The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories

Chapter 2: The Mountains and Foothills: Gunnison, Rio Grande, Chaffee, Delta,Arapahoe, and Alamosa Counties

I think the pioneer women of that day did their share in keeping things going and in developing the country. Anna Lee Fulcher Clarkson Although not all of the counties included in this section are mountain counties, each of the narratives included here concerns itself to some extent with the details of traveling to, traveling through, settling in, and mining in the mountains of Colorado. Taken together, they offer a broad overview of the European American settling of the state, and as they make evident, after the gold rush of the 1860s had played itself out, many homesteaders turned to farming, ranching, and trading for their livelihoods.1 Although many finally did stay put, it also becomes clear from these narratives that many of the pioneers moved frequently before settling in Colorado, and once in Colorado they continued to move frequently. As Virginia Scharff suggests, perhaps it is time we “stopped envisioning women’s history as a narrative chiefly about attempts to establish geographical stability (what might be called ‘home on the range’), and begin to accord itinerancy the historical importance in western women’s lives that the record suggests is necessary .”2 Many of the narratives in this section corroborate Scharff’s contention. Chapter 2: The Mountains and Foothills Gunnison, Rio Grande, Chaffee, Delta, Arapahoe, and Alamosa Counties Colorado Springs Meeker Pueblo Durango Boulder Telluride Denver Glenwood Springs New Castle Rifle Leadville Valmont San Luis Estes Park Cripple Creek Poncha Springs Fairplay Blackhawk Rye Del Norte Twin Lakes Gunnison Vulcan Alamosa Creed Morrison Beulah Alma La Veta Salida Silver Cliff Granite Idaho Springs Ouray Central City Cañon City Delta Littleton Buena Vista Fort Garland Silverton Eagle Ri v e r San Ju a n R i v e r W hite River Col o r a d o R i v er Big Thompson River Bear Creek S o u t h P l a t t e R i v e r Arkansas River Gun n i s o n R iver A n i m a s R i v er Rio Grande Sugar Creek M o u n t a i n s S a n g r e d e C r i s t o Berthod Pass SOUTH PARK La Veta Pass California Gulch Tenderfoot Mountain NEW MEXICO COLORADO DELTA COUNTY GARFIELD COUNTY GUNNISON COUNTY SAGUACHE COUNTY CHAFFEE COUNTY HINSDALE COUNTY PITKIN COUNTY ALAMOSA COUNTY JEFFERSON COUNTY CLEAR CREEK CO. MONTROSE COUNTY MESA COUNTY RIO GRANDE COUNTY SUMMIT COUNTY FREMONT COUNTY LAKE CO. ARAPAHOE COUNTY CUSTER COUNTY MINERAL COUNTY EL PASO COUNTY EAGLE COUNTY PARK COUNTY OURAY COUNTY GILPIN CO. TELLER COUNTY PUEBLO COUNTY HUERFANO COUNTY N 50 mi 0 25 4. The mountains and foothills mary nichols williams 25 As with the northwest area of the state, new settlement in the mountains and on the prairies inevitably brought conflict with the previous inhabitants, and these narratives offer several different views of and accounts of interactions with Native Americans. Two narrators refer to the Meeker Massacre or the Milk Creek Battle, for example, and several express their fear. Although Mary Nichols Williams seems to share the general fear of Indian attack, she recalls good-natured encounters with many individual Native Americans, mentioning, for instance, a dance in which one of the dancers “wore a good-sized mirror suspended by a string around his neck. Very often he’d stop dancing, lift the mirror and admire himself, then resume his dancing, with more activity than ever.” Elizabeth Harrington recalls witnessing an attack on a group of Mexicans with their cattle as she was crossing the prairie, yet later in her narrative she gives several accounts of the Utes’ peaceful interactions with the white settlers. In the context of the U.S. government’s payments to Utes for their land, she confesses that “if I had been an Indian I would have felt as he did—ready to fight for a ‘square deal.’” These narratives demonstrate that despite the stories of bloodshed and accounts of actual battles, many women encountered Native Americans on a casual, almost daily basis and tended to get along—at least on a superficial level—sharing food, for example, and exchanging cultural information. The field-workers for these counties were Margaret Flick (Gunnison), Laura C. Mason-White (Rio Grande), E. E. Carrington (El Paso), J. W. Taylor (Delta), Leslie F. Paull (Arapahoe), and C. E. Gibson Jr. (Alamosa...