2002-05-13_PERMIT FILE - C1980004A

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• Other early Anglo-American trappers who roamed western Colorado included James 0. Pattie, William Bicknell, Samuel Juddart, Mar- cus Whitman, Captain John W. Gunnison, E. F. Beale, and John C. Fremont (Hafen 1927; 308). Perhaps more important than their hunting/trapping activities, these men served as advance scouts into Ute territory, carrying back descriptions of the Rocky Mountain wilderness to westward-bound Americans. Interest in the potential agricultural lands of western Colorado had been growing for some time prior to the Utes' ban- ishment and, by the spring of 1881, frontier towns closest to the Ute lands were "crowded with people anxious to enter the Reservation and take possession of the most desirable locations" (Haskell 1886: 2). The town of Gunnison, having been settled ca. 1874, was located only a short distance east of Ute terri- tory (Goodykoontz 1927: 459) and hosted large numbers of would- be settlers during the period between the signing and implemen- tation of the Treaty of 1880. An editorial in the Gunnison Review, 19 June 1880 (four days after the "Ute Bill" calling for expulsion of the Utes from Colorado Territory was signed by the President), claimed that thousands were waiting to enter the Ute lands (Borland 1952: 57). Hundreds had already made brief incur- sions into the territory to select favorable locations in spite of the presence of U.S. troops who had been stationed near the Uncompahgre Agency not only to effect the removal of the Utes • but also to prevent intruders from entering the reservation until the Utes had gone (Raft 1932: 10). In September 1881, only days after the last of the Utes had -- - been expelled, settlers began rushing onto the former reservation lands of western Colorado. Settlement activity spread quickly -- during the autumn months of 1881, land claims were staked, town- sites chosen, and railroad routes were surveyed (Haskell 1886; Borland 1952; Rait 1932). However, because the former reserva- tion lands were not officially-declared public lands until August ~` - 1882, the first year of settlement activity was marked by a cer- tain degree of uncertainty regarding the legality of land claims. When finally announced, the 1882 declaration did not allow home- stead entries on the newly opened lands, but only pre-emptions, or cash entries, at the rate of $1.25 per acre for agricultural _ lands, $5.00 per acre for mineral land (Borland 1952: 75). Settlers arriving in the Grand Junction area came from many of the nearby mining towns - Ouray, Gunnison, Silverton, etc. - and, in lesser numbers, from the west. Finding the soil fertile and the climate mild, settlers of the Grand Valley had only to devise irrigation systems in order to establish successful ranch- ing and agricultural operations, 4