Down Cherry Creek

The Cherokee Trail swung northeast out of Russellville to a meeting with Cherry Creek. Much of its route lies today beneath Russellville Road. On reaching present Franktown, the course was due north, parallel with Cherry Creek all the way to its mouth in modern downtown Denver.

Cherry Creek

Rufus B. Sage, 10-12 September 1842.

After an unsuccessful attempt to pilot a boatload of furs to the States, Sage had returned west to the South Platte. He had spent a week at Fort Lancaster recovering from a bout with the ague. On 10 September he left the fort with four others. All were mounted on stout horses for the 300+ ride south to Taos.

“Following the trail leading from the Platte to the Arkansas, or Rio Napeste, we continued our way some thirty-five miles, and halted with a camp of free traders and hunters on Cherry Creek.
“This stream is an affluent of the Platte, from the southeast, heading in a broad ridge of pine hills and rocks, known as the "Divide." It pursues its course for nearly sixty miles, through a broad valley of rich soil, tolerably well timbered, and shut in for the most part by high plats of table land, - at intervals thickly studded with lateral pines, cedars, oaks, and shrubs of various kinds, - gradually expanding its banks as it proceeds, and exchanging a bed of rocks and pebbles for one of quicksand and gravel, til it finally attains a width of nearly two hundred yards, and in places is almost lost in the sand. The stream derives its name from the abundance of cherry found upon it,...
“The camp at which we are at present located consists of four lodges, - three of whites and one of Blackfoot Indians.
“Each of the whites has his squaw wife, and the usual accompaniment of ruddy faced children. In regard to the latter, I must say they were more beautiful, interesting, and intelligent than the same number of full-bloods, - either of whites or Indians.
“These men were living after the fashion of their new-found relatives, and seemed to enjoy themselves as well as circumstances would admit. They had a number of horses, with the requisite supply of arms and ammunition, - the sure sources of wealth and comfort in a country abounding with game.
“The Indian family were relatives by marriage, and were one of some fifteen lodges of Blackfeet amonq the Arapahoes, who forsook their own nation, on account of its uncompromising hostilty to the whites. Quite a number of these Indians have also joined the Sioux and Nesperces, for a like reason.
We were entertained very kindly by our new friends who spared no effort to render our stay agreeable. Among the delicacies set before us, was one deserving of notice, - it consisted of the fruit of prickly pears (cacti) boiled in water for some ten or twelve hours till it became perfectly soft, when it was compressed through a thin cloth into the fluid in which it had been boiled. This forms a delicious variety in mountain fare, and one highly stimulating and nutritious.
“The immense quantities of cacti fruit found near the mountains, at the proper season, render the above an entertainment not uncommon.”

Source: Rocky Mountain Life, by Rufus B. Sage. (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1982.)

Philip St. George Cooke, 22-23 July 1845>

With Colonel Kearney’s First Dragoons on their march down the old trail from Fort Laramie.

“July 23d.- Yesterday we...encamped on Cherry Creek. The hottest day we have had...The country is the same - desolate and devoid of life: there have not been buffalo here for years...To-day we still followed up Cherry Creek, or its dry sands; but towards noon, it came running to meet us; and there were the patronymic cherries -or rather the bushes; and of the sort called choke-cherries. We are again encamped on it ....”

Source: "Scenes and Adventures in the Army," by Philip St. George Cooke. (Philadelphia, 1859)

Ellen Hundley, 7-8 July 1856.

Mrs. Hundley was returning to Texas with her husband and several children, incuding an infant son named Elijah. The family had spent a year in Utah, scouting out the land and their new-found religion. Their return route had led them to Fort Laramie, then south along the old trail over the Platte-Arkansas divide.”

“July 7 monday we started on again this morning met 2 arkansas trains with about 1000 head of cattle traveled 25 miles and camped on cherry creek good grass and water
“July 8 tuesday lay bye half the day come on in the evening. met some mexicans packed with flour going to trade with the Indians... passed a mexican camp on CC”

Source:"From Utah to Texas in 1856," by Ellen Hundley. Covered Wagon Women, Vol.VII, edited and compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes. (Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1988).

R.M. Peck, Late June 1857

Peck belonged to Company E of the First Cavalry, four companies of which had marched west under Major John Sedgewick to punish the Cheyennes for their raids of the previous summer. The cavalry had started west over the Santa Fe Trail, then turned north up the Cherokee Trail. Ultimately, they hoped to meet up with Colonel Sumner’s troops on the South Platte.

