#Colorado History

[dailyhistoryposts]

Clela Rorex

An American county clerk, Clela Rorex (1943-2022) issued the first same-gender marriage licenses in the United States in 1975.

Rorex ran for and was elected to the position of county clerk of Boulder County, Colorado, after being frustrated with sexism in her local Democratic Party. The incumbent, Henry Putnam, had to then be removed by the sheriff's office when he would not vacate the office.

Three months into her term, Dave McCord and Dave Zamora applied for a marriage license. Colorado law did not specific that marriage had to be between a man and a woman, and was told she was able to decide to issue to license or not. Rorex, a feminist, issued the marriage license to the Daves on March 26th, 1975, and then five more, before she was ordered to stop by the Colorado Attorney General.

A man tried to get Rorex to issue a marriage license to him and his horse; Rorex refused on the basis that the eight-year-old horse was underage.

The Boulder County Courthouse has been added to the National Register of Historic Places in part because of this, and a photo of Rorex and the Daves sits on its wall.

[speakertoyesterday]

Text: "In memory of Emma Crawford who succumbed to tuberculosis age 28. She was an accomplished musician, piano teacher, and fiancee, to Mr. Whilhelm Hildenbrand. Emma loved Red Mountain and had requested to be buried at its summit, but in 1929 heavy rainstorms brought her coffin crashing down into Manitou. Her life is celebrated with the annual Emma Crawford Coffin Races each October". Ose song time

[mx-bequiet]

📸: Airlia "Lia" Russell / @mx-bequiet, 2024

i've lived within a block of this house for at least 1/3rd of my life, and still have never visited the inside. there's a cute little free library around the corner of the yard, i love seeing those in the wild.

📸: Airlia "Lia" Russell / @mx-bequiet, 2024

"This 1890 brick two-story Queen Anne victorian style home is the oldest of the nine remaining houses associated with the early development of Aurora, originally known as the town of Fletcher. It was the first house Donald Fletcher built for his speculative community east of Denver. Like all Fletcher homes, it has indoor plumbing and upstairs bathroom, a luxury considering both the time period and the arid surroundings. The city of Aurora purchased the house in 1990 and community builders restored it for the City's Centennial year. It is representative of the town's development and the suburban movement at the turn of the century in Denver."

(copied from www.dar.org)

[coloradomartini]

The real Carrie Ingalls from Little House in the Prairie briefly lived in Colorado

Carrie Ingalls Swanzey was the younger sister of famous "Little House on the Prairie" author Laura Ingalls Wilder. The cold climate of the north was hard on Carrie' asthma. She traveled to several places.

Carrie Ingalls Swanzey was the younger sister of famous “Little House on the Prairie” author Laura Ingalls Wilder. The cold climate of the north was hard on Carrie’ asthma. She traveled to several places in her young adulthood seeking a more comfortable climate, including Colorado and Wyoming. During her late-teen years Carrie was a typesetter for the De Smet News in South Dakota. Along with…

[forthosebefore]

Cathay Williams, first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Army

November 15, 1866: Cathay Williams became the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Army, and the only woman to serve in the U.S. Army as a Buffalo Soldier.

Williams was born to an enslaved mother and a free father in Independence, Missouri in 1844. At 17 years old, Williams first served as an Army cook and a washerwoman. During this time, African Americans who had been captured were forced to serve in military support as contraband for Union forces. Williams enlisted in the U.S. Regular Army under the false name “William Cathay” on November 15, 1866. She was assigned to the 38th U.S. infantry Regiment, one of the all-black regiments recently established, that would become part of the renown Buffalo Soldiers. The Army did not require full medical exams at the time, so she was able to pass as a man.

When Williams began to feel the effects of smallpox and was hospitalized, it was discovered that she was actually a woman. Lewis was honorably discharged by her commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Clarke, on October 14, 1868. Following her discharge, Williams went to work as a cook at Fort Union, New Mexico, and later moved to Pueblo, Colorado. Around 1889 or 1890, Williams entered a hospital and applied for disability pension based on her medical service. Her request was denied. In 1893, a doctor’s examination revealed that Willaims suffered from neuralgia and diabetes. She had all her toes amputated and walked with a crutch. The doctor determined that she did not qualify for disability payments. While the exact date of her death is unknown, it is believed that Williams died shortly after she was denied.

