By John Mattingly
In 1965, on the last day of my matriculation year of high school in Australia, our history teacher, a bravely bearded Mr. Chambers, suggested to our class that one of the more interesting – perhaps even more important – things we could do in the next couple of decades was try to figure out our place in the “wide river of history.”

The suggestion didn’t strike me, or most of my mates, as something we had to worry about just then, as most of us were more concerned about the “wide river” of matriculation exams we had to take in a few days. In those days, Australia had only three universities, which meant only a small percentage of high school students qualified for higher learning. There was tremendous pressure to do well on the exam – the dreaded “matric” – a three day, eighteen hour, strictly proctored exam that covered the entire year’s study of English, Calculus, Pure Maths, Chemistry, and History. Read the rest of this article

by Alan Robinson- Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board member

Concern for preserving “heritage resources” (the collective natural, cultural, historic and scenic features which define an area’s sense of place) in Chaffee County took a front seat in 2004 when its county commissioners ambitiously declared the whole county a heritage area. They also appointed an 11-member Advisory Board representing public land managers, historical societies, towns, ranchers, local nature associations and the general public, and charged us not only with identifying heritage, but with educating our fellow citizens about its value in social, ecological and economic terms, and with planning how heritage can be managed to preserve and perpetuate those values. Board members volunteer their services but, recognizing future administrative and technical services, the commissioners also appointed non-profit Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA, www.garna.org) and its director as the board’s executive arm. Read the rest of this article

by Colorado Central Staff

The year was 1895 and the city of Leadville had fallen on hard times. Since 1881, production had declined at its largest and most profitable mines. The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, first enacted to increase the amount of silver the government was required to purchase every month, had a crippling effect on the local economy. By 1895 the population had dwindled to 14,477 residents from nearly 40,000 only two years previous. Read the rest of this article

by Jackie W. Powell
Photos courtesy of The Salida Library

People say “Soft Salida brick” as if it were one word. Many believe it was sun-dried, like adobe, and therefore not as hard as fired brick. The myth of sun drying is reinforced by photographs such as Figure 1 , showing thousands of bricks lying in the sun. But this was only one of the five steps needed to transform clay into fired bricks: mining, tempering, molding, drying, and firing. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0979625513[/amazon-product]By Carol Darnell Guerrero-Murphy
Published in 2007 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN 0-9796255-1-3

Reviewed by Elliot Jackson

Why, oh why, wonders the Inconstant Reader, do I routinely pass by poetry in my restless forays through my library’s shelves? Is it because I had a rigorous education in my youth, and read so much of it that I just OD’d? Or do I just forget about it? Maybe it’s simple intimidation: a good poem is such a richly-stuffed little nugget that getting through a whole book of poetry feels like downing a plate of baklava all by myself (maybe that’s why, when I do get around to reading poetry, that I love to read it aloud, or hear it read: just like that plate of baklava, a poem seems created to be shared – munched by multiple ears). Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0870819348[/amazon-product]

By F. Darrell Munsell
Published in 2008 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 978-0-87081-934-6

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

With its inclusion of Ludlow, the scene of southern Colorado’s most deadly labor fight, From Redstone to Ludlow will hardly be mistaken for a tourist’s guide to Pitkin County’s tiny village of Redstone on the Crystal River. Rather, as the subtitle indicates, the text is a hefty study in Colorado labor history, specifically relating to coal mining. But who is the subtitle’s John Cleveland Osgood, a name that seldom appears in Colorado histories, except in advertisements that might lure travelers to Redstone? As author F. Darrell Munsell shows, he was the stubborn, aggressive leader of mining men in Colorado’s coal and coking industries at the turn of the last century. Read the rest of this article

The Strange Case of Capt. E. Wayne Eaton

Part Two

By Charles F. Price

Maj. Archibald H. Gillespie and Capt. Ethan Wayne Eaton seem to have openly clashed first in early February 1863, days before Carleton’s order for the re-arrest of the Espinosas arrived. The issue was relatively trivial—Gillespie felt the escort for his census of the Fort Garland area should be mounted, but Eaton contended the major’s orders from Carleton didn’t specify a mounted escort and assigned him dismounted men instead. The dispute may have been a minor one but it inspired in Gillespie a strong dislike for Eaton. Read the rest of this article