“Soon after reahing Cherry Creek, while marching down it, we met a party of six or eight men - Missourians, and all afoot -with a little old wagon drawn by a single yoke of steers, driven by a big "buck nigger," the slave of one of the men, on their way back to Missouri ....
“Those men had a wounded comrade lying in their wagon who had accidentally shot himself through the hand, in pulling his rifle out of the wagon muzzle foremost, a day or so before we met them. The wound had reached the gangrene stage, and they halted to ask surgical aid from our doctor. Our surgeon decided that it would be necessary to take the man along with us, and while halting to bring up a wagon and transfer the man, we got a chance to talk to them a little, and they told us their troubles. I think they had been in the mountains between the mouth of Cherry Creek and Pike's Peak all winter and spring prospecting, and had found plenty of gold, some of which they showed us, put up in bottles and little buckskin bags.
“They had originally intended to keep the discovery of gold a secret, but the Indians had run off all their stock except the yoke of steers, and had otherwise made life such a burden to them that they finally concluded the only way to make mining safe and profitable was to go back to Missouri, proclaim their discovery, make up a strong party that would be able to hold their own against the Indians, and return determined to have "the dust."
“We parted company with them - they continuing on towards the States, and we moving on down to the mouth of Cherry Creek...Our surgeons, Doctors Covey and Brewer, amputated the wounded prospector's hand at this camp, and a few days later found it necessary to take his arm off above the elbow.”

Source: "R.M. Peck's Account of the Sedgwick Division," Relations with the Indians of the Plains, 1857-1861, ed. by LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen. (Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1959).

Luke Tierney, 22 June 1858.

Gold seeker with the Russell Party.

“We traveled down along Cherry creek, over rough, craggy roads, having, in the meantime, a pleasing view of the mountains. About noon we camped on the banks of the same stream.”

Source: "Luke Tierney Guidebook," Pikes Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks of 1859 ed. by LeRoy R. Hafen. (Glendale, Ca: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1941).BR>

Horace Greeley, 6 June 1859

Greeley was traveling west in a stagecoach of the short-lived Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express. The trip had taken him along the Republican River to a junction with the Smoky Hill Trail in what is now eastern Colorado. The combined goldrush routes continued west to the Front Range, then turned north onto the Cherokee Trail for the last twelve miles into Denver City.

“...at sunrise this morning stopped to change mules on the bank of Cherry Creek, twelve miles south of this place (which is situated at the junction of the creek with the south fork of the Platte). The 'foot hills' of the Rocky Mountains seemed but a few miles west of us during our rapid ride down the smooth valley of the Cherry Creek, which has a fine belt of cotton-wood only, but including trees of immense size - not less than three to four feet in diameter. The soil of the adjacent prairie seems light and sandy, but well grassed, and capable of yielding oats, potatoes, etc.; but the elevation (hardly less than six thousand feet), and the proximity of the Rocky Mountains, whose snow-covered crests, gleaming between and over the 'foot hills,' seem hardly twenty miles distant, must ever render the growth of corn difficult, if not absolutely impossible.”

Source: An Overland Journey, by Horace Greeley. (New York: C.M. Saxton, Barker & Co., 1860).

George M. Willing, 12 June 1859.

Gold seeker from St. Louis.

“Sunday, June 12. Thermometer at 6 A.M., 62 deg. Weather clear and calm. Proceed down Cherry Creek in the direction of Denver City. For want of a better, and in the absence of any name for one of the peaks opposite Russelville, I confer my own name upon it, and dub it henceforth Willing's Peak.
“Cherry Creek is a beautiful, clear and cold stream, narrow and swift. Its bottoms are rich and may be easily irrigated. Horse flies, strange to say, are abundant, and annoy the cattle excessively. It is the first time we have been troubled by them. Our little friends, the prairie dogs, still keep us company. Since we left the little Arkansas I do not believe we have failed every day to pass through one or more of their villages. But little timber along the creek, some cottonwood and willow, and a few wild cherry bushes comprise it all. On the hills though, several miles distant, pine and cedar are in abundance. We pass to-day through the western edge of the plains. On the left, the mountains; on the right, stretches far beyond the range of vision, a boundless desert.
“Camp at 6 P.M., in the midst of a thunder storm, at the forks of the Smoky Hill route, and 12 miles from Denver. Made 25 miles; road excellent, as it has been for several days.”

Source: "Diary of a Journey to the Pike's Peak Gold Mines in 1859," by Dr. George M. Willing. Edited by Ralph P. Bieber. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol.XIV, June 1927-March 1938.

Ellen Hunt, 27 June 1859>

Mrs. Hunt was traveling to the gold diggings with her husband and their two small children.

“27. Started again before day, traveled till nine, breakfasted and were off again at l1 1/2oc. Sand very deep, soil looks poor. No trees save a few cottonwoods along Cherry Creek. Camp at 7 oc in a better looking country, 5 miles from Denver, in a rain storm which continued until nine oc.”

Source: "Diary of Mrs. A.C. Hunt, 1859," ed by LeRoy R. Hafen. Colorado Magazine, Vol.XXI (September, 1944).