You are watching American History tv come all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. In its early years, colorado was inhabited by an eclectic group of people, from law men to ranchers to those looking to strike it rich gold mines. In her book, the bad old days of colorado, randi samuelsonbrown examines the beginning of colorados history and the characters that helped shape this state. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and continuing to get our program via video since the museum is still mostly closed to the public. For those of you who dont know me, my name is megan and im the Visitors Services and interpretation coordinator at Golden Museum and park. I plan the Adult Program and other functions of the museum. Randi hascited that joined us. Let me throw a curveball to her presentation and say we are now doing it online. Thank you so much for joining us and i will turn it over to you. Randi great. Let me share the screen and make sure weve got everything right. Thanks, everyone for coming. It is kind of fun to actually do zoom presentations. I did one for the history of colorado and it was widely attended. It was funny. People are coming from different states and its just like high. Y name is randi what i want to talk to you about today as i have a new book out called the bad old days of alorado this one is Nonfiction Book and what happened is my first book is called the beaten territory about the women on Market Street. I was at a writers conference, being a loudmouth as usual and i was joking around and somebody is like where are you from . Coloradoike im from and we used to be bad and im and we are proud of it. That was an editor and she was like write that up, i want to see it. I think you are just the person to tell the story. So i took a lot of the research i did and put it into a history book. But what is kind of funny is i was doing all the research and it just kept expanding and expanding and expanding. So even though it was a small book, theres a lot of research that went into it that had nothing to do with anything that i originally research. To try to wanting preserve old photographs and history of colorado that i think has kind of fallen by the wayside in some instances. So that is the intent behind all of this. So todays presentation is basically denvers four letter word gold. Im a sickly doing the history of the early denver settlement. And the gold fields in the central city, bear creek area. All of the photographs are from the Denver Public library. They were kind enough to let me use them for their presentation. Otherwise, its coming from the Denver Public library. Heres one of the first pictures we have. This is denvers hardscrabble beginning. This is basically a mining camp near denver, a camp on the creek. It could be cherry creek, it could be just about anything but this is basically how denver started out, just those guys pitching tents. About building the territory and who was doing the building, in the book, i wanted to look at what we thought were common stories and see what was really real and what wasnt. Up, i heard there was so many went so many men to every woman and i was like was that true or not true . I started mining the census information and colorados first census, like the slide says was taken in 1860. 32,000ere 32,000 640 with 30,000 men and 1500 female with a ratio of 20 21. Of 34 to one. Io men aged 30 to 40, you have of511 to 278 women, a ratio 38 to one. So you have a lot of young and restraint,ithout without civilizing influences, and basically letting it out. What were the driving elements of settlement . Money, gold, adventure, land and desperation. One of the basic premises was settlement in colorado in states new montana, new mexico, mexico for a european settlement, most of these states are or territories were not settled by welladjusted people. They were settled by people who are desperate, shiftless, or running from something. Our early settlement reflects that kind of turbulent nature of the people. The first is this is that came into play were services. There were saloons or whiskey tents, gambling, settlers stores, blacksmiths, stock horses, cattle, turkeys, legal and otherwise. We had a little thing called the turkey war in denver when a farmer from the planes brought in a bunch of turkeys, left his wagon with the turkeys unattended and everything disappeared. This was a big problem at the time. Led along civil war lines. We also had brothels and prostitution as a thriving business. Wasof the first settlers general larimer. His namesake is larimer street. He was with a group called the land clubbers. Lets back up a little bit. William was a less liked, never do well who had more than one native wife at the same time, so he was a bigamist. He settled the land or hung out in a flimsy trading post on the banks of cherry creek. ,n the land denver settled on it was given in given to the indians in the treaty of 1851. Williams had because of his native wives, he had the legal right to disperse land on the indians behalf and take payment for it. So the white settlers knew there was something wrong with that arrangement, because they were coming in, they wanted this land that they were looking for gold, they did not care about the fort laramie treaty or what it meant. So one of the early settlers was general larimer. He was not actually a real general. In the early days, a lot of people titled, if they were in the military ever, were conferred to them in civilian society. Been inlarimer may have some war, but he certainly was not a general. He was just given that title is a mark of respect. But he was called a land clubber. Maybe about five white guys came in and they took up as much land as they possibly could without paying for it. They would club their resources theabilities and squat in early denver settlement. So he was one of these guys and here is one of the first buildings that was built in denver. It doesnt really look like that much. An early map of denver. The street names have changed. This one has some of the translations. There used to be something called p street, which is 14th street now, f street, which is 16. Wives had streets named after them. , he