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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. …
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The Digital Campfire of Social Media and How it Sparked a Book Project
Greetings from an unseasonably mild but windy Casper Wyoming. I have a little bit of reflection and a couple of messages related to a local history blog, social media, and the sparks that lit a book project about one of the wildest little towns of the old west. Four years ago, I launched Bacacountyhistory.com. At…
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The Town Boom Years in Southeastern Colorado 1886-1889: A Map
Sometimes it is hard to understand old forgotten towns. Especially since we don’t always know where they are located in relationship to present day landmarks and towns. The map in this post contains the towns which popped up in the area as well as towns that were connected. For example, many settlers rode the train…
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The Sidewalks of Old Boston
The Springfield Herald had a regular series in 1918 called “Persons, Stories, and Incidents of Old Boston and the Old Days.” The episode author is listed as “The Writer” who is actually Sam Konkel. Left: Sam Konkel Middle: Sam Konkel 188ish Right Sam Konkel 1930ish Photos courtesy of Zaylan Konkel The October 19, 1918,…
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Some More Old Vilas
The Springfield Herald had a regular series in either 1918 or 1919 called “Persons, Stories, and Incidents of Old Boston and the Old Days.” I am a bit confuse on the year because several of the issues have the year 1918 marked out in pencil with 1919 written in. This occurs in several issues but…
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Tioga County
The Springfield Herald had a regular series in 1918 called “Persons, Stories, and Incidents of Old Boston and the Old Days.” The episode author is listed as “The Writer”. The February 1, 1918 edition of the series was titled “Tioga County”. The story as told by the Herald is as follows: “Probably there are not…
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Orville Ewing’s Travels: The Animals
Before we head into Orville’s travels during the 1940’s let’s take a peek at the the animal menagerie which served as Orville’s traveling companions over the years. This is the group that provided quite a background for those wishing to take pictures with him. The ox, burros, donkeys and/or mules were obviously used to pull…
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My Link To The Old West…
My Link to the Old West originally appeared on Boody’s Blog: Missives from Mythtickle and is re posted with permission from Justin Thompson Last summer, 2008, I found something out from my Dad that was absolutely astounding. Now this ain’t a myth, this is true. I’m shootin’ ya’ straight here. My family and I, wife and…
