Local History Explorer

CCC in Colorado

2009-01-12T07:30:00.003-07:00

One of December's work-related projects involved meeting with a reporter and a photographer from the Rocky Mountain News about our local Civilian Conservation Corps camp and projects. If you missed their stories, published Saturday, here are links to the online versions:

The Forgotten Generation

Fruits of the Depression

Historic CCC Camp to Become Museum

Walker's Cosmopolitan Interests

2008-11-10T08:29:00.005-07:00

Here in the foothills of Jefferson County, historians have been captivated by John Brisben Walker for decades. He was handsome, chronically but not consistently wealthy, and possessed by a genius for innovation and promotion at which others could stand and marvel. His schemes sometimes sounded crazy, other times more practical, but none could deny his appeal.

In 1905-06 Walker took renewed interest in the Morrison area. He remembered the small, scenic foothills town from the 1880s, when his two oldest sons attended Sacred Heart College here. A story of his connection to Morrison and the nearby Park of the Red Rocks is told on the Historic Red Rocks website.

Dabbling in new research related to the man has revealed more about his years as Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine between 1889 and 1905. Not satisfied, apparently, with mere editing, he also tried his hand at writing the articles he wanted to publish. The Cosmopolitan: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine was, of course, a very different publication than the one we know today. Walker delighted in publishing articles on current events (such as the Silver Crisis of 1893), travel, and modern inventions, especially those displayed at the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. We hope to bring you some of his articles this year.

In 1905, Walker sold the magazine to William Randolph Hearst for a fortune said to be $400,000 or more. That was the source of funds he later used to acquire Red Rocks and other properties in the Morrison area and promote his vision of a mecca for the tourist and a "second Colorado Springs" close to Denver.

Time Travelling with Maggie Crow

2008-11-01T10:04:00.009-06:00

That's what historians do, isn't it? I'm sure everyone has noticed how much these recent weeks are like other times in our nation's past. A couple of weeks ago, some of us attended History Night at nearby Indian Hills, and found ourselves victims of that cliché about history repeating itself. We also got some insight into how national events play out in the lives of so-called ordinary people.

First it was "John Parmalee," who came to Colorado from Iowa in 1860, after news of the gold strikes reached him as it did so many others. Portraying Parmalee, John Steinle, from Hiwan Homestead Museum, reminded us that the impetus to leave homes in the east was not just the lure of gold, but also a result of the financial crisis precipitated by bank failures in 1857.

Then it was my turn, as Maggie Maple Crow... in the early 1890s, Maggie and husband Will moved to Creede. In 1891, Creede had 10,000 people, most trying to make a living mining silver. Maggie and Will, accompanied by tiny daughter Dora, sewed tents for miners to live in, a profitable enterprise after fire in June 1892 destroyed many of Creede's more durable buildings. Creede was a wild town, with about a killing a day, Maggie later said. "One day as I left the tent with my little girl, Dora, a miscarried shot whizzed straight through the tent. We barely missed the bullet."

It was in Creede that Will Crow became acquainted with Bob Ford and did some carpentry work for him. In appreciation, Ford gave Will Crow the gun, a frontier model Colt 45, with which Ford had killed Jesse James in 1882. Ten years had passed, and Ford confided to Will that he was a little tired of killing; two weeks later Ford himself was killed by a member of the James gang. That's how Maggie tells the story. (She kept the gun, displaying it in a 1948 newspaper interview.)

In 1893, of course, history caught up with Creede and many other mining towns in Colorado when the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed, and the bottom dropped out of the silver market. Almost overnight, Creede went from boom to bust as its people, including the Crow family, left in search of other lodes and means of survival. Maggie and Will ended up back home in Junction. Always looking for ways to sustain themselves and their growing family, they later worked in a lumber camp together.

The Roaring Twenties found Maggie, a widow, panning gold in Hall Valley with her sons while raising her grandchildren. (Dora had died in the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.) She panned out about $2-3 a day (not bad income in those days), with grandson Ray playing as a gold panner next to her. Prospecting also got her through next big Depression, in the 1930s, and supplemented her Old Age Pension ($24/month), which began arriving in 1935.

Read about Maggie's next 1890s adventure, in her own words, at HistoricMorrison.org.

——
Photo of history night courtesy Cheryl Touryan. Creede's population these days is about 377 people (per 2000 census).