Williams’ interview that was published in the St. Louis Daily Times on January 2, 1876:

"My Father a was a freeman, but my mother a slave, belonging to William Johnson, a wealthy farmer who lived at the time I was born near Independence, Jackson county, Missouri. While I was a small girl my master and family moved to Jefferson City. My master died there and when the war broke out and the United States soldiers came to Jefferson City they took me and other colored folks with them to Little Rock. Col. Benton of the 13th army corps was the officer that carried us off. I did not want to go. He wanted me to cook for the officers, but I had always been a house girl and did not know how to cook. I learned to cook after going to Little Rock and was with the army at The Battle of Pea Ridge. Afterwards the command moved over various portions of Arkansas and Louisiana. I saw the soldiers burn lots of cotton and was at Shreveport when the rebel gunboats were captured and burned on Red River. We afterwards went to New Orleans, then by way of the Gulf to Savannah Georgia, then to Macon and other places in the South. Finally I was sent to Washington City and at the time Gen. Sheridan made his raids in the Shenandoah valley I was cook and washwoman for his staff I was sent from Virginia to some place in Iowa and afterwards to Jefferson Barracks, where I remained some time. You will see by this paper that on the 15th day of November 1866 I enlisted in the United States army at St. Louis, in the Thirty-eighth United States Infantry Company A, Capt. Charles E. Clarke commanding. Captain Charles E. Clarke in the Civil War 6th Infantry at the Battle of Baton Rouge. "The regiment I joined wore the Zouave uniform and only two persons, a cousin and a particular friend, members of the regiment, knew that I was a woman. They never 'blowed' on me. They were partly the cause of my joining the army. Another reason was I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent on relations or friends. Soon after I joined the army, I was taken with the small-pox and was sick at a hospital across the river from St. Louis, but as soon as I got well I joined my company in New Mexico. I was as that paper says, I was never put in the guard house, no bayonet was ever put to my back. I carried my musket and did guard and other duties while in the army, but finally I got tired and wanted to get off. I played sick, complained of pains in my side, and rheumatism in my knees. The post surgeon found out I was a woman and I got my discharge. The men all wanted to get rid of me after they found out I was a woman. Some of them acted real bad to me. After leaving the army I went to Pueblo, Colorado, where I made money by cooking and washing. I got married while there, but my husband was no account. He stole my watch and chain, a hundred dollars in money and my team of horses and wagon. I had him arrested and put in jail, and then I came here. I like this town. I know all the good people here, and I expect to get rich yet. I have not got my land warrant. I thought I would wait till the railroad came and then take my land near the depot. Grant owns all this land around here, and it won't cost me anything. I shall never live in the states again. You see I've got a good sewing machine and I get washing to do and clothes to make. I want to get along and not be a burden to my friends or relatives."

Leticia Wright stars in the 2023 film Surrounded. Her character, Moses “Mo” Washington, was modeled after the Cathay Williams. I’m also seeing a bit of Stagecoach Mary in Wright’s character.

Source: Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture Facebook, National Park Service, YouTube

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[nashpotatoesoutdoorshow]

Mesa Verde National Park - Cliff Dwellings in Colorado

Mesa Verde National Park was established in June of 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It protects almost 5,000 archaeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings!

[blueiskewl]

A FOSSIL GINKGO LEAF Colorado, USA

From the Paleocene (circa 58 - 55 million years ago) the clearly defined 31⁄4-inch wide Ginkgo cranei with well preserved striations, on original matrix. Reverse of matrix three further partial specimens of Ginkgo cranei.

63⁄4 x 67⁄8 x 3⁄4in. (17.1 x 17.5 x 1.9cm.).

[vintagecamping]

Quick stop to admire Agathla Peak on a road trip from Colorado to Arizona.

Monument Valley

1977

[lonestarbattleship]

USS WEST VIRGINIA (BB-48) en route to the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington, for permanent repairs and reconstruction.

Date: April 30, 1943

National Archives via Battleship North Carolina Archives: P2016.026

[livesunique]

Glen Eyrie Castle, Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States

[cpleblow]

mesa verde cliff palace

©Cpleblow Photography (2022)

[todaysdocument]

Cliff Palace, the Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, photographed on July 27, 1923. 

