250 years seems like a long, long time

 The United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary (Semiquincentennial) on July 4, 2026, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

 But here in Colorado: 

Centennial State Lighting up the Fourth of July

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!”

__ Katharine Lee Bates

 

D. & R.G. Scenic Railroad Band in Monument

4th of July celebration, 1889 to 1900, Ouray

Crowds gather around the bunting-draped flagpole and grandstand on Main Street and Fifth (5th) Avenue, Ouray, Colorado; the Magnolia Band is in the center with parade floats on Main (Third, 3rd.) United States flags, streamers, and evergreens decorate the street for the Independence Day celebration. Shows a painted sign on the Hiebler building that reads: "Cabinet Club House" another advertises chewing tobacco., Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.


Group near Palmer Lake, July 4, 1893

Six children, three girls and three boys, pose in the brush on a hillside on Independence Day (July 4th), Palmer Lake, El Paso County, Colorado. The girls wear long, ruffled dresses and hats; the boys wear suits, bow ties, and hats.  Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.


Fourth of July festival, Victor, 1899
 

Bird's eye view of Fourth Street during 4th of July celebration, 1899, Victor, Colorado. Parade consists of horse-drawn wagons & floats marching underneath welcoming arch lettered with Florence & Cripple Creek and Golden Circle names; erected for 1899 festivities boasting 12 million dollars of production by mines in/around Victor. People crowd the boardwalks, businesses have awnings, a United States flag, and sign: "Mitchell's."  Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

Cripple Creek, July 4 - 1893 

J. G. Wilson, photographer. Crowded street scene with people and horse-drawn wagons and carriages for Fourth (4th) of July celebration on Bennett Avenue, Cripple Creek, Colorado; spectators stand on second story porch of Palace Hotel; striped bunting and United States flags are on commercial buildings; men and women use umbrellas for shade.  Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

Early Telluride, 1890 and 1895

Telluride Silver Cornet (?) Band parades west on Main Street (Colorado Avenue), Telluride, Colorado. Townspeople line street to watch Fourth of July parade. Businesses include: A. J. Vart, Merchant, two-story Sheridan commercial block, and buildings past First National Bank building. A dog walks with uniformed band with tubas, trombones, drum, horns and banner. Group of uniformed masons march behind band. A tall flagpole with inverted funnel shape platform shows in the middle of the street in background. Ajax, Ingram, and Telluride Peaks are in distance.  Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

Dolores, Fourth of July, 1893

 Please click on following to read about early days of Dolores

Disappointment was too much to bear

Hanging flume photos

Water flowing in the hanging flume, early summer 1891.

Walking bridge across the Dolores River made from salvaged materials from the hanging flume.

Wooden trestle flume on a side canyon with man pointing on top.

New milestone for Colorado Restless Native

 

I know that many came before me

But none love the place more than me.

___ Restless Native 

 

Quickly, approaching 1.5 million pageviews.

Thing of the past ...

Indians Ute agencies taken at the reburial of Chief Ouray original pallbearers for Ouray

Creator: Beam, George L. (George Lytle), 1868-1935

Portrait of Native American (Ute) men riding horses and identified as (l to r): "George Norris, Joseph Price, Colorow, and Buckskin Charlie." Attire includes feather headdresses, hair pipe chokers and breast plates, a squash blossom necklace, medals, a staff, rings, and eyeglasses, Ignacio, Colorado. A frame building has a sign: "Consolidated Ute Indian Agency."Physical Description1 photo negative ; 20 x 25 cm (8 x 10 in.); 1 photoprint ; 20 x 25 cm (8 x 10 in.)

Born-Digital or Analog: Analog

Subject: United States. Office of Indian Affairs. Consolidated Ute Agency Ignacio (Colo.)Horseback riding--Colorado--Ignacio Tribal chiefs--Colorado--Ignacio Buckskin Charlie, Ute Chief Colorow, ca. 1810-1888 Ouray--Death & burial Norris, George Price, Joseph, Chief. Collection Photographs - Western History Related Material Image File: ZZR700137914

Type of Material: Glass negatives Photographic prints

Notes: Formerly F6377; Title hand-written on back of photoprint, with: "Source of info: D & R G W Magazine V.2 #4 February 1926."; R7001379143

Denver Public Library Special Collections

Coal mine? Ski Area? Old Fort nearby?

