Rob Carrigan is a third-generation Colorado Native. His grandfather's homestead was near the Hamilton turnoff between Craig and Meeker. He grew up in Dolores. Carrigan can be reached by emailing robcarrigan1@gmail.com.
One of my favorite photographers is a fellow like me, born 100-plus years too late, roots in the 'Ole Sod,' hill billy sentiments and background. odd sense of humor — but lucky enough to wind up in Dolores, Colorado, near the railroad and the river.
Thomas Michael McKee was born in Scary Creek, West Virginia on March 17, 1854. When he was a baby, his parents traveled to Louisville, Kentucky by steamboat and from there took a stagecoach to Nashville, Tennessee, where the family remained for several years. During his boyhood, his leisure time was spent traveling throughout the South and painting landscapes along the way. He went to St. Louis to become a photographer's apprentice and later traveled to Texas to work as a railroad express messenger, according to Denver Public Library.
"After a jaunt to Sitka, Alaska in 1887, Mr. McKee received a letter from family friend A. E. Buddecke, who owned an opera house in Montrose, Colorado. When learning the town had no photographic studios, he and his family moved again and settled in the small southwestern town," says the library.
"There, Mr. McKee had no shortage of subjects to photograph - the scenic valleys, the ranchers, the miners, and the Native Americans. Long fascinated with science, he experimented for oil shale and discovered their commercial potential. He also was one of the first scientists to employ uranium nitrates instead of gold and to use carnotite, a radioactive ore, as a source of light. "
Mr. McKee is also believed to be one of the first photographers to take X-ray pictures. In 1892, when the Rio Grande Southern Railroad began laying tracks in the Lost Canyon region between Dolores and Mancos, Mr. McKee resumed his earlier job as express messenger. This provided the amateur paleontologist with an opportunity to collect fossils well as to capture images with the wet-plate camera that was always by his side. Always the innovator, he also introduced the region to motion picture equipment, taking the first moving pictures of Western Colorado in 1895.
"As the twentieth century dawned, Mr. McKee began concentrating on what had become his favorite photographic subjects - the Ute Indians. He befriended them, gained their trust, and then painstakingly documented their everyday lives."
Mr. McKee became an authority on Ute culture and customs, and in an interview with a local newspaper, he admitted, "Probably I have a greater knowledge of the Ute Indians than any other man living and my experience comes from personal contact."
"After his wife Amanda died in 1919, Mr. McKee sought solace in his adopted Ute family, after previously becoming a close confidant to Chief Ouray," (who died in 1880) and his wife Chipeta (who lived on until 1924.) He photographed Chipeta standing in front of her Utah teepee in 1924, less than one year before her death. Thomas McKee died in 1939, and was buried next to his wife in his beloved Montrose. Many of his photographs and artifacts were donated to the state of Colorado and are now on display in Montrose's Ute Indian Museum," says Ancient American Indians: Their Origins, Civilizations & Old World Connections.
Years ago, when I was more active in Colorado Press Association, I loved the annual visit to the Governor's Mansion during convention. It was the former home of the Charles Boettcher and his desendents.
"The Governor's Residence at the Boettcher Mansion, located at 400 E. 8th Avenue in Denver, CO, is the official executive residence for Colorado's governor, in use
since 1960. Built in 1908 for the Cheesman family, this Georgian
Revival-style mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places and
serves as a historical home and official function space," according to the Mansion site.
Charles Boettcher (1852–July 1948) was a businessman in Colorado in the hardware, mining, cement and sugar beet businesses. He was one of the founders of the Ideal Cement Company. Born in Kölleda, Kingdom of Prussia,
he came to the US at age 17 and worked with his brother Herman, first
in Wyoming. He moved to Colorado and pursued various business projects,
often partnering with John F. Campion. His family fortune has funded many philanthropic enterprises.
"Situated atop Logan Hill, the magnificent Governor’s Residence at the
Boettcher Mansion and its one-acre grounds has entered its second
century of helping to create Colorado history. Since 1908, this engaging
27-room red brick mansion has stood serenely in a neighborhood once
referred to as Quality Hill. In 1959, when the Boettcher Foundation gave
the property to the State of Colorado, it became the official residence
of the Governor’s family. The mansion was listed on the National
Register of Historic Places in 1969.
"Today the Governor's Residence at the Boettcher Mansion is a treasure
that stands as one of our finest symbols for Colorado's state civic
heritage.Years of stewardship have served as “stepping stones” to the
current and expanded preservation efforts," notes the The Governor’s Residence Preservation Fund.
Charles Boettcher
Born in Kölleda, Germany in 1852, Charles Boettcher, began his career in a hardware store, quickly mastering the tinner's trade and making a name for himself.
