Virginia McConnell Simmons

Cañon City’s Famous Dinosaur

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Meet Stegosaurus stenops, Colorado’s state fossil. The local popularity of dinosaurs is evident at Cañon City, where prison inmates created a large model of a Stegosaurus several years ago. It became a familiar mascot, once seen on the east side of town and later moved to the Fremont Campus of Pueblo …

Read more

The Way It Really Was

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Colorado Territory had screeching, squealing, banging, bumping Spanish carretas that came with early settlers, long before the rattling covered wagons, clattering stage coaches, tooting trains, rumbling trucks and thumping boom boxes in low-riders. A handmade, wooden carreta had two wooden wheels with no grease to muffle the unearthly racket it created …

Read more

Book Review: The Man Who Thought He Owned the Water

by

theman_webBy Tershia D’Elgin
University Press of Colorado, 2016
978-1-607-495-9; 287 pp, $29.95

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Although Central Colorado is the birthplace of three of Colorado’s major waterways – the South Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande – who owns the water seems puzzling except among water managers and farmers. Most consumers simply take it for granted that the liquid stuff for sinks and plastic bottles, rafts and kayaks, fishing, skiing resorts and wells will always be there. To get an inkling of how change can happen, read The Man Who Thought He Owned the Water, with its subtitle On the Brink with American Farms, Cities, and Food.
The author, Tershia D’Elgin, writes a compelling biographical account of what happened to her own father in the Platte River Valley near Greeley. A great-grandson of Colorado Governor Benjamin Eaton, Bill Phelps begins with ambition aplenty and surface water rights that promised success at Big Bend Station. Where he ran amuck was in the assumption that he, like many of his neighbors, could increase productivity by using wells that delivered underground water.

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Identifying “Our President” will be a mystery if you believe the inked script. In fact, only after President McKinley’s assassination, with no living vice president to fill the office, was T.R. catapulted into the presidency in September 1903. Some sharp-eyed Central Coloradans will note that the locomotive should have borne the …

Read more

Book Review – Seasons of the Enemies: The Long Walk of the Navajo

by

seasons_webBy Sharon Leslie Gearhart
Xlibris.com: 2015, 245 pp, $19.95
SC-ISBN: 987-1-4931-1

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

The subtitle will lead prospective readers to believe this volume to be an account of the exodus of Navajo Indians to Fort Sumner. Instead, it is an amalgam of detailed descriptions of ceremonies that are incorporated into the narrative, descriptions of military personnel and events related to the period of 1858 to 1864, some text that appears to be historical fiction, approximately 25 pages of very well-researched history devoted to the Army’s campaign at Canyon de Chelly in 1863-1864 and a two-page epilogue about the internment at Fort Sumner. Although at times readers may not feel certain as to whether various parts of the text are historical fiction, anthropology or history, general readers with a special interest in the Diné will enjoy the book. They also will enjoy descriptions of the setting and activities in it at Black Mesa near Kayenta, New Mexico, Tseigi Canyon, the surrounding region and especially Canyon de Chelly itself.

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Colorado’s mountains were filled with smoke above and with tunnels below, while diseases and accidents killed miners and smelter workers, children drank and splashed in polluted water, women scrubbed raggedy work clothes, and moguls built mansions in Denver, as long as the mines yielded ore and the price of silver and …

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Model T’s needed gasoline, frequent repairs and replacement of ruined tires and inner tubes, so in 1911 Salida’s Arkansas Valley Garage Men’s Association undertook promoting tourism. The Rainbow Route soon followed the Arkansas River from near Cañon City to Salida, but a trip to Gunnison required crossing Poncha Pass to Saguache …

Read more

Making A Difference in Del Norte

by

markjones_webBy Virginia McConnell Simmons

Mark M. Jones, AIA, who died from hantavirus in May, is leaving a lasting imprint on the town of Del Norte and other areas in the San Luis Valley. He will be remembered for his expertise as an architect, his high standards of design and workmanship, and his vision for revitalizing the town where he had lived since the 1990s. His imprint is on many buildings, large and small.

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

mirage_webBy Virginia McConnell Simmons

School’s out. Summer’s sightseers in Central Colorado will enjoy photographing and painting picturesque one-room schoolhouses that now stand empty or have taken on new roles such as community centers or museums – Mirage (pictured here), Alma, Jefferson, Malta, Sargents, Twin Lakes, Valley View, Westcliffe, and many more. But before we get too nostalgic, let’s picture that one-room with pupils too large and too small, a young teacher with maybe one year of training, frayed readers instead of computers, desks too close to the hot stove or at a frigid distance from it, galoshes, and no school bus.