 From Colorado Pressless Native

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The many faces of Hesperus

In Colorado:

Title: Rio Grande Southern Railroad depot at Hesperus (Colo.)
Date/circa: 1949
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)
Notes: Mile Post 145.51. "The coach on the left is the replacement depot as the Hesperus depot. The rest of the buildings are section house, bunk houses, tool sheds, and the water tower." [Source of quote: Robert Herrone, email 3/27/07.]
Photoprint#: P026161
Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

In British U-Boats:

In English Locomotives:

In Simon Newcomb Science Fiction about 1900:

In 19th Century poetry:

The Wreck of the Hesperus

IT was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,	5
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,	10
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.
Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
‘I pray thee, put into yonder port,	15
For I fear a hurricane.
‘Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!’
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.	20
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain	25
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable’s length.
‘Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,
And do not tremble so;	30
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow.’
He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,	35
And bound her to the mast.
‘O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘’Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!’—
And he steered for the open sea.	40
‘O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!’
‘O father. I see a gleaming light,	45
Oh say, what may it be?’
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,	50
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,	55
On the Lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.	60
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,	65
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,	70
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,	75
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.	80
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,	85
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!
___ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

In Greek Mythology as imagined by an Italian artist:

Back in Colorado:

 

Thing of the past ...
Fort Lewis, generator
Creator: Pendike Studio.
A man wears overalls and works on probably a belt-driven power generator at Fort Lewis High School (later Fort Lewis College) in Hesperus (La Plata County), Colorado. The generator reads: "Ames Iron Works."
Date: [between 1911 and 1913?]
Notes: History Colorado.; Handwritten on envelope: "C-Fort Lewis"; Title supplied.; R7200075277
Physical Description: 1 photographic print ; 13 x 18 cm. (5 x 7 in.) on album page.
Source: Gift of W.H. Eldridge, Ft. Lewis, Colo.
Is Part Of: History Colorado, subject file collection.  

 

 

Fort Lewis, kitchen

Creator(s): Pendike Studio.

Summary: A woman in a checkered apron poses with a water kettle in a kitchen at Fort Lewis High School (later Fort Lewis College) in Hesperus (La Plata County), Colorado. Shows a wood burning stove, a serving cart on wheels and pots and pans suspended from a ceiling rack.

Date: [between 1911 and 1913?]

Notes: Accession number: 2000.129.547; History Colorado.; Handwritten on envelope: "C-Fort Lewis"; Title supplied.; R7200075251

Physical Description: 1 photographic print ; 13 x 18 cm. (5 x 7 in.) on album page.

Is Part Of: History Colorado, subject file collection

Source: Source: Gift of W.H. Eldridge, Ft. Lewis, Colo.

History Colorado

 

Fort Lewis, dining room

Creator(s) : Pendike Studio.

Summary: View of a dining room at Fort Lewis High School (later Fort Lewis College) in Hesperus (La Plata County), Colorado. Tables are set with tablecloths, glasses and pitchers. The room has wainscoting, wood floors and ceiling, and curtains on windows.

Date: [between 1911 and 1913?]

Notes: Accession number: 2000.129.547; History Colorado.; Handwritten on envelope: "C-Fort Lewis"; Title supplied.; R7200075243

Physical Description: 1 photographic print ; 13 x 18 cm. (5 x 7 in.) on album page.

Is Part Of: History Colorado, subject file collection

Source: Source: Gift of W.H. Eldridge, Ft. Lewis, Colo.

History Colorado

 

 

 

Local matters to your particular audience

Thing of the past ...

Rocky Mountain News printing plant - promotion using little people

Creator: Rhoads, Harry Mellon, 1880 or 1881-1975,

Date circa 1924. Seven male Little People tend the printing press at the Rocky Mountain News' printing plant, Denver, Colorado. The men were participating in a promotional campaign.

Local, local, local... 

it is all that matters anymore.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com 

First appeared in Newspapers & Technology in 2003

 