The Strange Case of Capt. E. Wayne Eaton

Part One

By Charles F. Price

The first and surest consequence of any calamity is the laying of blame. Whatever the disaster, natural or human, someone must pay for letting it happen. The worse the event, the more urgent the need to find and punish a party who can plausibly be held responsible. And if an actual culprit can’t be exposed, and if those in power fear they may be seen as accountable, a scapegoat will always do. Read the rest of this article

By Kenneth Jessen

They had committed no crime, yet 110,000 of them were forced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to leave their West Coast homes and move to concentration camps scattered throughout the West, including Colorado. There they would remain, held behind barbed wire, treated like criminals, and guarded by military police. They were singled out because of their physical characteristics, as well as their ancestry with America’s new enemy, the Japanese. One of the smallest of these camps was located in southeastern Colorado, officially called the Granada Relocation Center and locally known as Camp Amache. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1594160708[/amazon-product]Review by Forrest Whitman

History – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Death of a Gunfighter – The Quest for Jack Slade, the West’s Most Elusive Legend
by Dan Rottenberg
Published in 2008 by Westholm
ISBN 978-1-59416-070-7 Read the rest of this article

The Smelter Smokestack

Smeltertown was home to the Ohio-Colorado Smelting and Refining Company, which employed 500 people until World War I. Raw ore from hard rock mining was crushed in stamping mills then transported to smelters to extract metals. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Nelson Walker

History – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

I enjoyed the articles by Charles Price in the October and November issues of Colorado Central Magazine about the Espinosa brothers. Recently, I wrote Mr. Price to provide him with additional information about the location of the site near Cañon City where Vivian Espinosa was killed. Mr. Price identified the site as being at Grape Spring, which he based on information contained in the biography, Tom Tobin, Frontiersman, written by James Perkins. In my correspondence with Mr. Price I explained that I disagreed with Mr. Perkins assertion that Vivian was killed at Grape Spring, and I presented information that indicated that Espinosa was not killed at Grape Spring, but rather at a place a considerable distance from there, and possibly at a location known as Nash Spring. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Roger Williams

History – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

DRC Brown, CEO of Aspen Skiing Co., pages 14-15 in the November edition: “Darcy, the junior Brown … attended high school at a boarding school in New Hampshire….” Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0870819380[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

History – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

A Tenderfoot in Colorado
by Richard Baxter Townshend
First published in 1923
Published in 2008 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 978-0-87081-938-4 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]1583852743[/amazon-product]Review by Forrest Whitman

History – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Mountain Mafia – Organized Crime in the Rockies
by Betty L. Alt and Sandra K. Wells
Published in 2008 by Cold Tree Press
ISBN 13: 978-1-58385-274-3 Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

History – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

Part of the charm of Crested Butte is its gaily painted Victorian storefronts. But that’s the show-business part. To get a better sense of Crested Butte’s grimy past you need to walk the alleyways and visit the empty lots, where a great many coal bins, privies, and sheds, many of them graying and rotting, can be seen. Read the rest of this article

Article by Charles F. Price

History – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

ON APRIL 29, 1863, the bodies of five of the six men murdered by the Espinosas in South Park were buried in a little cemetery atop a windblown hill behind the town of Fairplay — where they still rest today. A few days later on May 3, a group of vigilantes, under the command of miner John McCannon, gathered there to pay respects to the slain before setting out to avenge them. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Charles F. Price

History – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Books:

Dyer, J.L., The Snow-Shoe Itinerant, Cranston & Stowe, 1890 (Reprint).

Malkoski, Paul A., ed., This Soldier Life: The Diaries of Romine H. Ostrander, 1863 and 1865, Colorado Territory, Colorado Historical Society, 2006 Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Central Staff

History – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

CREEDE LINE CHRONOLOGY

1878: Narrow-gauge Denver & Rio Grande reaches Alamosa.

1881: Alamosa to South Fork, narrow-gauge. Read the rest of this article

Column by John Mattingly

History – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

In mid-September, the west side of downtown Creede was a jumble of railroad ties sticking up from gravel and dirt like randomly dropped pickup-sticks, the rail irons stacked off to the side.

