Pueblo County News

Pueblo County, Colorado
Pueblo News 1900's

Page contributed by Karen Mitchell, news items contributed by Pueblo County Volunteers.
These news items are being extracted from the local newspapers. They are in chronological order. To search for any given name use your browers "Find" button.
1900

Wray Rattler – 5-26-1900 John H. Mitchell has been nominated for postmaster at Pueblo, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of George Beaver.

Wray Rattler – 5-26-1900 A Pueblo dispatch of the 20th says: Pueblo is excited tonight over the most atrocious crime ever committed in her history. Two innocent children are lying dead in the morgue and a colored woman is at the Pueblo hospital with two bullet holes in her body. Calvin Kimblern, a colored cook in the employ of the Fries Orphan home, is the murderer of the children, and the would be assassin of his wife. The murder was committed at 1:30 o'clock this morning at cottage No. 2 of the Fries Orphan Home in central Park. According to the wounded woman's story if was the result of insane jealousy on the part of the husband, who, prior to the shooting, had been quarreling with her. He has not yet been captured.

Yuma Pioneer 11-30-1900 - Employment agents for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company are trying a new experiment in the matter of employes at the steel works, says the Pueblo Chieftain. They have recently put twenty-eight Greeks to work there, and if they turn out to be good men a large number will probably be brought to Pueblo and given situations. The Greeks are a new addition to Pueblo's population, and besides these now engaged at the Bessemer plant there are nearly fifty more in the city. They came from Chicago in a body to secure work, and are said to be a very industrious class.

Pueblo Chieftain 2-14-1999 Looking at Yesterday to Understand Today - Black History - 1900, According to the U.S. Census, Many Black Men Had Left the Ranks of Barber, Builder, and Waiter - 'There was quite a bit of discrimination in the community. We still have it. I don't think we'll ever get completely rid of it. But it's not just against African Americans - I imagine you can talk to other people and they feel the same thing.' -- Ineta Price. A person needs to know and respect the past in order to appreciate the present, says black history researcher Ineta Price. But getting acquainted with the past is not always a comfortable process, just as growing up a black child in Pueblo wasn't always pleasant. Discrimination was subtle in the schools, said Mrs. Price, who attended Minnequa Elementary and Corwin Junior High and graduated from Central High in the 1940s. "There was quite a bit (of discrimination) in the community. We still have it. I don't think we'll ever get completely rid of it. But it's not just against African Americans - I imagine you can talk to other people and they feel the same thing." Mrs. Price, a Pueblo native, was one of nine children in a family who lived in the Bessemer area and attended St. Paul (now First) African Methodist Episcopal Church. "My dad came here for a job. He came from Arkansas and started to work in the steel mill. My mom came through Canada when she was 8 years old." Mrs. Price, who was a member of the black history researchers group of Pueblo Library District in the early 1990s, has researched Pueblo's black orphanage, the Lincoln Home, and African American quilts and the women who made them. Some of those women were slaves, who "released their pain by sewing it into their quilts," she said. "Silently, they recorded the history of a people denied, while they improvised in the name of survival." Today, as an adviser to the NAACP youth council, Mrs. Price tries to educate young people about their heritage. She said she's always been curious about the past, and she noted education is the "passport to the future." Two fixtures in her family's life - the church and the steel mill - figure in bits and pieces collected in a thick "black history" file at McClelland Library. St. Paul AME was the site of some of the Lincoln Day dinners held between 1934 and 1965, at which ex-slaves living in Pueblo were recognized. Among them was Alex Wilson, a stone mason who helped build both St. Paul and Bethlehem Baptist, another black church. Wilson was born in Clarksville, Va., in 1846 and died in Pueblo in 1943. As a child, he was sold at auction with his mother and was separated for the rest of his life from one of his brothers and his sister. Another old newspaper clipping notes the death of Primus Biffle in 1925. Biffle, who moved to Pueblo in 1891, was a hall porter at the CF&I's Minnequa Hospital for nearly 30 years. News of his death brought messages of condolence from the company's Denver office. "He was universally loved by his many friends," the newspaper article stated. Steelworker J.W. Hill brought hundreds of black families from Alabama to work at the mill, according to the Pueblo County Historical Society's "Pueblo Lore." (Warren Fortson presented the program which was condensed for the "Lore" article in February 1980.) A less scrupulous benefactor might have been the Colored Man's Protective Association, a secret society which reputedly charged a $2 initiation fee in return for a job and "high wages" at the Bessemer steel works. Once in town, however, the association member found no job waiting. The Colored Man's Protective Association may or may not actually have existed; news of it was given to The Pueblo Chieftain in 1893 by "an unemployed man lying in the shade of a tree." Rosetta Parks is one of the library's original black history researchers and another Puebloan who is here because her father came to town looking for work. His oral history is among the ones she has taken. "He was from Jetmore, Kan. He came to Lamar, then came to Pueblo and worked at the mill for 32 years. He worked in the coke plant. I guess he met my mother here. She came in the 1940s from Cotton Plant, Ark." Mrs. Parks' family lived on West Seventh Street and was part of the Eighth Street Baptist congregation. She attended nearby Hinsdale Elementary -- "It reminded me of a giant castle" -- then Freed Junior High. She graduated from Centennial High in 1966 and later earned a degree from then-Southern Colorado State College and taught school for 17 years. Her memories of the North Side are good ones. "The neighborhood was very quiet. I remember Seventh was a dirt street. I remember playing baseball in the alley. Way back then we made our own toys. We had an ashpit, and it seems like we had the best mud pies. We would take the broken glass from colored bottles and sprinkle it on top of them. "I remember the yard -- we'd sweep it clean with the broom -- and the morning glories on the fence. "My cousin lived over near Bessemer -- it seemed like the two sides of town then were opposites. We'd go over and play on the playground at Bessemer School. I never dreamed I'd be teaching there. That was one of my dreams in third grade -- to be a teacher." The black history researchers began their work for the library by reviewing census data. "We let it branch out into other areas like pioneer families and why they came here," Mrs. Parks said. "Some day I hope that we can continue our work. History is just fascinating. You can find out so much. I would like to go back and find out some more. I'd like to see if we could get some people interested and pick up from where we stopped."

Pueblo Chieftain 11-17-1991 - Doctor Battled Corruption - A Look Back at Pueblo County - Abraham Lincoln Fugard was a medical doctor in Pueblo in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. His efforts to clean up corruption in the city make an interesting story. In 1900, one of Pueblo's great tragedies occurred. Fugard was serving as coroner at the time, being elected in 1897. A mulatto cook at the Fries Orphanage on Fourth Avenue was accused of molesting and then killing two girls at the institution. The suspect fled to Denver where he was apprehended and returned to Pueblo. An angry mob met the train at the Eighth Street Depot. He was dragged to Eighth and Santa Fe and hanged. Fugard, who was the coroner at the time, called a coroner's jury to investigate the deaths of the two girls. Investigators determined that the care and protection of "inmates" of the institution was inadequate. The result was establishing Sacred Heart Home and McClelland Home to care for Pueblo's homeless children. At the time, gambling and prostitution were rampant. There were more than enough saloons to meet the needs of any neighborhood. Apparently, both political parties would vote the dead in order to win an election. A reporter, writing about the year 1904 in Pueblo, said: "The sheriff's office and police department failed to do a thing. It was so bad that when a gambler came to town, the police met him at the train and secured him a place to work, got a 40 percent rake-off and they kept a man on the job to watch the play." In 1904, Judge John H. Voorhees bypassed Sheriff J.L. Beaman and requested coroner Fugard to summon a 12-man grand jury to investigate city politics and procedures. A number of Republicans were charged with irregularities, but the charges eventually were dropped. The Republicans did not nominate Fugard for another term. In his last days as coroner Fugard came down hard on gambling, but it was an uphill battle. It was believed that in addition to Fugard and all the preachers in town, local gamblers were on the side of law and order. They wanted to run out a bunch from El Paso who were cutting into the local scenes. Fugard's next try at politics came when he was elected mayor in 1909. He appointed contractor Cornelius C. Sullivan to be chief of police. It soon was charged that Sullivan and some of the officers were spending too much time in the establishment of Etta Murphy, the town's leading madam. Fugard refused to fire Sullivan, who eventually moved to California for his health. The Chieftain noted that Fugard kept most of his campaign promises, except that he did not appoint a black man to the fire department. In 1911, Pueblo voters approved a commission form of government.

Yuma Pioneer 11-30-1900 - Employment agents for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company are trying a new experiment in the matter of employes at the steel works, says the Pueblo Chieftain. They have recently put twenty-eight Greeks to work there, and if they turn out to be good men a large number will probably be brought to Pueblo and given situations. The Greeks are a new addition to Pueblo's population, and besides these now engaged at the Bessemer plant there are nearly fifty more in the city. They came from Chicago in a body to secure work, and are said to be a very industrious class.
1901

Yuma Pioneer 2-15-1901 - Pueblo veterans have formed a society to be known as the Association of Veterans of the Spanish-American War. A. K. Lewis of Company A, First Colorado, was elected president, and Alfred D. Runyan of Company A, Thirteenth Minnesota, secretary. Thirty members are already enrolled.

Yuma Pioneer 3-1-1901 - The Pueblo's Evening Journal's voting contest for the "most popular schoolboys in Pueblo" was decided in favor of Ed. G. Smith and Carl Maroney, whose expenses are paid to Washington and return to witness the inauguration.

