Sundance-The Best of the Best

This year’s National Finals concluded a couple of weeks ago, and there were quite a few long time qualifiers there.

Team roper, Kory Kuntz, tops the list with 22 appearances at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Right behind him is Trevor Brazile with 18 qualifications in the tie down roping. Bareback rider, Will Lowe, is next with 15 qualifications.

Wait! That’s not right. I forgot a very special competitor. Next in line is the big sorrel saddle bronc, Sundance, owned by Flying Five Rodeo Company of Washington state. He’s been invited to the NFR 17 times. In 2002, at five years old, he was one of the youngest bucking horses there. This year, he was the oldest at twenty-three.

Just in case you think he’s too old, he bucked off Brody Cress and Clay Elliott in his two outs this year. Not bad for an old timer. That's Brody in the photo below.

The bald-faced sorrel was born on the Hutsell family ranch in 1995. He’s out of a Hutsell ranch mare and by the great stallion Major Holly. He’s consistently bucked off the best of the best. He’s outlasted Billy Etbauer and taken him to an NFR round win.
This year he’s on his second generation of cowboys, including Roddy Hay’s son, Darrell, Cody Wright’s sons, and Zeke Thurston, to name a few.


2018 was Sundance’s last NFR performance, but he’ll get to show off one more time in January at the RAM Columbia River Circuit Finals in Yakima, Washington.

By the way, this is Clay Elliott at this year's finals.

“When we start loading trucks, you’d better get out of the way,” says Chad Hutsell. “He wants to be the first one on.”

“It’s been a tough decision to retire him,” Hutsell says. “I think we’ll probably take him along for the ride when we go to a rodeo close to home. Maybe let him out in the arena for a victory lap and to let him play.”

I had the pleasure of watching Sundance on both trips at the NFR this year. What a champion!
Who's your favorite bucking horse or bull?

After battling with Amazon for ten days, Winning A Cowgirl's Heart is finally available. http://bit.ly/WinningACowgirlsHeart

At only 99 cents for the next few days, it's a bargain. http://bit.ly/WinningACowgirlsHeart 

Get your copy before the price goes up. 

Fine Dining in 1870s Colorado

Think about Christmas and you’re either wondering about gifts or food.  With me, it was the latter, and from there I began to think about what those poor old-timers of the west had for Christmas.  Not such poor offerings by the look of it—at least not for some.  Think of the Cheyenne Club up in Wyoming (see https://andreadowning.com/2012/03/29/pearl-of-the-prairies-the-cheyenne-club/ ) or the Hotel de Paris down in Georgetown, CO.

Georgetown in the 1870s was the second largest city in Colorado, developed during the silver-mining boom and further enhanced with the arrival of the Colorado Central Railroad in 1877. The proprietor of the Hotel de Paris was a mystery man, one Louis Dupuy,

Louis Dupuy

who had come to Georgetown for work. Born Adolphus François Gerard in Alençon, France, around 1844, Dupuy managed to spend his entire inheritance in a short time and headed off to London and New York to work as a reporter. Accused of plagiarism in NYC, he joined the U.S. Army and was shipped off to Cheyenne with a desk job.

There is no doubt Dupuy was learned—he spoke French, German, English and Latin—and was also interested in philosophy, but he was also something of a scoundrel, and his time in Cheyenne was short-lived. This is the point at which he seems to have changed his name, deserting the Army and ending up under his new moniker at The Rocky Mountain News reporting on mining. When his job took him to Georgetown, he switched gears yet again and became a miner himself. Injured in an explosion at The Silver Plume Mine as he tried to save a fellow miner, the townspeople gifted him enough money to rent a bakery.  He was able to purchase this outright within a few years and turn it into the Hotel de Paris with restaurant.

