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Crop Prospects for Southeast Colorado in 1888
PERSONS Stories and Incidents of the Early Day East Enders Before Baca County became a county in the spring of 1889 it was the eastern end of Las Animas county. As spring is upon us, I thought it might be good to look back at the crop prospects in Southeast Colorado in 1888. The following […]
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Grandmother Eva Ratliff by Kathryn Ratliff Benes
With all of the news focused on COVID-19, I can’t help thinking about my Grandmother Eva Ratliff. As a young woman, she lived with her family in Pittsburg, KS where she taught school. She was told that, because of her weak immune system, that she would likely die unless she moved to a dry climate. […]
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Jack Ratliff by Kathryn Ratliff Benes
Editors Note: I’ve often mentioned Jack Ratliff as the other Baca County Wanderer when writing about Orville Ewing. If you search online for Jack Ratliff will also find numerous postcards such as the one below which he sold during his travels. We are fortunate to be able to post the following below from his granddaughter […]
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Poems of Faith (Post 1930s) by Nellie Grover Bamber
This 2nd post of Nellie Grover Bamber is again a true pleasure. There are some little things. The image of Grandma Bamber printed on an early dot matrix printer is a piece of history in itself. The poems? Priceless. In the not so recent past I had a conversation with Nancy Hall Nelson about using […]
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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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Baca County & the Deep Harbor Conventions of the Late 1880s & Early 1890s
This piece provides an answer to a note in the upcoming Plainsman Herald Piece by Mark Schmidt on the first twelve years of Baca County Commissioner minutes in which he states the following: A curious note from April 9th 1891 minutes is the appointment of F.M. Friend as delegate to attend “The Deep Harbor Convention […]
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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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Tributary Towns
As a continuation of my look at Southeast Colorado Boom towns (1886-1889) I thought I would toss out an interesting town ad for Lamar. Almost all of the towns which popped up during that era had an advertisement that was placed in newspapers “back east” (usually Kansas) to encourage settlers to come west. This is […]
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Wilde, Colorado: Colonel York, the Bloody Benders, and West Point.
The town, Wilde, Colorado is not Baca County. It was technically in Old Bent county or what is now Prowers County just west of Two Buttes Mountain and north of Butte Creek. However, most of us from Baca County feel the mountain, just over the county line, and the area just north of Two Buttes […]