Aspen Tribune – May 22, 1901 – Father and Mother Drowned – Pueblo, May 22 – Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Brown, well known residents of Beulah, were drowned in the flooded St. Charles river today. They left the house together and it is supposed they were caught in the water in the dark. Their three children who remained in the house all night crying and frightened, were found uninjured this morning. Yuma Pioneer – May 24, 1901 – Ruin Wrought by the Storm South and West of Pueblo – Pueblo, Colo., May 21 – (Denver News Special) – E. Brown and his wife were drowned at Beulah last night in a cloudburst which caused a great wave of water to roll down through the canon, swelling an ordinary small stream known as South creek to a roaring torrent. Various theories were advanced as to how they met their death, the body of the man being found a long distance down stream from the cottage into which the family had moved from Avondale some months ago. Mrs. Brown's body was found in a lower room of the cottage, where death by drowning had overtaken her. In their room in the attic the two small children of the family were found safe in their bed, but half frightened to death. It is supposed that when Mr. Brown found the water advancing he looked for some method of escape for himself and family and was carried away in the flood. Reports of the drowning came in this afternoon, but it was not until to-night, when some of the neighbors came in and took back with them two coffins that the certainty of the catastrophe was determined. Beulah, in the outskirts of which the drowning occurred, is a summer resort twenty-eight miles southwest of Pueblo, in the foothills of the Greenhorn range, and is much frequented by Pueblo people during the heated term. There is no railroad connection with the village nor any telegraph or telephone wires. Report has it, however, that considerable damage to land and crops throughout Beulah valley was done by the cloudburst which came down about 9 o'clock last night. Information was brought into the city to-night that every bridge over the St. Charles river from its source to its mouth at the Arkansas has been carried away. Several years ago a staunch steel bridge was built on heavy stone foundations on the old burned mill road where it crossed the St. Charles. This structure was swung from its foundation and twisted into a mass of iron and steel. The devastation wrought by this cloudburst in Beulah valley had its counterpart in the lower portion of the stream, causing the wreck to Rio Grande train No. 115 early this morning. After a blockade of nearly twenty-four hours caused by a rush of water down Hardscrabble canon into the Arkansas river, the main line of the Denver & Rio Grande road across the mountains was opened for traffic at 4:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Over 1,000 feet of track was thrown aside by the mighty weight of the oncoming flood, but a big force of men soon straightened out the track and cribbed it up so that the movement of trains was resumed. Passenger and freight trains were held at Salida and Pueblo while the repair work was in progress. Not a life lost. Not an injury received more serious than a cut of the hand from broken glass, a bruise, or a trifling sprain of some muscle, and every passenger able to continue on his journey. This miraculous record of the escape of half a hundred passengers aboard south-bound Rio Grande flyer No. 115, for Alamosa and the west, which plunged from a ten-foot bridge into a seething torrent laden with trees and debris into which the St. Charles river had swollen within an hour from a harmless and almost dry stream. It was just after 1 o'clock when the crash came. Section men had watched this long pile bridge until 12 o'clock. At that time, though there had been reports of heavy rain in the foothills to the west, no water of any consequence had appeared. But when the headlight on Engineer George Mathews' engine gave a view of that same bridge an hour later, he saw a mass of driftwood piled higher than his cab along the upper side of the bridge and the roar of the water could be heard above the noise of the engine and train. “It looked bad,” said Mr. Mathews in describing his experiences, “and I saw the bridge was out of line, but we were in for it and there was nothing to do but go ahead. When our pilot was half way over I saw the track ahead begin to swing down to the east and I threw her wide open and waited. We jumped the rails before we reached the south end and the baggage car, mail car and smoker followed after us. The chair car dropped bodily into the river. The Pullman hung by her hind trucks to the north end of the bridge, with her front end under water. The chair car must have been cushioned by all that driftwood, for when my fireman and I called to each other after we turned over and we found we were all right and then crawled out of the rear window of the cab, we saw that chair car right side up with care, settled as smoothly as if a big power crane had set the body down onto the trucks at the factory, and there she stood as solid as a rock on a low part of the bank, just about half way turned around from the line of the bridge.” The locomotive swung to the right, plowed along the dirt approach for fifty feet, turned over on its side, and broke not a steam pipe to scald Engineer Mathews and Fireman T. J. Johnson. The tender, meanwhile, dragged off by the baggage car behind, swung over to the left, the baggage and mail cars followed it and were more or less telescoped. The smoker was thrown farther to the left and considerably jammed up. The tremendously swift current meanwhile was lodging chair car 814 right side up with care in such a comfortable position without a drop of water on the floor that when the relief train reached the scene the passengers, with one exception were seated quietly, the lights burning and enjoying themselves until the waters should recede sufficiently to allow them to make their escape to high ground. The missing passenger had jumped into the flood and made his way to the shore.

Wray Rattler – 7-6-1901 During a sudden squall of wind at Pueblo, June 30th, Mrs. J.W. Mitchell was struck by a falling limb from a dead cottonwood tree and dangerously hurt. She was taken to St. Mary's hospital. A babe that she held in her arms escaped almost entirely uninjured.

Rifle Reveille 7-19-1901 The directory publishers who have just finished a new directory for Pueblo, estimate the population at 47,000. The census of 1900 gave Pueblo a population of 28,157.

Wray Rattler – 7-20-1901 C.W. James of Denver has been chosen general secretary of the Y.M.C.A. at Pueblo, after having made a remarkably successful record as department secretary of the Denver association.

Yuma Pioneer 11-8-1901 – Herman Chavez, sentenced last January 28th from Las Animas county for assault to kill, died in the state penitentiary. His was the only death in October in the institution, which at the end of the month had 546 inmates. Reports of the institution have been received by C. L. Stonaker, secretary of the state board of charities and correction. During the month two women were admitted, making the total of women inmates eight, and twenty-three men were sentenced to the institution during October. During the month six men were paroled, four liberated, one died and one was sent to the insane asylum. A total of 505 patients was confined in the state asylum at Pueblo at the close of the month, one was discharged and two were paroled. Two men and one woman died. There were at the end of the month 318 men and 187 women in the institution. Six nurses were discharged during the month.
1902

Akron Weekly Pioneer Press May 30, 1902 - In Pueblo Five Hundred People Are Rendered Homeless. Denver, May 27. - A Republican dispatch from Pueblo last night says: Pueblo is being swept tonight by the worst flood in the Fountain river since the settlement here was wiped out by the high waters of 1864. A cloudburst above Fountain has washed out several hundred feet of the Rio Grande and Santa Fe tracks, stopping traffic and doing much damage. Several big bridges in this city have been carried away and dozens of shacks have been swept down stream. Timely warning of the approach of the waters prevented loss of life in the lowlands of Pueblo, where 500 people have been rendered homeless. There are wild rumors of loss of life but none can be confirmed. It appears that the flood started with a cloudburst in the vicinity of Butten (?) about noon. When the water reached Eden it was twelve feet high and was gaining in volume and force. By the time it had reached Pueblo the river was a rushing mass of small shanties, tents and driftwood.

Pueblo Chieftain 7-16-1902 Miss Katherine Bullen, who was found Saturday night after she had been missing a week, is much improved today and physicians believe she will recover her health. She is suffering from a peculiar form of typhoid fever and for the past week has been delirious. Nothing is known of the experiences she had during her absence.

Rifle Reveille 8-15-1902 The new Minnequa hospital at Pueblo, recently completed at a cost of $300,000 by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, was formally opened August 6th. The institution was financed by the company for the use of its employees, and is the finest building of its kind in the West.

Durango Democrat 11-2-1902 - Relations Were Entirely Proper - Pueblo, Colo., Nov. 1 - Mrs. Minnie Cooper, who, two days ago, was shot in the face by Fred Roberts, of Salt Lake, who then killed himself, is slightly better and seems to have a chance for recovery. She remains rational, and talks of the tragedy, saying that her relations with Roberts have never been anything but proper, and that the money for which she asked him by letter was money due her for salary as bookkeeper in the foundry. She says he was a good friend to her and she was aware of his infatuation, but could not marry him.

Rifle Reveille 12-5-1902 Eight hundred poor children were fed by the charity organizations of Pueblo on Thanksgiving Day. The Volunteers of America made their spread in their barracks on Main street. Capt. J. P. Lister of the social religious movement had tables in the dining rooms of the Royal hotel. George Lousteau, a restaurant proprietor, fed fifty newsboys, who, after the dinner, organized a union and elected officers. The associated charities sent out large donations to several hundred families in the suburbs. Castle Rock Journal 12-19-1902 At Pueblo on the 7th inst,. John W. Frush, after a desperate quarrel in which he tried to kill his wife and grown son, placed a revolver to his left ear and fired a bullet into his own brain, ending his life almost instantly. He had been drinking, and it is thought he was temporarily insane.
1903

Akron Weekly Pioneer Press 2-27-1903 - Two new churches were dedicated at Pueblo February 22nd, one by the Methodists, costing about $25,000, and one by the United Brethren, costing about $8,000.

Akron Weekly Pioneer Press 2-27-1903 - A Mennonite colony has been organized and land has been selected about five miles southwest of La Junta in what is known as the Fairmount country. They have agents in a number of eastern states to represent the colonists' interests and a large number of them are expected to locate in the colony during this summer.

