Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/216

COLORADO. State from the more extensive development of its railways and its position as a distributing centre. In those manufactures in which freight rates are an important consideration, Colorado's great distance from the manufacturing centres of the East is another advantage. The foundry and machine-shop products, which have had a rapid growth during the past decade, consist largely of mining machinery, in the production of which the State holds high rank. An increase in the flouring and the meat-packing industries is a natural consequence of the growing importance of agriculture. The following figures from the census of 1890 and of 1900 show the number of establishments and wage-earners, and the value of the total gross product for these years:

. Colorado has better railroad accommodations than any other Rocky Mountain State. In 1899 there were 4616 miles of track, most of which was constructed prior to 1890. The Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, the Denver and Rio Grande, the Colorado and Southern, and the Rock Island Route, with their branches, are the principal railroads. These railroad facilities are important, not only in developing the resources of the State, but in augmenting its commercial importance by making it a collecting and distributing centre for the West. There are no navigable streams.

. In 1900 the total debt of the State was $2,700,000. The total receipts and disbursements for the two years ending November 30, 1900, were respectively $3,199,000 and $3,089,000.

. In October, 1900, there were 40 national banks in operation, with a capital stock aggregating $4,387,000, the outstanding circulation being $3,337,000; deposits, $24,500,000; and reserve, $10,900,000. In July of the same year there were 30 State banks, with $9,800,000 total resources, $1,430,000 capital and $8,100,000 deposits. There were also 13 private banks with

$795,000 resources and $524,000 deposits. No savings banks were reported.

. There are an insane asylum at Pueblo and a soldiers' and sailors' home at Monte Vista. The State also maintains homes for its deaf and blind and for its dependent and neglected children. Boards of county commissioners make annual appropriations for the support of the poor, county homes being provided in some counties. There is a State penitentiary at Cañon City. The entire expense of maintaining the institution from 1876 to 1900, inclusive, was $2,296,899. The earnings of the prison during the same period were $516,333. Much of the labor of the convicts has been on roads and irrigation ditches. The State has an indeterminate sentence and parole law. First offenders between the ages of sixteen and thirty are sent to the State Reformatory at Buena Vista, where the cultivation of a farm is the chief occupation. The parole system is used at this institution. The State also has an industrial school for youthful offenders at Golden. It is without ‘locks, bars, and cells,’ and endeavors to treat its wards as students, not as criminals. Each of the charitable and penal institutions is under the jurisdiction of a board of control. The State Board of Charities and Correction is an inspecting and advising body.

. Colorado is the most populous of the Rocky Mountain States. The following gives the population by decades: 1860, 34,277; 1870, 39,864; 1880, 194,327; 1890, 412,198; 1900, 539,700, of which only 10,654 were colored. The foreign born in 1900 numbered 91,155, about one-half of whom came from the United Kingdom and Canada. In 1880 two-thirds of the population were males, but with the development of agriculture and more settled conditions of life the population is rapidly becoming normal; in 1900 the male population constituted less than 55 per cent. of the total. There is a marked tendency to segregate in towns, as is usual in