Read more

Book Reviews – Herndon Davis: Painting Colorado History, 1901-1962

by

davis_webBy Craig W. Leavett and Thomas J. Noel

University Press of Colorado

290 pages, 173 color, 8×10

ISBN 978-1-60732-419-5 (paper), ISBN 978-60732-420-1 (ebook)

 

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Readers who are interested in Colorado’s art and history will welcome this cornucopia of paintings and drawings by Herndon Davis. Although he might not have gained renown in the highest circles of art or society, this prolific artist won honor in his lifetime for evoking Colorado’s cultural story and for sharing it with skill, affection and his notable drinking companions.

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Equal opportunity to work was unending on family farms and ranches for males and females, young and old. Branding, done before cattle were put out on pastures for the summer, is being handled in this photo by the Becker sisters east of Alamosa in 1894. A Colorado Cattlemen’s Association publication (1967) …

Read more

The Way We Really Were

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons April showers often brought more snow than May flowers for I-think-I-can narrow-gauge railroads. Winter blizzards and snow slides often upended estimated times of arrival, and in January 1884 a D&RG train was marooned for two weeks east of Cumbres Pass, while passengers cooked dwindling food and even washed clothes on the …

Read more

Book Review – The Denver Artists Guild: Its Founding Members, An Illustrated History

by

The Denver Artists Guild: Its Founding Members, An Illustrated History

Colorado History and University Press of Colorado, 2015, USBN  978-0-942576-58-0

By Stan Cuba

260 pages, 9×11, color, 187 figures, paper, $39.95; also available as ebook

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

In 1928, a vibrant group of 52 artists formed the Denver Artists Guild, and for a quarter century this group enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for the high quality of their artistry and workmanship. Images in this book, biographical essays about each artist, and the knowledgeability of author Stan Cuba and the book’s other collaborators make this an outstanding contribution, whether the person holding it is a working artist or an appreciator of fine art and of this state’s social history. The Denver Artists Guild may further encourage people to enjoy firsthand viewing of art works by taking a walking tour of the public locations in Denver (a map is included) or by taking a driving tour, mainly but not exclusively limited to the Front Range.

Read more

Book Reviews

by

Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet By Ellen Wohl University Press of Colorado, 2015, 248 pp, $34.95 ISBN: 978-1-60732-368-6 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-60732-369-3 (ebook) Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons Whether you are a student just beginning to learn about geomorphology or fluvial systems, a traveler seeking destinations far from the beaten track, or a senior …

Read more

Twin Lakes & the Interlaken Resort

by

by Virginia McConnell Simmons Although few places in Colorado have finer scenery than the conjoined Twin Lakes, the fortunes of this hamlet have ebbed and flowed, just as the water levels of the lakes has. Originally, these natural glacial lakes consisted of conjoined bodies of water, one about two and one-half miles in length by …

Read more

Indian Agencies in Colorado

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons For centuries, nomadic Ute Indians had been camping, hunting and gathering food where they chose, but their needs and how they were met changed after the Mexican-American War. The changes were far-reaching. The States had agents appointed by the U.S. President, and New Mexico Territory also would soon have agencies to …

Read more

Making a Difference on Earth: Conservation Easements

by

by Virginia McConnell Simmons Roughly 30 years ago, we began to notice the loss of open land, water, other natural resources, traditional ways of life and tranquility in our high mountain valleys. None too soon, we also noticed that something had to be done to prevent the continuing loss of the region’s natural resources, working …

Read more

Ute Indian Lands

by

by Virginia McConnell Simmons Ute Indians say they were always here, but, like migrations of other emigrants, theirs began far away. It started in Central America and Mexico thousands of years ago and ended on reservations in Utah and Colorado. The Ute and other Uto-Aztecan people, whose language is reflected in Utah’s state name, moved …

Read more

Book review

by

Came Men on Horses: The Conquistador Expeditions of Francisco Vázques de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate

By Stan Hoig

University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 987-1-60732-194-1
$34.95; 352 pages

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

 

Whether you prefer scholarly history or blood-and-thunder stories, Came Men on Horses by Stan Hoig is mesmerizing. If you are looking for a sanitized or romantic account of the conquest of the Southwest, though, this book may not be your choice for bedtime reading. The unvarnished facts about the entradas of Coronado and Oñate, like those of other conquistadors, force readers to some uncomfortable conclusions about human behavior, its cruelty and rapaciousness, but there is evidence of human courage, tenacity and the desire for personal enrichment.

