Author’s NoteThe Indian Ute tribe mentioned in this book was uprooted when the Agent in the White River Indian Company sent for military aid.
A Major T.T. Thornburgh with a troop of one hundred and eighty men was sent South from Fort Steele. They were ambushed in Mill Creek. The Major and thirteen of his men were killed.
Reprisals on the part of the Militia were forbidden by Washington and it was decided to move the Northern Utes into Utah.
Mining in the mountains flourished in the late 1880s and early 1890s and Colorado became known as the ‘Silver State’.
The enormous cattle ranches lasted for only a short time. Overgrazing, the growing demand for agriculture rather than meat and a crippling cold winter in 1887 with excessively heavy snows killed great herds of stock.