More on: the Panic of 1857,
the Panic of 1893, and its causes;
Creede, the silver camp that wouldn't die,
and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

A Family of Websites

2008-09-04T07:42:00.008-06:00

A small flurry of requests for historic information lately has inspired me to revive Local History Explorer and get it linked to the outside world. It'll be a great place to keep track of and respond to these inquiries.

Here’s a quick review of my little family of websites, all of which have new material or will have over the next few weeks.

Historic Jeffco: One-stop links page for access to historical information about Jefferson County, Colorado. New links are solicited. Easy access to articles, county webpages, Jeffco cemetery info, and more! Contribute to our Monuments page by letting me know which ones I’m missing. Also visit the Placenames Directory, maintained by the Jefferson County Historical Commission (JCHC).

Another resource, the Jefferson County Cultural Resource Survey, has recently become available online, also courtesy JCHC.

Historic Red Rocks: A portal to the most significant sites about Red Rocks Park, as well as a repository for other info that comes my way.

Historic Morrison: New material will be up soon, but meanwhile find lots of great reference information on this historic town.

Mountain Parks History: Exploring the history of the Denver Mountain Parks, especially through historic documents and images. Visit the Then/Now pages. Sponsored and maintained by the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation and City & County of Denver.

Perspective

2008-04-13T09:36:00.009-06:00

Inspiration on aging gracefully comes today from spending yesterday in and with history. We held an Open House at the local CCC Camp to relive an era in which our parents' generation was young, 1933-1942.

Here in Denver, we once had an active CCC alumni group. When I first met them in the mid-1990s, 150 or so of them (CCC men and their spouses) would show up at camp for a monthly meeting during the summer. Yesterday, eight, just eight, of them came to our event; they didn't want to miss it. We were delighted to see them! The photo below shows six. The youngest on the left (Lee is 86 this year), Thelma, Elvy, Henry, Al, and Jack (97).

Behind them, in our display on the wall, is their hero: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Twenty-seven days after his inauguration as President, he signed a bill creating the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within 90 days, 275,000 young men (ages 18-25) were at work in 1,300 camps around the nation. It took four federal departments (Labor, Army, Interior, and Agriculture) to pull this off, and they did it because the need was critical. The boys and men who enrolled in the CCC in 1933 had been wandering the streets of America's cities and towns, hungry and looking for work that didn't exist. Yes, it was a relief program. The catch was that the men had to work for it. In those days, many people were too proud to take a handout.

Try to imagine 25% unemployment. Here's the story Lee told: "I was seven years old when the stock market crashed [1929], and joined the Cs in 1940 as soon as I was old enough. From the day I enrolled to the time I left was the only time in my life I never had to worry." The government provided housing, food, medical care—and work, lots and lots of good hard work. For some of them, it was the first time they'd had a square meal as well. As Lee added about times before the Cs, "We never missed a meal: we just postponed 'em a while."

The men of the CCC learned a great deal in the Cs. They learned to get along with others, regardless of differences in culture; they learned to respect those in authority and to do their share; and they somehow absorbed a huge sense of commitment, patriotism, and honor that seems to be little understood in our later days of instant gratification and self-absorption. They looked after themselves and each other and handled discipline. Bullies and slackers (called "goldbricks") soon learned to mend their ways.

And they changed the face of this country: improving or planting forests and revegetating grasslands; building dams, bridges, roads, and park facilities. A force for land, soil, and water conservation—three million strong—whose works remain today. We use them and travel them without even thinking about the men who built them three-quarters of a century ago. There's a CCC project somewhere near you; check it out this summer and help celebrate the 75th anniversary and the legacy they gave us.

Pearl Harbor signaled the end of the great CCC experiment. Almost to a man, they enlisted and brought their skills to military service. The work ethic and discipline instilled during their service ultimately helped us win World War II.

But the personal growth each enrollee experienced lasted beyond the war and shaped the rest of his life. They married (most for life), and raised families. They believe that the experience of service in the CCC changed their lives, and they believe our country's youth deserve the same opportunity today. If you can find one of these "forgotten men," stop and say thanks.

Back in the Day

2007-03-21T11:21:00.009-06:00

Retrieving and researching historic aerial photos recently, I ran across this great 1955 view of what my neighborhood looked like before it was a neighborhood. (Post updated September 2008.)

There are a couple of drainages on the left, and one house upper right and a few others lower right. That's about it, unless you start thinking history. The lines that meet at the top center tell a fascinating story, one which I've barely started to explore. The "four track" that veers left and downward is an old wagon road, also reported as a cattle drive, most likely both. The single line that curves to the right around the hill is the visible remnant of an old flume that was intended to carry water from Bear Creek to the north to farms off far to the southeast. Perhaps it did for a time. In about 1910, there was also a 9-hole golf course in this area!