Read more

Prohibition in the San Luis Valley

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons

The Roaring Twenties, the Charleston, and the speakeasies never happened as far as folks in the San Luis Valley could tell, but on the whole, this high valley was not dry.

In the 1920s, the agricultural economy was limping everywhere and mining was severely crippled at places like Creede; and that was before the market crashed and the mines shut down completely in 1929. As if that were not bad enough, this was the era of Prohibition. In fact, it had already begun in 1916 in some of Colorado’s cities and towns, where reformers outnumbered rugged individualists.

Read more

The Elephant in the Parlor

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons

While I was reading about African elephants, I wondered about certain differences and resemblances between elephant and human families.

In Louisa May Alcott’s well-known Little Women, Marmee goes on at Orchard House, wisely and gently tending to her brood while Father is far away doing man things. Anthropologists would call Marmee’s family matrilocal – a mother with her own children – although Father does return happily in Alcott’s story, thus making it a conjugal or nuclear family in the end.

Read more

The Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons

Only a few ghostly vestiges of the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad remind us today of challenges that once played a role in the daily life of Central Colorado. This legendary narrow-gauge line, sometimes called “The Damn Slow Pulling and Pretty Rough Riding,” battled blizzards, floods, rockslides, derailments, corporate competition, and, far from least, human courage and hardship. Trains ran summer and winter on rails that crossed the Continental Divide in three places, burrowing through Alpine Tunnel (11,523 el.) to Gunnison County, and topping Boreas Pass (11,482 el.) and Fremont Pass (11,318 el.) to the Blue River and Leadville.

Read more

La Puente Home

by

 By Virginia McConnell Simmons

In a narrative poem by Robert Frost, Warren and Mary are sitting on their porch, arguing about whether to let Silas return to the farm once again. He had been an unreliable hand, his wanderlust often causing him to go missing when he was most needed, like during haying time, and Warren complains that Silas doesn’t deserve another chance now. But Mary contends that they have no choice except to take him in.

“Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” Mary says.

Read more

The Colorado Midland Railroad

by

By Virginia McConnell Simmons

The economic potential of booming mining camps inspired the board of directors of Colorado Springs’ First National Bank to build a standard-gauge railroad through the Rockies. They believed they could provide the mountain region with better equipment and service than the region’s miniature railroads were already doing. The optimistic capitalists of “Little London” soon learned some hard lessons about pitting money and machinery against the high country.

Read more

Book Review

by

La Sociedad: Guardians of Hispanic Culture Along the Rio Grande
By José A. Rivera
University of New Mexico Press, 2010
ISBN 978-0 8263-4894-4
Photographs by Daniel Salazar et al.

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

In 1900, led by Celedonia Mondragón of Antonito, his Hispanic neighbors organized the Sociedad Protección Mútua de Trabajadores Unidos, which soon had 65 chapters called concilios throughout rural southern Colorado, northern New Mexico, and a few places in Utah. These buildings once bore, or still bear in many cases, the fading initials SPMDTU for brevity’s sake, as the facades often tended to be small.

Read more

Book Review

by

The Gospel of Progressivism – Moral Reform and Labor War in Colorado, 1900-1930

By R. Todd Laugen

University Press of Colorado

ISBN 978-60732-052-4

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Fans of the Old West tend to forget that Colorado burgeoned in scarcely a half century from a mostly wide-open frontier territory to a state replete with land grant settlers, cowboys and cattle barons, homesteaders, railroads, mining booms and busts, industries, labor wars, cities, merchant princes, and, predictably, political parties. In this welter of competing interests, defenders of humanitarian concerns and moral rectitude looked out and saw that their state not only could, but should, be improved. Such reformers called (and often still call) themselves “progressives,” the staunch descendants of agitators for abolition, temperance, and suffrage, who were ready to take on other battles like child welfare, minimum wage, women’s working conditions, and political party corruption.

Read more

Review: Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness

by

By Simon Cordery

Published in 2010 by University of New Mexico Press

ISBN 978-0-8263-4810-4

$21.95 paperback; 224 pages

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Social, political, and economic gulfs that are seldom probed in depth by popular histories exist between the mansions of mining kings in cities and the shacks of anonymous miners in ghost towns. This new biography of Mother Jones will offer readers an understanding of the underlying issues, attitudes, and clashes in strikes and elections.

