Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Land of Pioneers
Colorado likely gets its active, can-do attitude from the number of immigrants who ven-
tured to this vast wilderness in search of a brighter and richer future. In a state littered with
deep and crusty characters from its tawdry pioneering past, a handful stand out and paint a
picture of the varying influences still at play in Colorado.
It would be difficult to be more hardcore pioneer than Charles and William Bent. The
Missouri brothers were as integral to America's westward expansion as anyone. For 16
years, beginning in 1830, Charles led the Santa Fe Trail trade caravans across what was
then an extremely hostile and unsettled prairie. William managed their famous Old Fort
and some field operations. He forged harmonious relations with neighboring tribes, married
a Cheyenne woman and once hid two Cheyenne from a band of armed Comanche. The fort
had Spaniards, Mexicans, Americans and Native Americans bartering and mixing, drinking
and dancing. The brothers mingled with John C Fremont, escorted the prospectors on their
way to California and hired frontier scout Kit Carson.
Eventually Charles became New Mexico's first American governor, but was assassinated
at his Taos home by an angry mob composed mostly of Pueblos before he could take the
post. William's son, George, saw a massacre of a different kind. Half Cheyenne, he also
married within the tribe and was present at Sand Creek in 1864 when the Colorado Volun-
teers attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho, a grisly event that would end the 'Indian
Wars' and clear the way for further expansion and gold mining on Native American land.
Barney Ford was born a Virginian slave in 1822. When he was 17 he and his mother es-
caped via the underground railroad. His mother, who had instilled in him the value of an
education and taught him to read, died along the way, and he was recaptured and forced to
work the Georgia goldfields. Eventually he escaped to Chicago to study. He dreamt of the
California gold rush but was waylaid in Nicaragua before finally pursuing his dreams in
Breckenridge, right after the first Colorado gold strike. The former Chicago barber eventu-
ally opened restaurants and hotels , funded gold explorations and sold equipment to miners
in Denver and Breckenridge. He became the wealthiest man in Breckenridge and was even-
tually elected to the state legislature.
Spencer Penrose may have been Ford's polar opposite. Rich and Harvard educated, he
spurned a cushy bank gig to go adventuring in 1892. He made a killing in gold and copper,
and he married late after many dalliances. He was known to ride horses into the lobby of
his business rival's hotel to make an offer on the land. After being spurned, he built the best
hotel in America, the Broadmoor. He also built the Pikes Peak Hwy and christened it by