Imported linens, elegant crystal and Limoges china set the tone of the place, but it was the food which drew the great and the good from all over the country. Delicacies were brought in by train, steaks came from Dupuy’s own ranch, fine foodstuffs were imported from France. In March, 1879, nine men dined at the Hotel representing over two hundred million dollars.  This included pioneer railroad investor, businessman and Lt. Governor of CO, W.A.H. Loveland (for whom Loveland, CO, is named) and railway magnate Jay Gould, President of the Union Pacific. On the menu were oysters on the half shell, soup, Pheasant in Casserole and a Venison Cutlet with Sauce Piquante, Sweetbreads Eugenie, vegetables, apple fritters, salad, French bread, Peach Charlotte with brandy sauce, and, of course, Petits Fours with coffee. Gould said it was the best meal he’d ever had.

Jay Gould

W.A.H. Loveland

Louis Dupuy contracted pneumonia and passed away in 1900. The Hotel de Paris is now a museum and on the National Register of Historic Places and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is managed and owned by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America.

 MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL!!

While Loveland, Colorado, may still be on your mind, my own book Loveland makes fine Christmas reading.

When Lady Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland, Colorado, ranch owned by her father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience will alter her future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a disastrous marriage in England and be free of the strictures of Victorian society --and become independent of men. That is, until Jesse Makepeace saunters back into her life... Hot-tempered and hot-blooded cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can't seem to accept that the child he once knew is now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting rustlers proves a whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he's got to keep more than his temper under control. Arguments abound as Alex pursues her career as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of the English social order. The question is, will Loveland live up to its name?

Available at https://www.amazon.com/Loveland-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B014RUQ746/ and all fine booksellers

1. photo Louis Dupuy public domain via Wikimedia Commons

2. photo Hotel de Paris public domain

3. photo Jay Gould, restored Bain News Service, orig. Library of Congress

4. photo of William A.H. Loveland, from an engraving published in the 19th century, public domain via Wikipedia 

Not Just a Box of Rocks

In one of my recent books, a young man is rescued by the ever-present foil of the wild west an old prospector. In The Travels of Titus Old Jed is mining silver in the heart of Nevada and along with his trusty donkey, the prospectors best friend, he brings with him a load of know-how and deserts wisdom.

In movies and on TV we always see the prospectors traipsing across the desert leading his donkey loaded down with a variety of different gear as he searches for the mother load. So what did he do once he found some 'color' and needed to get it back to town to make a profit?

First, the Old Timer needed to get the ore out of a dig using a pick, shovel, and hard work.  Watching carefully for any smattering of color in the rock he would dig and hack until he had a good pile of ore ready to be processed.

Ore had to be processed at least to some extent before it could be brought to the assayer's office for evaluation and payment. Even with his trusty donkey to do the heavy lifting, a prospector couldn't simply load up Instead he would build an Arrasta.

a box of rocks and take them to town.

An Arrasta is a device that is powered by none other than that trusty companion the prospector's donkey and did the first part of processing and crushing the ore so that the Old Timer could simply carry out the silver or other precious metal instead of heavy rocks. The Arrastra was a simple structure of wood, rope, and rock that turned on a pivot allowing a donkey to drag heavy stones around a middle structure dragging them over the ore and crushing it into smaller more manageable pieces or even to powder that could be sifted and washed so that you would only have the metal.

Not only did the miner or prospector use his donkey as the power behind this device he used what was handy to build the Arrastra optimizing his potential for striking it rich.  There were also other ways that prospectors could pan for color but in the dry, arid high desert many were not practical.  I found this particular Arrastra in Arizona at the Superstition Mountain and Lost Dutchman Mine near Apache Junction. It was a great place to visit and learn such amazing things about life in the wild west.



 

Virginia City & The MacKay Family by Paty Jager

Loved the craftsmanship of this 

A couple of weekends ago, Hubby and I spent a day in Virginia City, Nevada. If you haven't been there, they have kept the integrity of the old west town. The buildings are historic, many on Historical Registers. It is a town, that at one time had 30,000 residents, and was built from silver and gold.