Pueblo Chieftain 5-30-1993 - 1903 Chieftain Policy: 'Anti-Gang Republican' - Efficiency was important even in early days of The Chieftain, and folks marveled at the speed with which newspapers were delivered via a newly purchased wagon-and-horse team. Guaranteed in 1903 was porch delivery by 6 a.m. The Chieftain entered a new era on March 1, 1903, with its sale to I.N. Stevens at a reported price of $145,000. A new company was organized with a capital stock of $300,000. Officers were Stevens, J.J. Lambert. J.A. Barclay, Walter Lawson Wilder, Samuel W. Townsend, Frederick W. Lienau and Alva A. Swain. Lambert was the previous Chieftain owner, and Swain was a correspondent based in Denver who covered State Capitol news for the Pueblo daily. Stevens, a lawyer and politician, sold his half interest in the Colorado Springs Gazette to purchase The Chieftain. He immediately announced that The Chieftain, under his ownership, would be "anti-gang Republican." Stevens was 44 years old when he entered the Pueblo market. A native of Ohio, he studied with a legal firm in Burlington, Iowa, and was 21 when he was admitted to the bar. He moved to Colorado, arriving in Denver on June 1, 1880. Active in the Republican party, in 1884 he was appointed assistant U.S. attorney for Colorado, and, in 1888, was district attorney for the 2nd Judicial District. He also had been the attorney for the lusty young Denver Post. Stevens brought with him an able crew, including editors, printers, foremen and financiers. Wilder, who was to be associated with The Chieftain for nearly a quarter of a century, was the "executive mind and director upstairs." The job-printing department was separated from the newspaper business. B.F. Scribner took that department and operated it under the name of the Franklin Press, which later was absorbed by a firm that became the Rocky Mountain Bank Note Co. As news of the sale got around the state, the Telluride Journal editorialized: "Ike Stevens will make life a burden to Puebloans until they wake up, put in sewers and pave their streets. And they deserve it." The new management got off to a rousing start. The March 1, 1903, issue explained that in printing the second section of the morning edition, a loosened bolt dropped from the middle of the press, breaking several cog wheels. A telephone call to The Star-Journal, the evening paper, procured an immediate offer of that daily's facilities so that The Chieftain could make an appearance that morning. Whatever his political motives may have been, Ike Stevens and his crew put new life into Southern Colorado's first daily newspaper. As predicted, the new editor immediately pinpointed Pueblo's needs - a suitable water supply sufficient for the population, street paving and a large metropolitan hotel. There also were red headlines and headlines with one black line and one line in red. An editorial on March 14 said, with no lack of emphasis, "The Chieftain shall aim not to emulate the policy of the Denver papers with their sensational falsehoods, their abuse of every public man who does not bring grist to their mills, their selfish and mercenary destruction of public confidence in all classes of public officials and their attempt to pervert the public taste with nauseating details of heinous crimes. "On the contrary, the policy of The Chieftain shall be directed toward making a complete and reliable newspaper, one that contains all the news `fit to print' and as accurate in its reports as it is possible to obtain and publish news events; a newspaper, in other words, that shall be as nearly as possible the direct antithesis of the Denver publications." Construction began on March 16, 1903, on a new Chieftain building to adjoin a structure to the east. Cost, not including machinery, was $15,000. A new brick face was put on the building erected in 1879 and a branch office was established at 1538 E. Evans in Bessemer to receive classified advertising and news items. The Chieftain rolled off four morning editions. The first was for readers in the eastern Arkansas Valley, western Grand Valley, San Luis Valley and the southern San Juan area. The second went to the western Arkansas Valley, Gunnison Valley, northern San Juan, Cripple Creek district, Trinidad, and several towns in New Mexico and Texas. The third was distributed to readers in Colorado Springs and Denver, and the fourth to subscribers in Pueblo. Subscribers in all four districts were shocked by headlines on Aug. 7, 1904, that screamed news of a train wreck five miles outside of Pueblo at Eden. Ninety-seven persons were killed in the tragedy that was the most deadly in the nation up to that time. Crews and passengers on the Missouri Pacific train, en route from Denver to Pueblo and points in between on Denver & Rio Grande tracks, had no clues that anything was amiss as the locomotive neared a bridge that crossed usually dry Hogan's Gulch at Eden. Survivors noted that skies were overcast and it was raining gently as the train left Colorado Springs. But the instant the train started across the bridge was the precise moment that flood waters reached their peak. Suddenly there was a terrible crash, lights went out and part of the train lurched into the gulch as the flood-weakened bridge gave way. Muddy water began to pour through train windows. Despite lack of television and radio, news of the disaster reached all parts of Pueblo that evening. The Chieftain had sufficient time to provide Pueblo with information about the wreck in its Monday morning edition. The first of several "extras" hit the streets at 10 a.m. Under the banner, "NEARLY ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST IN MISSOURI PACIFIC TRAIN WRECK AT EDEN," The Chieftain published the first list of the dead. Subsequent investigations provided the grist for articles in newspapers in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver and the rest of the nation for weeks thereafter. A fine hotel was built at Seventh and Santa Fe in 1910 and was named the Congress in honor of the National Irrigation Congress, which held its convention here in that year. But, the Chieftain had little to say about the irrigation congress after delegates passed resolutions that the West regarded as detrimental to its interests. Another large hotel, the Vail, was erected on South Grand Avenue in 1911. Stevens retired in March 1911 from the newspaper business. The Chieftain announced that a leasing arrangement, with provision for purchase, had been entered into with an unnamed but "very strong and influential group of Pueblo citizens." The new company was The Chieftain Publishing and Holding Co. Editor R.M. McClintock left The Chieftain and, on June 1, 1911, became editor of the Pueblo Leader, established by Andrew McClelland. The Leader's owner was heavily involved in the rough-and-tumble city politics of that day. Also in 1911, Pueblo voters approved a commission form of government in hopes that it would be an improvement over the mayor-council plan formerly in place. This also was a time for circulation promotions. One year, the prize for the person bringing in the most new subscriptions was $1,000 in gold coins. Pianos were frequent prizes as were trips to various parts of the country. One winner received a trip to Panama. Every summer for at least a decade, The Chieftain sponsored a Children's Day in Mineral Palace Park. It was a day of entertainment by and for the youngsters of the community. During the early part of the 20th century, The Chieftain gave considerable space to money-raising for a railroad from Pueblo to Beulah. A few years later there was a plan to build a series of dams, power plants, an electric railroad system and heaven only knows what else between Pueblo and Garden City, Kan. The Colorado-Kansas Railroad Co. finally settled on merely laying tracks from Pueblo to the stone quarry at Stone City. There also was the ill-fated plan by Ball Bros. of Muncie, Ind., makers of glass jars, to use the Fountain River underflow. But after pouring a lot of money into this project, the Indiana company gave up the idea after learning the Fountain River was too high in mineral content to use for its purposes. On the positive side of progress, Pueblo County commissioners defied strong opposition by starting a fund to build a new courthouse. Work finally got under way after the matter of location finally was resolved in favor of the site of the structure the new courthouse was to replace. The new building was opened to the public on Jan. 1, 1913. Remarkably, except for a few current bills, the courthouse was paid for in advance. Announcement was made on June 7, 1913, that T.H. Devine, B.B. Brown and J.A. Barclay, sole owners of the capital stock of The Chieftain Holding Co., had sold their interests to George T. Haubrich, Fred R. Marvin and Will R. Wright. The departing Barclay was honored at a farewell dinner given by about 35 friends at the Congress Hotel. When the master of ceremonies announced that there had been a reconciliation between Barclay and Frank S. Hoag, manager of the rival Star-Journal, there was a burst of applause. Two guests, assuming the roles of newspapermen, entertained the crowd in a humorous musical parody describing the competition between the pair. Haubrich and Marvin had come to Pueblo previously to operate the Leader. On May 31, 1913, they said an arrangement had been made with the holding company to print the Leader in their Chieftain plant. The business and news staffs of the young evening paper also were moved into The Chieftain building. The Leader was merged with The Chieftain on July 13, 1913, after managers realized that Pueblo couldn't support three dailies. The period during which Haubrich and Marvin headed The Chieftain was probably the most difficult for covering the news as any in The Chieftain's 125 years of existence. This was the time of the great coal strike in the Southern Colorado coal fields. In September 1913, reporter Joseph A. Willetts was assigned to cover the strike in Trinidad and Walsenburg and points in between. It was rumored that Willetts received the tough assignment because he had been winning too many newsroom World Series pools. There was a huge cast of characters in the strike at Ludlow, a community between Walsenburg and Trinidad. They ranged from "Mother" Jones, who was brought in by union forces to keep strikers motivated; to the state auditor, who frequently exercised his authority and declined to pay National Guardsmen who were trying to keep the peace; to Gov. Elias Ammons, who didn't have the firm backing of his Democratic Party. There also were the many immigrants from southern European countries, along with National Guardsmen from Colorado communities, out-of-state guards hired to protect mine property, a group of Greek miners (mercenary soldiers might have been a better description), politicians, union leaders and industrial tycoon John D. Rockefeller. Willetts covered the field diligently, reporting the moving of miners and their families into tent colonies (for which they were paid by the union) and the violence attributed to both sides. He left the assignment sometime after the first of the year. On April 21, 1914, the first news story in The Chieftain concerning the tragedy at Ludlow was published. It did not carry a byline. The next day's article, which described the bloody battle, was written by E.J. Welsh, who also was working for a Trinidad newspaper. Subsequent articles were attributed to C.V. Crouse. Editor J.H. Shaw had the problem of deciding whether the strike in Southern Colorado should get bigger play on Page 1 than the war in Mexico. He sided with the war by authorizing a banner headline reading "Germany Sends Aid to Huerta Forces" over a smaller one reading "Thirteen Killed in Battle at Ludlow." A few weeks earlier, Shaw had written to editors of all daily newspapers in the United States asking that they consider the source before publishing scurrilous articles that were being sent out, presumably by union forces. Editorials against unfounded stories also appeared in The Chieftain. The Chieftain's banner on April 12, 1914, was "Newspapermen Approve Stand of Chieftain on Muckraking in General." There was this message from Gov. Ammons: "I think it (the anti-muckraking crusade) is the greatest work that has been started by any newspaper in years. I am with you heart and soul. I hope you will be able to turn the tide of sentiment so that the stories reflecting on the state will react against the person sending them out. What Colorado needs is the advertisement of her resources - and we certainly have enough of them - and not the advertisement of her troubles, especially when the troubles are enlarged. Good luck to you!" Guy U. Hardy wrote in the Canon City Daily Record: "This is a move in the right direction. Personally, I am glad to see it inaugurated by The Chieftain. The Record will be in harness with you. Agitators and muckrakers have done harm that cannot be estimated in dollars and cents. They have driven and still are driving capital and desirable settlers from Colorado. It is time some organized campaign is made to take the matter in hand and stop it. You are on the right track. Keep up the good work." The strike finally was ended in December 1914. On Dec. 1, 1914, Marvin and Haubrich severed connections with The Chieftain, which had doubled circulation in 14 months. The Chieftain Printing Co. was the name given to the new company. It was headed by former Chieftain publisher I.N. Stevens, who had moved to Denver. Walter L. Wilder, who had been associated with the newspaper from 1902 to 1912 was named editor. Swain, who became an associate editor, continued to head the Denver office. Harry G. Amick became cashier. Amick stayed in Pueblo newspapering until retiring in 1962. On Dec. 7, 1915, Stevens announced that he had divested all of his holdings in The Chieftain Printing Co. New owners were G.G. Withers, Wilder and Swain. The trio bought nine-tenths of the capital stock. They took control of the editorial and business management, with Withers serving as president and business manager, and Swain and Wilder as editors and managers. This arrangement continued for years. In 1916, The Chieftain told of the death of Lambert. The one-time owner died a few days before his 79th birthday. A later article related that Lambert had left most of his $100,000 estate to Sacred Heart Orphanage, with the provision that the proceeds be invested and the income used to maintain the institution he had founded. In the years 1919-21, city editor Willis H. Parker provided pen-and-ink drawings of scenic Southern Colorado places for The Chieftain pages. A Monday-morning farm page was a regular feature for years. But the era of growth and prosperity in Pueblo came to an abrupt halt in June 1921 when the area's worst flood in history descended on an unsuspecting city.

Yampa Leader, July 25. 1903 William Olsen, a car repairer employed by the Denver and Rio Grande at Pueblo, lost both hands on the 13th inst. when they were run over by a freight car under which he was working. An engine accidentally struck the car and his hands were so badly crushed that amputation was necessary.

