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ville area fell into this latter category of miners who became <br />farmers. <br />Contributing to the damaged reputation of Colorado during <br />the 1860's, was the frantic search for a process to extract gold <br />from ore -bearing rock. This often took on aspects of quack alchemy <br />until Nathanial Kill's success in developing a smelting process in <br />1867. The Civil War put an additional break on immigration, as <br />well as the real or imagined threats of Indian disturbances. <br />The Cheyenne and Arapahoes, who had been restricted by treaty <br />to hunting grounds between the South Platte and the Arkansas -as <br />early as 1851, had continued to hunt the abundant game of the <br />Boulder valley at the time of their contact with the first wave <br />of white prospectors. In fact, the rich soils of the plains east <br />of Boulder supported natural grasses which served as the fall <br />and winter grazing lands for countless elk, deer, buffalo and <br />antelope. The region was naturally a favorite hunting ground <br />for the Cheyenne and Arapahoe as it had been for the Comanche <br />and Kiowa during the 18th century before they were displaced'to <br />the south and east. <br />Despite an uneasy truce between the Indians and the gold <br />seekers, in 1860 the government again responded to pressures to <br />restrict the Cheyenne and Arapahoe to reservation lands near <br />Sand Creek, with the intention of turning their nomadic hunting <br />lifestyle iato one of settled farming. The failure of this plan <br />and the growing fear that the Indians were conspiring to stage <br />a massive attack upon the new settlers prompted the tragedy of <br />the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. Several Boulder volunteers aided <br />Colonel Chivington in the surprise raid which crushed - izher tribea, <br />which indicates the sentiment of removing the Indians permanently <br />from the area was very strong. This was accomplished by the Medi- <br />cine Lodge Creek Treaty three years later which removed the tribes <br />to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. An unprecedented era of new <br />white settlement reached eastern Colorado following the final <br />Indian defeat at the Battle of Summit Springs in 1869. It is <br />into this picture of Indian removal, with the coming of railroads, <br />smelters, and new immigrants, that the history of Louisville takes <br />on greater focus. <br />