Chapter One

David Leavitt should have named his new town “Adversity” rather than Sterling. He didn’t because no one anticipates hard times, they have a furtive way of appearing when least expected. Wiser men than he did not know what lay ahead.

David Leavitt saw the situation as opportunity. As a surveyor, Leavitt had seen the blooming of villages and towns along the path of the railway lines. A man with enough foresight to establish one of these towns could make a great deal of money selling off lots from a location such as these. The Homestead Law could make ownership possible. When his surveying crew came through northeastern Colorado in April and May of 1872 he found his location and he was allowed to give it a name. He chose Sterling, after his hometown in Illinois.1

Since 1867 the different railway companies had been criss-crossing Colorado Territory in a determined effort to bring inhabitants to buy the land given to the railroads by the government. These rail routes would also provide the first opportunity to dominate the resulting trade. The transcontinental Union Pacific dipped briefly into Colorado at Julesburg in the northeast corner, and the Denver Pacific was near to completing a railway to connect Denver with the Union Pacific at Cheyenne in 1869. The Kansas Pacific struck out across central eastern Colorado to Denver.

In 1869, F. M. Case, as First Engineer of the Denver Pacific, complained that his railway was “monopolized” by the Kansas Pacific, and he expressed the belief in a line that would run from Julesburg diagonally across the northeast part of the territory, to Greeley to join the Denver Pacific to Denver. Engineer Case also pointed out that such a railroad branch would pass through land-grant country and with the number of colonies of settlers already present, as well as independent ranchers and squatters settling along the banks of the South Platte, such a railroad would be lucrative.2

Previously the Union Pacific had considered building a short line from Julesburg to Denver in the 1860s. A freighter named McCandless camped on the South Platte Road, near the present day Prewitt Reservoir, in September of 1866 and noted in his diary that he saw “engineering camps surveying route for Pacific Railway just below us with their escort.”3

It was true, due to a complex tangle of failed agreements, the Kansas Pacific line had taken over the Denver Pacific by 1870, thus shutting out the Union Pacific from any railroad profits in Colorado. Engineer Case was not the first to see the advantage of the Julesburg connection, but now Oliver Ames Jr., president of the Union Pacific, could see that some such means of access would be necessary. That it would also be profitable was an incentive.4

There was a small independent railroad called the Colorado Central, which was building a narrow-gauge line from the mining towns in the mountains to Golden, just west of Denver. The Union Pacific had negotiated with them before, but the deal had collapsed. Now they resumed talks. The Union Pacific offered financing and donated equipment if they would take on the Julesburg-to-Golden construction.5

Since this seemed agreeable, a Mr. Cleburne, a Division Engineer for the Union Pacific, was put in charge of a surveying party of sixteen men. They started from Julesburg in about mid-March of 1872. Among these men were probably David Leavitt and his friend Frank Soper. The party spent about six weeks on the project.

Cleburne told the Greeley Tribune representative that he and his party possessed the original survey papers from this expedition, and their original stakes were a great help to the group in 1872. He said that the Platte valley was a natural railroad line.

It was a lonely six weeks for the surveyors, the only inhabitants seemed to be on cattle ranches where a few herders lived. The surveyors had no letters or newspapers the entire time. Cleburne remembered so many dead cattle that the air was heavy with the odor of decay. It had been an exceptionally hard winter.

The survey party remained in camp on Cole Creek, about fourteen miles from Greeley while the engineers convened at the Greeley House where they awaited the arrival of T. E. Sickels, General Superintendent of the Union Pacific.6

On May 22, 1872 the first bucket of dirt was excavated at Julesburg to build a graded bed for the short line to Golden. The work progressed through the summer from both Golden and Julesburg toward the center of the proposed line. Daniel Carmichael, formerly Superintendent of Bridges for the Union Pacific, was appointed Superintendent of Construction on the Julesburg branch of the Colorado Central in September of 1872. Word passed up and down the valley that real cash was available for men with teams of horses.7

Two brothers from Tennessee were scratching out the beginning of a farm on the south side of the South Platte opposite the present town of Merino. They were Jimmy (James R.) and Columbus Chambers. Jimmy Chambers was a small man, and when he arrived from the south in April of 1871, he was also sickly, probably from malaria. After a year and half in the dry climate of Colorado his health had improved immensely, even so, he was still small and not very strong, but he was determined.

The brothers had a good span of horses each, but not much else—except their crop of potatoes—and they were much in need of money. After the potatoes were stored, they headed for the railroad camp nine miles west of present Julesburg and started work on November 8.

