The Denver Post
By: Cortlyn G, Bridget G, Cristina H, Hannah B
Letter To The Government
I have just recently moved to Denver, Colorado, with my family for more land opportunities, and we have become farmers here and own a few cattle for our source of income. I am writing this letter to complain to you about the fact that the Pacific Railroad is so far away from my great city. We moved from Omaha, Nebraska, where the railroad starts, so my family and i never really experienced any locational problems with it, for we were close in proximity to ship products as we needed. But after moving westward to increase our value of life, we have come to the realization that we are not near enough to the railroad to transport our cattle or crops to the people in need from the western coast. After we pay a cowboy to haul our herd to the railroad, or after we carry our produce there ourselves, we are already losing money because we have put more effort and time into the product than what we're selling it on the market for. Also, we have to pay the railroad for shipping our merchandise, so we're gaining less than we're spending just to be able to have any income at all. My conclusion is just to let you know that i would like the railroad to branch down for my family and i to be able to make more than we spend on what's supposed to be a simpler lifestyle.
Thank You For Your Concern,
an impacted citizen
Letter To The Editor
I am writing this letter to argue your stated opinion about how the Native American's were forced to move from their personal historic homeland and onto multiple government-owned reservations. You voiced that you believed that the Native's deserved to move because they were edging on the government to fight them anyways, but i would like to inform you that i used to live only a few meters from a plain previously roamed by Native's, and they were nothing but peaceful and understanding for my family's reasoning to moving so close in proximity to them. They always offered us portions of their buffalo meat, vegetables, and any other extra rations, so I had gotten over my long-time hatred and fear of them and learned to respect them as they do to us. Also, you expressed how you thought that the Native American's were blocking our country's forward movement in industry, but i am here to tell you that they inhabited America first, hence their races name. I am here in their defense solely because i experienced first-hand how they truly go about acting in their everyday routine, and i just wanted to correct you on your false view/opinion of them.
With Care,
a faithful friend
Cultural Assimilation of Natives
Populism / Farmer Issues
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) reduced agricultural production by paying farmers not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. It was the method of driving up prices of a commodity to create artificial scarcity. It reduced crop surplus and raised the value of crops. Farmers had to put up with overproduction, Tariff Policies, Monetary Policies, Tax and Bank Policies, Differential Freight Rates, Tenant Farming, Sharecropping, and The Crop-Lien System, loss of status and power, The Grange Economic Self-Help Cooperatives, and The Farmers Alliance. The Farmers Alliance was farmers coming together to pressure the Democratic and Republican parties and Congress to deal with the situation by meeting their political demands. This alliance moved into politics and became known as the “Populists”.
The Colorado Silver Boom and Silver Purchase
The myth of the rugged individualist has never gained more traction than when used to describe the early days of the American west. At the same time, the era in general is usually described as the apex of laissez-faire economics. Reality was more complex.
Currency policy (gold vs. silver) was a contentious issue in the late 19th century. It made Colorado's economy in the 1880s and broke it in the 1890s. Behind the scenes, that state's first boom was made by boosters and politicians who got the federal government to use silver coinage. When the program was ended due to financial pressures, the mines and towns of Colorado were devastated.
- The Expansion of the Silver Mines
It had been known that there was silver in the Rocky Mountains for many years, and the first small mines were opened in the 1850s. It was not for many years, however, that this practice took off and established itself as the chief activity of the area.
One catalyst was the , which required the federal government to purchase two to four million dollars of silver each month from the western silver mines, and to circulate silver dollars as currency. Shortly thereafter a huge lode of silver was found in Leadville. As mining took off in that town and other places across the mountains, wealth spread its way across Colorado.
With obvious benefits to be had, western boosters and politicians were essential in the passage of Bland-Allison. Most area businessmen had at least some interest in the mines and they benefited directly. Others supported the idea for more general reasons. Because such a mining windfall would obviously increase the general prosperity of the area, there were very few people in Colorado who did not support silver coinage.
The result was an immediate silver boom in the region, with a corresponding increase in population. Denver grew from 35,629 people in the 1880 census to 133,859 in 1900. Construction proceeded at a frenzied pace and jobs were relatively plentiful both within the cities, and in the mining camps in the hills.
- Denver in the 1880s
The Denver that resulted was at once opulent and brutal.
The largest houses rivaled those of New York and Boston, while much of the city operated without a sewer system. Smelters operated in the working class section of town. The smoke and dust permeated the town and obscured the mountains from view on some days, in spite of the fact that some were only twelve or fifteen miles away. Wild dogs roamed the dirt-packed streets, as did gangs of teenage hoodlums. So many people, and especially young men, had been drawn into the city in a short period of time that the infrastructure was overwhelmed. Vice was endemic. Laws against prostitution were only enforced on the rare occasions when it was necessary to harass the local Chinese community. The same could be said for any laws related to liquor or the consumption of opium. The police force was underpaid and understaffed, leaving them quite vulnerable to bribery. "Soapy" Smith became a colorful figure in the area with his rigged card games and abundant payoffs to local officials. To add a personal touch to the proceedings, he hung a sign saying "Caveat Emptor" above the entrance to his saloon. For a brief time around 1890, he enjoyed a reputation as the boss of Denver's seedy underworld.At the same time, magazines like Harper's Weekly proclaimed Denver "... a beautiful city -- a parlor city with cabinet finish -- and it is so new that it looks as if it had been made to order"
Such statements were made by those who lived or visited amongst the wealthy class of Denver society. In the 1880s, however, this was a sizable group. To those with investments at least, it seemed that nothing could go wrong.
