Book Review – Early Days in South Park: Parked in the Past

By Laura Van Dusen
Vandusenville Publications, 189 pages
ISBN 978-692-72310-4

Reviewed by Forrest Whitman

Sooner or later, if you live in Colorado, you’ll drive through South Park. It’s a lovely ride in its own right, but this book will keep the motorist seeing it all in a fresh way. Van Dusen, long-time writer for many publications (including this one), opens up the surprising history of the park.
Her vignettes about early notables in the park are well done and give us a new look at them. Some of them, like Willia Hamilton Johnson of Alma, or Marshall Lewis Link, are especially crisp. She reveals them in “the bad and the good.” They emerge as real people.
She draws on the letters of Wilbur Fisk Stone to show us just how dastardly some of our early heroes and villains were. Her historical accounts of the outlaws are gripping. Some of the bad guys, like the Espinoza brothers, were terrorists of the most incredible kind.

Wilbur Stone spared neither Governor John Evans nor Reverend Chivington (the fighting Methodist minister who led the massacre at Sand Creek). Both were crooked and amazing liars, as were many others who dealt with the Indians.
A weakness in Van Dusen’s coverage concerns the Utes. They were very much a part of South Park history, but other than a brief appearance by Chief Saguache, they don’t come through. On the other hand, Van Dusen can write only about the accounts of the first settlers, and the Indians were only backdrops for them.
Especially interesting is her coverage of how hard life was in South Park. For instance, Benjamin Berg, second owner of the Fairplay Hotel, lost three of his children to typhoid. During World War I, The Fairplay  Flume reported death after death to the Spanish influenza. Some 675,000 died in the U.S. in that outbreak.
There were interesting cures to various diseases, which she covers in detail, including Bayer Heroine, Lydia Pinkham’s Herbal Remedy (popular with women partly because of its alcohol content) and Magic oil (87 percent alcohol).
Driving on U.S. Hwy. 285, the motorist will have a new understanding of how hard travel was by stage coach. You’ll also learn more about Como. This was a big rambling coal mining town with its own “war” to remember. Her chapters on Como and the Antero Reservoir fights are especially good. The motorist may even pause to think of the King Coal disaster where so many miners died. The book makes a routine trip through South Park fascinating.
There’s more to the book than the 19th century too. Her accounts of pre-history and the Porcupine Cave are compelling. So are her accounts of modern history. She covers the death of JFK and the beginning of the Ed Snell race.
I’m always looking for books to add to my holiday giving list. Early Days in South Park is on mine this year. Laura Van Dusen has done an outstanding job here.

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Far View Horse Rescue – Caring for Wild and Unwanted Equines

By Laura Van Dusen

From tiny Shetland ponies to a massive Thoroughbred, the horses, mules, and burros living at Far View Horse Rescue thrive when they are given what we all crave – attention, love, and a chance to feel needed.

Far View, five miles south of Fairplay near Kokanee Road at U.S. 285, began in October 2010. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit takes in unwanted and homeless equines: some whose owners can no longer care for them, some within days of slaughter, and some – like the two newest residents – who were captured by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in roundups designed to decrease the number of wild horses and burros on public land.

On April 7, a wild mustang, then tagged #0274, and a wild burro tagged #5207, started a new life when they were delivered to Far View Horse Rescue from the BLM holding pens at Cañon City Correctional Institution (CCCI). They were welcomed by a chorus of neighs and brays from their new equine family.

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The South Park City Museum

By Laura Van Dusen

At South Park City Museum in Fairplay, time stands still.

Visitors there can wander through buildings salvaged from the gold and silver mining craze of the 1860s-1890s. They can touch the furnishings, sit in the chairs or even lie in the beds once occupied by frontier Colorado miners and railroad tycoons. One can visit a frontier Masonic lodge, a drugstore full of pre-1900s remedies or an old-time saloon complete with a wall-sized oil painting of the lovely unclad “Rachel. ”

The painting once graced the walls of the historic Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs (since replaced by the Antlers Hilton).

Abandoned ghost buildings are tough to find these days in their original environment, which makes the collection at South Park City all the more fascinating.

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Some Facts About Mountains, Water, Geology, Spirits and Early Law in Colorado

Mountains by Jane Koerner • Colorado has 637 13ers (mountains over 13,000 feet but under 14,000). • Mounts Bierstadt, Grays and Torreys are the most popular 14ers for peak baggers. • There are seven total mountain ranges in Colorado: the San Juans, the Elk Range, the Sawatch (which include the Collegiates), the Sangre de Cristos, …

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An Oasis in South Park: Buffalo Peaks Ranch Transforming Into Rocky Mountain Land Library

Article and photos by Laura Van Dusen

The Rocky Mountain Land Library at Buffalo Peaks Ranch is one of a kind. Located about nine miles southeast of Fairplay on Colorado Hwy. 9, it will soon be a nature research study center – a library with residential facilities where students, artists, writers, naturalists and scientists can study and stay for a few days, weeks or even months.

The project has been in the works for six years, since negotiations began in 2006 between co-directors Jeff Lee and his wife Ann Martin and ranch owner, the City of Aurora. On Sept. 25, 2013, a 95-year lease was signed, giving Jeff and Ann control of 60 acres at the heart of the ranch. It includes a 1906 home and several barns and outbuildings dating to the 1940s.

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Book Review: Parked in the Past – Historic Tales from Park County

By Laura Van Dusen
The History Press, 2013  ISBN 978.1.62619,161.7

Reviewed by Forrest Whitman

This is a delightful read for anyone interested in our Colorado Central country, especially Park County. Laura Van Dusen wrote most of these chapters for her monthly column in the Fairplay Flume newspaper, and that’s an advantage. The reader can pick up the book at any point, just as he or she might a newspaper, and read the news of the day, be it 1966 or 1866.

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