Almost immediately the weather turned cold and stayed that way all winter, but there was no snow, so work continued. For $3.75 a day, plus board, Jimmy and Columbus worked from dawn until the last glimmer of light, twelve to fourteen hours per day. After a short time the Chambers brothers were moved with a group to a location west of their farm. At this camp they slept in a dugout. The work had become even heavier.8

In December, the Superintendent, T. E. Sickels, told the Omaha Tribune that work on the grading of the Julesburg to Golden cut-off was proceeding with “unexampled rapidity in consequence of the use of patent excavators.” He also praised their efficiency. He expected to start laying tracks on February 17, 1873.9

Jimmy Chambers said that he “rode” the excavator most of the time, which suggests that he was using a machine with wheels rather than the usual type, driven by hand and powered by muscle. An improved excavator on wheels, powered by a lever, was patented in 1875. Of course, both machines were pulled by horses which provided the actual force, forward and backward, but the system was manipulated and maneuvered by the operator. It is possible that the new wheeled type was in use while the patent was pending.

The unfinished grading was ended abruptly when word came to the crews to stop work on the April 9, 1873. The Colorado Central officials had changed their minds. No one seemed to understand that, even though Sickels had the backing to pay for the rails, there was no money to pay operating costs. The pioneers in Northeastern Colorado Territory seldom had money anyway so it was understandable that they paid little attention to news of the Panic of 1873.10

In the same area, and about the same time, as the grading operations, Adam M. Fahringer and his crew were conducting the Federal Survey of Logan County. Fahringer had a government contract to survey Townships 7 and 8 North, to begin June 1, 1871 and end February 11, 1873, for which he was to be paid $650. The important areas were a strip along the river and about two Townships and two Ranges to the left and right, but he did not stay within these limitations. He and his crew had been surveying other parts of northeastern Colorado, and after this contract was fulfilled, he continued up the river at least until November of 1873, presumably under different contracts.

He made frequent observations. He noted the Colorado Central survey points whenever he encountered them. He mentioned the absence of wood and the scarcity of creeks. He believed that some types of soil were better suited to grazing, some for hay bottoms, and others for possible cultivation.

He noted the locations of stage stops and old ranches from the previous decade, some of which were still being occupied. Of the stage stations he mentioned Valley Station, Lillian Springs and the American Ranch, which was now the claim of Columbus Chambers. East of Valley Station, which was northeast across the river from present Sterling, he surveyed the ranch of Reuben Brownell and Lewis Curtice, where they were barely hanging on and “waiting for better times.” He surveyed a well-known land mark in the area, Hadfield’s Island, on March 14, 1873.

He was ingenious in his improvisations for corner markers. Sometimes it would be a charred stake, or a post in a mound of dirt. Rocks were so scarce that he used them in prominent positions. When he had a piece of sandstone, he would note the dimensions and then bury it in the ground. In one case, on a piece of stone, he marked five notches in the south and east side. On another page he recorded a mound two and half feet over buffalo bones. In one case he was required three years later to go back and relocate one of these bone-pile markers which had been scattered by cattle. He took great pains with his replacement. He set a piece of sandstone “20 X 15 X 4 inches, which was notched with six slashes marks on the east, west and north, in a mound of earth three feet high over a pit 24 X 18 X 12 inches deep.”11

With the Julesburg-Golden branch at a standstill, the Colorado Central had no further need for a construction superintendent so they moved David Carmichael to the Passenger-Ticket office in Golden as agent. Carmichael’s mind was still occupied with the future of the Julesburg-Golden branch line, specifically how he could use it for his personal benefit. He concentrated on a prospective town named Buffalo that seemed to him to be promising property for speculation. He thought he would call it the Beaver Colony.12

Carmichael set to work to organize a group of investors in a town site, Jasper T. Evans, J. Alexander Pace and Alword White. The four men filed on homesteads in Sections 13, 23, 24, 25 and 27 of Range 54 West, Township 6 North, along the grade of the unfinished railroad. They then proceeded to lay out the town, on 560 acres no less. This did not contain the present town of Merino—the traditional site of Buffalo—but was confined to the west and south of the actual town.

On April 20, 1874 the partnership sold 640 acres to a fifth party, David Payne, for $2,000, then they each bought back selected lots for $500. Presumably there was some advantage in this strange transaction, perhaps some of it involved cash and some did not.

Two months before they received their patents, the partners began sales of the blocks and lots. There were at lest 160 blocks platted. On August 8, 1874 Carmichael sold one block for $100. On August 20, 1874 he sold nine blocks to the Clopper brothers for a combined total of $400. The following day he sold three blocks for $200. The partners received their patents on October 30, 1874. Of all the buyers of these imaginary lots, the only one who actually became a resident of the Buffalo area was Jacob S. Flory, who lived in the vicinity for many years.13

David Leavitt had filed a claim on a quarter section straddling the Colorado Central grade down-river from Buffalo. This was Leavitt’s choice for his proposed town of Sterling (It is now partly within the city limits of the present town of Sterling.). Leavitt received his patent on the same day as David Carmichael, but as far as is known, Leavitt never sold a single lot.

-Doris Monahan