Denver’s railroads pushed into mining districts while its proximity to unreachable mountains maddened visitors.

Evidence

It stands at a height of 5,000 feet, on an enormous plain, and has a most glorious view of the Rocky Range. I should hate even to spend a week there. The sight of those glories so near and yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy. Denver is at present the terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It has a line connecting it with the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne, and by means of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, open for about 200 miles, it is expecting to reach into Mexico. It has also had the enterprise, by means of another narrow-gauge railroad, to push its way right up into the mining districts near Gray’s Peak. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 158

Categorization

• XREF: Railroads as instruments pushing into wilderness echoes the book’s recurring theme of infrastructure taming landscape. — connects to: Collapsed mining speculations made Colorado men foul-tempered and foul-mouthed — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 208

Broader Connections

• Collapsed mining speculations made Colorado men foul-tempered and foul-mouthed #complicates (1.00) — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 208