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The Hayden Survey passed through northwestern Colorado in the mid-1870s. In <br />. a promotional article boosting Colorado for Hoyden's The Great Wes T, W. B. Vickers <br />noted the area was virtually uninhabitable summer and winter, and that <br />Routt County, in the extreme northwestern corner of the <br />state, is covered with mountain ranges and spurs, and agri- <br />cultural pursuits to some extent could be successfully carried <br />on. The country at present is attracting but little attention, <br />but when communication can be had with it easier than at <br />present, it will be found capable of supporting o vast population <br />(Hayden 1880:125). <br />The Hayden Survey publication noted that "Coal is found in a number of <br />localities along the Yampah [sic], between it and the White, os well as north of it, <br />and although it has not been thoroughly explored and tested, yet it promises to be <br />very abundant and of good quality, equal to any in the territory" (Ladd 1876:438). In <br />addition to coal, Hayden recorded the presence of oil and oil shale, but lack of <br />transportation inhibited development. As early as 1866 coal prospectors had known <br />of The presence of anthracite (Athearn 1976:95). <br />John Lathrop Jerome fished the Yampa River and its headwater tributaries in <br />• 1875. He wrote enchantingly of catching dazzling native trout and grayling, which <br />he calls English Grayling (probably Montana grayling) (H.R.N.F.1975:7-9). <br />Exhibit 2.8-3 shows the major areas of early fur-trapping in northwestern <br />Colorado and the paths of several of the mid-1800s explorers. <br />Early Settlement <br />Colorado's population was slow to increase in the post-Civil War era. The <br />English investor William Blackmore noted in 1869 that "Colorado now contains a <br />population of 36,000 exclusive of Mexicans and Indians" (Blackmore 1869:28). <br />Northwestern Colorado was an area of exceptionally low Anglo population. As <br />John Wesley Powell said, "From time immemorial the region drained by the Grand, <br />White, and Yampa Rivers has been the home of the UTe tribes of the Shoshonean <br />family of Indians" (1961:62), and it was not until their removal that settlement and <br />permanent white habitation of the region began in earnest. The real settlement of <br />the Routt area was by ranchers and farmers (H.P,.N.F. 1975:12). <br />The Utes did not claim the land north' and east of the Yampa, hence early <br />• railroad surveys and travelers stayed on the north side of the river (P. Bonnifield, <br />2.8-17 <br />