Glenwood Post 9-12-1903 Colorado Briefs - The Pueblo City Council has ratified the appropriation of $75,000 for park district No. 2. With this money Carlile park will be purchased and improved. It contains 150 acres, and will be created into the City park. The car lines will be extended to it. Brunner park will receive a part of the appropriation for improvement.

Yuma Pioneer 10-23-1903 - Congressman H. M. Hogg and Lyman I. Henry have formed a law partnership and have opened offices in the Pope block, Pueblo. Mr. Hogg has lived in Telluride since 1888, while Mr. Henry has for fifteen years been a citizen of Ouray.

Yuma Pioneer 10-23-1903 - Father Vladimar Kalneff, recently from Odessa, Russia, is in Pueblo to organize a Servian Orthodox Catholic church. A church will be built at a cost of $20,000. The organization is the only one of its kind in the state. The membership of the church is composed of Greeks, Servians, Austrians, Prussians, Bohemians, Roumanians and Montenegrins. (This article was typed as is.)

Yuma Pioneer 12-4-1903 - Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell and Governor Peabody were in Pueblo November 28th and witnessed the mustering in of the new Pueblo militia company recently recruited. The company consists of fifty-five members. George B. Dickerman was unanimously elected captain, R. A. Whadham was chosen first lieutenant and B. H. Lugerbill second lieutenant.
1904

The Pueblo Chieftain 1-18-1998 Unrest in Southern Colorado 1904-1905 By Peter Strescino Bloody strikes, official corruption, industrial tragedy, train wrecks, floods and killing fires were part of the landscape of 1904-05 America.
And much of it was centered in Southern Colorado.
On the international front, Russia and Japan fought a terrible war. Russians revolted, not for the last time, against Czar Nicholas II. There were problems in Panama, as the U.S. orchestrated revolt against Colombia wasn't too popular with the Colombians.
And in the West, Kansas and Colorado were fighting about water. There was even talk in 1905 about Colorado annexing Western Kansas to stop the water quarrels.
There was enough news locally that a reader then might never look at the articles centered on Japan smacking around Mother Russia.
Pueblo's Republican Mayor Benjamin B. Brown was portrayed as sort of a Bill Clinton in a bowler by the Democratic Star-Journal newspaper. The paper called him B.B. Brown, and if official corruption is your thing, B.B. would be your boy. Brown and the chief of police, City Council president, constable and several cops, chief among them Det. E.H. Wilson, were hit with close to 100 indictments of official misconduct for ignoring the gambling dens on Santa Fe and Union avenues. In May 1904, less than a month after the gambling indictments, another grand jury handed down another 90 or so indictments for larceny, embezzlement and forgery. Brown again was indicted, as were two county commissioners, the sheriff, chief of police, city accountant and council president. Detective Wilson also was indicted, as he was again in 1905 for voter fraud and trying to influence witnesses. He was found guilty on those charges that year.
In 1905, after winning election to governor for the third time the previous November, Puebloan Alva Adams was tossed from office by a joint session of the Legislature. Statewide voter fraud by the Democrats, especially in Denver and Pueblo, was cited. When Adams, who served two months before losing the governor's job, returned to Pueblo in March 1905, a huge crowd turned out to hear him speak. Strikes in Cripple Creek and Victor brought the state's "Army" out to attack strikers and union men in 1904. The streets of both communities were filled with blood, and even when Gov. Peabody told the militia to cease, the "generals" ignored their civilian leadership and continued to hunt down striking miners.
In 1905, the state Supreme Court ruled that the governor was the commander in chief of the state militia.
A train wreck at Eden killed more than 85 people in August 1904. Earlier in the year, a broken cable in Cripple Creek caused the death of 14 miners. The Purgatoire River turned to hell and wiped out much of Trinidad in the fall of 1904.
Things were vastly different than now during the middle of the century's first decade:
· "Another Chinaman weds white woman," a headline said, detailing the second such marriage in a month.
· Eight-room modern house, near Grand Hotel, $35 month.
· "Insist on using the weed," a long tribute to healthy tobacco use, appeared in the Star-Journal's meaty middle pages.
· McClelland Library, with a $70,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie, opened in Royal Park.
· Ads: "Fancy" hosiery, 34 cents; men's suits and overcoats, $11; buy your booze at L.E. Ross Family Liquor store; boy's shoes, $1.29.
· There's talk of getting families off county relief rolls. There are 262 paupers at the local hospital, costing the county $6,600 annually.
· The fire department is breaking in nine new horses, a story says.
· Bowling is huge. The two newspapers have a fierce competition and there is a Front Range league.
· Nancy Sneed, "35 and pretty," sold her husband's furniture, cleaned out his bank account and took off to California with the ice man, according to a story.
· Russian and Austrian Puebloans drilled in Bessemer, in case Russia called them to fight against what the paper called the Yellow Peril.
· Headline -- "Man robbed of 5 cents by Negro highwayman."
· Lake Minnequa freezes over in winter and hunting rabbits on the ice was big sport.
· Pueblo had 65,000 residents.
· Forty-two unpaid members of the state's militia seize the Pueblo armory on Jan. 27, and say they'll keep it until they're paid. The paper does not report how this turned out.
· Ida Miller abandoned her 11-year-old son and took off to Denver with the "Poet-Buglar of East Pueblo, William Wert." She killed herself with laudanum when she was captured.
· On April 6, 1905, the Chicago Nationals and Chicago Americans (the Colts) play an exhibition baseball game in Pueblo. Hall of Famers Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance play, as do notables Fielder Jones, Johnny Kling and Jimmy Slagle, all of the Nats, later called the Cubs. The paper runs a boxscore but no story.
· Pueblo County had several of its products on display at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, not least among them marble from Beulah.
· There were at least two opera houses in Pueblo.
· "Fewer idle girls now unwilling to stay home," a headline says.

Yuma Pioneer 1-29-1904 - The new public library building at Pueblo, built largely from the money donated by Andrew Carnegie, was dedicated and turned over to the city January 19th. The library represents the gift of $70,000 by Andrew Carnegie and a large donation by Andrew McClelland, for whom the old library was named.

Aspen Weekly Times 2-13-1904 Mrs. Judge Wiley and children arrived in the city Sunday from Hahn's Peak where they are now located, to spend time in Aspen, visiting at the home of her mother, Mrs. Babey.

Castle Nonpareil 2-19-1904 - Rufus Wall, janitor at the city hall at Pueblo has been selected as steward of the Colorado building at the World's fair. Wall is a prominent colored citizen of Pueblo county where he has lived for twenty-five years.

Yuma Pioneer 2-26-1904 - The Pueblo Chieftain says that J. W. Overton has started a raccoon farm in Pueblo county, near Boone, and has already stocked it with fifty or sixty raccoons. The skins will be sold for fur and the flesh is expected to bring a good price for food. Mr. Overton is the owner of a large stock farm near Boone, and will run the raccoon ranch in connection with the regular line of business in the stock raising line.

Colorado Republican 10-6-1904 There is in Pueblo, according to the police, an organized gang of bicycle thieves. The police think that bicycles stolen are shipped away. Several cases where wheels have been taken apart and shipped in boxes and crates are known to the police.

Castle Rock Journal 10-7-1904 City Detective E.H. Wilson was acquitted on the 3rd inst., in the District court at Pueblo of a charge of embezzlement. The case was not allowed to go to the jury. The prosecuting witness, Louis Wolf, refused to testify against the defendant. At the conclusion of the examination by the district attorney Judge Lewis instructed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty and fined the witness $100 for contempt of court. Three cases against Wilson remained to be tried.

Colorado City Iris 10-28-1904 – Charged With Insanity – Louis Beitling, of Arensdale, was taken before Judge Orr last Tuesday on the charge of insanity. The case was called at 11:30 a.m. and adjourned to 3:00 p.m. in order to give the members of the A. O. U. W., of Colorado City, time to decide on what action to take, as they did not want Mr. Beitling, who is a member of that order, sent to the asylum. When the case was called in the afternoon the judge postponed the trial until the Colorado City lodge can ascertain what the lodge at Lamar, Missouri, where Mr. Beitling holds his membership, will do for his relief. For the present, Judge Orr ordered Mr. Beitling taken to the county hospital. Much praise is due Justice Allen and Dr. Ammerman, of Colorado City, for the interest they have taken and the time they have spent to aid an unfortunate brother. Dr. H. L. Richardson, county physician, is also to be commended for his kindness and willingness to do all in his power to assist Mr. Beitling's friends in making the unfortunate man's condition as comfortable as possible. Mr. Beitling has lived in Arensdale, with his wife and daughter, about three years. Previous to coming to Colorado he was a harness maker in Lamar, Missouri, and did a good business until his health failed and his mind became weak, so as to incapacitate him for business. Since coming to Colorado his mind has gradually grown weaker, and his family has concluded to have him placed where he can be cared for, and kept out of danger.

