"Around the Circle": One Thousand Miles Through the Rocky Mountains — Edition Insights

Superlatives and the Sublime

The guidebook relies heavily on superlative language to convey the scale of the scenery. The Royal Gorge is called "the crowning glory" and "the wonder of wonders." The Black Cañon is described as "beautiful, imposing, sublime and awful." Such phrasing is typical of late-19th-century promotional literature, which sought to attract tourists by framing natural features as unparalleled spectacles. The text also uses repetition for emphasis: "seven miles of wonders, seven miles of the grandest, most awful scenery in the world." This rhetorical strategy creates a sense of accumulating marvels, building toward the Royal Gorge as the climax.

Engineering as Spectacle

Alongside natural wonders, the guidebook highlights the railroad's own feats. At Marshall Pass, it notes that the engineer "control[s] the power of gravitation" to descend a sinuous track. In the Royal Gorge, iron braces and a suspension bridge cling to the cliff face, running parallel to the river. The text presents these structures as attractions in their own right, blending human ingenuity with the landscape. The description of the train navigating "intricate curves" and nearly dashing against cliffs before turning safely emphasizes both danger and mastery. This dual focus—nature's sublimity and the railroad's conquest of it—is a central tension in the work.

A Network of Agents and Routes

The front matter lists numerous railroad agents across the United States, from Chicago to San Francisco to New York, indicating a national marketing effort. The guidebook also promotes three interconnected lines: the Denver & Rio Grande, the Rio Grande Southern, and the Silverton Railroad, each branded with scenic nicknames like "Rainbow Route" and "Scenic Line of the World." This corporate infrastructure underpins the tour, transforming a geographic loop into a commercial product. The inclusion of tables listing altitudes of towns, peaks, and lakes further reinforces the guidebook's dual role as both travelogue and practical reference for the tourist.

Readers should approach "Around the Circle" as a period piece of railroad promotion, not a neutral description. Its value lies in how it reveals the strategies used to package wilderness for tourism—through hyperbole, engineering pride, and careful branding. The guidebook offers a window into late-19th-century attitudes toward nature, technology, and travel in the American West.

This guide’s measured pride in those steel rails hugging granite made me think of a summer I spent tracing old maps in my grandfather’s study. He’d underline passages the way this book charts its passes. A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany, Vol. 1 (of 2) With Anecdotes Relating to Some Eminent Characters — Themes and Context once gave me that same quiet ache—not for the places themselves, but for the patient hands that recorded them.