I remember the days of deadlines, but it has been a while.
With the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, deadlines, in their original form, went the way of the Dodo bird.
In my long news career, having worked on weeklies, dailies, monthly magazines, annual reports and consistently and constantly breaking online presences, I also remember when it made a difference.
With the blurring of the lines in modern media, changing economic and social conditions, and consumers that are always on, it no longer does.
That does not mean that the cycle is gone; it is just different.
One of my favorite all-time news references is “The Country Newspaper,” by Millard VanMarter Atwood, a Cornell University professor who first published “the little green book” in 1923.
“This little volume is an attempt to show the importance of the country weekly in the life of the small town and the rural community. It is hoped also that it will give residents of smaller places an insight into the problems with which the country editor is confronted in these days of changing economic and social conditions,” writes Atwood.
Accordingly, he notes that the writer “believes that the changes affecting the country newspaper which have been taking place in the East are prophetic of what may be expected, in time, throughout the whole country.”
Like Atwood, and W.P. Kirkwood, agricultural editor of the University of Minnesota, whom he quotes extensively, the emphasis lies on community service.
As observed more than 90 years ago, I think the local paper (he called it the country weekly) faces a future of growth and greatly increased usefulness.
That is based that on “the idea of community service clarifies the whole problem of policies and expediencies, for it gives the concrete aim to all editorial activities.”
What he meant by that was “purpose.”
“The community service, the community building, then as a master motive, establishes the country-weekly publisher securely in his position of leadership. It assures added community prosperity, and local development of the finer satisfactions of life in which he must share; and no agency can take this from him – neither the city daily, coming in from a distance and concerned with the larger affairs of a larger community, nor the school, nor the church, nor any other.”
Today, metro dailies have suffered recently from their addiction to much broader audiences. National news products like Newsweek can’t find a way to make it work. Even the internet needs to focus. Local, local, local.
But how does it affect the cycle. It is still a cycle, but no longer does it climb down from last page to the printer on Monday night, into a reconstructive Tuesday, followed by lets-get-something done Wednesday, ad-close and dummy Thursday, and Friday’s last chance to comment and file a story, finally spiraling out of control into a catch up weekend.
It is a convergence product we are offering, however, instead of only a weekly print edition. Up-to-date postings on our site. Referring pieces on Facebook and Twitter, maybe Pinterest, and Reddit, throw in a few other places for good measure, and now you have our reach. Our readers are the key. They don't care anything about deadlines. The want it now, or forget it.
We still have to get everything done. But now, it is always due.
But they also want it summarized, and archived, third-party verified, and a hard copy provided. They would like the news this way and that.
Terrible accident in town today, get it on the site right away. Public official resigns in disgrace, you must anticipate that sort of thing. Fire breaks out in the forest, how quickly can you have photos up?
With a certain irony, that is easier. Because the focus whips back around to local, local, local.
That is all that really matters anymore.
###

Drinking Tivoli beer in Denver for more than 100 years

Milwaukee Brewing Co., Creator: Joseph Collier,  Date [1890-1900]

Century plus tab runs for 

Tivoli-Union Brewery Company 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The Milwaukee Brewery Company was established in 1859 by James Endlich at 10th and Larimer Streets in Denver, Colorado.  It was an early Denver brewery located in the area that became the Tivoli Brewery complex. In 1901, it merged with the Union Brewing Company to form the Tivoli-Union Brewery Company, which operated until the mid-1960s.

In 1860, the brewery was sold to John Good, who enlarged it and renamed it after the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. In 1901, the brewery merged with the Union Brewing Company to form the Tivoli-Union Brewery.
Built in 1870 by German-born Mortz Sigi, the Tivoli Student Union was originally part of the Colorado Brewery. 

Date: 1902. Men and boys pose with cigars, pipes, shovels, a broom, and beer bottles. Crates and labels read: "Tivoli Union Brewing Co. 1342 10th St Denver, Colo."

"The Tivoli Student Union changed owners and names several times throughout the eighteen and nineteen hundreds, with architectural additions being made along the way. Sigi’s Brewery was founded in 1864. It was renamed the Tivoli Brewing Company after Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen in 1901 by John Good. The Tivoli Student Union remained a brewery until the late 1960s, " according to Auraria Higher Education Center information,  in 1901, the building became the Tivoli-Union brewery, named after the famous amusement park in Copenhagen.

During prohibition, the president of the company kept the brewery alive by manufacturing “Dash,” a cereal beer.

The Tivoli-Union was producing 150,000 barrels of beer annually by the 1950s, but by 1966 it was shut down due to its failing business after a worker’s strike. The brewery closed in 1969 after the Platte River flooded it in 1965, shortly after the Occhaitio brothers purchased the facilities. 

Tivoli Brewery team, Date: [1940-1950] The Tivoli Brewery wagon and Clydesdale horses in Denver, Colorado; people ride the conveyance and watch from behind a fence by a loudspeaker. Harness includes silver studs.

In 1973 the Tivoli was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, guaranteeing the restoration and protection of the buildings and major brewing equipment.

The Denver Urban Renewal Authority bought the dilapidated Tivoli with the help of federal funds and transferred ownership to the Auraria Higher Education Center.

When renovation became too costly, the state contracted private developers to restore the buildings of the Tivoli for commercial use. The buildings were brought together under a three-story atrium. 