H. Boettcher and Company
By 1870, Herman Boettcher owned H. Boettcher and Company, which included a Greeley, Colorado store that was managed by Charles. The successful business expanded to Fort Collins, where Charles arrived in 1872. In 1873, he met and married Fannie Augusta Cowan. The couple moved Boulder in 1874 to open another hardware store. After a partnership change, Charles gained control of multiple businesses, securing a near-monopoly on blasting powder sales by 1876, a much coveted mining supply.
Family Life
During Colorado's early boom, Charles and Fannie settled in Boulder, building their first home and raising their son Claude (born 1875). Despite his strict Prussian upbringing, Charles was a devoted father who often brought his family along on train trips to Denver.
Boulder
Charles built a grand two-story hardware store at Broadway and Pearl in Boulder, marked by a keystone with the inscription C. Boettcher A.D. 1878 and is currently the Häagen-Dazs ice cream store. Opened in 1879, it was hailed as one of Colorado's largest and finest hardware stores. Recognizing the booming silver market in Leadville, Charles quickly shifted focus, leaving Boulder to seize new opportunities in mining.
Opportunities and Expansions
By March 1879, Herman managed the Boulder store while Charles pursued mining opportunities in Leadville, quickly building a business that grew to nearly $40,000 monthly. Although he later regretted moving his family at such a happy time in their life. In 1882, during a family trip, he stopped in North Park, Colorado, where they filed a homestead claim that eventually blossomed into the 180 square mile Bighorn Ranch. Managed by family, it once served as home to about 600 horses, some of which were purebreds imported from Europe.
In 1884, Charles purchased a wholesale hardware business in Denver, renaming it Boettcher Hardware Company. He later moved it to 402 Lawrence Street, expanding the inventory and positioning it next to the iconic Daniels & Fisher store, later known as May D&F.
As business slowed in Leadville and grew in Denver, the Boettcher's shifted their focus to the city. By the early 1890s, they joined many prominent residents in Capitol Hill, Denver’s most fashionable neighborhood. Landmark buildings like the Brown Palace Hotel had already begun shaping the city's skyline.
A Home on Millionaire's Row
Charles and Fannie soon built their home at 1201 Grant Street in Denver. Though modest compared to some neighbors, Charles considered it “complete in every detail.” The house was proudly situated along the prestigious “Millionaire’s Row.”
New Ventures
By 1900, Charles was nearly 50. Having tried and rejected retirement, he went on to work almost 50 more years, he turned to his native Germany for new business ideas. Always the entrepreneur, Charles returned from a "grand tour" of Europe, which he took with Fannie, 25-year-old Claude and 10-year-old Ruth, with visions of starting sugar beet and cement industries. Shortly thereafter, two extremely lucrative enterprises, The Great Western Sugar Company and the Portland Cement Company, were launched in Colorado.
Boettcher's hunting lodge, the Boettcher House (also sometimes referred to as Lorraine Lodge; National Register of Historic Places listed building #84000858, Charles Boettcher Summer Home and the Jefferson County Conference & Nature Center) was built in 1917 as a summer home and seasonal hunting lodge. It sits on 110-acres donated to Jefferson County, Colorado, in the 1970s and has been used for weddings and other public events since 1975.
It was designed by Denver architect John J. Huddart.
The foundation bearing his family name has supported numerous projects in Colorado such as the Boettcher Concert Hall and the Denver Botanic Gardens. In 1963, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and was also a rancher.
Dolores, Mesa Verde, U. S. Geological Survey, Wyoming, Colorado and the World
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
The
iconic "Stage to the San Juan" W.H. Jackson photos must have been taken
in Dolores in front of the old J..J. Harris building between 1891, and
the fall of 1893, when the Silver Panic that year, slowed activity of
the second San Juan rush and boosterism of that period. That building
would later become Taylor Hardware, where I worked for seven of my
formative years in the late 1970s, and early 1980s.
William
Henry Jackson roamed the American West (and other places) taking
photographs, painting, guiding other artists, documenting progress and
promoting the western experience for more than 80 years. In just
photographic negatives, an excess of 80,000 images attributed to
Jackson, capture the essence of the period and space and time.
"When
William Henry Jackson was mustered out of the Army of the Potomac after
the battle of Gettysburg, he drifted west, finally settled in Omaha.
There he started a flourishing business in tintypes and stereopticon
views. When the U. S. Geological Survey decided to chart the badlands of
Wyoming, Photographer Jackson was asked to go along to take pictures.
The pictures he took, of Wyoming’s geysers and waterfalls, were directly
responsible for Congress’ decision to put the small rectangle of
Yellowstone National Park on the map of the U. S.," notes TIME magazine
on April 14, 1940.