Read more

The CF&I Connection

by

by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Part 2 of 2

Editor’s note: In Part One of this series the author discusses Central Colorado’s strong links with the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Pueblo.

Limonite at the Orient Mine in the San Luis Valley was the largest producer of iron ore in Colorado. Unfortunately, it was inadequate for profitable mine operations in the long run.

Read more

Book Review

by

Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company: 1914-1942
By Jonathan H. Rees
Published in 2010 by University of Colorado Press
ISBN 978-0-87081-964-3
344 pages, paperback, $34.95

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

The Ludlow Massacre near Trinidad was attracting national outrage in 1914. Leading up to it, labor unrest was widespread, and violent incidents had been escalating, not only at Ludlow but in the coalfields of the whole region. With mine owners pitted against union organizations throughout Colorado in the early 1900s, as well as throughout the nation for decades, public sympathies came down on the side of the workers after Ludlow, with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the largest single stockholder and member of the board of directors of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), becoming a special target of public anger.

Read more

Book Review

by

Island of Grass By Ellen Wohl

Published in 2009 by University Press of Colorado

ISBN 978-0-87081-963-6

$22.95, paperback; xiv+224 pages

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

At first glance, a book about the grasslands of the eastern third of Colorado might seem to hold little interest for readers in Central Colorado. This volume warrants a less hasty opinion, however, for it offers a wealth of information for anyone interested in natural history.

Read more

Ores to Metals: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry

by

By James E. Fell, Jr.
Published in 2009 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 978-0-87081-946-9

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Like most readers in Colorado, I have countless books and booklets about the holes in the ground where miners struck it rich or suffered disappointment, but until I read this book, I never knew much about the rusty smelter ruins and grimy slag heaps that remain near those mines. The no-nonsense tome Ores to Metals became a lodestone for me this summer, attracting me to read every page and learn the things about the smelter ruins and slag heaps that have been ignored in the more popular dramas and melodramas about mining.

Read more

Telling Tales in the Valley

by

by Susan Bavaria

Ranging in age from 81 on down, several regional women authors have written books as varied as river stones. Tackling subjects ranging from geology to self-publishing, these six writers exemplify the moxie needed to endure the publishing process and a love for language that creates worthy content. Some have taught students. Some have experienced far-flung adventures in the quest to find a good story. Some are members of the Colorado Authors League. All share a passion for good literature and an innate curiosity about the world we share.

Read more

From Redstone to Ludlow: John Cleveland Osgood’s Struggle against the United Mine Workers of America

by

By F. Darrell Munsell
Published in 2008 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 978-0-87081-934-6

Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons

With its inclusion of Ludlow, the scene of southern Colorado’s most deadly labor fight, From Redstone to Ludlow will hardly be mistaken for a tourist’s guide to Pitkin County’s tiny village of Redstone on the Crystal River. Rather, as the subtitle indicates, the text is a hefty study in Colorado labor history, specifically relating to coal mining. But who is the subtitle’s John Cleveland Osgood, a name that seldom appears in Colorado histories, except in advertisements that might lure travelers to Redstone? As author F. Darrell Munsell shows, he was the stubborn, aggressive leader of mining men in Colorado’s coal and coking industries at the turn of the last century.

Read more

Re-enactors bring past alive

by

Sidebar by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Fort Garland – June 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

During the 150th anniversary celebration at Fort Garland, re-enactors will take part in many events. Representing cavalry, infantry, and artillery units, men will recreate drills and other daily routines of life in a frontier fort. Ladies also will be present in period dress for the social activities that included wives and local women and to demonstrate the domestic chores performed by servants and laundresses.

Read more

Kit Carson (and others) slept here

by

Article by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Fort Garland – June 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE MOST CELEBRATED NAME associated with Fort Garland is Kit Carson: trapper, scout, Indian agent, Indian fighter, and Civil War officer. But, in the fort’s quarter-century as a U.S. Army installation, many individuals took part in the life of the old adobe stronghold in the San Luis Valley.

Now, year ’round, the public can visualize military life in territorial days and the early years of Colorado statehood at Fort Garland, the oldest existing military fort in what is now Colorado.

Read more

Don’t forget the Civil War

by

Letter from Virginia McConnell Simmons

History – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed:

Your review of my book, Drifting West: The Calamities of James White and Charles Baker, in the January issue was greatly appreciated. One statement made prompts me to offer a correction, since it involves the effect of the outbreak of the Civil War on prospecting in Colorado in general and in the San Juan Mountains in particular.

Read more