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The Life and Legacy of Cowboy Fred Holister By Kent Brooks Great journeys into the past starts with a single question. For this story that question came a few years back (maybe 2015 or 2016) during a visit with my Uncle Harold Brooks. As we sat talking about the old stories and forgotten histories of…
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As we take part in that annual icon of the southeast Colorado prairie, the 2026 Baca County fair it seems appropriate to talk a little about the culture, history and present-day issues surrounding the event. Some circles of society might question the relevance and value of a county fair when less than 2 percent of…
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By Kent Brooks Before the telephone reached most towns in the American West, one of the largest ranching companies in the world had already built its own private communications network stretching across what is now southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico. Most histories of rural telephones focus on the famous barbed-wire fence telephone systems that…
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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…
