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One hundred and forty years is a long time. When George Hosmer published the first issue of the Springfield Herald in the spring of 1887, Baca County had not yet been organized. There was no courthouse, no county government, and many of the communities that would eventually dot the High Plains had yet to be…
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Few men embodied the spirit of southeastern Colorado more fully than Alfred A. Arraj. Born far from the windswept plains of Baca County yet forever shaped by them, Arraj rose from small-town lawyer and civic booster in Springfield, Colorado, to become one of the most respected federal judges in the American West. Today, his name…
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History and Stories
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By: Yann and sod Some of us have been enjoying the interesting posts about our region on a Facebook page titled Colmexhoma, USA. (Colorado+New Mexico+Oklahoma) Kent Brooks and I thought the creator must be from Boise City, OK, or Clayton, NM, or somewhere south of us, and that we needed to get acquainted with this…
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In the late 19th century, a feverish wave of migration swept toward the Western frontier. While the transcontinental railroad brought settlers to the edge of the plains, the tracks only went so far. To bridge the gap between the railheads and the remote “boom towns” of Southeast Colorado, a vital network of stagecoach lines emerged.…
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A look back at the heart of the Southeast Colorado community of Vilas, and a glimpse at how its story might be told in the Digital Age. For the residents of Baca County, Colorado, a Kent Homsher social media post with a single photograph of “Tony’s Market” was enough to unleash a flood of memories…
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A recent Facebook post by Steve Doner shared a brief Springfield Herald clipping (below) dated January 12, 1900, documenting trapping activity along the river in southeastern Colorado. That short notice, combined with a comment recalling wolf trapping by Kent Homsher’s grandfather, prompted a return to the archives and to earlier research I conducted several years…
