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.
by Michael J. Perullo
Just after Christmas 2006, I decided to drive my 1990 Nissan Stanza from Atlanta to Silver Cliff, Colorado to stay in my cabin over New Years’ Eve. What a trip this turned out to be! I love to travel by car or Jeep, and this road trip was to be my 169th since 1991 when I first moved to Atlanta. Usually, I make an overnight stop between Georgia and Colorado in Yukon, Oklahoma, staying in a cheap motel and having some local Mexican food after this first 871 mile leg of the journey I’ve made many times.
In the Tabor correspondence, no one uses the name Baby Doe. Her family calls her Lizzie, and Horace, after opening his letters with “My Darling Wife,” calls her Babe. In the Tabor collection at the Historical Society, she appears, for brevity’s sake, as EBT, for Elizabeth Bonduel Tabor, which will come in handy for her later, as she plays off this name to create aliases for herself. This series will refer to her as EBT or Mrs. Tabor and reserve the name Baby Doe for her early years in Leadville.
In one of Horace’s letters to EBT, he told her that he had done as she had instructed him with regard to her letters. Her instructions to Horace may have been to destroy her letters or to return them to her so that she could dispose of them. In any case, and knowing how extremely private EBT was, it’s not surprising that we don’t have more of her love letters to him. She may not have written that many anyway. In fact, Horace chides her in one letter her for not writing to him for six months.
by Walter Perch
In a little gully at the base of the red rocks, a grove of spruce, fir and pine trees grow. A secret creek runs down from above – flash fed from storms and nurtured with multi-day drizzle.
Hundreds, if not thousands of years old, the grove has seen a variety of animal traffic and humans. With cougars, deer, avian species and insects, this grove is a bio-region of life. Birds dart through the summer sun from branch to branch. Still they sit, making their calls. In shallow pools water bugs gather near grass shoots, darting around on their tiny legs.
by Jennifer Dempsey
When Moffat High School offered a swine flu shot clinic this fall, Jerry Bergstrom decided not to have her two children get the vaccination.
Bergstrom said she isn’t entirely against the vaccine, but that she’s “been told positive and negative things about it. I feel that the shot hasn’t been tested enough,” she said. “In the past, everyone I knew personally who had gotten the flu shot got really sick afterwards and also got the flu. That’s the main reason I didn’t want my kids to get the shot.”
by Francisco A. Rios
(Editor’s note: Dr. Rios, a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Denver, spent 805 volunteer hours over a span of one year and seven months cataloging hundreds of letters from the Tabor Collection at the Colorado Historical Society (CHS) onto a computer database. We are reproducing some of these letters as a series with the generous permission of the CHS.)
In the Tabor correspondence, no one uses the name Baby Doe. Her family calls her Lizzie, and Horace, after opening his letters with “My Darling Wife,” calls her Babe. In the Tabor collection at the Historical Society, she appears, for brevity’s sake, as EBT, for Elizabeth Bonduel Tabor, which will come in handy for her later, as she plays off this name to create aliases for herself. This series will refer to her as EBT or Mrs. Tabor and reserve the name Baby Doe for her early years in Leadville.
(LOCAL EXCEPTIONS MAY APPLY TO THE INFORMATION BELOW)
CORE CUTTING DATES/GENERAL PERMIT REQUIREMENTS:
Core Cutting Dates: December 5-13, 2009
Permits: $10 each. One tree per permit. Limit 5 permits per person. All sales are final.
Area Entry Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. – For your safety, no entry is allowed before or after these hours.
By Ed Quillen
Before the sun came up on the morning of Oct. 1, I got into my pickup to drive to the Salida Café & Roastery (the establishment formerly known as Bongo Billy’s Salida Café) for breakfast followed by the monthly business meeting of the Salida Business Alliance (formerly known as the Salida Merchants Association). I’m not much of a businessman – especially since selling this magazine to Mike Rosso – but I was re-elected secretary of the SBA last winter, and it behooves me to attend meetings.
by George Sibley
I have a friend here in the Upper Gunnison with whom I argue politics a lot, mostly electronically. We are always sending each other e-mails with editorials, news stories, and essays attached, mostly focused on aspects of the political economy – which should be distinguished from the real economy, the miraculous helter-skelter whereby most of us manage to find enough food, energy, shelter, and other necessaries to stay alive and fairly healthy. A political economy, on the other hand, is the paste-up of philosophies, ideas, ideologies, and religion we each hold about how the real economy ought to work. A political economy always seems to fit some aspect of the real economy well enough (if beaten into shape with a bigger hammer) so that we can continue to believe in it.
