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Category: History
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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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Baca County History Reprint—Project Update If you’ve ever turned a page and seen a face hidden behind scanner streaks, you know why this matters. As part of the reprint, we’ve been repairing photographs that didn’t survive the first round of digitizing—images with horizontal lines, blotchy blacks, and other scan glitches that obscured the very people…
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In January 1939, Pritchett, Colorado residents, Frank and Theresa Mauler had saved $500 and headed out of the Dust Bowl for the Sudetenland. Wire services made them famous; world events stopped the trip. Baca County’s Dust Bowl years were never as isolated as they felt. In January 1939, Frank and Theresa Mauler of Pritchett packed…
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After receiving proof #2, we pressed pause on the Baca County History reprint to correct layout hiccups, and run higher-quality proofs. It’s the right kind of delay—one that makes the finished book sharper and more durable. Where the reprint stands Meanwhile, the first Puzzle Companion we spoke a long while back is moving fast. The…
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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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Baca County History Book Reprint Nears Final Proof — and Volume II Submissions Coming Soon The reprint of the original 1983 Baca County History Book is one step closer to completion. After sending off the first proof copy earlier this month, we’ve been carefully reviewing every page, making improvements to ensure the final product is…
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The 1939 Plesiosaur Discovery in Baca County In March 1939, one of Colorado’s most remarkable fossil discoveries emerged from the eroded banks of a remote creek in Baca County, about 13.5 miles north of Pritchett. A recent flood had carved away a 20-foot shale cliff on the Earl Kern’s farm which was occupied by Vernon…
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NOTE: A couple years ago, I released Letters, Stories and Incidents on the Santa Fe Trail : The Bent’s Fort Years. Recently, someone asked me if the book was any good. My answer? Oh yes. It has the best discussion of the “innumerable” buffalo herds of the American West you’ll find anywhere outside the writings…
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In 2025, nearly a century after my grandparents first opened their hardware store on South Main Street in Springfield, Colorado, the building’s aging wooden facade was removed by local resident and current owner Jessica Caricato. What she uncovered wasn’t just brick and mortar—it was memory. For the first time, I was face to face with…
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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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