Here's a look at the approximate area over which our neighborhood was built. I'll put up the "after" shot soon. (Well, eventually.)

Explorations of the new (to me) field of ecological history are capturing my interest and attention lately. Repeated aerials are going to be a great way to find out more about this area, especially as "on-the-ground" traces of historic use can fade over time.

Much later, a 2008 update, here's the "after" view, taken in about 2002. New features dominate the old landscape. The small reservoir to the north was built in 1981. A new water pipeline, not yet revegetated, occupies part of the old wagon road. The land north of the dozen or so new houses (two more have been added since) is now part of Mt. Falcon Park, accessed by a new parking lot and visible trails. The old flume, subject of a new post, is more subtle now, fading into the background of this photo, but still easily traced on the ground. The land south of the road, at the lower edge of the picture, is a horse pasture subject to heavy grazing.

Overall, though, we've been lucky. As parkland, much of the area remains as it was more than 50 years ago.

New History Links

2007-02-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

It's been quiet here on LHE, I know, but that doesn't mean there isn't new historical material for you to browse. Here are some of my latest projects and updates to existing projects.

Mountain Parks History: a new website exploring the history of the Denver Mountain Parks, especially through historic documents and images. Visit the Then/Now pages.

Historic Jeffco: latest update here is the addition of a Monuments page.

Historic Red Rocks: new winter photos coming soon.

Historic Morrison: not much new here, but lots of great information on the historic town

Girl Scientists of Previous Centuries

2006-10-09T13:49:00.002-06:00

Alice Eastwood (1859-1953) was my alter ego for Saturday, Oct 7th. What fun to portray a botanist of the previous turn of the century and thus combine my interests in history and nature!

The occasion was Girl Scout day at Dinosaur Ridge, where the girls had an opportunity to meet real modern-day women geoscientists, as well as ‘Mary Anning’ (1799-1847) and ‘Alice.’ [Mary was the discoverer of the ichthyosaur and the inspiration for the old nursery rhyme, ‘she sells sea shells…’ She collected and sold fossils from the shores of Lyme Regis to help lift her family from poverty.]

Alice was a self-taught botanist who spent her high school years in nearby Denver and came to Morrison and the foothills on plant collecting trips. In 1892, she moved to San Francisco as co-curator of the California Academy of Sciences herbarium. She was promoted to sole curator in 1894, with the retirement of her mentor, Katharine Brandegee.

Twelve years later, when the Great Earthquake struck the city, Alice and a few friends rescued 1,497 of the most important plant specimens from the collection of 100,000 pressed plants. For that feat and her lifelong significance as a collector she is well-remembered today. Her memory is aided by having her name associated with hundreds of plants, either as the botanist who first described them or as the person in whose honor they were named. Among Colorado plants, for example, we have Eastwood’s monkeyflower, Mimulus eastwoodiae. Thirteen Colorado plants still bear valid names she gave them; many others have been reclassified.

By 1942, Alice had more than replaced the lost specimens; in fact, her collecting trips and plant exchanges had helped the Academy’s collections number 300,000. She retired in 1949 at the age of 90. As I told the Girl Scouts, being a field scientist (and exercising a lifelong sense of curiosity) keeps you young!

Read more of Alice’s story here.

Photo of Alice Eastwood, circa 1897 or 1910.

Photo of Alice taken for her 80th birthday, 1939.

Images link to California Academy of Sciences pages.

Lizard Head Rock

2006-08-09T07:42:00.000-06:00

Many of the rocks in Red Rocks Park have names. This one was named Lizard Head Rock by the men of the local Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, who built the tunnel. The road is labeled Creation Rock Drive by Denver, which owns the Park and its famous Amphitheatre. The road provides access to the top of the Amphitheatre and the new Visitor Center there. [See Lizard Head, then and now, on the MountainParksHistory.org website.]

The CCC is an important historical phenomenon, started by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, that put men to work during the Depression. The program ended in 1941, when the U.S. entered World War II and many of the men enlisted. During its tenure, though, incredible public works projects from parks construction (as here) to reforestation and soil conservation were completed across the country.

In September 2004, Denver helped surviving CCC members erect a statue at the end of Creation Rock Drive. The "CCC Worker" pays tribute to the men of CCC camps across Colorado and their contributions. CCC Alumni hope to have a statue in every state!