Pueblo Chieftain 11-25-2004 Thanksgiving 1904 - One hundred years ago, most Puebloans sat down to eat Thanksgiving dinner. The date was Nov. 24, 1904, and Pueblo was enjoying mild weather. Prosperity was reported in many quarters, though some of the city's major employers recently had experienced slowdowns. Many families had much to be thankful for: good food, shelter, good health, employment, and the less tangible but no less valuable freedoms to worship as they chose, to elect their leaders, to assemble and speak their minds. The vignettes that appear here are based on information taken from the pages of The Pueblo Chieftain in the three weeks preceding the holiday. Quoted material comes directly from the newspapers. "Peace and Quietude" - Republicans were thankful because they'd swept the Nov. 8 election - Theodore Roosevelt was elected president - though Republican incumbent Colorado Gov. James H. Peabody was unseated by Democrat Alva Adams of Pueblo. Lame duck Peabody issued a formal declaration of thanksgiving a few days later: "Let us solemnly beseech him above, to so rule the hearts of men that conditions of peace and quietude already established in this commonwealth, may be maintained to the end, that all the people of Colorado may be protected in their right of person and of property." A slightly different script was being orchestrated in Florence, where Fremont County coal miners were meeting "to eliminate the colored population from the coal camps." It was predicted that a "plan will be adopted to deport them or to have them quietly leave the county. The white people claim they have been grossly insulted since the advent of the Negroes here and claim that their lives are unsafe owing to the promiscuous frequent shooting on the streets by the Negroes." Hiram Bates, marshal of Coal Creek, had been murdered Nov. 7, allegedly by Grant Thompson, one of the black miners who'd been imported to break a coal strike. A "frenzied mob" of white miners dragged Thompson from the Coal Creek jail and soundly beat him before he was transferred to the Canon City jail. Giving Thanks - Puebloans thanked God in services across the city on the Sunday before Thanksgiving 1904. Among the churches where they worshipped were Bessemer United Brethren, Pine and Northern; Unity church, Court and Ninth; German Evangelical Synod of North America, meeting at First Presbyterian at 10th and Court; Holy Trinity Church, Routt and Broadway; Church of the Ascension, Seventh and Santa Fe; United Presbyterian at Broadway and Union; St. John African Methodist Episcopal, Eighth and Elizabeth; and First Congregational, Jackson and Evans. Pueblo women were thankful because they had the right to vote - and did - in the November 1904 election. "There was a steady and large vote by women the entire day. In fact, they seemed much more in evidence at most polling places than the men, and the streets were lined with them. Vehicles of all sorts, and automobiles were whizzing up and down and were nearly always filled with women being taken to the polls." Women, the Chieftain noted, dressed in their finest to vote. Judging from pre-Thanksgiving clothing ads for White & Davis and Moch Bros., their finery included high-necked and long-sleeved vests and ankle-length drawers made of wool. The good news is they cost 35 cents apiece and the bad news is they were undergarments. Maybe the women weren't so thankful after all. And speaking of mixed blessings, how about the thoughtful, if mercenary, people who placed these classified ads in the Nov. 13, 1904, Chieftain: "We seek husband for pretty and refined lady in California, never married, worth $25,000. Bachelor girl in Colorado, age 32, worth $19,000. Mutual Book Exchange, Toledo, Ohio." (What isn't clear is whether the ladies' personal worth was $25,000 and $19,000 - or those amounts are what would be paid to the gentlemen who married them to make it worth their while; or maybe it was all the same in the end.) Happy Gents - The gents were happy because the Gentlemen's Driving Club was planning a carnival Thanksgiving afternoon at the State Fairgrounds with a football game between Centennial High and Denver Manual Training School - this was long before television, remember - automobile contests, cowboy events and horse racing. One of the prizes was a pair of silver spurs offered by saddlemaker R.T. Frazier. The Pueblo Rifle Club planned a Thanksgiving shoot that morning at the club grounds at Lake Minnequa, and the preliminary rounds of a golf tournament would be held that day at the Pueblo Golf Club. For those dads preferring to stay at home and sleep off the feast, where better than in a new Morris recliner? C.W. Daniels Home Furnishing Co. offered chairs that cost $7.50 and up. The Grand Opera House had matinee and evening performances of "Glittering Gloria" with Dorothy Morton and the Earl Theatre on Fourth Street promised "modern vaudeville" acts. Mild Weather - Pueblo had mild weather that November, another reason for thanksgiving. A fierce hurricane had swept the East Coast a few weeks earlier, bringing rain and snow to New York and cutting off Washington from telephone and telegraph communications. Puebloans had had their share of catastrophic weather in 1904, however. A severe thunderstorm and a freak railroad accident in August claimed the lives of 97 people and brought the city unwelcome notoriety. The Eden train wreck remains the second-deadliest in U.S. railroading history. To Market, To Market - The week before Thanksgiving brought almost every imaginable delicacy to Pueblo grocers for the big holiday meal: Fresh dressed poultry - spring chickens, turkeys, ducks - California lobsters, Baltimore oysters, Holland herring, salt mackerel, hams, elk; New Jersey sweet potatoes, Colorado potatoes, cranberries, asparagus tips, sauerkraut, dill pickles, apple butter; and the ingredients for fine desserts - raisins, mincemeat, citron peel, lemon peel, orange peel, figs, dates, walnuts, almonds, chocolate. And don't forget fresh butter and eggs. Star Grocery and Market Co., Main Street in the Central Block; Klingstein and Co., 318 S. Union Ave.; Schlon-Klingstein grocers, 121 and 123 W. Fourth St.; and The Dundee Market, 24th and Grand, were some of the establishments whose cash registers rang merrily. Fuskeno's Macaroni, made from the choicest Kansas hard-wheat flour, in a variety of pleasing shapes, was for sale at all the stores. The macaroni factory was at 833 Box Elder. Grateful Diners - Diners were thankful, though there undoubtedly was great discrepancy in the Thanksgiving meals they sat down to, and in their living conditions. From the mansions on Pueblo's North Side to the small rental houses in Bessemer was quite a journey. The steel mill was partially shut down, though a CF&I official predicted good times were coming and no further shutdowns would occur. The Philadelphia Smelter was closed for part of October, though it expected to put men back to work in November; bolstering that expectation was the arrival of a group of "Servians" from South Chicago who took up residence on Taylor Avenue and were ready to work in the Philadelphia yards - their number was balanced by another group of "Servians" who were leaving town, and their enthusiasm was countered by the despair of yet another group of their countrymen who'd been fleeced of their steel mill paychecks by "boarding boss" Nicolae Pavilich. He was supposed to cash the workmen's checks, keep his fee and return the difference; instead, he left Pueblo Union Depot on an eastbound train, $4,000 richer. In early November, the four local smelters paid their employees $125,000 for the month of October - the Eilers and the Pueblo enjoying record productivity. The CF&I payday in mid-November caused rejoicing for Bessemer businessmen because, the Chieftain reported, workers paid up their past-due accounts. The Missouri Pacific pay car arrived in Pueblo on Nov. 21 and the number of paychecks it carried had "considerably increased." Mixed Bessings - For some Pueblo families, Thanksgiving was difficult. Injuries were frequent at the steel mill. In the week before Thanksgiving 1904, a man was struck by a switch engine at the CF&I but escaped serious injury; another worker crushed a finger, which required amputation; a third worker had the ends of three toes cut off; and a white-hot iron rail pierced the calf of a fourth man's leg. Little Tommy Takatz lost a couple of fingers when he put them into a "torpedo" on railroad tracks in the Grove. The signaling device was filled with nitroglycerin; had Tommy not triggered it, a train would have done so, warning of danger ahead. And then there was the young daughter of Rae Anjovatz who almost ate poisoned sausage intended for the family dogs; she was playing in the yard at 119 E. Northern Ave. Forty prisoners were confined to the city jail on Thanksgiving Day 1904 - separated from families, wherever they lived. The children at Sacred Heart Orphanage would benefit from a turkey dinner served at noon on Thanksgiving at the Armory Hall, while the Associated Charities was accepting donations of cash and "substantial food" at a temporary office at Third and Santa Fe. The Thanksgiving Table - The best-dressed Pueblo tables were a sight to see that Thanksgiving. "Your table will be snowy white if covered with one of (our) satiny damasks," promised B&O Gann; matching napkins started at $2.25 a dozen. Stiller's grass-bleached pure linen for tablecloths was selling at $1.25 or $1.35 a yard for 72-inch-wide pieces. "Good, bleached Irish linens" could be had for 60 to 85 cents. China and glassware were on sale at Crews-Beggs. Dinner sets for 12 ranged from $8.50 for 100 pieces of American Beauty all the way up to $75 for 100 pieces of Amstel Rose Bud French china. A blue willow-ware turkey platter and 12 plates cost $5.50, and champagne glasses were $1.50 to $2.50 a dozen. A carving set - three pieces with horn handles - sold for $2.75 a set at J.M. Killin & Co. Pueblo Prosperity - Homes for sale: An 8-room modern brick house, 18th and Craig streets, cost $2,000. A 7-room brick house, on a large corner lot on the North Side, cost $2,650. A neat 4-room cottage in the very best part of the Mesa (as in Mesa Junction) cost $1,250. Clean gas coke was $4.50 a ton delivered by The Gas Co. on North Main Street and in Bessemer, and a Star Oak heating stove with nickel trim cost $10 at Crews-Beggs. Good News! - Consumption-stricken folks - and the charlatans who preyed on them - rejoiced that Thanksgiving, if Chieftain advertisements can be believed. "Consumption cured at home," the ads state. "It's unsatisfactory, cruel and a mistake, to send the afflicted to California, Colorado, etc., in the delusive hope of recovery." Instead, try Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, "the greatest strengthener and health builder known to medicine. Duffy's is absolutely pure and the only whiskey recognized by Government as a medicine." For $1, a bottle could be yours; the "medical booklet" was free. Forget the tuberculosis: Maybe a quick shot of Duffy's was just the ticket when the relatives got unruly at the holiday table.
1905

Yuma Pioneer 1-6-1905 - County Surveyor H. S. Fuller of Pueblo county, who has served in that capacity for eleven years, will retire from office on January 10th and start for Honduras, Central America, at once, where he has accepted the position of irrigation engineer of the Boston and Canadian Colonization Company of Toronto and Boston.

Yuma Pioneer 1-27-1905 - There are about 200 Japanese employed at the Pueblo steel works. They all board at a hotel fitted up for them near the shops and live and dress well, being cleanly in their habits.

Yuma Pioneer 4-14-1905 - The Pueblo Orphanage Association has been formed and incorporated by the Protestant churches of Pueblo as a purely charitable enterprise. Temporary quarters will be opened at the Deaconess home and the directors of the association will begin raising funds at once to purchase or construct a suitable building.

Basalt Journal - April 15, 1905 - The Pueblo Orphanage Association has been formed and incorporated by the Protestant churches of Pueblo as a purely charitable enterprise. Temporary quarters will be opened at the Deaconess home and the directors of the association will begin raising funds at once to purchase or construct a suitable building.

Yuma Pioneer 6-2-1905 - Phelps C. Hurford of Pueblo, who graduated from the medical department of Washington University at St. Louis, May 25th, was the only student to receive a prize, having won, in competition with sixty-one graduating fellow classmen, the highest grade in chemistry and anatomy.

Colorado Springs Gazette 7-24-1905 - Police Arrest Charles Harris - Is Thought To Be Man Wanted At Pueblo For Cutting a Bartender - Charles Harris was arrested last night by the local police on the suspicion that he is wanted by the Pueblo police as the negro porter who carved up a bartender with a butcher knife. The bartender was terribly slashed and may die. The local police took their clew from the three missing teeth of the guilty man. Harris has three teeth missing in exactly the same place as the man who did the criminal carving. Another thing which places suspicion on Harris in this case is his extraordinary height. The big fellow stoops when he enters an ordinary doorway. When arrested the big negro was taking life comfortably in a camp which he and another colored man had made for the night a mile and a half northeast of the city in Palmer park. He protested that he was not the man wanted and that he was an innocent Virginian seeing the country from side-door Pullmans. Officers from Pueblo will arrive in this city today.