was also known as jack jones nobody knows if jack jones was his real name. He did have a wife whose name was an anglicized name it is slipping me right now. Was probably an arapahoe they had their first white child who was born in denver. I dont know what happened to 1861, hei do know in ended up dying drunk in jail and that was the end of him. What would later become holliday street for the Stagecoach Company and later Market Street started off named after him. , you see an Indian Village and one of the interesting things with colorados early history is the indians didnt really care for the white settled land. They did tell them not to build structures where they did because it was prone to flooding. So the white settlers did not listen to them. Caused morettlers trouble for the indians then vice versa. There are some unfortunate stories about drunks going out and assaulting indian women when the men were out fighting or hunting or whatever they were doing. Of time,ortunate point but here is an interesting map. Of the gregorye gold digging that we are going to talk about in colorado. Thesed to get chronologically, but this one is dated may, 1859, a little bit earlier. Here is a picture of the Rocky Mountain news, the first building. Again, it looks like general larimers building. An interesting thing is a lot of the people were prospectors and would go off to look for gold wherever they wanted, like in Cripple Creek or cherry creek. They would leave their buildings behind and what would happen is new miners, prospectors would come in, find these empty houses or cabins and they would just go ahead and take them over. The interesting part is when the men would return back to the building, they would find squatters in there and they didnt respect squatters rights, so they would not push the people out. Usually they would just choose to build another cabin. Merchants earliest and liquor salesman in denvers richardis a man named lacy wooton, known as uncle derek. Unclen in denver dicki. He was under suspicion for committing denvers first murder. What his claim to fame was is that he brought in whiskey called house lightning. The first christmas arrived about Christmas Eve and he had these barrels of taos lightning. I dont know if he gave it away or sold it. Everyone was drunk. It was written that the entire camp got hilarious, which is another word for drunk, and they reckon everyone had a hangover the next day. One of the first murders in denver or the first murder in denver that was recorded dealt with gold. There was a man and his fatherinlaw and they did find some gold on the banks of the ralston river. They were coming back into soninlaw killed the old german man and left his body out in the hinterland. He came into the store or saloon where he was drinking heavily, had gold to spend and was acting really strange. Clientele, hee must have really been acting strange for anyone to even notice anything different. They did question him and he actually confessed to murdering his fatherinlaw, so a group of them went out to retrieve the body. They found it and ended up stringing him up. Anyhow, water damming in denver was a big business. Whiskey barrels, tobacco juice was added for color. Werebly the first barrels perfectly fine and nondiluted, but as time went on, people learned they could sell diluted whiskey for the same amount of money. Drinkould get you a small. That would translate into seven dollars of todays money. Raws whiskey was made with alcohol and flavored with tobacco juice, gunpowder, print juice, tree bark, latin molasses, sagebrush, strychnine, turpentine, creosote and rattlesnake heads. Made byut whiskey Robert Kirkpatrick in the year 1863. He confirms basically what our suspicions are. Whiskey was often made from barrels of water with tobacco and strychnine to gave it thats to give it a tank. It would make three barrels of what he was calling redeye. Manas so dangerous that a sometimes drop dead from the effective a few glasses, having too much tank near the bottom of the barrel. So it was really deadly stuff these people were drinking. Picture of vigilante justice. This is the hanging of a character named dugan. Basically, he is thought to have perhaps done something but he was hanged on account of a bad character and not being very wellliked, which is kind of shocking. Betweenging tree was fourth and fifth near speer boulevard nowadays. There were other hanging trees as well. I do have a picture of one near and may santa fe. So we did have hanging trees and heres a picture of one. He may have killed a man, but basically the charge was never proven, but they strung him up anyhow. Its calledre clark and gruber and company. We think they never actually did make gold coins, but they did do transactions with gold dust or whatever you had and it was a safe place to deposit your money and gold. Thats an interesting picture out of early denver. Mining, in with the giant gregory was near destitution and starving. Gold medal along Cripple Creek. He found what he considered a highly promising vein, got all excited about it, but when he found it, that night when he would to sleep, it ended up snowing quite heavily. He was forced to return into town for supplies and he went into a golden saloon and started talking to the people who were there drinking. Named david a man kay wall, a hoosier from indiana , who just happen to have a wagon load of provisions. Stakewall agreed to grub him, which means give him enough a return upon any future findings of gold. John gregory not, returned in the spring to the same spot and actually found what he had abandoned the fall before. So that is kind of miraculous if anyone has walked through the mountains and you think you find something, leaving for a while and coming back and finding the same spot is early hard. William green russell later followed john gregory with about 170 men. John gregory was a party of himself and then all of the sudden 170 men are coming in they establish russell gold, which is outside of central city. At the end of his first season, he took back 20 1000 worth of free gold. Per dollar, so5 thats not bad. Other people made valuable fines as well, but the most important whatvery was