Ski Area Expansion Nixed
CRESTED BUTTE – Saying the project isn’t in the interest of the public, a local forest supervisor on Nov. 5 told Crested Butte Mountain Resort officials the agency will not enter an environmental review of proposed expansion to Snodgrass Mountain. The decision just about ends any possible expansion which has created a big rift among locals.
by Marcia Darnell
Election First
Alamosa will have its first woman mayor, following Kathy Rogers’ election Nov. 3. Alamosa voters also voted no on a new aquatic center, raises for city council members, and opening city boards to non-residents.
Saguache County voters voted to take on more debt to get a BEST grant for the Crestone Charter School, while Mineral County said no to a tax increase for its community center.
In Monte Vista, Art Medina will be the new mayor, while Conejos County voted down increased funds for its hospital.
by John Orr
Creede hydroelectric project
It makes sense to generate electricity with water and gravity where possible. Hydroelectric power is clean and as reliable as the water supply. Near Creede the A.E. Humphrey Ranch is going to get a shiny new hydroelectric plant for the dam there. Owner Ruthie Brown is ponying up over $900,000 in loans and federal stimulus dough to retrofit the dam her great grandfather constructed 90 years ago, according to a report from The Aspen Times.
This is the first article in a six-part series dedicated to renewable energies.
by Aaron Mandelkorn
Solar energy is not a new concept. For years, civilizations utilized the power of the sun’s rays to warm their homes and dry their food and clothes. Today, we know so much more about what the sun can do. No better example of this is found than in Photovoltaic electricity, or PV for short. This term refers to the electrical current that is generated when light reacts with a solar cell, which is generally made from silicate.
by John Mattingly
Out a narrow window I see my new center pivot on the loose, crossing Highway 17. Cars and trucks are jammed and honking as the machine spreads out like a praying mantis on the warpath, pulling its electric line out of the ground like a giant umbilical cord. It runs roughshod over a fence and three power poles, causing flares of flame as the main wire cracks and arcs to ground. The pivot collides with a house and the end tower starts to ascend to the roof. I wake up in a cold sweat.
By: David Knibb
Eastern Washington University Press: 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59766-037-2
Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel
Grizzlies, like wolves, are “NIMBY” critters. They are iconic to our images of “the wild west,” and our lands seem a sham in their absence; yet it seems the majority want them, “out there,” away from their own backyards and stomping grounds. Grizzlies can also, like wolves, be elusive and wary of humans, making their existence, and their numbers, difficult to prove.
For over fifty years the W Cafe has been feeding its share of hungry Western State students, alumni, locals and tourists.
With its vinyl tablecloths and booths, yard-sale wall art and hectic but friendly and efficient staff, one can’t help but hearken back to roadside cafes from endless road trips through America’s midsection.
This is no shi-shi breakfast joint, it’s the real deal. You want stick-to-your-ribs biscuits and gravy to help ward off the cold Gunnison winter? This is your place. A smothered breakfast burrito served with sides of guacamole and sour cream? They’ve got it.
Text and Captions by Ed Rains
2009 – Turner Publishing Company
ISBN:978-1-59652-535-1
Reviewed by Mike Rosso
Having spent several years as a photo restorist in Durango, working with museums in Durango, Cortez, Dolores and Silverton, I was eager to obtain a copy of Historic Photos of Colorado Mining when it was offered for review.
These are tough times: the economy tanked last year, the stock market took a corresponding dive, unemployment is up more than in a decade or more, and jobs are not easy to come by. All of which makes it a great time to cultivate generosity and help each other.
Remember the movie “Pay It Forward”? In the screen version of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel, the hero, 12-year-old, Trevor, responds to a social studies assignment to think of and implement an idea for changing the world with this suggestion:
“I do something real good for three people. And when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven.”
Long before I learned my son Harrison has autism, or what the word “hippotherapy” means, I had this idea he should ride our burros. For me this was a way to incorporate fatherhood into my lifestyle.
For three decades I have trained burros for pack-burro racing, including six world championships, as well as for packing and riding. It seemed only natural I would want to share that with my son, and it would also help provide a vehicle to the backcountry.
by Mike Rosso
What began in the 1970s as a review and evaluation for wilderness designation has become a jumble of information and falsehoods – involving politicians, off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, wilderness proponents and the National Rifle Association.
If designated, the proposed Browns Canyon Wilderness Area in central Chaffee County would be one of the lowest elevation wilderness areas in Colorado and one of the few actual wilderness areas combining both U.S. Forest Service (USFS) as well Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.
By Susan Tweit
November 2009
It’s official: my husband, Richard, is missing a marble. Or at least a marble-sized tumor.
