history
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100 Years Ago Today: Magic Rope Wards Off Rattlesnakes
Myth alert! It doesn’t matter what kind of rope you put around your campsite, bedroll, naptime knoll, or burrow, if a rattlesnake is headed toward a rope and it wants to cross it, the snake is probably going to slither right on over. Regardless of whether it’s made out of horsehair, cow hair, sisal, unicorn Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Carnegie Libraries
Andrew Carnegie, best known as a steel magnate and a philanthropist, donated 90% of his earnings during his lifetime, which amounts to an unparalleled 350 million dollars. That’s the equivalent of billions of dollars today. Jeff Bezos, are you taking notes? Carnegie Libraries are pillars of Andrew Carnegie’s enduring philanthropic legacy. A Carnegie Library is Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Lunatic Threatens to Cut Off Police Chief’s Head
Governor Oliver H. Shoup (shoop ba-doop) was elected the 22nd governor of Colorado in November, 1918, and he was already receiving death threats by February, 1919. “Lunatics” weren’t wasting any time. Granted, Shoup’s own head was not under threat but that of a proxy, Hamilton Armstrong, long-serving Denver Chief of Police. Neither Shoup nor Armstrong Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Cement Bill Gets Into Clay
William “Cement Bill” Williams is a guy I’d have loved to share a drink with, just to pry him for stories. Bummer that prohibition would’ve gotten in the way. But every time I come across a newspaper article about Bill he’s got his calloused hand in some new business or adventure, like digging out Berthoud Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Mabel Normand, Silent Film Comedy Star
Last night I was watching an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel where a male booking agent meets the comedian he hired, Midge Maisel, for the first time. She’s wearing a black evening dress. Her hair is fabulous. She looks gorgeous. He immediately dismisses her, saying she doesn’t look funny. He’d only booked her because Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Strikers Replaced by Soldiers
Today, thousands of Denver Public Schools teachers went on strike to demand higher wages and a more predictable pay schedule. It is the first teacher strike in the district in 25 years. However, if you rewind 100 years, strikes were all the rage in the labor movement. In Seattle, the first general strike or (sympathetic Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Breckenridge Issues Water Warning
People of Breckenridge, Colorado! Stop running your water at full blast all night! We know the pipes in your house might freeze and burst during the winter but our tiny reservoir only has a few feet of depth left! And the water pressure is so low that we couldn’t fight a fire if one broke Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival
In honor of the 106th annual Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival, running from February 6th-10th, 2019, here’s an announcement of the Carnival from 100 years ago, albeit one with a misspelling (taurnament?) and misinformation — I think the “top notch professionals” were trying to *raise* the world record jump, not lower it. In 1912, ski pioneer Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Relief for Armenian Genocide Survivors
Not mentioned in this Chaffee County relief fund drive article is the phrase Armenian Genocide, although that is what most historians and scholars today agree took place in Armenia from 1915-1918. The death toll of the genocide is estimated between 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. However, these mass Continue reading
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100 Years Ago Today: Two Men Killed in Boiler Explosion
Railroading was so incredibly dangerous 100 years ago. One of the reasons why these old pictures and stories of railroad routes through the Rockies leave me shaking my head in awe is just how much risk there was in building, maintaining, and operating these lines. I’m especially fascinated by the Moffat Road, aka Rollins Pass Continue reading
About Me
Local history enthusiast curious about how Colorado’s present is informed by the people and places of its past
Pick and Sledge 