28 WESTERN INOIDENTS.

COLORADO AGRICULTURAL FAIR—-TRIP FROM DENVER TO LAPORTH—
LAPORTE TO VIRGINIA DALE—STONEWALL CANON—STEAMBOAT

BUTTE, ANTELOPE PASS AND THE LARAMIE PLAINS——ARRIVAL AT
FORT JOHN BUFORD.

Fort Joun Burorp, Laramre Prats, D. T.,
Thursday, September 27, 1866.

The first Agricultural Fair of Colorado had been
advertised to come off on Thursday, September 20, and
be continued on Friday and Saturday; but the severe
storm of the preceding Wednesday had made the travel-
ling so bad, that the Committee determined to post-
pone the commencement till Friday, and continue the
exhibition till the following Tuesday.

On Friday morning Mr. Williams and myself were
invited to visit the grounds by General Pierce, the Sur-
veyor-General of the Territory, and General Hughes, the
general agent and attorney for Holladay’s Overland Stage
and Express Company. We found that the grounds,
which are situated about one and a half miles to the
northeast of Denver City, consisted of forty acres of most
beautiful plain in the form of a parallelogram, inclosed by
a tight wall, composed of concrete, about two feet thick
and eight feet high. Upon one side of the rectangle was
an elliptical track one half mile in length, for the trial of
the speed of horses and mules ; and upon the other side
were innumerable stalls for the exhibition of domestic
animals. In the centre was a large covered amphitheatre,
in which were exhibited the products of the soil, and such
articles of trade and commerce as the mechanical skill of