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I . C O L O R A D O DO T T E D W I T H G L A C I E R lakes and valleys cut ‹fteen thousand years ago, the Flat Top Mountains in northwestern Colorado form a majestic wilderness populated by mule deer, elk, black bears, mountain lions, and golden eagles. At their highest elevations, the mountains are nearly barren cliffs and rock outcrops; farther down, the forests mix spruce, Douglas ‹r, aspen, and stands of Lodgepole pine. In the spring, the melting snow pack drains into small tributary creeks that ›ow through grasslands teeming with Oregon grape, blueberry, thimbleberry, and a rich assortment of wild›owers. The creeks form the headwaters of the Yampa River, which meanders north through the wetlands and wide valleys of the Upper Yampa River Basin, where the native Ute Indians spent their summers as far back as the fourteenth century. From there, the Yampa River heads due west, traversing dry sagebrush ranges and canyons before joining the Green River in Utah. The prehistory of the Upper Yampa ended in 1865, when French trappers heard a chugging sound resembling that of a steamboat. The noise was produced by natural hot springs, and the name Steamboat Springs was born. A decade later, the ‹rst white settler built a cabin in the area, and a few years after that, Indian agent Nathan Meeker tried to convert the Utes to farming. When that proved unsuccessful, he called in the U.S. Army in September 1879. The same month, the Utes killed Meeker and seven other agency members in what became known as the Meeker Massacre. They also attacked troops heading for the area, killing nine men. When reinforcements arrived, they subdued the Utes and moved them to a reservation in Utah. Following that forced departure, a trickle of whites began to settle the Upper Yampa. Trappers gave way to miners, who plumbed the area’s rich mineral resources. When the veins played out, many of the min- ers turned to ranching, and by the late nineteenth century, the town of Steamboat Springs had several hundred residents. Like many western towns, Steamboat Springs attracted Americans in search of dry air, better health, and economic opportunity. Jeremiah Newby McWilliams, a young man with lung trouble from Plattsburg, Missouri , was one such resident. Born in 1865, he had worked in a men’s clothing store in nearby Kansas City before arriving in Steamboat Springs in 1886, just seven years after the Meeker Massacre. The town then consisted of a livery stable, a stagecoach inn, a blacksmith shop, four saloons, and a dry goods store called the New York Emporium (ECM, 29). With a ‹vethousand -dollar stake borrowed from wealthy relatives, the twenty-oneyear -old Jerry McWilliams and two partners bought the dry goods store. The store also hosted the local post of‹ce, and most of the county’s residents passed through its doors to purchase goods or to collect mail. Tall, energetic, and enterprising, Jerry McWilliams became acquainted with the local landowners as well as the town’s most recent arrivals. Soon he was also dealing in cattle and real estate and canvassing the small town for willing investors. According to local historian John Rolfe Burroughs, whose father was McWilliams’s business partner, Jerry McWilliams was “the only man in the county who could be in two places at the same time: at either end of Lincoln Avenue (Steamboat Springs’ Main Street), intercepting strangers who came to town from either direction, ascertaining how much money they had, and seeing to it that it was invested in such a manner that he earned a commission on the transaction” (Burroughs 1962, 252). In the fall of 1894, Jerry met Harriet Casley, an Iowa native who grew up in Beloit, Kansas. A normal school graduate and the town’s new schoolteacher , the twenty-one-year-old was “an exceedingly attractive brunette” who drew attention in the small frontier town (Burroughs 1962, 253). In February 1895, in her ‹rst year on the job, she married Jerry. Her family had little in common with his, apart from a generally conservative outlook. Catholic and Republican, the Casleys were ‹rst- and second-generation immigrants; Harriet’s mother was from Hamburg, and her father was born in New York State of French-Canadian parents.1 The McWilliams clan, in contrast, consisted of Scotch-Irish Democrats, mostly native-born Protestants of prerevolutionary stock. Toward the end of his life, Carey McWilliams described his paternal...

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