Shameless Plug

Yesterday I did a little work on the Jefferson County Place Names directory. This enormous database, accessible online, ought to be more widely known, so here's an unsolicited advertorial for it. With more than 3,000 entries, it's only a start--but in theory, and often in reality, it can provide historical and location data on names to researchers and other interested parties. The original Place Names project, sponsored by the Jefferson Co. Historical Commission in the 1980s-90s, represents a huge effort by dozens of local historians.

The link above displays a search page, into which you can type a word or a specific place name to retrieve instances. You can also click on an alphabetic index at the bottom of the page for all entries starting with "K," for example. Give it a try!

Here's an example of one of the "new" entries I added yesterday: the St. Vrain, Golden City, and Colorado Wagon Road. The information comes from an Historic Contexts report, produced in 2002 as part of a county-wide cultural resources survey.

Biggar Cabin

Yesterday, the old Biggar Cabin moved to Arvada. In pieces. A puzzle project for Troy of the Arvada Historical Society to put together. This is actually a 3-sided outbuilding, not the main homestead cabin.

In photo 1, Troy and DeWayne are unloading the old logs. The Arvada Flour Mill is in the background.

Photo 2 shows the intriguing notch pattern. Top notch here shows convex V parallel to the length of the log; notch below is concave V and perpendicular.