"By the 1870s Jackson had become the
best-known and most successful landscape photographer in the U. S. He
crisscrossed the Rockies on pack mules and in covered wagons, took the
first photographs ever made of the Mountain of the Holy Cross in western
Colorado, of the Pueblo ruins of New Mexico and Arizona. In the 18903
he got the job of official photographer for Harper’s Weekly, which sent
him abroad, from Australia to Russia, photographing Chinese sampans and
Siberian droshkies," says the TIME story.
"Last week the museum
on the first floor of Secretary Harold Ickes’ new, white, boxlike
Department of the Interior Building in Washington was given over to an
exhibition of Pioneer Jackson’s aged photographs. Admired by public and
connoisseurs alike were the vivid detail and panoramic scope of the
mountain and forest views that Old Master Jackson had snapped with his
battered, wooden 6½-by-8½ camera in days when photography was scarcely
more than a stunt. Best exhibit of all was spry Oldster Jackson himself,
stooped and white-bearded but talkative and effervescent at 97."
"William
Henry Jackson still takes pictures, but with an up-to-date Leica, does a
little sketching on the side, spends his spare time polishing his
autobiography, which is due next month. Says he: “A fellow has to keep
busy or he gets bored. I’m never bored.” Three years ago, when his
cronies of the G. A. R. hobbled bravely down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in
their Memorial-Day parade, Veteran Jackson failed to march. “Poor old
Bill!” sighed his aged brothers-in-arms. Later they discovered that Bill
Jackson had been dodging in & out of the crowds all along the
route, taking pictures of the parade.
In
a 1941 interview with Department of the Interior employee Shannon
Allen, William Henry Jackson was a day away from his 98th birthday
according to research and text by Samantha Ford, Jackson Hole Historical
Society and Museum. "Jackson was asked to reflect on his long life;
from an early childhood education in art, service in the Civil War,
life on the trail as a bullwhacker, survey work in the West,
documentation of the railroads, and international travel spanning three
continents. When prompted to compare the scenery of the United States to
that of the rest of the world, it was Jackson Hole, the Tetons and
Yellowstone that jumped to the front of Jackson’s memory. He described
that this corner of the country cannot be paralleled elsewhere. He
credited the nine years he spent with Ferdinand V. Hayden in the 1870s
as the most interesting period of his life, despite his two-year
contract with the World’s Transportation Commission in Australia, China,
Russia, and eastern Europe, " writes Samantha Ford.Photo Courtesy of
the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center
"When Jackson
first started out on the Hayden Expedition in 1870, he traveled with
two assistants, several pack mules and 400 pounds of equipment. The
animals often could not reach the peaks he was determined to document,
so he and his assistants would haul everything up themselves. It was a
delicate process, over the steepest and most hazardous terrain of the
survey, and they had to be especially careful with their fragile pieces
of equipment necessary for the photography technology of the time – the
wet collodion process. Jackson described early photographers as
chemists, needing several vials of chemicals including nitric acid and
silver nitrate. From start to finish, Jackson and his assistants could
get the entire process down to about 20 minutes, from preparing the
glass plate negative, to the exposure, and development process. The
entire team clung to mountainsides in their “dark tent” and stored their
glass negatives in cloth and rawhide bags. Sometimes they would be
stranded an entire day waiting for a storm to pass. Jackson’s skill,
perseverance, and fortitude would create the first photographic images
of the future Yellowstone National Park and the Teton mountain
range.
"In 1889, the Kodak Company introduced rolled film
and the box camera. Jackson adopted this revolutionary piece of
technology, glad to leave his heavy entourage behind. Following the end
of the Hayden Survey in 1878, Jackson settled in Denver, CO until the
economic panic of 1893 forced him to close his studio. In a lucky break,
the Detroit Publishing Company purchased his collection of 20,000
images and hired him on as a colorist. Eventually becoming the manager,
Jackson was one of the early pioneers of the postcard industry. After
his retirement in 1924, Jackson remained busy as an artist, creating
narrative depictions of Old West history. He wrote two autobiographies
and toured the West for public appearances at historical societies,
history conventions, festivals and other events. When Jackson embarked
on his trips west in his 80s and 90s, he brought with him his 35mm Leica
handheld camera. He died at the age of 99, commemorated as one of the
last survivors of the Civil War, as a Western pioneer, and as one of the
country’s most influential early photographers," says Ford.
Scotts Bluff National Monument calls attention to thef act that photographers of his time didn't have it easy.