The streets run along the side of the hill with Main Street in the middle. The stores are an eclectic mix of

Coal box beside the stove.

touristy items, arts, and history. The saloons are dark, with old wood bars and new vinyl and stainless steel tables and chairs. Stories abound about gun fights, robberies, and mining.
There are beautiful two-story houses with carved eves, porches, and window sashes. Many are now being used as Bed and Breakfast businesses. We walked the upper streets admiring the houses, then returned to the car and drove the lower roads. As we drove through a small puff of fog, I saw a sign that said, Tours-Open, and told my hubby to stop. It was the MacKay House. Hubby isn't as big a history buff as I am, so he stayed in the car and I wandered through the house with the tour guide.

Betty, the tour guide, loved the house, the history, and telling people about it all. I had fun and learned new things.

These medallions were on all the ceilings. The gas lights converted to electric that hung under them were gorgeous! 

John MacKay was 9 years-old when his father took the family- John, his sister, and mother to America from Ireland where they were starving. They lived in the Irish slums of New York. His father died when he was 11. John sold newspapers on the most profitable street corner because he could read. He would tell the other newsboys what the headlines said, and they let him sell from the best spot.

At 16 when the California gold rush started, he travels all around the tip of South America by ship to the gold fields. He didn't a lot of gold but sent money home to his mother and sister.

The toilet had brown flowers inside and out.

When word came to California that there was gold in Nevada, he and a friend headed that direction and  there, they found the largest vein of silver in the U.S. The interesting thing about the silver is: Many miners were throwing the gummy black and gray nuggets into a pile. They were looking for gold and that wasn't. The piles of gummy nuggets were used to pave the town's streets. Until some miners came along and asked why they were paving their streets with silver.  They of course dug up the streets and started mining what they had been throwing away. 

MacKay, became one of the richest men. His mining efforts helped fund the Civil War and after his presidency, Ulysses Grant came to Virginia City with his wife and oldest son to thank MacKay for helping the North win the war.

The future Mrs. MacKay, Marie Louise Hungerford, was a California socialite who married a physician.  They had two girls. The doctor moved the family to Virginia City. She hated the town. There was noise 24 hours a day with the mining, the bustle of freight wagons, and miners. There were only a handful of women in the town and two-thirds of those were prostitutes. Her husband was abusive and, Betty didn't say how, but he had an untimely death. MacKay married Marie Louise. While she was married to her first husband one of the girls had fallen down the stairs and became crippled. He took her to the best surgeons in France and she could walk again.

Because Marie Louise disliked Virginia City so much, MacKay bought her a house in France, England and

Mrs. John MacKay

New York. Which is where she lived. He had to go there to visit her. with this long distance, especially in those days, marriage, they had two boys.  Over the course of time, one daughter died from a disease and one boy was killed from falling off his horse during a horse race.

Between her marriages, Marie Louise provided for her girls as a seamstress. She was quite accomplished and made several beautiful items that are in the house. One is a dress for her daughter and another red, white and blue cushions she made for a small settee and ottoman John had made and carved. She upholstered the furniture for Ulysses Grant's visit. These items are in the home.

Another trivia fact I picked up: Their granddaughter, Ellin MacKay  fell in love with a poor Jewish songwriter in New York and had to choose between inheriting or love. She chose love. And after the stock market crash during the depression, she and her husband, Irving Berlin, helped her family out financially.

That is an overview of what I learned and will possibly use in a couple of my Silver Dollar Saloon books.

Wishing my fellow authors on the blog and the readers who come here to glean insights into the western lifestyle and history a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 35 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters.
blog / website /  Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest / Bookbub

Meet Your Match this Christmas with "Robyn: A Christmas Bride"

In September, I wrote a blog for Cowboy Kisses called "Wild Women Stage Drivers of the West" and shared an excerpt from my story-in-progress because the heroine, Robyn Llewellyn, was a wagon driver.

And now Robyn: A Christmas Bride will release next week! So it's time for lots of sharing. Here are Robyn's book cover, story blurb (just finished it today so you are seeing it here first), an excerpt (featuring Robyn's three big brothers who try to steal the show), and a teaser (featuring an absent-minded but lovable grandfather who is known for stealing everyone's hearts)...

