Cities in the Wilderness

Cities in the Wilderness. . , "It is a town of only eight days' growth, but full of life.... There are now about 300 inhabitants, with fifty houses, tents, etc., and quite a number of buildings in process of construction, comprising one hotel, one boarding house, two saloons, four retail stores, one wholesale store, one livery and one feed stable.... Large numbers of people are arriving daily. Two wagon loads came in from Silver Cliff to-day who report that many more are on the point of starting" , , letter from Chaffee City, Aug. 14, 1879, Rome wasn't built in a day, but Chaffee City ... well, maybe. From 1879 to 1890, hardly a week passed without the rise of another town in the surrounding hills. All it took was a decent mineral strike or a promising railroad survey , and banks, saloons, and hardware stores would sprout like weeds in a storm-washed meadow. The more ambitious communities added cosmopolitan flourishes such as newspapers and brass bands. These "instant cities" embodied the ingenuity of a pioneering nation, its sheer creative energy. That most of them collapsed within a few years is beside the point. The town builders believed they could build great cities in the wilderness , powerful testimony to the force of the American Dream. , "I abandoned the building when Alpine declined ... and the building was wrecked by the wind." , , David Simonson, proprietor of the Alpine dance hall , Alpine did resemble a gust of wind, arriving with great force, then vanishing with hardly a trace. Founded in 1879, the town gained 2,000 citizens in a matter of weeks; then, when the railroad tracks reached neighboring St. Elmo a few years later, all but two left. , The same thing happened over and over in Colorado. Along the Upper Arkansas, the towns of Arbourville, Calumet, Harvard City, Romley, Silverdale, Winfield, Turret, and dozens of others sprang into being, only to be crushed by the Silver Panic of 1893, a fire, or competition from a rival settlement. , St. Elmo, the town that killed Alpine, hung on until the 1950s, and its skeleton remains quite intact; other lost cities are marked only by a cemetery, a town dump, maybe just a ghostly breeze.