they found would become known as the gregory load which yielded millions of dollars, which gave a ride gave rise to central city and nevada ville being known as the richest squaremile on earth. Court and early justice. I do want to read to you about this, we did talk about vigilante justice a little bit. Up in the hills or central city or whatever you want to call it, they did have miners courts because they wanted a semblance of law and order. They had gold mines corrupting with violence at all of the stuff that is actually not true. Get somewant to civilization structure going. One of the earliest known minors port justices was a man named james h brown. He was known as proverbially eccentric but was wellliked and his judgment was adhered to. He was appointed to the bench of the territorial supreme court. So that was a great honor. Place inten took saloons, which is the lore of the west. Thats because they were usually the largest buildings available. They did truly get their juries out of the saloon and one can only hope they were sober enough to give a good verdict. But theres no guarantee on that. Old minors coat its interesting. Section one, any person guilty of lawful murder upon conviction thereof shall be hung by the neck until he is dead. Section two, any person guilty of manslaughter or homicide ofll be punished as the jury 12 men may direct. Step three, any section 3 any person shooting are threatening to shoot another, threatening to use any Deadly Weapon except in selfdefense shall be defined shall be fined at amount of less than 50 but not more than 500. So they use to whip people out here. That was news to me. Any person found guilty of petit larceny should be fined in a sum of double the amount stolen. And such other punishment as the jury of six men may direct and be banished from the district. Section 5 any person found guilty of grand larceny shall be fined in the sum of w amount stolen and receive not less than 15 nor more than 300 lashes on their back and be vanished from the district and such other punishment as the jury of six men may direct. So thats pretty interesting because i did not know anything about it. We will come back to the minors plight, but i do want to talk about colorado in the civil war, simply because of the mayhem that went on in denver, but also the fact that the gold fields in colorado attracted the attention of the Confederate Army. From april 12,an 1860 one to april 9, 1865. The mining camps of central city and nevada ville were primary targets for recruiters for both the union and the Confederate Army. Days of the civil war, colorado split pretty evenly down the middle as to whether they were unionleading unionleaning or confederateleaning. There might have been a slight edge to the union but the confederate sold confederate supporters were more vocal and passionate about their cause. What they lacked numbers they made up for in enthusiasm. The gold fields did attract the attention of the confederacy. Likewise, gold fields and nevada got the attention of the union as well. Is a building that started off life known as the criterion. It later became mozart hall. Criterion, there is a gunslinger named Charlie Harrison who was the proprietor and he was a strong confederate supporter. Peoplef the southern would hang out in the saloon and again, denver split into two camps. In our area, those people were called the bombers and they tended to be southern leaning. Claim clubbersre like general larimer was a part of used to be leaning more toward the union. Here is the criterion saloon and behind the criterion saloon was the union army barracks, just to keep that in mind. Heres the palace variety theater. The founder was a former prospector, so bringing in the old angle again. Colorado history, because there were not that many people out here in the early days, we run into the same people over and over again in different roles. Colonel baylor was a texas andnel and he left texas went into new mexico, attacked thathe forts there was upsetting to the union. Criterion, there was a union sympathizer who is also the bartender. Will recognize the name wind coupe. He became a recruiter for the union. He quit his job at the criterion. Everyone would go up to the ofing camp because a lot easily extractable gold was gone. Had aof the gold miners very hardscrabble existence. A lot of people did join union armies for the simple reason of that they would get paid and they would get fed. In,these guys would come the confederate ones just lead back down south. Named shillington. Colonel shillington was one of our civil war heroes. Shillington. Whoas a methodist minister fought at the battle of lori etta. There were Six Companies of union soldiers. New mexico basically fell to the confederates with the aim of going to fort union. There were different leaders, different ways they wanted to do things, but everyone amassed in the trinidad area. Shivington there were confederates camped out and they took two companies, went down and surprise them. They were minors, they were minty tough, they were ers. The texans were caught unprepared, so these rebel rallying rabble rousing coloradans wipes the floor with them. It was also the perpetrator of the sand creek massacre, which is probably the worst thing that ever happened in colorado. Interesting to see house a buddy when youre can be seen as the savior and two years later, three years later, be he was well supported at the time, but history will not look kind on him. The tales ofe of the civil war. Charlie harrison from the b company came back down from denver. Charlie and his gambling fraternity of confederates did try to intimidate the b company, but they were tired and hungry and come struggling through denver. Well. Not go some union guys went in and wanted to buy trains. Provokingrrison was them and they thought they were going to get a good show of this whole thing but the union guys got mad. They got a cannon from somewhere front ofd it right in the criterion door. South and got a commission in the Confederate Army and was killed by indians and scalped in kansas. Going back to ed chase, he is a former prospector, a failed prospector. He and his brother got around as high