The heated summer of 1903 in the mountains

Column by George Sibley

Labor hisory – August 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE CALLING UP of the National Guard this year, to support the war in Iraq, reminded me that 2003 is the centennial of another occasion in which the Guard was called up in Colorado: in the summer of 1903 Colorado’s troops were summoned for a war — against other Coloradans.

The occasion was a labor strike in the mining districts of Colorado, pitting emerging industrial organizations like the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers against the established power of industrial giants like the Rockefellers and Gug gen heims.

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Ludlow monument attacked by vandals

Brief by Central Staff

Labor history – July 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

The major monument to Colorado’s labor wars has been vandalized, and despite a $5,000 reward, there are no suspects.

The monument sits about a mile west of Interstate 25 in Las Animas County between Walsenburg and Trinidad, and it honors the 18 victims of the Ludlow Massacre. On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking coal miners and their families — most of them immigrants from southern Europe.

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