PUEBLO, a city of Colorado, U.S.A., on the Arkansas river at the mouth of Fountain creek, 120 M. S. by E. of Denver; the county-seat of Pueblo county and the second city of the State in size. It is on Federal highways so and 85; has airmail service; and is served by the Colorado and Southern, the Colorado-Kansas, the Denver and Rio Grande Western, the Missouri Pacific and the Santa Fe railways. The population was 43,050 in 1920 (79% na tive white) and was 50,096 in 1930 by the Federal census. It lies at an altitude of 4,685 ft., near the great coalfields of the State and many of the metal deposits, in an irrigated region of 50,00o ac., which produces 90% of all the cucumber seed grown in the United States and great quantities of red clover, canteloupe, squash and onion seed. The San Isabel National Forest (600,000 ac.) is 20 m. to the south and west. Pueblo is an important manu facturing centre, "the Pittsburgh of the West." The industrial payroll for the city and its immediate suburbs amounts to about $20,000,000 annually. At Minnequa, on the mesa south of the city, is the great plant of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, employing 5,000 men in mining and 5,00o more in the Pueblo mills in the manufacture of iron and steel. There are large smelters for the reduction of gold and silver ores, foundries, machine shops, boiler works and various other plants. Debits to individual ac
counts in the city's banks totalled $247,221,000 in 1926. The assessed valuation of property for 1927 was $36,870,000. Since 1911 the city has had a commission form of government. It is the seat of the State hospital for the insane (established 1879). In 1806 Lieut. Pike and his exploring party camped at the con fluence of Fountain creek with the Arkansas ("The Forks," he called it), and the spot was visited by Major Long in 1820. A band of Mormons settled here temporarily in 1846-47 on their way to Utah. In 185o a trading post was established. In 1858 a settlement (Fountain City) was made on the east side of Fountain creek, and the following winter (1859-6o) the townsite of Pueblo was laid out and the first house was built on the site of the present city. Regular stage service to Denver began in 1862, but develop ment was slow until the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad reached the Arkansas in 1872. The two pioneer settlements were consoli dated and chartered in 1870, when the population was about 500. By 1880 this had grown to 3,217. Other railroads reached the city in 1875, 1887 and 1888; the Colorado Coal and Iron Com pany had its steel works in operation in 1881; and in 1890 the population of the city was 24,558.