Yampa Leader, December 30, 1905 The following new patents have been issued to Coloradans: Robert H. Bowman, Canon City, combination tool; Peabody A. Brown, Denver, thermostat; Walter C. Cunningham and W.A. Stebbins, Denver, edge ironing and shaping machine; Frank H. Frankenburg, Pueblo, lawn mower; Henry W. Gremmels, Denver, combined socket and plug for incandescent lamps; Kate Mercer, Greeley, attachment for pickle casters; Herman P. Neptune, Boulder, shingle gage; David Plattner, Denver, hay stacker; George W. Skinner,Jr., Denver, centrifugal pump.

The Pueblo Chieftain, 1-18-1998 Unrest in Southern Colorado 1904-1905
By PETER STRESCINO
Bloody strikes, official corruption, industrial tragedy, train wrecks, floods and killing fires were part of the landscape of 1904-05 America.

And much of it was centered in Southern Colorado.

On the international front, Russia and Japan fought a terrible war. Russians revolted, not for the last time, against Czar Nicholas II. There were problems in Panama, as the U.S. orchestrated revolt against Colombia wasn't too popular with the Colombians.

And in the West, Kansas and Colorado were fighting about water. There was even talk in 1905 about Colorado annexing Western Kansas to stop the water quarrels.

There was enough news locally that a reader then might never look at the articles centered on Japan smacking around Mother Russia.

Pueblo's Republican Mayor Benjamin B. Brown was portrayed as sort of a Bill Clinton in a bowler by the Democratic Star-Journal newspaper. The paper called him B.B. Brown, and if official corruption is your thing, B.B. would be your boy.

Brown and the chief of police, City Council president, constable and several cops, chief among them Det. E.H. Wilson, were hit with close to 100 indictments of official misconduct for ignoring the gambling dens on Santa Fe and Union avenues.

In May 1904, less than a month after the gambling indictments, another grand jury handed down another 90 or so indictments for larceny, embezzlement and forgery. Brown again was indicted, as were two county commissioners, the sheriff, chief of police, city accountant and council president.

Detective Wilson also was indicted, as he was again in 1905 for voter fraud and trying to influence witnesses. He was found guilty on those charges that year.

In 1905, after winning election to governor for the third time the previous November, Puebloan Alva Adams was tossed from office by a joint session of the Legislature. Statewide voter fraud by the Democrats, especially in Denver and Pueblo, was cited. When Adams, who served two months before losing the governor's job, returned to Pueblo in March 1905, a huge crowd turned out to hear him speak.

Strikes in Cripple Creek and Victor brought the state's "Army" out to attack strikers and union men in 1904. The streets of both communities were filled with blood, and even when Gov. Peabody told the militia to cease, the "generals" ignored their civilian leadership and continued to hunt down striking miners.

In 1905, the state Supreme Court ruled that the governor was the commander in chief of the state militia.

A train wreck at Eden killed more than 85 people in August 1904. Earlier in the year, a broken cable in Cripple Creek caused the death of 14 miners. The Purgatoire River turned to hell and wiped out much of Trinidad in the fall of 1904.

Things were vastly different than now during the middle of the century's first decade:

· "Another Chinaman weds white woman," a headline said, detailing the second such marriage in a month.

· Eight-room modern house, near Grand Hotel, $35 month.

· "Insist on using the weed," a long tribute to healthy tobacco use, appeared in the Star-Journal's meaty middle pages.

· McClelland Library, with a $70,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie, opened in Royal Park.

· Ads: "Fancy" hosiery, 34 cents; men's suits and overcoats, $11; buy your booze at L.E. Ross Family Liquor store; boy's shoes, $1.29.

· There's talk of getting families off county relief rolls. There are 262 paupers at the local hospital, costing the county $6,600 annually.

· The fire department is breaking in nine new horses, a story says.

· Bowling is huge. The two newspapers have a fierce competition and there is a Front Range league.

· Nancy Sneed, "35 and pretty," sold her husband's furniture, cleaned out his bank account and took off to California with the ice man, according to a story.

· Russian and Austrian Puebloans drilled in Bessemer, in case Russia called them to fight against what the paper called the Yellow Peril.

· Headline -- "Man robbed of 5 cents by Negro highwayman."

· Lake Minnequa freezes over in winter and hunting rabbits on the ice was big sport.

· Pueblo had 65,000 residents.

· Forty-two unpaid members of the state's militia seize the Pueblo armory on Jan. 27, and say they'll keep it until they're paid. The paper does not report how this turned out.

· Ida Miller abandoned her 11-year-old son and took off to Denver with the "Poet-Buglar of East Pueblo, William Wert." She killed herself with laudanum when she was captured.

· On April 6, 1905, the Chicago Nationals and Chicago Americans (the Colts) play an exhibition baseball game in Pueblo. Hall of Famers Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance play, as do notables Fielder Jones, Johnny Kling and Jimmy Slagle, all of the Nats, later called the Cubs. The paper runs a boxscore but no story.

· Pueblo County had several of its products on display at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, not least among them marble from Beulah.

· There were at least two opera houses in Pueblo.

· "Fewer idle girls now unwilling to stay home," a headline says.
1906

Yampa Leader 1-6-1906 - Mrs. Eliza Bliss, the oldest woman in Pueblo, celebrated her 101st anniversary December 30th in good health, being still able to assist in housework. She was born in Richfield, Connecticut, and remembers helping to sew tents for the soldiers of the war of 1812. She has a daughter eighty years old, living in California.

Colorado City Iris 2-2-1906 – Death of Louis Beitling – A telegram was received at this office Wednesday morning from Lamar, Missouri, announcing the death, at Nevada, Missouri, of Louis Beitling, an aged German whose home was in Arensdale, where the family has resided for the past four years, having moved there from Lamar, Missouri, where Mr. Beitling was engaged in the harness business. Four years ago, Mr. Beitling being in poor health, the business was sold and the family came west, thinking a rest from business and the change of climate would be beneficial, but he grew gradually worse until about a year ago he was taken back to his old home in Missouri, and later was sent to an asylum as a private patient, where he remained until his death. Deceased leaves a widow and four children, two sons and two daughters, Mrs. Harry Anderson of Arensdale, and Miss Clara Beitling, who resides with her mother. The two sons, William and Charles, are in California. Mrs. Beitling and her daughter, Mrs. Harry Anderson, left Wednesday afternoon for Lamar, Missouri, to attend the funeral.

Colorado Republican 3-8-1906 Thomas Finn, serving a sentence of from five to six years at Canon City for assault to murder has had his sentence commuted to from two to six years. This will release him within a few weeks.

Eagle County Times 3-24-1906 At Beulah, thirty miles west of Pueblo, at the foot of the Greenhorn range, the store buildings belonging to Dr. Summers, George Sutton and Reynolds & Donnelly, beside a residence, were destroyed by fire. The postoffice was about to be moved into one of the buildings and part of the fixtures were already there.

Yuma Pioneer 4-20-1906 Representative Brooks has appointed Joseph E. McCoombs, captain of the high school battalion of Colorado Springs, as a cadet in the West Point Military Academy. As alternates he appointed George D. Kimbrough of Central City and Lyman T. Elwell of Pueblo.

Basalt Journal - April 21, 1906 - A case of leprosy is reported to have been discovered in Las Animas county, the victim being a Japanese miner employed in the Majestic coal mine, sixteen miles north of Trinidad. He was promptly isolated and will probably be deported.

Basalt Journal - April 21, 1906 - Triplets, all girls were born to Mr. and Mrs. C. Gonzales of Watervale in Las Animas County April 6th. A picture of the family will be taken and sent to President Roosevelt. Each of the children weighed seven pounds and all are strong and healthy.

Yuma Pioneer 6-29-1906 Arrangements are being made by a number of the citizens of Pueblo to dig up from South Union avenue the stump of the famous old tree that stood in that thoroughfare until 1885, mention of which is given in the early history of Colorado and which was the scene of many lynchings and Indian gatherings long before there was any Pueblo. This stump is about eight feet below the surface of the street, having been buried by the building up of the grade.

Yampa Leader (Yampa, Routt County) June 30, 1906 -Pueblo, Colo. –Twenty-five visiting colored men and women were in the city Wednesday in attendance at the second annual convention of the Colorado Sate Negro Business League. The attendance represented the substantial colored population of the state as every delegate is engaged in some business or profession. The closing feature of the afternoon session was the election of officers. The following being selected: President: J.W. Jackson, Denver; First vice president, M.B. Brooks, Pueblo; Second vice president, W.H. Hooper, Eastonville; Third vice president, Mrs. W.A. Gatewood, Pueblo; Recording and financial secretary, W.A. Gatewood, Pueblo; Corresponding secretary, Dr. J.H. P. Westbrook, Denver; Treasurer, L. L. James, Pueblo; State organizer, H.F. Bray, Pueblo; Executive board, E.R. Booze, Colorado Springs; S.H. Tarbot, Denver; Rev. J.A. ford, Denver, Dr. A.S. Huff, Pueblo; J. Bates, Pueblo; Mrs. Jennie Drumm, Eastonville; C.E. Jackson, Aspen; G.W. Gross, Rocky Ford. The convention was called to order by President W.E. Gladden of Colorado Springs. One of the features of the morning session was the address by M.B. Brooks, editor of the Colorado Times, the only paper in town devoted to the interests of the colored men. Another feature as the annual report of the sate organizer, Mrs. Ida Joyce Jackson of Colorado Springs. The report says: "We now have three leagues, one in Pueblo, another in Colorado Springs and one recently organized in Denver. As the organization is only one year old, this is indeed a good showing, representing, at the least, seventy-five or eighty well established firms in business." After enumerating the business housed in different towns Mrs. Jackson summarizes the result by saying "From figures compiled the amount of the capital invested in this state equal about $177,000 [unable to read the entire numbers] in various business pursuits." At the evening session the address of welcome was delivered by J.D. King, president of the City Counsel who is acting mayor in the absence of Mayor West. An address was also made by Former Governor Alva Adams. Resolutions were passed urging the colored people of Colorado to take advantage of the splendid opportunities offered then for profitable investments in homes, in business pursuits, in mining and in agriculture. Also that "efforts be made to invite our people, with capital, brains and enterprise, to come into our state and to become a part of the productive force of Colorado; and with this end in view we advise that circulars be printed by the State Business League, giving facts and figures showing the wonderful resources of our state, and the many opportunities afforded here for the judicious and profitable investments of capital." Other matters touched upon were: The publishing of the acts of Negro criminals to the exclusion of the work being done by the better class to uphold law and order; endorsing the resolutions of the leagues of Republicans in favor of cutting down the representation in congress of those southern states that deny the right of suffrage to Negroes; approving of the "appointment by President Roosevelt of our retiring president of the State Business League, Rev. E. W. Gladden, to be chaplain of the United States Army."

