A Wide-Awake Woman: Josephince Roche in the Era of Reform

Biographies & Memoirs

McGinn

Community & Culture

Colorado Historical Society

In October 1848 John Charles Fremont and an expedition of thirty-five men set out from Westport, Missouri, to find an all-seasons railroad route through the central Rockies. Their failure in the deep snows and below-zero winds of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains--and the deaths of nearly a third of the expedition--left not only vestiges of disaster but persistent questions. What was the exact route taken by the expedition? Where are its camps located? What were the motives of veteran guide Bill Williams, who directed Fremont away from the most sensible trails leading across the Continental Divide. In Trail to Disaster, Patricia Joy Richmond takes both armchair readers and modern-day explorers along Fremont’s route to relive an important episode in western exploration. The result is a unique combination -- a bookshelf history and a backpacker’s guidebook, enriched by the author’s long familiarity with Fremont’s route and enlivened by her clear, authoritative style. For readers who want to follow four-wheel-drive roads and hiking trails to the La Garita campsites, a detailed map is available with this book. Other essential materials for a close study of Fremont’s route are National Forest Service maps of the San Isabel, Rio Grande, and Carson national forests.

Trail to Disaster (Monographs in Colorado History)

History

Richmond, Patricia Joy

Americas

Informative and provocative, La Gente: Hispano History and Life in Colorado collects eleven essays by a cross-section of Colorado scholars and writers. The book opens with an examination of Spanish-Mexican exploration, conquest, and settlement of the Colorado region. Moving from exploration to biographical sketches, the book profiles the enigmatic Teresita Sandoval, cofounder of Pueblo; provides the turn-of-the-century memoir of vaquero Elfido Lopez; and offers a bilingual version of the autobiography of Pablo Cabeza de Baca, who recalls the values of his youth and his days at Denver's Sacred Heart College, the precursor of Regis University. 
Several essays address the employment patterns of the early part of this century, when desperate native-born Hispanos and Mexican immigrants competed by the thousands for jobs at mining and agricultural corporations throughout Colorado. Four essays study particular expressions of this conflict, including the infamous Ludlow coal strike of 1913-1914; Colorado's sugar beet industry, where Mexican immigrants faced constant discrimination; the growth of the state's sugar industry, the collapse of which devastated Mexicans (the preferred labor force in the field); and a New Deal-era experiment in which laid-off miners were trained to weave Río Grande-style blankets, in the process revitalizing a dying folk art. Finally, four essays encompass the recent political and cultural rebirth of Hispanos, including a study of the origins of the Crusade for Justice, Denver's leading Chicano rights organization of the 1960s, which - based on declassified FBI documents - proves that government agencies tried to suppress the Crusade and its popular leader, Corky Gonzales.

La Gente: Hispano History and Life in Colorado

This study takes a fresh look into the lives of families living in the coal camps of southern Colorado between 1890 and the Great Depression. Historian Rick J. Clyne examines the experiences of the men, women, and children who lived and worked in these isolated, company-dominated towns. With the dangerous nature of mining coal a daily reality, the fear of death and injury was pervasive—not only for the miners venturing into the earth day after day, but for their dependents as well. 
Clyne reveals that a strong sense of community and tolerance existed in the camps, into which families journeyed from such far-flung locales as eastern and southern Europe to carve out a living. The shared immigrant experience—and the shared risks of mining—more often than not strengthened the bonds between both miners and families. Coal People contains historic images of coal-town life culled from the collections of the Colorado Historical Society, as well as the author's own photographs of how several of these camps appear today.

Coal People: Life in Southern Colorado's Company Towns, 1890-1930

Clyne, Rick J.

Robert S. Roeschlaub: Architect of the Emerging West 1843-1923

Haber, Francine, Kenneth R. Fuller, and David N. Wetzel

Regional U.S.

A Medical Gentleman: James J. Waring, M.D

Paton, Patricia

In 1878 the name "Leadville" became synonymous with one of the world's greatest silver-producing regions. During the 1880s, when Leadville's economy was at its peak, the town was the second largest in Colorado, a mecca for prospectors, gamblers, retailers, performing artists, and entrepreneurs. In many respects, its history epitomizes the volatile character of Colorado's mining industry-from the rush to establish businesses, schools, churches, and newspapers in a booming mining camp to the conflict and violence of the miner's strike of 1896.More than forty years ago, Don L. Griswold and his wife, Jean Harvey Griswold, set out to describe the social, political, and economic life that grew out of Leadville's hard-rock industry. Their story of Leadville and Lake County stretches from the earliest explorations of the Upper Arkansas Valley to the beginnings of molybdenum mining in the twentieth century.A veritable encyclopedia of historical information, this massive two-volume, fully indexed reference work includes rare photographs from the Griswolds' personal collection and a bibliographic overview of Leadville's history by Colorado historian James E. Fell, Jr.Told with grace, humor, and authority, The History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado is an invaluable reference tool for historians, genealogists, and any who seek a deeper understanding of the rich history of this mining town in Colorado's high country.

History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado (Volume 1)

Griswold, Don L.

Griswold, Jean Harvey

In 1878 the name "Leadville" became synonymous with one of the world’s greatest silver-producing regions. During the 1880s, when Leadville’s economy was at its peak, the town was the second largest in Colorado, a mecca for prospectors, gamblers, retailers, performing artists, and entrepreneurs. In many respects, its history epitomizes the volatile character of Colorado’s mining industry-from the rush to establish businesses, schools, churches, and newspapers in a booming mining camp to the conflict and violence of the miner’s strike of 1896. More than forty years ago, Don L. Griswold and his wife, Jean Harvey Griswold, set out to describe the social, political, and economic life that grew out of Leadville’s hard-rock industry. Their story of Leadville and Lake County stretches from the earliest explorations of the Upper Arkansas Valley to the beginnings of molybdenum mining in the twentieth century. A veritable encyclopedia of historical information, this massive two-volume, fully indexed reference work includes rare photographs from the Griswolds’ personal collection and a bibliographic overview of Leadville’s history by Colorado historian James E. Fell, Jr. Told with grace, humor, and authority, The History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado is an invaluable reference tool for historians, genealogists, and any who seek a deeper understanding of the rich history of this mining town in Colorado’s high country.

History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado: From Mountain Solitude to Metropolis

Don L. Griswold

Jean Harvey Griswold

Unclean elections were as common as unclean streets in early twentieth-century America. Few politicians questioned the process that put them in power, but John Shafroth — "Honest John" — did. On February 15, 1904, the five-term Colorado congressman stunned the U.S. House of Representatives by resigning his seat. He declared that the November 1902 election had been tainted with fraud and he had unwittingly benefited. After his resignation, a Supreme Court justice told him: "Only a brave and honest man would do as you did. Such actions make one proud of his country and sure of its future." John Franklin Shafroth helped build that future. In two terms as Colorado’s governor (1909-1913) and one term as U.S. senator (1913-1919), he advocated a set of reforms, including women’s suffrage, the federal reserve system, and the initiative and referendum — that shaped twentieth-century policy and politics. More than anyone else in Colorado’s history, Shafroth lifted politics out of the mire. Honest John Shafroth: A Colorado Reformer is the eighth volume in the Colorado History series.

Honest John Shafroth: A Colorado Reformer (Colorado History Series, 8)

Leonard, Stephen J.

Noel, Thomas J.

Walker, Donald L., Jr.

Leaders & Notable People

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