A week and a half ago, his neurosurgery team removed a purple tumor the size of a large marble from the right temporal lobe of his brain. They reported that they’d gotten the whole thing, it stayed intact, and that it was small and well-defined.
by Dennis Hinkamp
My collection of silly buttons from the Burning Man festival in Nevada includes one that says, “Burning Man was better last year.” The irony, of course, is that this button is given out every year, and every year thousands of people keep coming back.
If you’ve ever been part of an annual event that lasted more than five years, you’re probably familiar with its evolution. Events generally go through a cycle of being original and innovative, then progress to bigger and better, tapering off at last into predictable. Everything from Mardi Gras to your Uncle Larry’s Fried Frog Leg Festival goes through this process. Too many years together working on anything leads to discontent — just look at the divorce rate.
by Hal Walter
Out for a run one afternoon in October, I was negotiating a burro down a steep trail that cuts from one cul-de-sac to another in a nearby subdivision. Downhill and to my right I saw a doe deer literally flopping down the hill through the trees. The animal appeared unable to gain its balance or to stand up.
I stopped and watched as the deer came to a rest, then I tied my burro to a tree and walked down to get a closer look. The doe flopped over a couple more times then lay still. I looked her over as closely as possible. I could see no broken legs or apparent gunshot wounds — which was my first guess since the first big game rifle season had opened the previous day.
by George Sibley
I’m writing this column from a cabin on the bank of the Wisconsin River, again. A lazy, lovely river, attractive to big gaggles of geese, a snag across the way in which a eagle often sits, occasional resting place for a sandhill crane or two, a couple egrets, and a daily parade of turkeys down by the beach. A beautiful place in which everything and nothing dependably happens daily.
Produced by Lynn Gillespie
Directed by Jay Canode
2009- The Living Farm & The Locavore Movie
Reviewed by CC Staff
“Once upon a time, all human beings were locavores, and everything we ate was a gift of the Earth. To have something to devour is a blessing – let’s not forget it.” – Jessica Prentice
With this quote begins the film Locavore, produced and filmed primarily in Colorado’s North Fork Valley, home to some of the best peaches, apples and other produce in the state if not the country.
by Jeff Osgood
It takes about three minutes for me to realize I’m not prepared. The six-person tent needs to go up and the light is fading and the rain’s about to move back in. It’s only my second go-round with this tent and the first was in our backyard in broad daylight where the stakes slid into the ground as easy as a straw into a milkshake. Now, under the dripping pines just outside Sand Dunes National Park with the wife and kids watching anxiously from our van, it’s a different game. The stakes barely puncture the gritty granite ground and the black loops and hooks on the tent are disappearing before my eyes.
Valley View School, located two miles west of Salida on County Road 140, represents one of the last of more than 30 rural school districts formed in Chaffee County at the peak of mining activity. Built in 1903, this one-room schoolhouse held classes for up to 42 students from ranching families. The property includes a rectangular plan, gabled roof, cloakroom, tall narrow windows, one large classroom and outdoor privies. One teacher commented: “The outbuildings should be fixed to prevent the drifting of snow in them. They should be whitewashed inside and plenty of lime scattered about.” Besides a schoolhouse, the building was also a community center.
by John Mattingly
If you’re like me, you’ve been trying to quit farming for at least ten years. Only when people point this out to you do you try to explain.
OK, so here goes. . .
by Eugene Buchanan
Published in 2007 by Fulcrum
ISBN 978-1-55591-608-4
Reviewed by Ed Quillen
In the summer of 1993, Eugene Buchanan and three fellow American floaters arrived at the Moscow airport, where they were supposed to meet André to run the Kalar River in Siberia. Except André was in Turkey with no firm return date, but he’d told his friend Boris, part of a Latvian river-running team, and Boris wanted them to join a trip down the rapids of the Bashkaus River, also in Siberia.
by Sue Snively
She exudes personality, showing kindness in her eyes, determination in the set of her jaw and subtle humor in the “almost” half smile on her lips. There is wisdom coming from the overall expression on her rugged and wrinkled face. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but the elegance of this lady with her dangling earrings and her creased and folded hat makes for a very attractive portrait. It is a portrait of what it means to grow old gracefully, accepting the wrinkles, the gray, and other affirmatives of the later stage of life.
by Marcia Darnell
Sad but True
One of the Valley’s greatest mysteries has been solved. The whereabouts of Danice Day, missing since January 2002, have been resolved. Remains uncovered in Arizona were confirmed to be the 19-year-old waitress from Monte Vista. Her romantic partner, Victor Braun, 33, who directed authorities to the remains, has been charged with manslaughter.
by Francisco A. Rios
(Editor’s note: Dr. Rios, a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Denver, spent 805 volunteer hours over a span of one year and seven months cataloging hundreds of letters from the Tabor Collection at the Colorado Historical Society (CHS) onto a computer database. Over the next several months we will be reproducing some of these letters as a series with the generous permission of the CHS.)
