Fortress San Juans: True Stories of Grit, Gumption and Gambles that Transformed America

To nineteenth-century gold-seekers, the San Juans Range was a formidable natural fortress. Moat-like rivers, towering rock walls, and canyon mazes laced across 17,000 square miles guarded its treasures and kept its secrets. If remote and unyielding terrain did not intimidate adventurers, Ute war parties did. Even so, young America's western expansion--in large part the handy-work of a generation of dreamers--demonstrated that strength of pilgrim character could triumph over unrelenting hardship and constant threat of death. The same grit and determination would be called upon to breach the San Juans fortress. But the transformation of agrarian America into a continental industrial power, "manifest destiny" by another name, had to come first. It began with mass migrations of homesteaders and gold-seekers to Oregon and California. A decade later gold discovered along Colorado's Front Range spawned a third mass migration to the Rocky Mountains. Still, the San Juans fortress stood strong. Another fifteen years and another gold-rush were required. Unlike the rushes before it, the "San Juans excitement" had to await the end of the Nation's civil war and the construction of regional supply depots, toll roads and rail service. Achieving at least a semblance of peace with Ute defenders also was wise.

Who were thee brave-hearts that transformed the American West and ultimately the San Juans Range? "Of course," you answer, "they were treasure hunters!" "Yes," I say, "but when you meet them you will see that they were so much more."