- The Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the Panic of 1893
The heady days of the 1880s turned into a collapse in 1893.
The Bland-Allison Act was superseded by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which was even more favorable to the silver mines. The minimum purchase amount was increased. Additionally, the Treasury was required to purchase silver with notes that could be also redeemed for gold. The value of the notes was fixed (at a rate of 1 oz. silver = 16 oz. gold). In practice this amounted to a subsidy of silver miners, since this fixed ratio gave them a higher price than their silver was worth on the open market.
Unfortunately for the citizens of Colorado, the Sherman Act proved itself to be untenable. Since the federal government paid more for the silver than it was truly worth, it consistently accumulated silver and paid for it with an outflow from the gold reserves. This was exacerbated by a financial crisis in Britain, which caused investors there to sell American securities and withdraw gold from circulation. When a market panic came in 1893, the federal reserves of gold were in danger of being completely exhausted, and were eventually saved only by the personal intervention of J.P. Morgan and the Rothschilds.
In this new environment the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed, and the consequences for Colorado were immediate. Coinciding with a general economic depression, the collapse of the silver industry turned Denver into one of the worst-hit cities in the nation. While the national unemployment rate was probably in the range of 12-15 percent, things were worse in Colorado. The poverty of Denver became more widespread and the tramps multiplied. Many of them turned to theft and crime to survive.
Drinking and debauchery was still rampant, but now such pastimes were indulged in not
to celebrate life, but rather to deaden the senses against the calamity that had unfolded. It would be many years before Colorado regained the buoyant atmosphere that it had enjoyed in the 1880s.
- After the Repeal
Attempts to regain the favor of the federal government were unsuccessful. Traditionally a Republican bastion, Colorado gave William Jennings Bryan 85% of its vote in the 1896, but the staunchly pro-gold William McKinley was the man elected. It was clear that no return to silver coinage was forthcoming. In the following years, the people in that state began to build an economy based on other types of mining and on other ventures entirely. Businessmen sought to attract factories from other areas of the country, and the potential of the region for tourism was explored for the first time. Farming was given more emphasis and a program to encourage the growing of sugar beets took off. New mines were opened to exploit more mundane commodities, such as coal and lead. None of these resulted in a boom the way that silver mining had, but they collectively ensured the area's economic survival.
The experience of Colorado in the 1890s should serve a cautionary tale to the transience of economic booms, especially ones that are artificially based on the ability to influence policy and law in a favorable direction.
http://www.americanhistoryusa.com/colorado-silver-boom-and-american-monetary-system/
A silver mine in Aspen, Colorado in 1898
Larimer Street in the early 1880s
A Denver panorama, 1898
Denver’s Single-Family Homes by Decade: 1890s
The 1890s was the city’s fourth full decade of existence. From that decade, about 5,900 single-family homes are still in existence today, comprising about 70% of Denver’s surviving Nineteenth century housing stock. In this decade, the city experienced the worst economic crisis in its history: the Silver Crash of 1893. Nevertheless, Denver still experienced solid net growth in the 1890s and affirmed its position as the preeminent city of the Mountain West. Denver’s population grew from 106,713 in 1890 to 133,859 in 1900, a growth rate of 25%.
Where did Denver grow in the 1890s? Parcels with single-family homes built during the 1890s that remain today are colored red. Parcels with homes that were built in a previous decade that remain today are colored gray. In the 1890s, Denver continued to grow primarily in three directions relative to Downtown: northwest, east, and south. As we saw in the 1880s, a lot of growth occurred in Northwest Denver, but the growth was widely dispersed across today’s Highland, West Highland, Berkeley, Sunnyside, Jefferson Park, and Sloan Lake neighborhoods. Much of this area in Northwest Denver was, at the time, part of a separate municipality, the Town of Highlands.
Growth continued to the east from Curtis Park/Five Points into the Cole, Whittier, Clayton, and City Park West districts, while Elyria-Swansea to the north and Capitol Hill and Cheesman Park to the southeast remained popular places with steady development. Farther east, Congress Park started taking off, while scattered development continued in Montclair and the first few homes started appearing in Park Hill. New homes also started being built in the Country Club and the Cherry Creek districts during the 1890s.
South of Downtown, the Lincoln Park, Baker, Speer, and West Washington Park neighborhoods saw steady growth, extending the crescent-shaped residential development pattern farther to the southeast and south into Washington Park, Platte Park, Rosedale, and Overland. New development also got underway in the University Park neighborhood.
http://denverurbanism.com/2012/02/denvers-single-family-homes-by-decade-1890s.html