To overcome this handicap the late David Moffat, one of Denver's early millionaires, started in to build the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad, better known as the Moffat Road. This railway strikes almost due west from Denver and crosses the continental divide at an altitude of over two miles. While it is one of the most astonishing pieces of railroad in the world, its windings and severe grades have made operation difficult and expensive, and the road has been built only as far as Craig, Colo., less than halfway to Salt Lake City. The great difficulty has always been the crossing of the divide. The city of Denver has now come forward with the Moffat tunnel project, and has extended her credit to the extent of three million dollars, for the purpose of helping the railroad company to build the tunnel. It will be more than six miles long, and will penetrate the Continental Divide at a point almost half a mile below that now reached by the road, saving twenty-four miles in distance and over two per cent. in grade. The tunnel is now under construction, and will, when completed, be the longest railroad tunnel in the Western Hemisphere. The railroad company stands one-third of the cost, while the city of Denver undertakes two-thirds. When completed, this route will be the shortest between Denver and Salt Lake by many miles.
Nor is Denver giving her entire attention to her railway line. The good-roads movement is strong throughout the State of Colorado. Last year two million dollars was expended under the direction of the State Highway Commission--a very large sum when it is considered that the total population of the State is not a great deal larger than that of the city of St. Louis.
The construction of roads in Colorado is carried on under a most advanced system. Of a thousand convicts assigned to the State Penitentiary at Cañon City, four hundred are employed upon road work. In traveling through the State I came upon several parties of these men, and had I not been informed of the fact, I should never have known that they were convicts. I met them in the mountains, where they live in camps many miles distant from the penitentiary. They seemed always to be working with a will, but as we passed, they would look up and smile and wave their hands to us. They appeared healthy, happy, and--respectable. They do not wear stripes, and their guards are unarmed, being selected, rather, as foremen with a knowledge of road building. When one considers the ghastly mine wars which have, at intervals, disgraced the State, it is comforting to reflect upon Colorado's enlightened methods of handling her prisons and her prisoners.