Robyn: A Christmas Bride ~ Story Blurb

Who's the perfect match for a flame-haired Welsh tomboy who loves driving wagons? 

Raised by three free-spirited older brothers, Robyn Llewellyn has learned to fight for what she wants—and now she wants to transform her boss and best friend, Max Peregrine, into a lifelong partner. Determined to become the image of what a marriage-minded man wants, Robyn trades her trousers for a dress and heads to Max’s hometown of Noelle, Colorado. But changing who she is with the help of the now happily married Brides of Noelle puts her friendship with Max at risk.

Who's the perfect match for a work-addicted Denver business owner who loves his independence? 

Defying his brother and grandpa’s wishes for him to stay with them in Noelle, Max Peregrine has created his dream job—leading a highly successful branch of Peregrines’ Post and Freight while working beside Robyn, the only person who makes him smile every day. But when she leaves without a word, Max follows her to Noelle where the choices they both must face could make it impossible for them to stay together beyond Christmas day.

Inspired by My Fair Lady, The Gift of the Magi, and the spirit of gift giving, Robyn: A Christmas Bride is a classic Western historical love story set in a small town high in the mountains during Christmas 1877.

Robyn: A Christmas Bride ~ Excerpt

Since Robyn's three older brothers raised her, they are a big part of her story. They open the story along with Max Peregrine, my hero. Here's that first scene...

CHAPTER 1

Denver, Colorado
December 21, 1877

“She’s gone?” Max Peregrine shouted, disbelief then panic raising his voice to a roar. “Where?”

Lined up shoulder to shoulder inside the Denver office of Peregrines’ Post and Freight, the three Llewellyn brothers studied him intently, not with surprise but curiosity. And something more. Something his careening thoughts couldn’t identify.

Brynmor, the eldest by several years, heaved a sympathetic sounding sigh. “She’s—”

“Fine,” Heddwyn interrupted, embracing his status as the swift-talking middle brother who needed to do everything quick, including driving freight wagons at breakneck speed. He shot his brothers a secretive glance. “Remember our plan.  He sounds upset but we need to know more.”

“Stuff your plans!” Max threw down his pencil and stormed around the desk where he’d been working on his ledgers. He’d throttle his answers from Robyn’s brothers if need be. “Why—did—she—leave!?”

Griffin, the youngest but also the largest, folded his arms over his barrel of a chest. “He sounds more than upset.”

“Good.” Standing on either side of their flame-haired baby brother, Brynmor and Heddwyn spoke and nodded in unison, like matching musclebound bookends with the same auburn hair and sky-blue eyes. Except Bryn had one eye clouded white. Max had yet to learn why.

The Llewellyns were fond of talk but notoriously unforthcoming on certain subjects. Like, at the moment, Robyn’s departure.

“He’s regretting something,” Griffin added.

Max froze. Leave it to Griff to pinpoint Max’s state of mind but never address his own. Griff’s hair color matched his sister’s, but his reputation as the Llewellyn sibling with a short fuse was his alone.

“I regret”—he unlocked his clenched jaw and tried to speak normally—“that your sister might have put herself in jeopardy.”

Heddwyn snorted. “Little Red can take care of herself.”
“Hedd’s right. The wee one is all grown-up,” Bryn proclaimed with another sigh.

“She’s as tough as she is beautiful.” Griff’s gaze narrowed, studying him even more keenly. “Or do you believe otherwise?”

“I don’t,” Max muttered, thinking of Robyn’s lean strength, steely blue gaze, and stunning smile. A smile he’d been blessed to see every day since he moved to Denver. A smile he craved more than a miner coveted gold. A smile that had become increasingly melancholy of late. “Whatever’s wrong and wherever she’s gone, she needn’t be alone. I would’ve traveled with her.”

“You sure ’bout that?” Hedd released a low whistle as he pointed at Max’s face. “Look! Dog Bone’s turning the same shade of red as Ruddy does when he’s near to exploding.”

