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As a registered Democrat, it pains me to point this out, but somebody's got to say it: the party's leader in the Colorado House of Representatives, Ken Gordon of Denver, is an ignoramus.
Either that, or his office under the gold dome has a major security problem, and some opposition trickster is sneaking in and putting Gordon's name on some preposterous prose. Specifically, there's this piece of his essay in last Sunday's Perspective section:
Whereas easy availability and access to all kinds of
guns might not cause a problem in Rifle, Leadville,
Gunnison or other places named after firearms or
ammunition, availability and access do cause problems in
metro areas.
To be fair, he got one out of three right. According to
the book Colorado Place Names
by George R. Eichler,
Rifle got its name this way:
About 1880 several soldiers were working on the road
between Meeker and the present site of Rifle, placing
mile-posts between the Colorado and White rivers. One of
the men left his rifle at a night camp. When he discovered
his loss, he returned for it, and found it on the bank of a
stream, which was immediately dubbed Rifle Creek. When the
settlement was founded, it took its name from the
stream.
That sounds more like folklore than history, since it's hard to imagine a soldier forgetting his rifle. Wouldn't his shoulder feel unusually unburdened after about three paces? But as best we know, Rifle is named for a firearm.
However, you would really have to stretch to make
Leadville's name come from ammunition. The silver-mining
camp was just starting to boom in 1877, and was then known
as Slabtown.
The local leaders wanted a post office, but thought a more dignified name would be in order before they applied for one. At an informal meeting, they considered four names: Carbonate, Cerrusite, Leadville and Meyer.
Meyer
was for August R. Meyer, who built the
first ore-sampling works in the area. The other three
proposed names had mineral origins.
Leadville probably won out because the silver deposits of Fryer Hill were also rich in lead, which provided a flux that made them easier to smelt. This was a major consideration in an era of high transportation costs when many smelters had to have their flux hauled in by wagon.
That lead is also used to make bullets is a mere
coincidence, even if the house minority leader seems to
think that a bunch of redneck prospectors were sitting
around a campfire one night and got stoked on Taos
Lightning; after firing a few dozen rounds into the sky,
they declared We hereby christens this here place
Leadville, being as we're so fond of saltpeter and sulfur
and charcoal and especially lead.
In other words, why didn't the pioneers name the place
Bullet Heights,
Buckshot Estates
or
Slugville,
if that's what they had in mind?
Getting from gun to Gunnison is an even bigger stretch. In June of 1853, Capt. John W. Gunnison of the Topographical Engineers led an expedition west from present Kansas City.
He commanded an Army survey commissioned to find a route for the Pacific railroad. He crossed the Rockies at Sangre de Cristo Pass (near today's La Veta) and then Cochetopa Pass. Gunnison went on to get killed by Paiutes in Utah.
His second-in-command, Lt. Edward G. Beckwith, completed the expedition. To honor his boss, Beckwith put the captain's name on the Gunnison River, which led to the city of Gunnison, Gunnison County and like nomenclature.
Beckwith even tried to rename Poncha Pass to Gunnison Pass. Fortunately, that didn't stick -- it would be quite confusing hereabouts if we had a Gunnison Pass between Poncha Springs and Villa Grove, both sitting across the Continental Divide from the rest of the Gunnison Country.
So much for Gordon's places named after firearms or
ammunition.
Two out of three aren't, and Rifle could
have just as easily been Knapsack or Canteen if that
forgetful soldier of yore had left something else
behind.
Gordon seems to think that we rubes and hayseeds got together last week and decided to name the Cache la Poudre River because we love gunpowder, to christen the Gore Range because we're bloodthirsty, and to attach Gen. William T. Sherman's name to a mountain because we're warlike.
Gordon appears to be frightened by the prospects of more concealed firearms in Colorado, and that is a legitimate concern.
But it's also kind of frightening that someone so ignorant about our state is in a position to be writing its laws.
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