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Passing of a Great Range Herd
Prairie Cattle Company, Owners of the JJ Brand, Quits Business The Prairie Cattle Company was established in December of 1880 with headquarters in Edinburgh Scotland. The initial investors noticed that the ranching business had assumed extensive proportions in the Western States and territories of America and had yielded very large profits, in spite of the […]
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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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Cooling Troughs in SE Colorado: Includes A Video Tour by Steve Doner
EDITORS NOTE: We have included videos from our good friend Steve Doner’s Youtube Channel. If you like history Subscribe Now. We live in an era where refrigeration allows us to have foods from all over the world. Modern refrigerated trucks and ships bring us foods which are kept in the fridge or freezer for months, […]
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Offices of the Prairie Cattle Company
“The largest herd of cattle I ever saw was in the summer of 1888. It stretched north from the mouth of Leon Creek, 25 miles southwest of the present Clayton for 5 or 6 miles. It was accompanied by 2 crews of 12 men each. Cattle belonging in Southern Colorado and the Cimarron River country […]
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Growing Up in Baca County Episode 6, Part 1 by John Havens
Note this episode references Fred Holister. More on Fred Click Here: Fred Holister: A Cowboy’s Story Many older people of the Vilas Community made an impression on my life. Some were school teachers, some were business men, others were preachers, farmers, and retired folks. But one I would like to mention especially was Uncle […]
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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 Map of Southeast Colorado Stagecoach Routes 1887-1889
A couple years ago I found a copy of Sam Konkel’s Southeast Colorado Stagecoach map in terrible condition. The quality was so poor it was basically useless and it led me to the development of the 1886-1889 Boom Town map located here in a previous blog post. However, in my last visit to Baca County, I […]
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Reading Old Time Newspapers: A Primer
It feels great to find interesting tidbits in old newspapers—for me it has been part of researching my book, for others, it may be finding an obituary, marriage announcement, or other types of notice. But sometimes historical newspapers used abbreviations and terms that are no longer common, leaving some of us scratching our heads. […]