On the day the statue was dedicated, CCC alum Don Bess wore his original government-issued work clothes to help celebrate the event!

Shameless Plug

2006-05-17T07:56:00.001-06:00

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

2006-05-10T07:05:00.001-06:00

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.

Then Again...

2006-04-07T06:43:00.000-06:00

maybe it's "historian gone wrong"! See yesterday's post, which, in embarrassment, I was going to remove--but it can also serve as a bit of an object lesson. Showed the postcard to Lila, excited to find a new image neither of us had seen before, and she simply said "Maybe it's a different Bear Creek."

Duh. Why hadn't I considered that, as it isn't "our" Bear Creek, it couldn't just be someone else's Bear Creek?? Bear Creeks are probably a dime a dozen on the Front Range. This one could be in Colorado Springs, or maybe even Montana. So, if this appears to be "your" local Bear Creek, let me know--I might have a postcard for you!

See, told you I wasn't a "real" historian!

History Gone Wrong?

2006-04-06T07:49:00.000-06:00

In my scheme of history, as I'm trying to get a grasp on the difference between primary and secondary sources--and whom to trust--problems can arise. Experts say that primary sources are, well, let's hear from one of these experts:

In essence, a primary source is a document written at the time to which it refers – a census return, a diary, a letter, a tax-form; while a secondary source is an interpretation of history – a newspaper, a history book, another biography. A secondary source may be contemporary with the event it describes or it may be much later, and there are clearly gradations of value in secondary sources.

from Writing Biography & Autobiography by Brian D Osborne

I think an image printed for distribution at a period in history would certainly be reliable, then--but is the caption? Here's an example from an old postcard I just acquired:

Clearly labeled "On the Bear Creek Canon Road"-- but there's reason to question. Most of the original Bear Creek Canyon wagon road, to the best of my knowledge, was low in the valley. A view such as this one should not have been possible. In fact, the road was so low it was flooded in 1933 and rebuilt higher on the canyon wall.

What do you think?

Alice's Boots

2006-04-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

The day I first put on Alice’s Boots I wasn’t confident I could spend an entire day in them. Pointed-toed, high-laced shoes, with that undercut heel so important to the horsewoman— they looked like they just might become instruments of torture before a few hours at the office had passed. But it was the embroidery that sold me. Just a touch of femininity, for Alice was, in my mind, also a lady.

Alice Derby is going to be my new historic identity, so I’ve been looking into her life and times a bit. Of course, these aren’t really her boots, but as soon as Lila showed me this new acquisition, I coveted them for Alice. (Lila has a true flair for finding items at the thrift stores and turning them into costumes. She’s building up her already substantial collection in preparation for outfitting the whole town for this summer’s Centennial celebrations.)

Born on the ranch in 1865, Alice was the second of Alexander and Emeline Rooney’s five children. I can imagine her childhood, growing up on the ranch, riding the hills, and taking care of little Emma Nora, her sister seven years younger. Alice and Nora are the center of a family legend, the only story I've heard of Alice, though usually her name (and Nora’s) are missing from the tale.

For a time, it looked like Alice was headed for spinsterhood, for she’d passed the age of thirty without marrying. Then she met Will Derby, apparently an older man, and they settled on their own ranch and raised a daughter, Eloise. By 1920, Alice was 55, probably a widow, approaching my own age. Now seventeen, Eloise had recently married young Gunnar Nelson and would soon begin delivering Alice’s grandchildren.

Alice's older brother, Otis, lived on the family ranch with his wife Christina and their four children. Two younger brothers, Charles and William, were long (and tragically) dead, as were her parents. (Alex and Eme, however, had died of more natural causes.) Alice’s sister Nora was raising her four young children not far away. Although Otis inherited the main ranch and its buildings, Alice and Nora had both shared in the division of the estate and were ladies of property, land which remained firmly in their own names after they married.

That's Rooney Ranch, 1920. It’s going to be fun filling in the stories of this family’s life—and learning new ones to share!

In 1920, Alice also had a ringside seat to some major moments in local history. So far, there is little or no record of her participation, a fact which leaves me mostly free to invent. Her personality and perspective are revealed in several family letters, soon to be shared by Alice’s great-grand-niece, which should help me reconstruct some of Alice’s true character.

Necessary facts aside, one of the greatest aids to the process will be learning to walk a mile in Alice's boots.