Of
his large-format camera in 1875, Jackson noted "Packing... so large a
camera (not the compact, folding ones of today) with the necessary
plates and chemicals over hazardous mountain trails, but also the
difficulties in manipulation of wet plates magnified many times—it is a
wonder to me even now that I had the temerity to undertake it.” While
the results were spectacular, the camera proved too unwieldy to use
after the 1875 season. To more efficiently cover the long distances from
the San Juan Mountains to the Hopi pueblos, Jackson used a smaller
camera and more portable "dark box" rather than his usual dark tent.
William
Henry Jackson used heavy large-format view cameras, most notably custom
18x22-inch "mammoth plate" and 8x10-inch glass-plate cameras, requiring
pack mules and a mobile darkroom tent to capture the American West.
Camera and Equipment Details
Mammoth Plate Camera: Used large glass negatives measuring up to 20x24 inches (commonly 18x22 inches), yielding extraordinary landscape detail. 8x10-inch Camera: Used for standard field work during the Hayden Geological Surveys.
Wet-Plate Collodion Process: Required coating, exposing, and developing glass plates inside a darkroom tent while the chemicals were still wet. Pack
Mule Transport: Heavy tripods, darkroom chemical kits, glass plates,
and camera bodies were transported across rugged mountain terrain via
mules.
William
Henry Jackson's original Eastman View no. 2 Improved Model Century View
and Empire State no. 2 (Eastman Kodak Co.) camera, circa 1915. From the
William Henry Jackson Collection, WH1677, Western History and Genealogy
Department, Denver Public Library.
William Henry
Jackson’s cameras were essential tools in documenting early chapters in
Colorado’s history. Jackson created a visual record of Colorado’s
people, natural landscape, and built environment with his photographs.
While Jackson took many images of Colorado for the Hayden Survey, his
work continued when he opened a commercial photography studio in Denver
in 1879. This artifact, an Eastman View no. 2 Improved Model Century
View and Empire State no. 2 (Eastman Kodak Co.) camera, is
representative of Jackson’s involvement in commercial photography and
publishing—work that brought images of Colorado’s people and landscapes
to audiences around the world.
"William Henry Jackson’s
photographs introduced a vision of the American West to an international
audience. In 1868, Jackson opened a studio in Omaha and began
photographing Pawnee and Omaha Indians and the landscapes along the
Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. During the 1870s, Jackson
achieved notoriety while working for the Geological and Geographical
Survey of the Territories and photographing Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and
Colorado. Jackson’s photographs were essential in prompting the United
States government to establish Yellowstone National Park in 1872.
Jackson returned to commercial photography for several years before
joining the Detroit Photographic Company, a publishing firm, in 1897.
Thousands of Jackson’s photographs were reproduced and distributed
widely by the firm, according to info from Denver Public Library, 10 W.
Fourteenth, Ave. Pkwy. Denver, CO 80204.
At its peak the company amassed sixty miles of railroad. The New Mexico
Lumber Company had five logging locomotives, one geared and four rod.
The rod locomotives were mostly obsolete, obtained second-hand from the
Denver and Rio Grande Railroad with one from Rio Grande and Southwestern
Railroad at El Vado.
"The Montezuma Lumber Company, which took over in 1936, decreased
the trackage substantially and reduced the locomotives to two. Most of
the 45 flat cars came from nearby declining operations. Second hand
track was imported from Salida and Pagosa Springs.
In the
1930s, the Montezuma Lumber Company purchased an 1880 duckbill coach
(#311) from the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad to transport
employees and their families to Dolores behind the regular lumber train.
On Saturday nights the train transported the townspeople to Dolores for
dances, movies and drinking in the gas-illuminated car with faded red
plush seats.,"
sayshistorian Lisa Mausolf, in her field notes at the Library of Congress, August, in 1981.
"The end of narrow gauge logging in southwest Colorado came in 1932 when
the expense of hauling lumber by rail gave way to hauling by trucks.
The five miles of track between McPhee and Dolores remained, however,
and continued to service McPhee residents. The scrapping of the last of
this segment occurred in 1948, after an intense struggle and a brief
period of receivership in the 1940's the Denver and Rio Grande Southern
Railroad abandoned operations in the area," she wrote.
The two remaining engines were said to have been in somewhat rough shape by then, and might have been dangerous to operate.
Engine 271 was sold to the Montezuma Lumber Company in Dec. 1941. 271 was scrapped sometime in 1947 after the Montezuma Lumber Company burned its crown sheet.
346 went to Montezuma Lumber Company on May 19, 1947.
The story goes Montezuma Lumber Company was a bit careless about their locomotives and 271 was not the first locomotive of theirs to get ruined by a burned crown sheet. Montezuma Lumber Company tried to rent or lease an engine from the D&RGW or the RGS, but both declined, knowing how well Montezuma Lumber Company treated their past locomotives. Finally the D&RGW sold them the 346.
