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Did the Forgotten Old West Town of Boston Colorado Influence the entire Genre of Western Movies?
“Low characters naturally gravitated in this direction where they would be in less danger of the law. Peaceable men were sometimes forced to become murderers through association with the lawless element who were thrown in their midst. Questions were not asked of their past.” -J.R. Austin, 1936, An Early History of Baca County In the…
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The Burning of the Boston Colorado Hotel: An 1890 Flashback to the County Seat Wars of the American West
The hotel company was incorporated last week, the stock is all subscribed, and the big hotel will now be pushed to completion. — Boston Colorado, Western World, April 1887 The County Seat Wars of the American West, which were most famous in Kansas, represent a tumultuous period in the late 19th century characterized by intense…
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Was Old Boston Really As Wild As They Come?
By The Writer Originally published in the Plainsman Herald, Springfield, Colorado, June 19, 2024 “An elderly gentleman on his way to Colorado was asked what there was attractive there, and answered ‘Nothing sir, but a dry burying ground and shorter route to Heaven” –The Ashland Weekly Journal, 1887 No one has really questioned my book’s…
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“Ten Nights in a Bar Room” by the Boston Amateur Dramatic Troupe: Theatre in 1880s Southeast Colorado
The Boston Amateur Dramatic troupe reproduced “Ten Nights in a Bar Room” at the Murray hall last Friday night. The weather was intensely disagreeable, and the crowd correspondingly small. There were not more than 150 people present. The troupe made a marked improvement over their first effort. The Citizen (Trinidad Colorado) 13 Jan 1888 The…
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Horse Thieves Paradise: John Jennings leads Colorado Vigilantes into No Man’s Land
Here are a few clippings about the citizens “of half a dozen Colorado villages, Boston, Springfield, Vilas, Minneapolis, and Carriso and also Richfield in Kansas, are uniting to make an expedition against its horse thieves into No Man’s Land.” It appears this trip was led by none other than John Jennings who at the time…
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An Al Jennings 1908 Silent Western, “The Bank Robbery”
I have mentioned several times the influence Old Boston, Colorado likely had on the early development of the western movie genre because of the time Al Jennings and the Jennings clan spent there. He doesn’t mention Boston much after their time there, but like everyone else who past through the town, the Jennings left there…
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The Noted Burying Ground: Boston, Colorado
The “Noted Burying Ground” or Boston, Colorado Cemetery shown in the Dec 2018 photo below is all that is left of what was Boston, Colorado of the Southeast Colorado plains. There are two issues that must be clarified as we give you a bit of this story. The Southeast plains reference is important as there…
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An 1887 Letter from Judge Jennings
Many of you are familiar with Judge JDF Jennings who was Vice President of the Boston or Atlantis (Colorado) Town Company from my book “Old Boston: As Wild As They Come.” The Judge aka Judge Jennings aka John D.F. Jennings was a former plantation owner, an attorney, and a physician. He served the Confederacy during…
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Sam Konkel’s take on the Al Jenning’s “Fishy” Autobiography.
In “Old Boston: As Wild As They Come” we tell the story of many of the characters of the that short-lived (1886-1889) and wild Colorado Boomtown, Boston, Colorado. The key resource for this story are the 1918-1919 writings of Sam Konkel, who ran one of two newspapers in that town. Konkel told us much about the…
