AND PACIFIC COAST GUIDE.

poles. Three miles west, on this stage road,
| are the soda springs.

Piedmont— is ten miles from Le-
roy; there are a few dozen buildings in
sight. The principal business in which
the people are engaged is the burning of
charcoal for shipment to smelting fur-
naces in Salt Lake Valley. There are five
patent kilns close to the left of the road,
the wood being hauled from the Uintah
Mountains to the southward, from 15 to 20
miles distant.

Leaving the station, look ahead from the
left side, at the track and snow-sheds. The
grade is very heavy, the country is rough

and broken, and the road is very crooked, al- | 1

most doubling back on itself in places.
The track is laid over many long and high
trestle bridges, all of which have been filled
in with dirt, within the last six years.

Before reaching the next station, our
train will pass through five long snow-
sheds. The small houses near the sheds
are the habitations of the watchmen who
have them in charge. These sheds are
built very tight to prevent fine snow from
sifting through, which causes them to
be quite dark. From Piedmont, it is 9.4
miles to

Aspen—a side-track. Lumber piles
and water-tank make up the place. This
station is next in height to Sherman, on
the line of the Union Pacific. Elevation,
7,835 feet ; is 977 miles from San Francisco,
and 937 from Omaha, situated on the low-
est pass over the Uintah Mountains.

The station derives its name from the
high mountain to the north, called “Quak-
ing Asp.” The summit of this mountain
is covered with snow during most of the
year. The “quaking asp,” or aspen, a
species of poplar, grows in profusion in
the gulches and on the sides of the moun-
tain. The old overland stage road
winds around the northern base; while the
railroad girds its southern borders, nearly
encircling it between the old and new; de-
cay and death marking the one, life, energy
and poring eee the other.

Leaving Aspen, the grade is downward
to Salt Lake Valley. After rolling through
two long snow-sheds and five miles of
road, we are at

Hilliard—population 400. At this
station business can be felt in the air. A
“VY ” flume crosses the railroad track—20
feet above it—in which immense quanti-
ties of lumber, ties, telegraph poles, cord-
wood, es are floated down from the pine.

113

ries of the Uintah Mountains, from 20 to
30 miles distant, south. Just to the right
of the station are located long rows of
Harvey’s patent bee-hive kilns, for burn-
ing charcoal. There are about 30 of
them, of two different sizes, some with a
capacity for 20 and some 40 cords of wood.
These kilns can each be filled and burned
three times a month, and from 20 cords of
wood 1,000 bushels of charcoal is pro-
duced. This coal is mostly shipped to
smelting furnaces, to the westward—Salt
Lake City, Virginia City, Eureka, San
Francisco, etc. One smelting furnace was
— here—at the coal—during the year
Sulphur springs are located opposite
the station, to the north and south, from 10
to 25 miles distant, but they are getting too
common to require a description; and
then, owing to late teachings, they pos-
sess little interest to owr readers.

Two miles from Hilliard, to the right
of the road, we come to the site of old
Bear River City, of early railroad days,
but now entirely deserted. It is situated
in a little valley at the mouth of a ravine,
where the old overland stage road comes
down from the north of Quaking Asp
Mountain. At one time this place was
quite populous, and was supposed likely
to become a permanent town. At this
point the roughs and gamblers, who had
been driven from point to point westward,
made a stand, congregating in large num-
bers. They swore that they would be
driven no further; that here they would.
stay, and fight it out to the bitter end.
The town contained about 1,000 law-abid-
ing people, and when the roughs felt that
trouble was coming on them, they with-
drew to the hills and organized for a raid
on the town. Meanwhile some of the
roughs remained in the town, and a
them were three noted garroters, who ha
added to their long list of crimes that of
murder. The citizens arose, seized and
hung them. In this act they were sus-
tained by all law-abiding people, also by
the Index, a paper which had followed the
road, but was then published here. This
hastened the conflict, and on the 19th of
November, 1868, the roughs attacked the |
town in force. This attack was repulsed
by the citizens, though not until the Bear
River riot had cost sixteen lives, includin
thatof one citizen. The mob first attack
and burned the jail, taking thence one of
their kind who was confined there. They