This postcard featuring a poorly focused photo of 8 folks in a wagon appealed to me because of where it was postmarked – i.e., in Firstview, Colorado. I had never heard of this town and was very interested to discover that its name derives from the fact that it was the place where west-bound travelers could first view Pikes Peak 135 miles to the west.
Firstview, now an unincorporated community, sits east of Colorado Springs on Highway 40 in Cheyenne County. Ten miles east of Firstview is Cheyenne Wells, the county seat, and about 16 miles east of Cheyenne Wells is the Colorado/Kansas border. The Firstview post office operated from June 23, 1907, to November 24, 1961.
The spot that became Firstview sat near the Smoky Hill Trail, named for the Smoky Hill River in Kansas Territory, which it followed. This trail, which came west out of Atchison, Kansas, was one of three main routes used by west-bound travelers headed for the Pike’s Peak area during the gold rush of 1858 to 1861. The other two were the Overland Trail, which branched off towards Denver in the area of Julesburg, and the Arkansas Valley trail, which connected with a northwesterly trail to the foot of the mountains.
The Smoky Hill Trail quickly gained a bad reputation. It was not well-marked west of Fort Riley, there were attacks by hostile Indians, little water was available for the last 130 miles to Denver and travelers included those in possession of inaccurate information about distances and traveling conditions. As to the latter, there were merchants, railroads and other transportation companies, who, anxious for the business that a thriving gold rush could bring, but ignorant of trail conditions and distances, did not let their ignorance stop them from providing glowing, but terribly inaccurate, accounts of the trail. These accounts could have deadly results, especially for those travelling in small, poorly organized parties on their first trek west. They led to unneeded deaths from starvation, lack of water and exposure.
REFERENCES:
- “A Place Called Peculiar: Stories about Unusual American Place-Names” at https://books.google.com/books?id=yzk9g9TuMNYC&lpg=PA42&dq=fleatown%20ohio&pg=PA37#v=onepage&q=fleatown%20ohio&f=false
- “Colorado Post Offices – 1859 to 1989,” by Bauer, Ozment and Willard, 1990, published by the Colorado Railroad Museum.
- Distancefromto.net at https://www.distancefromto.net/
- “Legends of America” at https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ks-smokyhillstrail/
- Roadsidethoughts.com at https://roadsidethoughts.com/co/firstview-xx-cheyenne-census.htm
- “Smoky Hill Trail and Butterfield Overland Despatch” at Kansapedia, Kansas Historical Society (https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/smoky-hill-trail-and-butterfield-overland-despatch/17320 )
- Smoky Hill Trail Association at https://smokyhilltrail.com/
- “Steamboat Pilot,” dated July 14, 1949 (www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org)
- Wikipedia.org at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firstview,_Colorado