In steam engines and boilers, "burning the crown sheet" refers to a dangerous condition where the water level drops too low, exposing the top of the firebox (the crown sheet) to extreme, un-cooled heat. Without water to absorb the heat, the metal weakens, softens, and can cause a massive boiler explosion.
Locomotive boiler explosions were catastrophic events that plagued early rail networks, caused primarily by an overheated crown sheet when water levels dropped too low. Colorado's rugged mountain railways saw several notable blasts, with one of the most famous occurring in 1952 when Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) locomotive 3703 exploded in Louviers, south of Denver, killing four people.
Colorado’s extensive rail history saw several of these destructive failures, notably:
Louviers (1952): On October 19, 1952, the boiler of Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad locomotive No. 3703 exploded. The blast, caused by a low water condition that led to an overheated crown sheet, killed all four men aboard. The explosion tore the boiler apart, throwing it 260 feet from the tracks.
Denver & Interurban Line (1925): On January 27, 1925, a Colorado and Southern freight locomotive’s boiler violently exploded while hauling cars from the Boulder County coal fields to Denver. The blast killed the engineer and fireman, and threw the wrecked boiler across the parallel Denver and Interurban tracks.
Denver & Rio Grande Western (1941): In 1941, locomotive No. 1804 suffered a severe boiler explosion while moving through the Burnham Yards in Denver. The boiler was completely ripped from the frame and thrown over a secondary engine.
The boiler exploded on D&RGW Class M-68 4-8-4 steam locomotive #1804 just north of the Burnham Shops in Denver, CO, on Feb. 4 ,1941
Additionally, there were several rather spectacular boiler explosions in the preceding century in Colorado., on its pioneering roads:
Date: circa 1895. Debris from the Engine 35 explosion litters the tracks of the Colorado and Midland Railroad in Basalt, Colorado in Eagle County. Metal grates, wheels, and scraps from the locomotive are piled next to the tracks. A large locomotive
wheel is on the opposite sides of the track. Spectators gather around
the wreckage. Several people stand on top of the piles of debris.
Wood-frame buildings are in the background.Hand-written on back of photoprint: Procured for me by Midberry of Basalt, R.W. and C.L. Daniels in Basalt Book. Title hand-written on back of photoprint.
Denver Public Library Special Collections
These deadly events led to strict federal oversight, including rigorous inspections mandated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), to ensure water levels and safety valves were meticulously maintained.
Blinded by the light Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Madman, drummers, bummers Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin' The calliope crashed to the ground
___ Bruce Springsteen
Horse-drawn
calliope, Myers Avenue, Cripple Creek, Colorado; possibly sponsored by
the Elks fraternal order; features two teams of horses pulling wagon
with calliope and male musician aboard; several men are standing on
boardwalk behind wagon and one man has a sheriff badge (star) on suit
coat; two-story brick flat roof commercial building in the background.
Creator: Yelton, Edgar A. Date: 1895.
We need to be able to hear it for miles
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Anyone that knows me, can tell you I like my music and stories loud. It is not always popular, but it is a way of getting attention.
A calliope (not to be confused with mechanical organs) is an American musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or, more recently, compressed air, through large whistles—originally locomotive whistles.
A calliope is typically very loud. Even some small calliopes are audible for miles. There is no way to vary tone or volume. Musically, the only expression possible is the pitch, rhythm, and duration of the notes.
The steam calliope is also known as a steam organ (orgue à vapeur in Quebec) or steam piano (piano à vapeur in Quebec). The air-driven calliope is sometimes called a calliaphone, the name given to it by Norman Baker, but the "Calliaphone" name is registered by the Miner Company for instruments produced under the Tangley name.
In the age of steam, the steam calliope was particularly used on riverboats and in circuses. In both cases, a steam supply was readily available for other purposes. Riverboats supplied steam from their propulsion boilers. Circus calliopes were sometimes installed in steam-driven carousels,]or supplied with steam from a traction engine. The traction engine could also supply electric power for lighting, and tow the calliope in the circus parade, where it traditionally came last. Other circus calliopes were self-contained, mounted on a carved, painted and gilded wagon pulled by horses, but the presence of other steam boilers in the circus meant that fuel and expertise to run the boiler were readily available. Steam instruments often had keyboards made from brass. This was in part to resist the heat and moisture of the steam, but also for the golden shine of the highly polished keys.
Calliopes can be played by a player at a keyboard or mechanically. Many models of calliopes use roll operation. Some instruments have both a keyboard and a mechanism for automated operation, others only one or the other. Some calliopes can also be played via a MIDI interface.