Basalt Journal - September 1, 1906 - L. W. Lewis, the negro who was blown up by a premature explosion in the stone quarry near Starkville, was taken to Trinidad and had his right leg amputated. He lost both eyes, one of his hands and his left foot.

Basalt Journal - October 20, 1906 - Juan Vigil, who is charged with shooting Juan Gurule and Juan Munez at Segundo Thursday night as the result of a drunken row, was captured Saturday morning and placed in jail at Trinidad to await the result of Gurule's injuries before a preliminary hearing. Gurule was dangerously shot through the stomach. Vigil's mother, who accompanied him to Trinidad, is a full blooded Navajo Indian.

Creede Candle 12-22-1906 Two dozen Japanese, lately arrived, have been put to work at Eiler smelter at Pueblo. These are the first Asiaites given employment by the smelting company.

Creede Candle 12-22-1906 On the 17th inst. John Worthley was found guilty in the District Court at Pueblo of assault with intent to kill his wife, Alvona Lee Worthly. The assault took place three months ago, and but for a neighbor, who heard Mrs. Worthley's cries for assistance, her husband would have cut her throat.

Creede Candle 12-22-1906 Fifty Japanese arrived at the Pueblo steel works a few days ago in charge of one of the Japanese employment agents who have been bringing Asiatics recently from Pacific coast points. Most of these men are common laborers, but a few are skilled in certain ways and command fairly good wages. This makes a total of nearly 600 Japs in the Bessemer colony.

Creede Candle 12-22-1906 David Babb, who is charged with the murder of his wife's cousin, Bennett Burleson, at Earl, thirty miles east of Trinidad, was arraigned before Justice of the Peace Coney at Trinidad, where he entered a plea of not guilty and waived a preliminary hearing. He was removed back to the county jail and his bond was fixed at $3,000, which he was not able to furnish.
1907

Yuma Pioneer 1-18-1907 - Mrs. Susan Bierbower, superintendent of the Pueblo Hospital Association for fifteen years, has filed her resignation which has been accepted to take place next month at the annual meeting. Her management has been very successful.

Yuma Pioneer 2-1-1907 - A speedway is to be built entirely around Lake Minnequa at Pueblo. The road will be for the use of automobiles and carriages and will be about six miles long and lined with trees.

Yuma Pioneer 2-1-1907 - The Rev. F. J. Bruno, who recently resigned the pastorate of the Pilgrim Congregational Church at Pueblo, has been tendered and has accepted a position as head of the Associated Charities in Colorado Springs.

Durango Democrat 2-6-1907 - May Make Fortune Out of Durango Gold Mine - (Pueblo Chieftain) - After three years of persistent prospecting Dr. P. D. Russell and associates have been rewarded with a gold strike that he believes will be one of the richest made in Colorado for many years. The mine owned by the men is located in a gulch in the La Plata mountains, twenty-two miles north of Durango, and is inaccessible in winter. Three years ago the mountain was bored to a depth of 700 feet, and while good ore was reached, water was scarce, and it was decided to go further down the mountain and bore again. About 7,700 feet of extremely hard rock was drilled through, the vein struck again and the miners now have all the water necessary to carry on their work. The latest assay gives almost fabulous returns in gold, with a large percentage of silver also. The mine has cost the promoters $40,000 thus far, but they believe they will be able to redeem this amount in a short time. Dr. Russell and Ira Crawford are the only Pueblo men interested in the property, the other owners being citizens of Jamestown, N. Y. The proprietors have all the money they need to develop the mine, and no stock will be sold. There is no railroad running to the mine at present, but a spur probably will be constructed up the gulch during the coming summer, and in the meantime the ore is being stored. Great difficulty was experienced in the development work, owing to the character of the country and the nature of the rock through which borings had to be made. Three men have been killed during the past year by snowslides, and work during the winter is almost impossible. Dr. Russell was jubilant yesterday over a letter received from the president of the company advising him that a new vein had been struck at a depth of 1,700 feet. He believes it will prove to be the best mine in Colorado.

Yuma Pioneer 3-29-1907 - Frank Roney, a Pueblo man, has been arrested for kidnapping his own child. Why didn't he let the kid do its own napping?

Basalt Journal 4-6-1907 - John F. Polk, a veteran of the Civil War, was visiting Pueblo this week, from Denver, where he was accidentally shot and may die.

Yuma Pioneer 4-12-1907 - Tom Prosser, the negro reported burned to death, in a fire at Pueblo one night last week, gave some of his friends a severe shock by showing up the other day. "Why, Ah nevah knowed I's been dead," was his protestation when informed of his supposed cremation.

Colorado Republican 4-18-1907 - Henry B. McCoy, formerly clerk of the District Court at Pueblo, has struck it rich in gold mines in the Phillipines.

Colorado Republican 4-18-1907 - Search is being made for Denver Boggs, a magazine writer who disappeared from Pueblo a year ago. Foul play is suspected.

Yuma Pioneer 4-19-1907 - The offer of the National Humane Alliance, through Doctor Mary E. Bates of Denver, to donate a one thousand-dollar drinking fountain to Pueblo has been accepted by the Board of Aldermen. The fountain is similar to that erected in Denver, and will stand as a monument to Homer Lee Ensign, a lover of dumb animals, who left his fortune to be expended in such a manner. The Pueblo fountain will be erected near the Central block on Main street.

Yampa Leader 4-20-1907 Henry B. McCoy, formerly clerk of the District Court at Pueblo, has struck it rich in gold mines in the Philippines.

Yuma Pioneer 4-26-1907 - While attempting to arrest four men whom he had detected stealing wire from the traction company's barn, at Pueblo, Thomas Self, a private watchman, was struck with a stone, and a deep gash inflicted in the right side of his head. Self succeeded in capturing one of the trio, who gave the name of Peter Doyle.

Yampa Leader, April 27, 1907 - Sad Awakening - Thoughtless son will return to vacant home. - Mother in Pauper's Grave - He Brings Back a Fortune, but no Welcome from Mother Will Greet Him - Pueblo, Colo. - Ten years ago Abner Greenwich, a lad of seventeen, disappeared mysteriously from his home in Pueblo. His mother, a widow, believed he had been murdered. The police of Pueblo and other cities searched for him but without fining a clue which would lead to the explanation of the mystery, and in a year the disappearance of Abner Greenwitch was forgotten, for the haunting face of the mother was seen no longer at the police station, seeking news of her boy. She had died of grief. Now comes the reappearance of Abner Greenwitch, who, in a letter written from Peru to a boyhood friend, John McGovern, says he is returning with a fortune of $1,000,000 gleaned from the pestilential swamps of Peru and the sands of its fever-ridden rivers. "I am coming home," he says, "with a million to make my mother's last days happy," not knowing that all the millions in the world could not have atoned for one hour of the agony which his mother spent in her lonely search for her son. "She shall have everything that money can buy, but I want my arrival to be a surprise to her." Little does Greenwitch know that he will be unable with all his wealth to ever buy a stone to make his mother's last, resting place, for she sleeps with the unknown dead, and that in all the world there is no person who will feel a mother's joy at the return of a wondering son. Of all these things Abner Greenwitch knows nothing. It is enough for him now that he has $1,000,000, and that when as a boy reading forbidden tales of adventure, he told John McGovern that some day he would disappear and not return until he had $1,000,000, he had meant what he said. According to the story of Greenwitch, he has paid dearly for his wealth. The fever of the tropics has turned his hair gray and is face is wrinkled like that of an old man. "I am afraid," he says, "to see a looking glass. Once I saw my face in a pool near my camp, and its appearance frightened me, but I guess mother will know me, anyhow." Greenwitch says that tiring of school and poorly paid work, he carried out is expressed determination to disappear and not return until he had $1,000,000. With the carelessness and cruelty of boyhood, he never once thought of the sorrow he would cause his mother, but, meeting a young college graduate from Chicago, he stealthily left Pueblo, and, reaching New Orleans, sailed with is companion on a ship bound for Peru. For the first three years they suffered all the privations of hunger, thirst and fever, and found themselves further handicapped by their ignorance of the native language. Then, becoming familiar with the country and its customs, they plunged into the wilderness and engaged in the rubber business. "Until my arrival at Lima a month ago," he says, "for seven years I had seen no white face, save that of my partner. "Now my last dollar of the million has been made. My partner has a like account and a month hence we will be in Colorado, when I shall endeavor to make amends to mother for my conduct in leaving like I did."

Yuma Pioneer 5-17-1907 - Harry Roberts was burned fearfully about the face at the Minnequa plant of the Colorado Fuel & Iron at Pueblo, and is now in the hospital, although it is believed he will not be permanently injured. Rogers was looking through the oil plant, and in order to see how much oil there was in a tank pushed a lighted torch in front of him into the tank. The gas generated from the oil exploded.

Yuma Pioneer 5-17-1907 - Victor F. Brown, pastor of a Congregational church in Wisconsin, has accepted the call to the Pilgrim Congregational church at Pueblo and will arrive with his wife and little daughter on July 1st. Mr. Brown is thirty-eight years old and has been in the ministry for sixteen years. He is said to be a good speaker and an excellent organizer. He succeeds Rev. J. F. Bruno, who goes to Colorado Springs to take charge of the work of the Associated Charities.

Colorado Transcript 5-23-1907 One of the largest realty and live stock deals that has taken place at Canon City for a long time has been closed, whereby George A. Baker and Clinton A. Biggs became owners of the famous Beckwith stock ranch in the Wet mountain valley, for $70,000.

Basalt Journal - May 25, 1907 - John Vermillion, a Colorado & Southern brakeman, fell from the top of a car as the train was pulling into Trinidad, recently, and was badly injured internally. He was taken to his home and is in a serious condition.