Record Group 95: Records of the Forest Service

Series: Photographs Relating to National Forests, Resource Management Practices, Personnel, and Cultural and Economic History

Image description: We can see a couple dozen of the sandstone-and-mortar rooms that make up the Cliff Palace site. The rooms mostly have sharp corners, but a few are round. They are built under an overhanging cliff. 

[20th-century-railroading]

FlanaryRon-BN engine terminal-DenverCO-5-20-87

[coloradomartini]

Denver's magnificent mansions from the past: Bailey Mansion, 1600 Ogden Street

When I first started getting interested in locating stories about historic homes and buildings in the Denver metro area. The Bailey Mansion at 1600 Ogden Street in downtown Denver caught my eye.

When I first started getting interested in locating stories about historic homes and buildings in the Denver metro area. The Bailey Mansion at 1600 Ogden Street in downtown Denver caught my eye. The Mansion is located at the corner of 16th Street and Ogden in downtown Denver. It granger is a great example of Denver’s once prominent gold and silver mining spoils. The stone mansion was built for…

[forthosebefore]

Lincoln Home, social services for Black Americans in early 20th century Pueblo, Colorado

In 1905 The Colored Orphanage and Old Folks Home was known as, "the only home for colored children in an area of seven states." The Lincoln Home was started by the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in the city of Pueblo and became the only known Black orphanage in Colorado. Built in 1906, the home moved in 1914 to two small red-brick houses that were built closely together on 2714 North Grand Avenue, where it remained until the city’s segregated orphanage system ended in 1963. In 1997 the Lincoln Home building on North Grand Avenue was listed on the State Register of Historic Properties, and in the early 2000s the building housed the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center. Currently the building serves as a museum which is open to the public and can be toured. Which was a huge honor for Pueblo, Colorado.

Pueblo’s Black community traces its roots to the diverse residents of El Pueblo, the early trading post that was built near the present city in the 1840s. According to the Colorado Encyclopedia, after the Colorado Gold Rush and the Civil War, new Black residents arrived from border states such as Kentucky and Missouri. Between 1870 and 1880 Pueblo County’s Black population grew from 27 to 141. The area’s Black population continued to grow over the next two decades. By the early 1900s, Pueblo’s Black community was developing its own institutions, including the city’s first black newspaper.

Ray Brown and Emily Wilson, Pueblo Heritage Museum Museum Curator and Executive Director, hope to find a home for artifacts from from the Lincoln Home that were collected by Pueblo civil rights icon and Brown’s mentor Ruth Steele. Read the detailed article on their efforts in The Gazette here.

Source: Pueblo Orphanages: Transformation, Pueblo County Historical Society Facebook, The Gazette

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[rabbitcruiser]

Mesa Verde National Park (No. 10)

With the introduction of corn to the Mesa Verde region c. 1000 BC and the trend away from nomadism toward permanent pithouse settlements, the Archaic Pueblonians transitioned into what archaeologists call the Basketmaker culture. Basketmaker II people are characterized by their combination of foraging and farming skills, use of the atlatl, and creation of finely woven baskets in the absence of earthen pottery. By 300, corn had become the preeminent staple of the Basketmaker II people's diet, which relied less and less on wild food sources and more on domesticated crops.

In addition to the fine basketry for which they were named, Basketmaker II people fashioned a variety of household items from plant and animal materials, including sandals, robes, pouches, mats, and blankets. They also made clay pipes and gaming pieces. Basketmaker men were relatively short and muscular, averaging less than 5.5 feet (1.7 m) tall. Their skeletal remains reveal signs of hard labor and extensive travel, including degenerative joint disease, healed fractures, and moderate anemia associated with iron deficiency. They buried their dead near or amongst their settlements, and often included luxury items as gifts, which might indicate differences in relative social status. Basketmaker II people are also known for their distinctive rock art, which can be found throughout Mesa Verde. They depicted animals and people, in both abstract and realistic forms, in single works and more elaborate panels. A common subject was the hunchbacked flute player that the Hopi call Kokopelli.

Source: Wikipedia