It was a curious sight. At a time when rail transport offers significant economy for moving both people and cargo, why would anyone be tearing out a spur that led into the heart of downtown Creede? Read the rest of this article

Article by Allen Best

History – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

THREE INDIVIDUALS, each in a different way seminal to the Colorado ski industry, have died this year. “They were a different breed,” some have said, which may be true. But the landscape was also different when D.R.C. Brown, Earl Eaton, and Merrill Hastings came of age after World War II, sowing their seeds and wild ambitions, helping make Colorado the center of North American skiing and the new amenity-based economy that now has such a grip on large portions of the West. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

History – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Luther Bean Museum at Adams State College is open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Tuesday – Friday (closed when the college is closed); donations accepted. Luther Bean Museum, Richardson Hall, 2nd Floor, Adams State College, 208 Edgemont Blvd., Alamosa, CO 81102; 719-587-7151; www.adams.edu/lutherbean. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

History – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

SMALL MUSEUMS in small communities are a must-see because they often house the wildest, weirdest, most eclectic displays.

Some focus on the history — natural and manmade — of the area where they are located. Others reflect an individual’s obsession with amassing thousands of examples of one type of collectible, be it mineral specimens or mounted butterflies. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Orville Wright

History – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Thanks for the memories [about presidents visiting Salida in the September edition].

Can’t remember Darlene Donahoo meeting Harry S. Truman in 1952, but definitely recall his visit — I was there, too. Read the rest of this article

Article by Alan Robinson

History – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Introduction

When driving up Highway 24 past Granite, who among us has not wondered what it must have been like to make the same journey by stage along the faint and narrow track you can see on the Arkansas River’s east bank?

The early history of transportation in the Upper Arkansas region is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the constricted canyon which connects the wide valley north of Buena Vista through Granite to the next wide spot north at Hayden Flats. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

History – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

BEING A PERSON whose fantasies revolve around escaping to another time, one that I usually (and incorrectly) perceive as kinder and gentler than the age I’m living in, I feel right at home in Fairplay’s South Park City Museum. Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

History – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

These days, presidential campaigns don’t venture into Central Colorado. Pueblo or Grand Junction is about as close as they get.

But this relative isolation of Central Colorado from national politicians and their campaigns is rather recent. From 1880 to 1952, they came through often.

We can start with a visit in July of 1880 by Ulysses S. Grant, who rode the narrow-gauge rails west to Salida, then crossed Marshall Pass in a four-horse Sanderson stage to Gunnison and mining camps in Taylor Park. After returning to Salida, Grant proceeded to Leadville to assist in celebrating the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Read the rest of this article

Article by Central Staff

History – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Remarks by President Harry S Truman on Sept. 20, 1948, during his famous whistlestop campaign. It was the last time a presidential candidate spoke in Central Colorado. These are from transcripts at the Truman Museum and Library in Independence, Mo. Read the rest of this article

Article by Marcia Darnell

History – July 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE NEW SAN LUIS VALLEY History Museum is a beautiful building, renovated and remodeled to create the look of a Southwestern home in a downtown business zone. It is, like many other small-town museums in the West, filled with a jumble of items from individual donors. However, most of those items seem to have nothing to do with the history of the Valley or its people. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0870818848[/amazon-product]Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons

History – April 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890-1920: Socialists, Populists, Miners, and Wobblies
By David R. Berman
Published in 2007 by the University Press of Colorado
ISBN 978-0-87081-884-4 Read the rest of this article

Article by Christopher Rein

History – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

IN AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER OF 1779, the Spanish Governor of New Mexico, Don Juan Bautista de Anza, led a remarkable military campaign into an uncharted realm of the Spanish Empire, fought two battles against the Comanche, and returned safely with his command after almost four weeks in hostile territory. As a direct result of this campaign, Anza eliminated the Comanche leader whose personal hatred had rallied his tribesmen against the Spanish. In subsequent years, Anza continued to deal such damaging blows to the Comanche that by 1786 they formally ended hostilities against both the Spanish and their Ute allies, ushering a thirty-year period of relative peace and prosperity in the New Mexico. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Virginia McConnell Simmons

History – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed:

Your review of my book, Drifting West: The Calamities of James White and Charles Baker, in the January issue was greatly appreciated. One statement made prompts me to offer a correction, since it involves the effect of the outbreak of the Civil War on prospecting in Colorado in general and in the San Juan Mountains in particular. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

History – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

The 2008 conference of the Anza Society will be held March 6-9 at the Presidio Chapel in Santa Barbara, Calif. It starts with a reception on March 6, followed by speakers on March 7, and a field trip on March 8. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0870818740[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

History – January 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Drifting West – The Calamities of James White and Charles Baker
by Virginia McConnell Simmons
Published in 2007 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0870818740 Read the rest of this article

Letter from Gerald Hitt

History – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Hello, you two:

This is about “Where was the Home on the Range?” in your September edition.

I have enclosed a copy of “The Western Home,” from 1871. The credit goes to a poem by a Dr. Brewster M. Higley of Smith County, Kansas. Your article did mention the same version in the Smith County Register in 1873, but since poems normally precede songs, I believe Mr. Higley’s poem predates all the other versions in your article. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

History – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The gambling allowed in Cripple Creek, Black Hawk, and Central City pays off for the whole state — at least when it comes to historic preservation. The State Historical Fund receives 22.4% of gambling tax revenues, about fifteen million dollars a year, and uses the money for grants for historic preservation. Since the tax began in 1993, more than 3,100 projects have received more than $192 million. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

History – September 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The storied 10th Mountain Division of World War II held its last official reunion Aug. 1-5 in Denver, with an optional additional day on Aug. 6 that involved a visit to Leadville and the site of Camp Hale, just over Tennessee Pass. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

History – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Dow-Jones Company, which produces the Wall Street Journal and other business publications, has been in the news lately because Rupert Murdoch (Fox News, New York Post and many other newspapers) is attempting to buy it from the Bancroft family, which has controlled the company for many years. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0942576519[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

History – May 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

This Soldier Life – The Diaries of Romine H. Ostrander, – 1863 and 1865, Colorado Territory
Annotated by Paul H. Malkoski
Published in 2006 by the Colorado Historical Society
ISBN 0-942576-51-9 Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

History – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN WE LEFT Zebulon Montgomery Pike on Feb. 28, 1807, he had just departed from Colorado. He and six privates were in the company of Spanish soldiers who were escorting him to the provincial capital of Santa Fé from his stockade southwest of Alamosa in the San Luis Valley. Read the rest of this article

Article by Kenneth Jessen

History – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

0N A CLEAR SEPTEMBER night in 1967, a flying saucer descended in the San Luis Valley, and according to some residents, this was almost a daily occurrence then. This spaceship had the traditional (for a flying saucer) pulsating red, green, and white lights, and landed on the King Ranch about twenty miles northeast of Alamosa. The curious aliens wanted to examine a horse and they picked Snippy. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Ed Quillen

History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

FOR MUCH OF THE PAST YEAR, I have followed Zebulon Montgomery Pike across the Great Plains and around Colorado — reading his journal, writing a monthly summary for this magazine, attending a few bicentennial events. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Pike Bicentennial celebration is winding down in Colorado, and we haven’t found anything scheduled for later this year in New Mexico, where history goes so far back that a mere bicentennial apparently doesn’t attract much attention. Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

AT THE END OF January, 1807, Capt. Zebulon M. Pike’s small party was spread out for a hundred miles in the dead of winter. Private Patrick Smith and Baronet Vasquez, the interpreter, had been left on Jan. 14 with the horses and some of the gear at the site of present-day Cañon City. The plan was for the others to press southwest and find a route to the Red River, then return for the men, horses, and gear, and follow that route. Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

History – January 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN WE LEFT Capt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike and his small band of soldiers on Dec. 31, 1806, they were camped near Spikebuck, between Cotopaxi and Cañon City (long before Spikebuck, Cotopaxi and Cañon City actually existed). Two days earlier, Pike “saw one of a new species of animal on the mountains; ascended to kill him, but did not succeed.” Read the rest of this article