher, an experienced mountain man, and about fifteen laborers from Taos, New Mexico, to construct some ranch buildings on the site, to plant crops, and to dig the first irrigation ditch in soon-to-be Colorado Territory. , Unrest , Corn and other crops were planted and the ranch was stocked with cattle and other livestock, but the local Ute Indians took offense at this intrusion into their territory. One dark night, they stole all the horses and mules and killed most of the cattle. John Hatcher hitched two of the remaining cattle to a cart and headed for sanctuary at Bent's Fort, thereby ending Bent's short-lived ranching venture. , Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail , At the end of the Civil War, Texas was overrun by cattle. Colorado's growing population of miners and settlers clamored for meat. In 1865, Texas cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving met the demand, blazing routes through desolate, hazardous country with their herds of cattle. They drove thousands of longhorns to markets and stocked early Colorado and Wyoming ranches. , ...Git Along, Little Dogies , In 1868, Goodnight trailed a large herd of cattle northward over Trinchera Pass, just a few miles south of here. Pioneering this route, he avoided paying the ten cents per cow that Richens Lacy “Uncle Dick” Wootton charged for use of his Raton Pass toll road. During the next three years, Goodnight delivered 30,000 cattle to this region. His enterprise helped to found the cattle industry in southern Colorado.