You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
William Pabor arrived in Western Colorado before the advent of irrigation, and the land presented a barren and desolate sight. But he saw something entirely different. "In the spring of 1884, lying on the bare floor of a log cabin on the site of what is now the town of Fruita, I watched the moonbeams play on the Roan Cliffs and across Pinon Mesa," Pabor wrote. "The silence of centuries seemed resting upon the plain. . . . But visions of the possibilities of the future swept before me. I saw homes founded, I saw family circles gathered together. I saw vineyards and orchards, and rose-embowered cottages in which love and happiness and contentment abode. . . . I heard the merry voices of children yet to be born. I heard the singing of harvesters bringing in the sheaves of golden grain." Pabor soon turned vision into reality and founded the town of Fruita.
Colorado's Front Range, Western Slope, eastern plains and southern approaches were home to some of the state's stranger people, places and events. Meet Mike the Headless Chicken from Fruita and a Fort Collins architect who designed a university building to house his wife--after he killed her. Learn about Florence's "The Alcatraz of the Rockies" or Doc Holliday's final breaths in Glenwood Springs. Dig into the odd conspiracy theories and underground city connected to the Denver International Airport. Walk alongside dinosaur tracks, scout out old mines and ancient petroglyphs or climb into Mesa Verde's shaded, mysterious cliff dwellings. Author Cindy Brick shares quirky, odd and intriguing episodes in Colorado history.
Amid the rock spires and red-rock canyons west of Grand Junction near the Utah state line, a young man with a checkered past single-handedly built trails at a salary of $1 a month. John Otto brought the beauty of the canyons to the attention of the local chambers of commerce and eventually the National Park Service. With the stroke of a pen, Pres. William Taft added the Colorado National Monument to the park system in 1911. Ottos eccentricities toward bureaucrats and businessmen caused him to abandon a quarter-century of trail building in the mid-1930s. His legacy was then picked up by hundreds of young men from the Civilian Conservation Corps prior to World War II. Today their combined efforts bring thousands of hikers, bicyclists, and motorists to the same trails Otto first used to introduce people to the canyon lands a century ago and the odd rock monoliths that seem to rise hundreds of feet out of the canyon floor. Scenic vistas of the Little Bookcliffs mountain range and the great Grand Mesa complete the beautiful panorama.
None
Colorado's Grand Valley has an extensive geological and human history going back millennia. Franciscan priests worked in tandem with the native Ute people to plot passage through the territory, opening the valley to unprecedented settlement. The region became the playground of enterprising visionaries, murderous outlaws, hooligans and harlots alike. From the gruesome Meeker massacre and its tragic consequences for the Ute nation to the mysterious murder of Sam McMullin and a showdown with the Ku Klux Klan in 1925, uncover the engrossing stories of an unyielding land. Author Kate Ruland-Thorne recounts many of the defining and damning moments throughout Grand Valley history.
None
Early promoters of Colorados Western Slope would have had settlers believe the area was one of proper behavior and upstanding morality. But this was not the case. Hot tempers led to quick trigger fingers and Main Street shootouts. Drinking, gambling and thieving were popular pursuits, and law breaking of all kinds thrived in this wild land. From Charles Graham, whose jealous rampage in Grand Junction is still talked about today, and the mysterious Friday the thirteenth murder of Jeanette Morris to Abe C. Ong, the mischievous pioneer bootlegger of De Beque, and Riversides Mrs. Barnes and her foul crime, History Sleuth D.A. Brockett reveals some of the most outrageous and remarkable crimes in Western Slope history.
Genealogical histories of the Forkner/Fortner/Faulkner/Falkner surnames.
In the summer of 1954, Wallace and Ella Moon moved their family to an 80-acre resettlement farm north of Fruita, Colorado. Over the next six decades, the family would transform the property into a children's wonderland. Wallace and Ella constructed 30 unique playhouses and museums influenced by their pioneering history growing up in Utah. Fruita's Historic Moon Farm details its transformation from a family farm to a field-trip destination, children's day camp, pumpkin patch, vacation rental hub, and place to be enjoyed by kids of all ages. The nonprofit Grand Valley Equine Assisted Learning Center has taken the reins from the Moon family and plans to continue the farm's vacation rental and pumpkin patch traditions.