In Welsh, Griff meant ruddy but that hothead remained poker-faced as he said, “We have eyes, Peaceful. No need telling us something we can plainly see.”

Max’s entire body burned with outrage. Not because of the teasing titles the Llewellyns loved to dole out, for themselves and others. In Welsh, Heddwyn meant blessed peace, a constant source of ribbing for a man who had too much energy to stand still. Max had learned to look below the surface of their name tomfoolery after Robyn revealed her brothers called him Dog Bone because he never stopped gnawing problems into submission.

He didn’t give up. A trait all of the Llewellyns found admirable. If they assigned you a name, even one you didn’t find flattering, it meant you’d earned their respect. They didn’t waste their time on people they didn’t like.

Robyn’s explanation along with her easy smile had ended his dislike for long conversations. But only with her. They’d talked about everything after that, argued as much as they’d agreed, but always ended up smiling.

No topic had been taboo, or so he thought. Why hadn’t she spoken to him before she left? And how could her brothers question his resolve, especially when it came to Robyn?

Their lack of faith left him not only furious but frustrated and flummoxed. “If your sister asked, I’d have gone anywhere with her.”

Robyn: A Christmas Bride ~ The Sequel to The Calling Birds

In my new story, both Robyn and Max's families play a major role. Max's brother and grandpa (Jack and Gus) were the stars (along with Birdie Bell) of my last Christmas story, The Calling Birds (released December 4, 2017).

Many years have passed since Bernadette Bellamy fled the Cariboo Gold Rush and her reputation as the sister of a French-Canadian gang of thieves. Armed with only an honest talent for sewing and a willingness to lead a solitary life on the run, she stays one step ahead of everyone seeking her brothers’ last—and now lost—heist. Until a craving to settle down makes her reinvent herself as Birdie Bell, a dress shop owner. The arrival of an old foe combined with her desire to hold onto her treasure trove of fabrics has Birdie joining a wagonload of brides bound for a remote town.

After losing his leg and his wife, Jack Peregrine buries his pain under a mountain-high pile of work. He only agrees to sign up for a mail-order bride to save the town of Noelle, keep his freighting business, and care for his absentminded grandfather. But Jack’s request for a sturdy bride who won’t crumble under his burdens brings him a woman as tiny as she is troubled. Can two mismatched people band together to become the perfect match?

A wanted woman's flight, a man in pursuit of honesty, not stolen gold...and only nine days left to save the town.

To read an excerpt from The Calling Birds CLICK HERE.

Grandpa Gus ~ the Charmer Who'll Steal Your Heart 

Readers often say that Grandpa Gus Peregrine is their favorite, so I tried extra hard to give Gus some competition for everyone's hearts in Robyn: A Christmas Bride. But somehow I think that no matter how hard Brynmor, Heddwyn, and Griffin Llewellyn try, no one will match Grandpa Gus' charm and wit. He says and does the darnedest things. 

Here's a teaser of how Grandpa Gus greets Robyn when she finally arrives at his home in Noelle...

To receive a notice when Robyn: A Christmas Bride 

(or any of my stories) release, 

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Wishing you all a Merry Christmas from the Peregrines and Llewellyns' home in Noelle, Colorado and from my home in Victoria, Canada :) 

Jacqui 

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Fall in love with a new Old West...
where the men are steadfast & the women are adventurous.

Merry Christmas from Ruby's Ranch

 

by Rhonda Frankhouser

Contemporary Romance Writer

Fa-la-la-la-la, la la la la... 

     Can you believe it's already that time of year? It's my first year to spend the holidays in Georgia. My first Christmas away from family and friends in California. We're doing our best to get as cozy and Christmas-y as we can, but it all seems a little strange. Beautiful, but strange.
     So, what do I do to get that loving feeling during the holidays, I fall back into my favorite characters and let them tell me their Christmas stories. My Ruby's Ranch characters to be more specific. These folks know how to party. When they're not solving mysteries and chasing sexy cowboys, I mean.
 

