Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1896 — QUEEN OF THE HOCKIES. [ARTICLE]

QUEEN OF THE HOCKIES.

ftenver Sprang Into Exigence A> moat In a Night. TUs booming city, writes a temver correspondent, baa not a counterpart in ffid Waoti It ia typical only of itself. It is the winter heme of the oowtoy and mining proapeotor, and it ia the seat at wealth and refinement The wealth was accumulated here; the tetter was Imported afterward. The Lead-vine strike in tee latter part of the '7os brought Ootorado into notoriety as a land of wealth. This great strike created a crop of milUonalre»gand teen came flocks of elocutionists, teachers of languages and broken-down professors, calling teemselYee “private tutor*. 1 ' They found employment in “coaching 1 * the new rich in the ways of polite society, and teaching their children bow to walk and talk according to Detearte —at about $5 per lesson. Some of these teachers of the art of expression and dissimilation carried K Into reaMem and married their wealthy pupils. One, in particular, married a mUlloimire, and it cost him $160,000 to get rid of her. She then organized a dramatic company and went on the road. She is now a total wreck In New York—a victim to the champagne habit Prior to the Leadville strike Denver was considered only as a wild and more or less woolly town, abounding In saloons and gaming houses for tee accommodation of cowboys and miners. Indeed, this was a large source of trade, for several thousand hibernated there during the winter. The only places pf amusement were one theater and several ‘‘dives." In the former skeleton companies en route to the Pacific coast gave Indifferent performances, at firstclass prices of ad mil* ton. In the tetter song and dance girls of the moet brazen type, wearing scarcely enough clothing for the flagging of a freight train, sold beer between their vile songs at $1 a bottle. In a room leading off from the “dress circle," as It was facetiously called, was a gambling hall, Into which the crowd was ushered at the intermission and at the close of the performance. Here there were several faro tables, roulette wheels, chnck-a-luck, over-aod-under-seven, and every game known to the trade. The “show" lasted until midnight and the games ran until day light or until the crowd was “busted." The Leadvlile strike changed all of this and planted the seed from which the present Queen of the Rockies sprang.