In 1991, Auraria students voted to buy back and re-develop the Tivoli to use for educational purposes. It opened as the Tivoli Student Union in 1994.

The Tivoli re-opened as a student union/retail center in 1994 after a two-year renovation. It now serves as a defining hub of the campus.


The plant shown here continued to operate until 1969, producing Denver Beer. Several horse-drawn wagons are on the dirt street in front of the building.

After a forty-three-year absence, Tivoli Beer began flowing again in 2012.

To further develop the revived brand, the brewery’s owners embarked upon a $3.5 million renovation of the old building (with the help of ($975,000 in State Historic Preservation Tax Credits) to serve as their brewery and tap house.

The non-historic additions of the 1980s were removed, and the historic interior features were restored. New brewing equipment occupies the space where Tivoli’s original mash tuns and copper kettles once stood, according to the brewery's information.

Roger Whitacre,  Date:1985,  July. Night view of the Tivoli Brewery Building (formerlyTivoli-Union Brewery) at 10th (Tenth) and Larimer Streets in the Auraria neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. The four-story brick building has arched windows, a smokestack, and a tower with a mansard roof. A sign reads: "Tivoli Beer."

 

It is Friday. Keep 'em coming boys.  Antique beer keg lift conveyor machinery at the old Tivoli (a.k.a. Union) Brewery in downtown Denver. Photo by Rob Carrigan.

 
Outlaw Light (or Outlaw Mile Hi Light) is a fast-growing, affordable 4.2% ABV light Kölsch-style beer produced by Tivoli Brewing Co. in Colorado. Marketed as a "crushable," independent alternative to major brands, it features a slightly maltier, crisp profile. It is expanding nationwide, with partnerships including singer HARDY and the Outlaw Music Festival. 

 

 

Cruise Above the Clouds 2016

 

The 2016 Cruise Above the Clouds set a new record for number of entries in the iconic car show. The Woodland Park displayed 350 cars all through the streets and parking lots of Woodland Park and thousands of car buffs and curiosity seekers wandered from classic car to exotic automobile under ideal weather conditions Saturday, Sept. 10.

1: Dave Blix’s Porche Red 55 Ford F-100 Pickup was shining up nicely in the morning sun. Blix’s first wife gave him the devil because he paid $300 for the truck 35 years ago and he spent 12 years restoring it.  “The wife is gone, but I still have the truck,” he said. It is all from ‘54, ‘55, ‘56 Ford F-100 parts, except for the Cleveland 351 engine that came out of a Mustang.

2: Jerry Kabbe’s Forest Green flamejob paint on his 1957 GMC pickup inspired other-world fantasy and set the truck apart in sea of classic and standout “automobilery.”

3: It is not everyday that you run into someone (even at a car show) driving a 1962 Plymouth Valiant, and that is precisely why Mike Buctter of Colorado Springs likes showing up in the unique equipment. 

4:Take a classic 1957 Chevy, modify it slightly in the front with 1958 Chrysler 352 Hemi, and drive it from Aurora to a premier car show in the mountains around Woodland Park and Cripple Creek. Owner Andy Haney kept it  under 60 m.p.h., and gas mileage around 15 miles per gallon.

5:Linda and Bob Brown’s 1969 Pontiac Firebird is rare. Pontiac was sponsoring the Olympic Ski Team that year and a “Ski Package” was available on some models. However, it was not supposed to be available on the convertible. Three were ordered from Denver anyway and built in Van Nuys, until orders from Michigan disallowed. “One got out,” says Bob.

6: Obligatory fuzzy dice in a 1956ish Chevy.

7: This car is sort of dinosaur-like… a real fossil, but well-preserved. They don’t make them J.J. and Mike Triebold’s 1955 Yellow and Black Sunliner anymore.

8: Anytime you get cars together, especially alot of them, you probably will eventually need a tow truck. Viola! Bill Schwindts 1949 Yellow Dodge.

9: Well, Jay Cimino can also have a 1957 Studebaker Silver Hawk, too.

10: Jay Cimino is car guy, and car guys like 1957 Chevys, even if they operate Phil Long Ford. This is no ordinary 1957 Chevy convertible, however.

11. You might pull up side-straddle over a small streambed, drop the side gates and create a bridge to Terabithia with this 1962 Convair Rampside.  

12. It is kind of like a car, only smaller. Francesca Ferrero's 1970 Fiat has just enough room for your body mass, and a little bottle of gas. Many of you have owned recycling containers that are larger.

13. Four-door 1956 Chevy, red and white, simple elegance.

Photos by Rob Carrigan