Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and his handful of soldiers were the first American citizens to go through the Wet Mountain Valley, in 1806, but it it was more than two decades before hunters and trappers discovered its bounty, and another four decades before the first permanent settlement was made. A wagon road from the Valley to Canon City via Hardscrabble Canon was opened in 1870, inviting more settlers. And they came.
A German colony from Chicago, led by Civil War veteran Gen. Carl Wulsten arrived in March 1870. The Chicago Tribune, February 9, 1870, described the beginning of the trip:
So they started from Chicago, a group of 250 people, the pioneers of civilization. A notable event in the history of Chicago transpired yesterday. It was the departure of a colony of Chicago citizens for a home in the western wilds, the first of its kind which ever left this city and the first, it is believed, ever organized in America. It is called the German Colonization Society of Colfax, Colorado....An immense throng of relatives and friends gathered...to bid them farewell and God speed.
...They were a splendid looking set of people...[including] muscular athletic young fellows with rifles strapped to their backs, [and] 20 fair haired, clear skinned German girls, all young, good looking, and seemingly capable of taking good care of themselves and making excellent wives for those same gallant rifle bearers....
The Tribune noted that "a serious drawback to the development [of the mining west] was the fact that the march of agriculture had not kept pace with the feverish rush of the seekers after the hidden treasures of the earth." Gen. Wulsten saw the possibilities in providing cheaper food on the spot, saving the miners the exorbitant costs of that which was transported in from long distances. The baggage car of the train carried a large sign: "Westward The Star of Empire Takes Its Course..."
Where the railroad tracks ended, the group shifted to covered wagons, with a military escort from Ft. Lyons, and six-mule teams. The new town was named after Vice President Schuyler Colfax who had expedited the government assistance and transportation to the Wet Mountain Valley. The group arrived at their destination, fifteen miles west of today's Westcliffe, on March 17, 1870.
The newcomers were welcomed with cheers, speeches and cannon salute by residents of then-Fremont County. But Denver's Rocky Mountain Herald was "painfully agitated about the Wulsten colony" and said:
The Greeley colony of Yankees on the Cache-a-la-Poudre will offset the Germans in Wet Mountain valley, and keep the thing level. Likely as not there will be several thousands more of 'black republicans' in the territory before fall. Really our democratic friends must get used to these things and take them calmly.
Wulsten wrote of the venture in the 1879 county history:
In 1869 [Wulsten], propelled by a desire to ameliorate the physical condition of the poorer class of Germans, who were condemned by a cruel fate to work in greasy, ill-ventilated and nerve-destroyed factories of the great city of Chicago, formed a band of about a hundred into a colony, took them and their families out of the nauseous back alleys and cellars of the over-crowded Garden City and brought them to "El Mojada." But short-sighted is man, and his ways do "gang aft aglee." This was in the spring of 1870. The organization of this colony stood until fall, when it collapsed, every pater familias from thence shifting for himself....
Evidence of mineral wealth [was found] which should have made the] founding of an agricultural and industrial colony upon the co-operative plan...a success instead of a failure. Collectively a failure, it has individually become a distinct success, for every family which [joined] is today in perfectly independent circumstances.
The colonists were industrious farmers and Colfax Colony might have succeeded if a promised amendment to the Homestead Act had passed (allowing groups as well as individuals to file). When it didn't, the Colonization Company folded. Failure can also be attributed to an early frost ruining crops, mismanagement of funds, and the almost impossible switch from Chicago sweat shops to Custer County farming. As the town foundered, businessmen in Denver sent supplies--twice--but when a powder keg exploded in December, so did the town. More families had followed the first group, but only a few adjusted and stayed on after Colfax disappeared. The colonists went their own ways, many of them staying in the county and becoming successful and respected citizens.
Carl Wulsten, one of those who did stay, was called "Professor." He was a scholar and graduate of Berlin University, an assayer, chemist and science writer, and Custer County's first surveyor. He died from chronic bronchitis in 1913, age 79, and is buried at Rosita.
Also in the year 1870, Richard Irwin (for whom the camp of Irwin in Gunnison County was named) discovered a lode near Rosita Springs. Earlier finds had been made but were never developed. The "good-looking float" Irwin found in June wasn't as easily found in the feet-deep snow drifts barring his way when he returned on a stormy December night. The vein was located and specimens sent to the Denver Mint. The rush began.
At that time, Custer County was the southern part of Fremont County, from which it was separated on March 9, 1877 by the state legislature. It was named after General George A. Custer who had died at the Little Big Horn in June 1876. A statue of the General was erected in a town called Custer City with much fanfare and festivity June 11, 1902.
Part of the Custer City festivity was the actual building of the town. The houses and buildings were built in sections and shipped from Pueblo to Custer City. Newspapers disagreed on the number of pre-fabricated buildings erected that day--anywhere from 40 to 100. They included a never-used depot, hotel, bank and newspaper office; "neither have the saloons, churches and schools been overlooked," said one newspaper. There were telephones and fire hydrants.
The newspaper never got off the press. The town was barely defined before the expected train was rerouted. One big day, one short life and Custer City was gone. So was the impressive statue of General Custer. The Denver & Rio Grande served the valley with both a standard gauge and a narrow gauge. Dr. William A. Bell, General William Palmer's English friend, had a definite interest in bringing the railroad in: he owned the land on which the station and rail yards stood. His land was west of Silver Cliff, and he named it Westcliffe after his English birth place, Westcliffe-on-the-Sea. The first passenger train arrived on his land in May 1881, and from then on it provided regular service and Westcliffe prospered, while Silver Cliff which hoped for the train almost died.
The variety of minerals was the base of the economy; mineral production is still important although less so today than agricultural crops, livestock, lumber and recreation. The cattlemen began bringing in herds in 1868. Their numbers increased with men from the defunct Colfax colony, and agriculture blossomed as mining declined. Many early ranchers, in addition to running cattle, raised mules for the mines.
The Wet Mountain Tribune explained the mining decline in June 1993:
In June, 1893, there weren't a lot of happy campers in Custer County.
Or, to be more accurate, there were no happy miners here....Through an on-going political battle the price of silver plummeted.
The scenario goes back to the founding of our country, when the U.S. government had a system of bi-metallism to back up its currency. Coinage was made of both gold and silver and the two minerals backed-up paper money. In 1873, congress terminated all coinage of silver dollars and placed the country on a gold standard. Five years later, however, a new federal law required the government to purchase silver and turn it into coins.
Over the next several years, silver mines were opening throughout the West. In 1880 in Custer County alone, close to $2 million in silver was mined...[there were] scores of producing mines and prospector holes and the wages of hundreds of men came directly from these mining operations.
In 1880 things could not have looked brighter. Silver Cliff, with a population of 5,040, was the third largest town in Colorado falling behind only Denver (with 35,629 residents) and Leadville (14,820).
With so much silver coming on the market, the white metal became a burning national political issue....The Sherman Silver Purchase Act [1890] lessened the position of silver compared to gold, but guaranteed that the government would continue to purchase huge reserves of the metal...
...By June 1893 the price of silver had declined...[and the Crash begun]. Miners in places like Silver Cliff, Tin Cup, Aspen, and Creede lost their jobs and deserted their communities. Colorado was in a panic....
The U.S. silver industry never has fully recovered.
[A hundred years after] the mining frenzies, the Valley has nothing to show for all that greed and gusto but the old glory holes and the denuded hills.
The Custer County population in 1880 was 3,080; in 1950, 1,573; and in 1990, 1,926.