Quote of the Day

2006-03-30T06:45:00.001-07:00

"History is not just something that happened long ago and far away. History happens to all of us all the time. Local history brings history home, it touches your life, the life of your family, your neighborhood, your community."

--Thomas J. Noel, Denver author and historian

Life's Big Questions

2006-02-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

There are probably any number of them, but two important ones are:

Who am I?
What am I supposed to be doing?

As Felicity Huffman suggested early this year:

"as people, our job is to become who we really are”

-- Golden Globe winner Felicity Huffman, Jan 16, 2006

The interesting thing about these two questions is that we never seem to answer them permanently; they keep cropping up. You answer them when you're young and trying to define yourself, then you have to answer them again later! Over and over...

Now that I've overcome the "technical difficulties" of posting I expect to be back in business here. An entire new computer setup will help, and I'm delighted to discover I can again reach the blogger log-in process, from which my laptop's firewall was "protecting" me.

Philosophy of History, II

2006-01-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Let me say first that I am no historian. My education and training were in completely different realms, and I was never a great student of the required history courses. My on-the-job training in history began in 1996, when I took over some of the care of a small historical museum and began exploring the small history of one very small town. So we are discussing here not “big history,” but small history and so-called “ordinary” lives.

And the truth is, there is nothing ordinary about life. There is nothing ordinary about anyone’s life.

Some historians and certainly ‘big historians’ seem to be captivated by the knowable: the concrete facts (and enduring buildings and structures) that attest to the past. As I try to figure out why history now intrigues and engages me, I come to realize it’s the unknowable, the stories between and around the few facts that have survived. It’s about the mystery we uncover and the imagination we must marshal as we explore the past.

Why would I say history is unknowable? Think about it. Think about the lasting traces you are leaving of your own everyday life just this one day or this week. Not much, eh? (At least not in the pre-blogging era.)

So how much can we know about the lives of people more than a hundred years ago? We find small hints and try to put the pieces together. We talk to people and hear the stories that have come down, second-hand, third-hand, more. We puzzle together the lives and events of the past, and use our intuition, our sense of empathy, and our imaginations to do it. We project ourselves into the past. As we explore what these people were about, we learn a little more of what we are about.

I think maybe we want to understand the meaning of their lives because we want to understand our own lives.

Each answer leads to another question; that particular answer asks “when do lives have meaning?” That’s a BIG one. Or, taken from a different angle, “what can we learn from the lives of people who used to live here?” That’s a little easier to chew on.

For me, the key word is “here,” because history is the intersection of people and places. Who lived here? Why did they live here? How did they survive here? What did they do here?

That’s why I do what I do, why I’m developing this passion for history. It’s all about place. You see, my original passion is ecology and natural history, the story of places. When you add people to that mix, you get history. Eureka!

Here’s a picture of "the place," taken this morning as the rising sun hit the rocks.

Visit Red Rocks for more info on this place.

Toward a Philosophy of History (for non-historians)

2006-01-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, January 15, we three stalwarts of the Heritage Museum launched our small town’s centennial celebration by recruiting several friends to come in character and reenact the town’s first “public meeting,” about which we knew nothing and which most likely never occurred.

So with about 12 characters in costume, decorations graciously arranged by “Mrs. Lewis” (aka Lila), and enough food to feed 50, we spent the afternoon pretending to be someone else. What a hoot! Even the few non-participants seemed to enjoy our rowdy portrayal of Morrison in 1906.

Late in the day after most of the activities had ended and we were packing it up, a family arrived after a walk in the nearby park and through the local cemetery. Grandparents, parent, and several small children. Granddad said to me, as he perused our exhibits on local history, “As we walked through the cemetery, I told the kids ‘as long as we remember them, as long as we say their names, they’re not really dead. They live on in our memories.’ ” He saw the same names in our displays that he’d seen on the headstones.

Here’s a link to the people in the Morrison Cemetery.

This morning, I’m mulling over his comment, and wondering why history matters. “Does history matter?” seems to be answered, for me at least, by the fact that at Sunday’s gathering, folks sat around for hours discussing, okay arguing!, points of history and recalling people and events none of them were around for.

There is also ample evidence, even here on the internet, that history matters. My search this morning for blogs on “local history,” yielded 389,478 posts matching that phrase. Yet they were about local history. Tomorrow there will be one more, possibly hundreds more. Go figure.

Here’s one from today’s search that seems especially relevant: a thank-you note from a modern-day writer to a local historian.