     The heroine to Book 1 of the Ruby's Ranch Series, Return to Ruby's Ranch, is Ruby Lattrell. She's a no nonsense kind of gal. A house flipper who inherits the ranch after her crazy grandmother leaves the ranch and all that comes with it, to her favorite granddaughter.
     The family history at the ranch is both jaded and beautiful in her mind. It's where she was born. Where she learned to ride and love the ranching life from her beloved father, John. It's where her mother disappeared without a trace. It's the place her father dragged her and her younger brother away from when he could no longer deal with the loss of his wife, Katherine.
     Ruby's world changes when she pulls up in front of that ranch almost two decades later. Her grandmother had lost her mind, they'd said, and her mother was never found. So many unanswered questions haunted the place she'd always considered home. Questions for which she'd demand answers.
     Billy MacCallister had waited years for Ruby to finally come home. When he saw her long legs sticking out of worn Justin boots on Granny Rube's porch, he was sure he was dreaming. But there she was, big as day, a mature, sexy version of that teenage girl he once knew. He was lost, or was he found? Destiny had finally come to call.
     Ruby and Billy are two of my favorite couples in the Ruby's Ranch Series. Sassy, serious and sensual. They tackle real life together and find each other in the meantime.

 

     Then came the answers to Katherine's mysterious disappearance as we go back in time one generation in Book 2 of the Ruby's Ranch Series - Escape from Ruby's Ranch. And no one would have ever believed.

     Katherine was never meant to be a rancher, much to her pure-cowgirl mother's dismay. She was feminine, and dainty. A painter, a thinker, an entrepreneur at heart. She dreamed of getting away to live in the big city. To dine at the finest restaurants and attend the theatre. Her eyes ached for sophisticated sites and sounds, rather than the moo of a random steer.

     And she almost had it, until John Lattrell, horse whisperer extraordinaire, two-stepped into her life. His sultry blue eyes and confident, easy ways sucked her right in and left her dangling dangerously between chasing her dreams or saddling up with this irresistible cowboy.

     Unfortunately for Katherine, wicked obsession dictated her journey. In Escape we follow our heroine through a lifetime of intrigue as she fights toward her destiny. Even I was surprised.

 

     Throughout the Ruby's Ranch story, Granny Rube aka Rube Adams, had shouldered the brunt. She had to be stronger, and wiser, and meaner than any other matriarch. But was she always so in charge? Book 3 of the Ruby's Ranch Series, Legacy of Ruby's Ranch, travels back yet another generation to where it all began.

     Rube Gautier was born into a mystical dictatorship. One in a long line of matriarchs destined to lead an ancient tribe. She never wanted it. She only wants her own ranch. Her own life. Her own love. Not a life chosen by the elders.

     When Rube lays eyes on war hero, turned rancher, MacKenzie Adams, her vision of the future comes into full view. He and a little cattle ranch in the Kern River Valley is all she needs in the world, but some traditions cannot be left behind. Legacy of Ruby's Ranch is due out in August of 2019.

 

     Book 4 of the Ruby's Ranch Series, Revenge at Ruby's Ranch, brings us full circle back to the present. It will help explain the unexplainable and right all the wrongs suffered by this powerful line of matriarchs. The answers they find will shock even the most avid Ruby follower.

     This brings me back to my thoughts of Christmas. Turns out hanging with the tight Ruby's Ranch family has made me feel like I'm part of a bigger community of beings. A community that includes all of you. A caring community who supports one another even though we may never meet in person.

    I hope you and your loved ones have the Merriest Christmas ever, Happy Holidays and a fabulous New Year to all.  See you in 2019!

 

Follow Rhonda

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     If you're interested in signed copies of the Ruby's Ranch 2 book set,

 send an email to rhondafrankhouserbooks@gmail.com.

They make great gifts for those hard to buy for western romance lovers on your list.

