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Did you miss it?
Miss what? I'll give you a hint. It was on Monday, the
day after the 198th anniversary of the first U.S. patent,
issued for a potash-manufacturing process. That was also
the day before the 112th anniversary of James Butler
Hickok's demise in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. When he was
shot, Hickok was playing poker. He held the Dead Man's
Hand
-- aces and eights. Trivia buffs may appreciate
knowing that the fifth card was the queen of hearts.
Trivia buffs also may be the only people who know that Monday was Colorado Day; on Aug. 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted to the union. For many years, state employees got the day off, but this year, they didn't. Our legislature abolished the holiday in the hope of saving money. Hardly anybody else bothered to celebrate the day, either.
Perhaps Colorado Day is waning as a holiday because we have no clear idea how to celebrate it.
My first angry idea Monday morning was to propose a
Colorado Ignorance Festival.
Telluride might be a
good location, since it has many other festivals as well as
John Naisbitt, who once declared that the Brown Palace was
named after Molly Brown, but I was thinking about Cripple
Creek.
Part of Colo. 67, the main road into Cripple Creek, was closed last weekend because part of a one-lane tunnel had collapsed. In the news accounts, nobody seemed to know anything more about this tunnel; the highway department spokesman said he didn't know when or why it was bored.
Had anyone cared enough to find out, we might have learned that the tunnel even has a name: the Waters Tunnel, in honor of Jesse H. Waters, a superintendent of the Midland Terminal Railroad. The tunnel dates to 1895, when it was constructed to convey trains to the booming gold camps from the Colorado Midland's main line at Divide. It remained in railroad use until 1949, when the Midland Terminal was abandoned. The tracks came out. Our state highway department took over parts of the old roadbed -- including the Waters Tunnel, which should be repaired by the end of the week.
One obscure tunnel is tied to a lot of Colorado history, ranging from labor wars to high finance, much more than I have room for here; I find it fascinating, but those who don't give a damn about that, or any other facet of our lurid past, could all troop off to network with each other at the Colorado Ignorance Festival.
If we're going to have a Colorado Day at all, though, the Ignorance Festival obviously isn't the way to celebrate it.
What should we do? Colorado is a big and diverse place, and we really don't have a lot in common with each other, except for a General Assembly that no one likes.
John D. Farr of Frisco has proposed a bigger promotion
for the ABC
(Always Buy Colorado) campaign, as well
as a concerted effort for celebrations scattered throughout
the state.
I think he's on the right track, but maybe we should narrow the focus each year. I much enjoy this summer's Rocky Mountain Ranger reports from various towns around the state. Maybe we could carry that idea a little farther. Each year, one town would be selected as the host for Colorado Day, with attendant sustained media attention to its history and culture.
Our famous mining camps might deserve a turn from time to time, but we could also hold a Colorado Day in Grover some year, where the awful story of dryland farming after World War I might get some attention. Then perhaps La Junta, where Bent's Old Fort has been restored, and we could recall that there was once a day when whites and Indians got along tolerably.
We could celebrate in Eaton, with a special excursion train on the Great Western and some attention devoted to the empire created by irrigation. Walden, still a cattle and logging center, with closer ties to Wyoming than to Colorado, would be a good spot some year, as would remote Uravan, wherein we might contemplate company towns and the transient nature of uranium booms.
We have a lot of interesting little places scattered across this state, and if we're going to celebrate anything about Colorado, those would be the places to do it.
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