The whistles of a calliope are tuned to a chromatic scale, although this process is difficult and must be repeated often to maintain quality sound. Since the pitch of each note is largely affected by the temperature of the steam, accurate tuning is nearly impossible; however, the off-pitch notes (particularly in the upper register) have become something of a trademark of the steam calliope. A calliope may have anywhere from 25 to 67 whistles, but 32 is traditional for a steam calliope.
The steam calliope, a 32-note steam pipe organ, is a uniquely American instrument. It has been identified with, and inseparable from, the steamboat since November of 1856. This marks when the Steamboat Amazon first pulled into New Orleans playing her calliope. The dulcet tones of this “steam piano” graced the waterfront of the “Big Easy,” starting a tradition that would last for years.
According to information from the Steamboat Natchez, "the only authentic steamboat that remains on the Mississippi River System today," carries on the tradition of calling people to the River with her calliope. When the Natchez was christened in 1975, she was built with a calliope that replicates the original steam calliopes built over a century ago by Thomas J. Nichol of Cincinnati, OH.
"A steam calliope’s music comes across as “pure” Americana, upbeat, circus-excitement; it is a visual music! A plume of steam shoots upward from each whistle played. The Natches calliope has synchronized colored lights that illuminate each time any given note (whistle) is struck. The instrument actually puts on an audiovisual show. It is a testament to the musical skill required to play this extraordinary instrument. The steam calliope is not merely a gimmick to attract attention, although it certainly does that, but it is the continuation of a unique American tradition," says info from the Natchez.
Armed strikers at the Ludlow tent colony during the Colorado Coalfield War.
Creator: Mace, Stuart, Date: 1913-1914
Colorado National Guard troops, called in to suppress a coal strike, pose on railroad tracks with weapons and supplies in front of a Colorado & Southern boxcar, Ludlow, Las Animas County, Colorado.
Tragedy sparked national outrage
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Striking miners and their families lived in a tent colony to protest low pay and dangerous conditions at the John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. The Colorado National Guard attacked the camp with machine guns and set it on fire, killing 21 people, including 11 children, who suffocated in an underground pit.
The tragedy sparked national outrage and a subsequent Congressional investigation, which led to landmark progressive reforms, including the enforcement of the eight-hour workday and improved child labor laws. Today, the site is a National Historic Landmark managed by the United Mine Workers of America.
On 20 April 1914, after months of sporadic violence and the withdrawal of a larger contingent of troops a few days before, Colorado National Guardsmen and local militia fired on strikers participating in the United Mine Workers of America strike against the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron company. Roughly 20 occupants of the colony, including at least 12 women and children, were killed — mostly by smoke inhalation in the ensuing conflagration. Also among the dead was Greek labor-organizer Louis Tikas.
A single Guardsman is known to have been killed by gunfire from the strikers. The violence at Ludlow sparked the most intense period of violence of the Colorado Coalfield War, which lasted until President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops into Colorado to end the fighting on 29 April.
Militiamen near the
Colorado & Southern railway station in Ludlow, Colorado in 1913
during the early stages of the Colorado Coalfield War.
Ludlow Massacre Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
It was early springtime when the strike was on, They drove us
miners out of doors, Out from the houses that the Company owned, We
moved into tents up at old Ludlow.
I was worried bad about my children, Soldiers guarding the
railroad bridge, Every once in a while a bullet would fly, Kick up
gravel under my feet.
We were so afraid you would kill our children, We dug us a cave
that was seven foot deep, Carried our young ones and pregnant women Down
inside the cave to sleep.
That very night your soldiers waited, Until all us miners were
asleep, You snuck around our little tent town, Soaked our tents with
your kerosene.
You struck a match and in the blaze that started, You pulled the
triggers of your gatling guns, I made a run for the children but the
fire wall stopped me. Thirteen children died from your guns.
I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner, Watched the fire till
the blaze died down, I helped some people drag their belongings, While
your bullets killed us all around.
I never will forget the look on the faces Of the men and women
that awful day, When we stood around to preach their funerals, And lay
the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President, Tell him to
call off his National Guard, But the National Guard belonged to the
Governor, So he didn't try so very hard.
Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes, Up to
Walsenburg in a little cart, They sold their potatoes and brought some
guns back, And they put a gun in every hand.
The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corners, They did not
know we had these guns, And the Red-neck Miners mowed down these
troopers, You should have seen those poor boys run.
We took some cement and walled that cave up, Where you killed
these thirteen children inside, I said, "God bless the Mine Workers'
Union," And then I hung my head and cried.
Colorado National Guard troops, called in to suppress a coal strike, pose on railroad tracks with weapons and supplies in front of a Colorado & Southern boxcar, Ludlow, Las Animas County, Colorado.
