Search results for: “broomcorn”
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In 2014 I gave a talk at the Baca County Museum about a topic I’d heard about my whole life— broomcorn. Ironic, I suppose, that I would give a talk on this topic. I don’t really remember broomcorn and didn’t know much about it. What I knew while giving the talk is that I knew…
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In 1905, the Rocky Mountain News dismissed the “flat country” of Baca and Prowers as good for “nothing… but broomcorn”—a cash crop that, paired with cane for feed, kept families afloat even as storms and feed shortages killed herds. A generation later, that same “nothing but broomcorn” would be recast as a badge of identity…
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When I give talks about technology and innovation, I often draw on an unconventional example. One of my favorites is broomcorn—that old-fashioned crop which was a cash crop staple for many years where I grew up and was once essential for making hand-tied ‘straw’ brooms. At first glance, it seems like a footnote in agricultural…
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Conversations on our Baca County Facebook groups about German POWs led me to look a little deeper into that topic. I will aggregate some of those conversations here and add a bit more. A report from Metro State University in Denver tells us that during World War II, a series of Prisoner of War (POW)…
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“No machine has yet been invented to successfully replace the hand labor. The men, using broomcorn knives with sharp five-inch knives, move down rows in a field, bending the heads or brush with one hand and cutting the stalk about six inches below the bottom part of the brush with the other hand. “ -Pueblo…
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In the talks I have given about broomcorn I have always mentioned that Benjamin Franklin is often credited with bringing broomcorn to America in the 1700s. This concept is usually presented as fact, but it turns out that whether this is true or not is actually up for debate. I introduced you to some of…
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Reposted with Permission by Dr. Sam Moyer. Although there hasn’t been broomcorn production in Baca County for many years, there actually has been quite a bit of research done in the not so recent past. My newest broomcorn acquaintance is Dr. Sam Moyer, a geneticist and a broom maker from New Jersey. Dr. Moyer has…
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We know that harvesting broomcorn was a hard itchy process but at my “Broomcorn Capital” presentation 2 years ago Shorty Miller may have driven the point home when he told us that one broomcorn Johnnie told him, I would rather be in a Tulsa Jail than cutting broomcorn. I haven’t posted much broomcorn info lately…
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NOTE: We have merged all of our posts from BacaCountyHistory.com What is Broomcorn? I have had several conversations about recording local history as we are doing with Bacacountyhistory.com. Anytime the topic of broomcorn has come up with someone not from Baca County there is inevitably the question “What’s that?” Therefore, if any of you reading…
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The knives were razor sharp and they wrapped their thumbs with the old style electrician’s tape (friction tape). Each night they would set around and sharpen their knives. -Ted Burhenn NOTE: This was originally posted in 2014. This update changes the name to”Tools of the Lost Trade”, referencing the long gone broomcorn industry. This update…
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