Cherry Creek was a location rather than a specific settlement. It referred to the area encompassed by the Denver City and Auraria town sites.
Letter and envelope from E.P. “Pinkie” Stout. Stout had arrived in Denver on October 26, 1858. He was one of the original stockholders in Auraria Town Company and the first president of the Denver City Town Company. A street in downtown Denver was named after him in 1859. The location of his home until 1861 is highlighted on map to the right.
26 February 1859 Cherry Creek, Kansas Territory to Cherry Fork, Ohio
Carried privately to Council Bluffs, Iowa where it entered the mails more than a month later.
Original letter of E.P. “Pinkie” Stout mentions:
“Miners are making from 3 to 10 dol per day and speculators like myself are making two or three times that amount…
The emigration is coming in continually and our town is building almost like a San Francisco. It already contains one church building, one theater, an opera or ball room, any amount of liquor and gambling saloons and one or two HHs [whore houses] or assignation houses which are to be supplied from Mexico and St. Louis and Cincinnati.
Enclosed please find a specimen of [gold] dust which I give to sweet little Cora and tell her Pinkie sent it. There is about enough to make her a ring – just one dol worth I took from a few pans of dirt a few days ago while trying my hand washing.”