Why would you, the readers of Colorado Central, want a reintroduction to the Tabors? Can’t many of you recite the Tabor tale of rags-to-riches-to rags by memory, citing chapter and verse? Haven’t scores of you been up to Fryer Hill and seen Horace’s Matchless Mine and Baby Doe’s cabin? Is there more to say about the Tabors?
by Jennifer Dempsey
When Salida resident Harold Coffman was diagnosed with bladder cancer last year he began taking a cocktail of prescription drugs that included pain-relieving narcotics, antibiotics and laxatives to ease his pain.
On the recommendation of a friend, Coffman tried marijuana as an alternative pain reliever. The relief was almost instantaneous and he immediately went to his doctor in Salida to apply for a medical marijuana user’s license.
by Celeste Labadie
It’s a conspiracy,
someone said,
but I’ve done this myself.
I’m collecting things.
Drowning in stuff.
Clinging to memories while
packing and repacking what
I’ll surely leave behind
when the big whatever
has its way with this corporeal sensibility.
LAST MONTH I HAD the opportunity to participate in a roundtable workshop held October 15 by the Denver-based Alliance for Sustainable Colorado.
The roundtable, part of an all-day summit held in Salida, drew about 50 participants representing business and non-profit leaders, elected officials, alternative and mainstream energy providers, educators and other community members from Chaffee, Lake, Gunnison, Fremont and Saguache Counties.
by Betty Plotz
In order to pay tribute to his life, I’ve been casting about to find a word to describe Mike Rust. A unique and independent person who proudly lived “off the grid” near Saguache, Co, “Mike Bike,” as he was known by friends, disappeared on March 31, 2009 after confronting burglars near his home.
I decided to go with the word “intense” to describe Mike. He lived life at a very intense level. Coming from a raucous Colorado Springs family that included six other intense children, he began building bicycles in the seventh grade.
Fideo sounds like a dance, maybe a Rumba, or the sound when you discover something you’ve lost, like “Eureka!” This simple and satisfying pasta dish is all of the above. Origins unknown, it arrived on the plates and palates of the lost and weary time travelers Donna, Ruth and Jan, originally from Long Island, New York. Now the story really begins. Hungry from their journey to Salida for a high school reunion, the ingredients arrive in the hands of a local gal, ready to cook. Soon the steam was rising from the pan and the smell of the spices piqued the nose. Having been one of those individuals arriving from afar nothing could have smelt or tasted better.
Mine Drainage Act Passes
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On September 29, the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel Remediation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3123) passed in the U.S. House.
The bill had been introduced by 5th Dist. Congressman Lamborn along with a companion bill by Senator Mark Udall.
The bill assigns responsibility for the problematic tunnel to the Bureau of Reclamation who will be in charge of fixing and maintaining the tunnel which has deteriorated over the past 50 years, and caused much alarm in Leadville in 2008 when it began to leak, prompting the Lake County Commissioners to declare a state of emergency.
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.
by Hal Walter
Late summer has its many emotions here in the Wet Mountains, from the blustery days when you first notice the edges of the aspens turning, to the clear blue days that seem never to end as summer becomes fall. But I know in my bones these days will end.
At some point the summer bugs will come off the windshield with the first heavy frost.
by Annie Mueller
Published by the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies, the Colorado Cemetery Directory helps the living trace their family histories. Lake County, Colorado has 33 cemetery entries in the Directory. Of these, 13 are listed as abandoned and 18 have “no record available of custodian/owner.” The oldest in that record is the Leadville City Cemetery, established in 1877, used for only two years and then abandoned.
by Ron Flannery
We were motoring up U. S. 50 in the canyon east of Cotopaxi, Colorado. As usual, my dad scanned things beyond the road itself. Suddenly, he said, “Yep, they’re still there.” Not seeing anything but the steep canyon wall on one side and the Arkansas River on the other, I asked, “What’s still there?”
(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)
by Suzanne Ward
We have moved into autumn and frost will be visiting our gardens.? It’s not yet time to put it all to rest – there’s still a little more work to be done before winter.
?When frost threatens, it is wise to be prepared.? The first frost is often followed by warmer weather.? Be ready to cover tender, immature crops such as tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash, cucumbers and okra with newspaper or blankets.?Covering them at night, combined with the warm autumn days, will allow the produce to come to full maturity.
