Baca County History

by the Plainsman Herald

Celebrating the Colorful History of Baca County, Colorado


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  • Letters From a Navy Boy – November 11, 1942

    As I move many of my dad’s Navy letters to a digital format I will occasionally provide samples as shown below.   I picked this one simply because it was from the set of letters from 1942 which  I thought was lost.  Also most of the language from the letter is original.  I changed a couple items…

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  • A Bevy of Wandering Muleteers

    Some might say Orville Ewing was  born 100 years too late.  However, I have discovered while learning about his adventures he wasn’t alone.  In various written accounts I have encountered references to muleteers traveling the countryside during Orville’s 30 plus years of traveling the highways and byways.  What is a muleteer you ask?  Merriam Webster…

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  • Orville Ewing’s Odyssey Begins

    Orville Ewing called himself  an “artist from the Old West”. He crisscrossed the United States in his covered wagon/trailer with his menagerie for about 30 years, selling literally thousands upon thousands of different postcards of himself over the years and described in my previous post  “Orville Ewing’s Postcards”  A sample is shown below: Orville’s own…

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  • Carrizo Springs School

    The Carrizo Springs School (also called the Cole School by some) was located where the  North Crease and the West Crease of the Carrizo Creek join on what was the Dunlap Ranch. The tall cottonwood trees were a beautiful setting for hide and seek places which was one of the games the children loved writes…

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  • Letters Home: The Process for this Project is Developing.

    I am beginning the process of what I hope will be transcribing all of my Dad’s letters home from the Navy during WWII.   Since I don’t really know what I am doing I thought I would just start.  I don’t have a scanner with me so I will be adjusting some things I as…

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  • Free Dust Bowl Teaching Resources

    August 2018 NOTE: This resource will be updated extensively later this fall as I am currently preparing a resource “The Dust Bowl: The View from Ground Zero.”  Stay tuned. Growing up in Springfield Colorado in the 1930’s, my mother was a child of the Dust Bowl.   I asked her once if she remembered Black Sunday any more…

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  • Orville Ewing’s Postcards

    I don’t live in Baca County Colorado anymore, but it is the place where I grew up and still call home. It will always be home. This mini writing adventure began after I shared the picture below of my grandma holding what I now believe to be Orville Ewing’s wooden rifle in front of his…

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