Yuma Pioneer 5-31-1907 - The first case of a dairyman being arrested for selling milk at Pueblo not up to the standard came up in the police court when A. Robinson was fined $25 for violation of the city ordinance requiring a certain test for milk. The case will be appealed.

Durango Democrat 6-4-1907 - Telluride friends of Mrs. M. B. Gerry will rejoice to hear that she is in fairly comfortable health, though still far from well. She and Judge Gerry have been forced to permanently abandon Colorado as their home state because of the inability of Mrs. Gerry to live at this altitude. They have disposed of their Pueblo home and are permanently located at Rome, Ga., where their only child, a daughter, has her home. Judge Gerry writes: "We are grieved to have to leave Colorado, for we love the state and the people; all our dearest friends live there." The Journal sincerely hope to be permitted the pleasure to frequently announce to her old Telluride friends, continued and permanent improvement in Mrs. Gerry's health. - Telluride Journal.

Basalt Journal 6-8-1907 After living four years like a hermit and existing only upon bread and water, James McClair was brought in Divide to Cripple Creek by Sheriff Van Puhl and placed in the county jail. McClair wears his beard and hair long, a leather strap resembling sandals for shoes, and a woman's jacket in place of a coat. The man has been living in a cave about one mile from Divide.

Yuma Pioneer 6-21-1907 - Pueblo captured the 1908 convention of the State Federation of Colorado Women's Clubs. President Ida-Joyce Jackson of Colorado Springs, and other officers, hold over until next year.

Yuma Pioneer 6-21-1907 - A Denver girl was kidnapped on the main business street the other day and "spirited away" to Pueblo. The girl is 17 years old, but didn't call for help until she was 100 miles from home.

Yuma Pioneer 6-28-1907 - Virginia Funkhouser, five years old who was sent to the Pueblo orphanage a week ago, made her third attempt to escape from that institution in order, as she says, to see her mother in Trinidad, where the latter is working to support herself and six other children. The father died about two years ago and the mother has since been struggling to eke out an existence. The child, early this morning, started out to walk to Trinidad, but was caught at the Union depot and returned. She had on two dresses, the outer, as she stated, so that she might have a clean one when she met her mother.

Basalt Journal 8-17-1907 As the result of a collision with M.D. Thatcher's automobile, C.J. Heine, a lineman for the Denver & Rio Grande, who was riding on his bicycle, was seriously, if not fatally, injured at Pueblo. The accident occurred in front of St. Mary's hospital, where he was taken at once. He was badly bruised about the hips and back and received several deep scalp wounds. It is also said he was internally injured.

Yampa Leader, 9-7-1907 - Search is still being made for Denver Boggs, a magazine writer who disappeared from Pueblo a year ago. Foul play is suspected.

Yuma Pioneer 9-27-1907 - Played Cards With Life of Boy - Pueblo - A human life was the stake in a game of cards between two Austrians in a Bessemer saloon. The ownership of a tiny boy, scarcely ten years old and small for his age, was to be determined by the ability of the two men as gamblers. John Bradko and George Lackovitch, leaders in the Austrian colony here, and each possessed of a comfortable fortune, were the contestants. They both adored the tiny piece of humanity and had shared the pleasure of caring for him. So strong did their admiration and love for the boy become that each was jealous of the other and on several occasions lately according to friends they have nearly come to blows as to who had the prior right to the boy. It was decided that a game of cards would decide the question. The news was spread about the city and a large crowd of friends were on hand to witness the unique contest. Both are experts with the cards, and it is said that a more scientific game of "pitch" was never before played in this section. Bradko won the game by a score of 11 to 10. He had only three "sets" while his opponent had been "put back" four times. This gave him the possession of the child. Lackovitch is said to have offered a sum of money to be given (for) the boy after he had lost, but was refused, and, it is said, found surcease from his sorrow by becoming intoxicated. The prize, probably the first human stake ever played for over a card table, has heretofore been known only as "Jimmie." He is now Jimmie Bradko. Jimmie is an orphan boy and the pet of the town. His parents died when he was an infant and he has been reared jointly by Bradko and Lackovitch. Bradko was too overjoyed with his good fortune to make any statement as to his future plans in regard to the boy, but friends say that he will give the youngster a college education and afford him everything that he desires.

Kansas City Star 10-5-1907 - A Missouri Girl Spurned Him - After traveling overland forty miles from his home near Rye. Col., to meet Miss Bessie Schwartz of Benton county, Missouri, who was to become his bride, Frank Warder will travel back to-morrow morning with new ideas as to the fickleness of womankind. Warder was on a visit to his old home when he met the girl and, after coming out here, he corresponded with her. He proposed marriage and she came out to meet him. When he drove into town with a rather dilapidated wagon and a pair of common looking horses Miss Schwartz was somewhat disdainful and said that she thought he was a "rancher" and not a "farmer." She made her preparations to leave at once for her home.

Yuma Pioneer 12-6-1907 - The state board of health has appointed Charles L. Walker of Pueblo as food inspector of a district that will be known as the Pueblo district, his incumbency dating from December 1st. His territory will include all of southern Colorado.
1908

Yuma Pioneer 1-24-1908 - Richard Vernon, an Englishman, who earned fame in Pueblo by shooting Ed Barnett six times and then having him sent to the penitentiary, has written to friends in Pueblo from Switzerland that he expects to soon come into an inheritance which will give him an income of $500,000 a year. He is now studying mathematics at Zurich.

Yuma Pioneer 1-31-1908 - Mrs. Mary Downey, a colored woman at Pueblo, recently gave birth to a fifteen-pound boy, which is a record for Pueblo county and is said to approach the world's record.

Yuma Pioneer 3-20-1908 - Rev. Orrin W. Auman, pastor of the First Methodist church at Pueblo announced Sunday that the church has opened an employment agency, in charge of a capable man, whose business it will be to find work for such as desire it. It is understood that other churches will undertake similar work.

Yuma Pioneer 3-20-1908 - A press club has been organized at Pueblo with W. J. Orange as temporary chairman. The club expects to open rooms and to take charge of a room at the Pueblo hospital which the directors have set aside for the use of newspaper men. It was decided that only news writers and editors could be eligible to the active membership list.

Yuma Pioneer 5-15-1908 - J. E. Perrine, the Great Northern express messenger who was the victim of a holdup on a train near Seattle a few days ago, was formerly a resident of Pueblo and depot agent for an express company.

Yuma Pioneer 9-24-1908 - The Las Animas County Early Settlers' annual reunion was held at Trinidad August 27th. E. J. Hubbard was elected president, Mrs. Ed. West, secretary, and Mrs. Frank Bloom, treasurer. The roll call showed thirty-eight deaths among the old settlers of the county during the last year, one being Dr. M. Beshoar, who founded the organization and who was its president during his lifetime.

Yuma Pioneer 4-24-1908 - Andrew McClelland, founder of the McClelland orphanage at Pueblo, has just donated twenty lots to that institution, which are to be sold, the proceeds to be used to build an addition to the building. The plan is to take up a general subscription and it is expected that enough money will be raised altogether to double the capacity of the present building.

Yampa Leader, October 3, 1908 A peach seed planted by Mrs. Nancy Oney in her dooryard at Greeley seven years ago, when she was 79, has produced a tree from which she picked 11 ripe peaches on her 86th birthday, a few days since.

Grand Valley News 10-14-1908 From "The Lariat" - Mrs. F. Frisby Fink, of our midst, intended to join the society of the American Evolution, but when she began to look up her ancestors and found nine of 'em in jail and seven in the insane asylum, she suddenly changed her mind and joined the Barkin Soap Club instead.

Yampa Leader - November 14, 1908 - Mrs. Alfred Valdez of Majestic, a coal camp near Trinidad, a few days since gave birth to what is probably the largest baby ever born in Colorado. It weighed twenty-three pounds. The mother, under normal conditions, weighs 125 pounds, while the father of the child is an ordinary sized Mexican, and a miner. They will name the baby William Howard Taft.
1909

Yuma Pioneer 2-5-1909 - Seven Slav societies at Pueblo will take part in the Lincoln centennial February 12th. They expect to turn out nearly 1,000 strong.

Yuma Pioneer 2-5-1909 - Kansas day was observed at Pueblo January 29th by native Kansans with a big banquet. This will probably be made an annual affair.

Yuma Pioneer 2-5-1909 - The cornerstone of the new $50,000 annex of the Centennial high school at Pueblo was laid with appropriate ceremonies Monday.

Yuma Pioneer 2-5-1909 - Carnation day was well observed in Pueblo January 29th. Almost every person in the downtown section wore one of McKinley's favorite flowers. Society ladies and girls sold carnations on the street for the benefit of the McClelland orphanage. About $800 was realized.

Yuma Pioneer 9-3-1909 - Charged with robbing a passenger of $125 and a ticket to the coast, a tourist car porter, Gifford Reed, was arrested at the union station at Pueblo. He denied his guilt but became nervous when $90 of the money was found, hidden, in the stove. He is being held.

Yuma Pioneer 9-3-1909 - Jim Flynn, the Pueblo fighting fireman who is to meet Bill Pettus at Pueblo on September 22nd in a ten-round bout for the benefit of the Pueblo baseball club, has arrived from California and will open up training quarters soon. Pettus is expected to arrive soon and start training.

Yuma Pioneer 9-24-1909 - Congressman Martin at Pueblo received notice of the granting of a pension to Jose Ignacio Trujillo of Segundo, who served in the Third Colorado cavalry and was wounded in the famous battle of Sand Creek, November 29, 1864. For years the veteran has been unable to get a pension because the enlisting officer spelled his name as it is pronounced, "Troheo." He will now receive $3,800 back pay and $17 per month for life.

Yuma Pioneer 11-19-1909 - Revival services, conducted by all the churches of the city, were opened Sunday afternoon at the First Presbyterian Church in Pueblo, by the Rev. Ira E. Hicks, the noted evangelist. At the first meeting there were more than 1,000 persons present, and a chorus of seventy-five voices rendered the music. A temporary tabernacle has been erected which seats 2,000 persons.

Yampa Leader, November 26, 1909 The three Falconer brothers of Granada, attracted considerable attention at Pueblo a few days since. The combined height of the brothers is 19 feet 2 3/4 inches. Ed Falconer, the youngest, is the tallest. He stands 6 feet 7. Eugene measures 6 feet 4 ½, while Williams is 6 feet 3 ½. The brothers have adjoining ranches and are almost inseparable.

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