By Susan Greene | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED:
Howard Zinn was a young shipyard worker in Brooklyn when he heard a Woody Guthrie song about the Ludlow Massacre.
The lyrics haunted him.
“That led me to look in the library about this event which nobody had
ever mentioned in any of my history courses (and) no textbook had ever
mentioned,” the iconic historian once said.
Zinn wasn’t the first to write about southern Colorado’s 1913-14 coal strike as an historical event.
John Reed, the journalist and communist who was the subject of the
movie “Reds,” sent gritty dispatches from the area where the
Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron and other companies sank shafts
deep into the hillsides.
Upton Sinclair wrote about immigrants there on their knees hacking at coal seams.
And George McGovern published a history of the strike while running for president.
Still, Zinn’s many writings about Ludlow brought broader awareness.
In several essays since the 1970s, he made it known how deep the
corruption of wealth and power ran.
“The mining camps were feudal kingdoms run by the coal corporations,
which made the laws; curfews were imposed, suspicious strangers were not
allowed to visit the homes, the company store must be patronized, the
company doctor used. The laws were enforced by company-appointed
marshals. The teachers and preachers were picked by the company. By
1914, Colorado Fuel and Iron owned twenty-seven mining camps, and all
the land, the houses, the saloons, the schools, the churches, the
stores,” he wrote.
On April 20 of that year, the industry-controlled Colorado National
Guard engaged striking miners in a gun battle and set their tents on
fire.
“It was on the following day, April 21, that a telephone linesman
going through the ruins, lifted a twisted iron cot that covered one of
the pits dug beneath the tents for shelter. There he found the mangled,
charred bodies of two women and eleven children, heaped together in what
had been a desperate struggle to escape,” Zinn wrote, unforgettably.
At least 75 people died, including strikers, strike breakers, guardsmen and bystanders.
Thomas Andrews grew up in Boulder. He breezed past high school and
college without having heard about the slaughter. It wasn’t until grad
school that he learned the nation’s bloodiest strike went down in his
state.
“It was taboo even to talk about. It was a suppressed memory,” says
Andrews, now a historian at CU and author of “Killing For Coal:
America’s Deadliest Labor War.”
“Zinn felt that doing wart- and-all histories made us stronger,” adds
Dean Saitta, a DU anthropologist who excavated the site and says local
families still have hard feelings about what happened.
Zinn put Ludlow on the map. Not just as a place, in all its gruesome
details, but as a concept. He popularized the struggle so that the name
of the railroad town has become synonymous with corruption — “the firm
connection between entrenched wealth and political power, manifested in
the decisions of government, and in the machinery of law and justice.”
Ludlow’s uncomfortable history now is taught widely in college
courses and K-12 classes. Textbooks cover it. Students take field trips
to the shadowed ground that’s finally a national historic landmark.
Zinn died last week at age 87.
He’d hoped to be remembered “for getting more people to realize that
the power which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns
. . . ultimately rests in people themselves.”
And, he added, “that they can use it.”
Ludlow strike Federal troops unloading at Ludlow, Colorado.
Members of the 11th U.S. Cavalry, that include Homer Lockett, stand near the railroad depot in Ludlow, Las Animas County, Colorado. The 11th Cavalry was called in at the request of Colorado Governor Ammons, to restore order in the coal fields after the Ludlow Massacre at the time of the United Mine Worker's strike against Colorado Fuel & Iron.
By Mike McPhee | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED:
It took an act of vandalism, followed by a six-year crusade, to have
the Ludlow Massacre site designated a National Historic Landmark.
Gov. Bill Ritter, local dignitaries, miners, union representatives and others will gather today at Ludlow to dedicate the site.
Now a ghost town 13 miles north of Trinidad, Ludlow was the site of
14 months of strikes in 1913-14 by some 1,200 coal miners who were fed
up with low wages, unsafe conditions and company towns that kept the
miners deeply in debt. More than 100 people died in the strikes.
One particularly tragic confrontation occurred on April 20, 1914,
when 20 people, including 11 children and two mothers, died when the
Colorado National Guard stormed a tent encampment.
The United Mine Workers Association bought that site in 1917, then
installed a granite monument to the strikers and the massacre victims.
The site remained contentious between unionists and others, some of
whom either doubted the stories of the massacre or believed the miners
got what they deserved.
On May 7, 2003, vandals broke off and stole the heads of the male and
female statues, as well as the female’s left arm. The mine workers’
association was incensed, as were other national labor organizations. An
intensive investigation by Las Animas County Sheriff James Casias, as
well as the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, led nowhere.
The broken statues were removed from the monument and shipped to
California. There, a specialist used similar granite from Vermont to
repair the statues.
