Colorado

Name: Southern Colorado
Brand: Mr. Mike Butler
SKU: 9781467131735
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

There is decidedly less pickaxe toting in contemporary Creede than when wild frontiersmen first flooded the gold mines in Colorado. But the pioneering exploits of Colorado history didn’t cease when modern comforts lined the shelves at Denver Dry Goods and luxury hotels opened shop in Durango. Just visit Fort Collins to observe the work of Temple Grandin or watch the laws of physics flex at Lowry Airforce Base. From pristine Rocky Mountain peaks to the deepest incursions of a coal cart, push the limits with our Colorado history books. [View all Colorado books]

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Denver's Sixteenth Street

Mr. Mike Butler

Southern Colorado

9781467131735

$24.99

When the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad laid narrow-gauge tracks into La Veta in southern Colorado in July 1876, it preceded Colorado statehood on August 1 by about one month. The southern Colorado frontier from Walsenburg west to Wolf Creek Pass had only a few scattered villages at this time, but silver mines in southwestern Colorado lured the railroad ever westward to haul out the riches. On the scene to photograph these developments was Iowan Ory Thomas (O.T.) Davis, who moved to Colorado in 1885 to work in the copper mines northwest of La Veta. Davis, backed by corporate sponsors from the mines and railroads, opened a commercial photography business in the Walsenburg–La Veta area in 1888 and, later, in Alamosa in 1906. The photographs of O.T. Davis collected in this book vividly capture a bygone era, documenting the frontier history of southern Colorado in the early years of statehood.

Frederic B. Wildfang

San Juan Skyway

9780738580289

$24.99

The "scenic route" in southwestern Colorado means the San Juan Skyway, a 236-mile loop created by U.S. Routes 550 and 160 and State Routes 62 and 145. The Skyway wends through glacial valleys and over high passes between some of the most breathtaking, ice-sculpted peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Native Americans, pioneering mountain men, miners, and railroaders inhabited these slopes. Although the Skyway towns of Durango, Silverton, Ouray, Ridgway, Telluride, Rico, Dolores, and Cortez were first connected by wilderness trails and railways, the loop's final modern section of highway between Coal Bank and Molas Passes was completed in the 1940s. The rugged San Juan Mountains were the backdrop for exploits by Butch Cassidy and Wyatt Earp, but, as author Frederic B. Wildfang notes, the scenery is also "a syllabus for a course in geology."

Mark A. Barnhouse

Denver's Sixteenth Street

9780738581026

$24.99

The beloved thoroughfare at the heart of Denver, Sixteenth Street has always been the Mile-High City's Main Street. Sixteenth Street got its jump start in 1879 when Leadville's Silver King and Colorado's richest man, Horace Austin Warner Tabor, came to town and built the city's first five-story skyscraper at the corner of Sixteenth and Larimer Streets. In coming years, Sixteenth Street became Denver's main retail center as shopkeepers and department store owners constructed ever-more impressive palaces, culminating in the Daniels and Fisher Tower—the city's tallest building for five decades and the symbol of the city. In the second half of the 20th century, Sixteenth Street saw major changes, including the creation of one of the most successful pedestrian malls in the country, an archetype of the power of great urban places and an inspiration to other cities, large and small.

Mr. Mike Butler

Littleton

9781467132558

$24.99

In 1858, gold was discovered where Little Dry Creek joins the South Platte River, four miles north of what is today Littleton. After the initial rush of gold-seekers, agriculture sustained growth when the gold deposits played out. In 1861, Richard S. Little filed claims for agricultural land along the South Platte River in what would become Littleton. Little was not only a farmer but a land developer, and he filed his plat at the Arapahoe County Courthouse in 1872 for streets and homes on his property. When the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad built south from Denver through Littleton in 1871, development soon followed, and Little had no shortage of buyers for his plots of land. Thus began Littleton, and over the years of boom and bust, this early settlement has transitioned from village to county seat to one of Denver's finest suburbs.