 

 

CHRISTMAS IN EARLY COLORADO #Christmas #Colorado #History

In honor of the upcoming Holiday Season, I thought I would share some of the research I've done on early Colorado. I will return with the discussion on writing in January. 

Imagine if you will, the 1800s. You have followed the siren's call to Colorado. Life has been busy and the high desert with its mild weather has fooled you. Or perhaps you've been in the mountains trapping. You do some figuring and realize it's Christmas, what do you do? 

Around 1842, the northeast corner of Colorado/Utah saw the trappers celebrate the holiday with the help of the Indians in the area. Their festive meal consisted of appalost, a type of shish kabob with lean meat and fat roasted over a low fire, buffalo cider, a liquid found in the stomach of buffalo, supplemented with washena, marrow fat and pomme blanc from the Indians.

If you were in what is now the Denver area in 1858, perhaps you would have partaken of one of two celebrations in the new towns that were approximately sixty days old.

Records show the area had about 200 men and 5 women (four were married) and assorted children. One town had candles for a tree that had been cut in the foothills. A German couple were doing the planning and trees were a part of the home country festivities. The other town had a meal of buffalo, rabbit, wild turkey, rice pudding and peach and apple pie, listing just part of the menu. Now add into this mix some  "Taos Lightening" compliments of good ol 'Uncle Dick' Wooten and you would probably have a day to remember, that is if you didn't indulge in too much of the gift 'Uncle Dick' brought to the festivities.

In 1863 one family on the Arkansas river, up close to the cut off to what is now Monarch pass, had been cut off from others and the towns due to heavy fall snow storms that year.  They had been working their claim, even in the heart of winter. When Christmas arrived, they had plenty of food, but not much variety. One daughter, with the help of her siblings decided to bring out the good china brought from their home in Nebraska and serve up a feast of mock turkey made from beef and beans along with substitute coffee, made from browned bran. The parents were the guest of honor. 

Leadville Mine 1908

Even the boom towns celebrated the holidays. In Leadville in 1888, Dick Berryman's Saloon offered the following bill of fare for patrons on Christmas: Possum, Turkey, Roast Pig, Sweet Potatoes and Corn Dodgers.

Two other stories, with unknown dates, show yet another side of the Christmas holiday. 

On a train ride a woman and her two children were leaving Kansas to go to Denver to live with her mother. The ranch she had tried to maintain after her husband’s death had been too much for her to handle. As the train proceeded from Kansas to Colorado, it was stopped by a large drift across the tracks on Christmas Eve. The two children were upset that they would not be able to spend Christmas with their grandmother. The train crew and the three male passengers made the children comfortable. While the children slept near the stove, the crew and male passengers used the wealthy ranchers socks and filled them with gifts. On the morning of Christmas day the children had their Christmas thanks to the kindness of strangers.

For another family, living in the high mountains, the father had gone to a nearby town to purchase sweets and some gifts. On the way home, he and his traveling companions were caught in a blizzard. They dug down the three feet of snow that had accumulated to the bare ground and burning wood during the night along with the insulation of the snow were able to keep from freezing. Although he returned later than expected he made it home to spend Christmas with his family.

I will leave you with a description of an 1873 Colorado winter from Isabella Bird found in her book "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains". As Isabella rode her horse Birdie through the fir covered area near what is now Estes Park she wrote  "...I think I never saw such a brilliant atmosphere.That curious phenomena called frost-fall was occurring in which, whatever moisture may exist in the air, somehow aggregates into feather and fern leaves, the loveliest of creations, only seen in rarefied air and intense cold. One breath and they vanish. The air was filled with diamond sparks quite intangible. They seemed just glitter and no more. It was still and cloudless, and the shapes of violet mountains were softened by a veil of the tenderest blue."

I hope you enjoyed the journey through the past in Colorado during the Christmas time of year. Some of these stories helped to inspire my novella "Gift of Forgiveness" which takes place in the Colorado Mountains during the same time of year. 

purchase e-book here

May your Holiday Season be filled with joy, love and the promise of even more in the upcoming year.

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here