On May 5, 2005, they were replaced at a cost of more than $80,000.
The money came mostly in small donations from individuals and union
locals. Black Hawk, which has a strong mining tradition, donated
$10,000, said the association’s Region 4 director, Bob Butero.
As word of the vandalism spread nationally, a group of labor
historians — including James Green of Yale University; Julie Greene,
formerly of CU-Boulder and now at the University of Maryland; and Betsy
Jameson of the University of Calgary — took up the cause of honoring
labor strife as part of our national heritage.
Greene wrote in The Denver Post that Ludlow was an important site
because it represents “a crusade that cost many workers their lives, and
reminds us of the central role immigrants played in building industrial
America and of the shocking violence that accompanied that process.”
On Jan. 16, just before President George W. Bush left office, the
Department of the Interior rushed through the designation of Ludlow as a
National Historic Landmark.
Wives of the Ludlow coal strikers prepare food for their striking husbands, as the men stand behind them in a kitchen in Ludlow, Colorado in Las Animas County. Loaves of bread, milk, and jam are on the edge of the table. 1913-1914
Scene of the great fire, Victor. Creator: Harlan, Andrew James, Date1899.
Group of men, women & children posed in front of ashes & debris of R. H. Atchison's residence, Victor, Colorado, one day after devastating fire of August 21, 1899. The fire is reported to have destroyed 14 blocks in four hours; a single portion of brick wall & smoke from smoldering remains are in background. Shows mines & mine dumps, distant background hillsides, and people examining remains of fire debris at center right.
"The View Man's' images were
thorough, elaborate, comprehensive
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Andrew James Harlan had earned a reputation for attention to detail. Unfortunately, the detail of his life, and what kind of processes drove his fine-tuned photo work, remain somewhat obscure for someone able to capture such essence of the mining district of the time.
He started his photography business in a tent in Victor, Colorado, taking scenic shots, and publicity pictures of the larger gold mines in the area such as the Independence and the Gold Coin.
He was in Victor at the time of the great fire on August 21, 1899 and took numerous photos of the conflagration.
Andrew James Harlan was born in 1859 in Ohio and died June 28, 1926 in
Colorado Springs, Colorado. Harlan was a teacher in Western Kansas
before coming to Colorado in 1892.
A.J. Harlan was born November 27, 1858 in Adams, Ohio to Robert Morrison Harlan and Mary (Downard) Harlan. He moved to Victor, Colorado in 1896 and set up a photography shop.
He married Jessie Luella McGill in 1898 in the Presbyterian church in Victor (no longer standing).
They stayed in the Cripple Creek and Victor area until 1900 when they moved to Colorado Springs. After he moved to Colorado Springs, in 1902 he opened
a photography studio at the corner of Weber Street and Pikes Peak
Avenue. There he specialized in making scenic postcards, and developing
film for the public. He soon became the official photographer for Union
Printers Home, the Modern Woodmen Sanitorium, and the Cripple Creek
Short Line Railroad.
In 1902 they had a son who was stillborn. He is also buried in Evergreen. Unfortunately the baby's grave no longer has a headstone. In 1911 they had a daughter who they named Dorothy J. Harlan. She became a musician. It's believed Dorothy died in Denver in 1986, but that is not confirmed, and as of now her final resting place is unknown.
Andrew, also known as "The View Man" had a photography shop in Colorado Springs from the 1902 to 1917 when the family moved to Junction City, KS.
While on vacation in Colorado Springs in June of 1926 he died unexpectedly and was buried July 1, 1926 in Evergreen Cemetery.
His wife Jessie never remarried. She remained for a time in Junction City, then moved to Denver to live with her aunt and uncle, Enoch and Nellie Nock until their deaths in the mid-1940s.
Jessie died in 1965 and is buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver. Her grave, like her infant son's, is also without a headstone, according to Colorado Gravestone Photo Project.
Creator: Harlan, Andrew James. Date:1894, July 9
A Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad wreck near Anaconda (Teller County), Colorado; shows men, women and children looking at wrecked passenger cars. A photographer has a box camera on a tripod.
Creator: Harlan, Andrew James, Date1895-1899
Burro pack train, Victor Avenue, Victor, Colorado. Several burros are lined up and loaded with supplies; three men are on horseback, and one man holds reins to horse. The commercial business district consists primarily of two-story falsefront wooden frame buildings including the original Victor Hotel. Signs attached to buildings include: Hallet & Baker undertakers, furnished rooms, Victor Stage Line - livery, feed-sale, stable (Hall & Kennedy), Vienna bakery, La Veta restaurant, Miners restaurant, Night (or Hight) & Shephard real estate, bank, the Kentucky Sampleroom, and the Victor pharmacy.
