Articles involving Alamosa County from various newspapers
October 3, 1914
The Daily Review, Decatur Illinois
MOVE TO COLORADO
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Davis and two daughters and Mr. and Mrs.
Homer Davis and two sons will leave Oct. 20 for Alamosa, Colo., to make their
home. Homer Davis is the son of Richard Davis and they have for years resided a
few miles north of Taylorville. Richard Davis traded 93 acres of land north of
Taylorville and 160 acres in Texas to the Seaman Realty Co., of Chicago for 320
acres of land near Alamosa. Mr. Davis and his son will farm the land.
September 25, 1915
Wichita Weekly Times, Wichita Falls, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Byman of this city returned Friday from Alamosa, Colo., where they have been visiting Mrs. Byman's sister, Mrs.. John Rill.
March 6, 1916
Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln Nebraska
Ralph Miller of Alamosa, Col., is visiting friends in Lincoln.
September 22, 1916
Syracuse Herald, Syracuse New York
Homer J. Grover of Jamesville left on Monday for Alamosa, Colo., to spend a month as the guest of his son, John Grover.
February 18, 1917
The Washington Post, Washington D.C.
PRISON IS "HOME" TO HIM, SAYS INDIAN
Alamosa, Colo., Feb. 17-There is no place like home, even if
it is only the penitentiary.
"I want to go back home again as soon as I can," said Juan
Medina, a half-breed Pueblo Indian, when haled into a justice court here
on a charge of burglary.
"I have served 27 years in six terms within the penitentiary,
" said he in good English. "They always treat me well there and I want to get
back"
Medina, 56 years old, his face furrowed and shriveled with
time, with straight black hair and every appearance of a criminal indifferent to
his fate, was bound over to the March term of the district court.
July 14, 1921
New Oxford Item, New Oxford Pennsylvania
J.L. Elicker, of Alamosa, Colo., and C.A. Elicker and wife of Cleves, O., have returned home after spending some time with their sister, Mrs. Elmer Myers, East Berlin.
November 4, 1922
Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville Illinois
Arrested In Colorado
Alamosa, Colo., Nov. 4-The Rev. J.C. Trotter, pastor of the
Haleyville, Okla., Methodist church who escaped from jail in McAlester, Okla.,
recently where he was awaiting trial on embezzlement charges, was arrested here.
Trotter was working as a laborer in the railway shops.
November 17, 1922
The Mexia Evening News, Mexia Texas
Lakes Found In Big Sand Dunes
Alamosa, Colo.-Three picturesque lakes each covering several
acres, have been discovered 18 miles east of the town of Hopper, across the
great sand dunes near there. The lakes were found by Paul Gilbert, forest ranger
of the San Isabel national forest.
On the shores of the lakes, Gilbert found burial cairns,
stones bowls carved pedestrals and arrow heads in profusion, proving some band
of Indians, probably the Utes, once inhabited the region in Southwestern
Colorado.
The trip can be made only with the greatest difficulty by
pack, Gilbert said, as around the lakes is an area of 80 miles of loose sand.
The dunes rise to the height of several hundred feet and drop abruptly in
precipices, changing with the ever shifting winds.
September 14, 1923
Deming Headlight, Deming New Mexico
Eddie Mack of Alamosa, Colo., was awarded the referee's decision over Joe Coffee of Pueblo at the end of their twelve round bout in Albuquerque. they were featherweights.
October 3, 1925
The Helena Independent, Helena Montana
Deer Lodge, Oct. 2-Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bernard and Mrs. H.B. Milyard of Alamosa, Colo., are guests of their daughter and sister, Mrs. H.A. Marx and family. Mr. and Mrs. Bernard expect to remain during the winter. Mrs. Milyard will return to her home in Colorado after a few weeks visit here.
September 15, 1927
Indiana Weekly Messenger, Indiana Pennsylvania
$1.50 Watch Saves Life of Worker in Sawmill
Alamosa, Colo.-The life of Walter Swope, a carpenter, was
saved by a $1.50 watch, when he fell into a rapidly revolving rip-saw.
The saw cut the heavy cased timepiece, which was in a pocket
just over Swope's heart, neatly in half, and was biting into his flesh when he
recovered his balance and leaped back. He has a slight cut and the halved watch
as souvenirs of the incident.
November 25, 1927
Lima News, Lima Ohio
MANY TALES ARE TOLD
Claims That Treasure Will Be Found as Described On Old Map
Alamosa, Colo., Nov. 25-Two faded and crumbled parchments
with indistinct lines and markings of trails have led searching parties into the
Conejos mountains in quest of gold dust and ingots, believed buried more than a
century ago.
The searching parties combed many sections of the mountains
during the summer, but early winter snows have forced abandonment of the
projects until next spring.
One of the bands of delvers after hidden treasure is known as
the "Treasure Company", with headquarters at Capulin, a Spanish settlement 20
miles south of here. The other is a partnership between Charles P. Graeser,
rancher, and Jesse Reynolds, Denver prospector. The latter his spent the summer
digging along Rock Creek for chests of gold dust and ingots thought to have been
buried in the seventies of the last century. Reynolds also is seeking an old
Spanish mine which he claims to have located on the west flank of the San Juan
mountains.
Early day history, romance and tragedy mark the trails that
lead to the reputed treasure was concealed by French and Spanish mining
expeditions while under attack by Indian tribes.
The tale of the Rock Creek cache carries with it a story of
vengeance wrought by Indians against an expeditionary force of Frenchmen. The
leader of the explorers, according to the account, kidnapped the daughter of an
Indian chieftain and later deserted her. The white men previously had discovered
a great deposit of almost virgin gold and were transporting it on burros to the
gulf coast. The outraged Indians ambushed and massacred all of the party but one
man, who buried the gold, the story runs.
July 3, 1928
The Helena Independent, Helena Montana
Colorado Prisoner Devises A Getaway
Alamosa, Colo., July 2-Major Cowger, 25 years old, awaiting
trial in criminal court here on a charge of obtaining merchandise by false
pretenses, escaped from the county jail last night by knocking a hole in the
plaster ceiling, climbing to the attic(?) and clambering down a ladder from the
manhole to the outside corridor.
Cowger was arrested here several weeks ago on complaint of
local merchants. Police say he has a prison record in Oklahoma and elsewhere.
April 19, 1929
The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln Nebraska
College View-E.H. Velhagen, Alamosa, Colo., spent Wednesday with his daughter Bonnie, North hall, on his return trip from the east.
May 7, 1930
The Helena Independent, Helena Montana
Santa Fe Scraps
Santa Fe., N.M. May 6-Eddie Mack, of Alamosa, Colo., knocked
out Johnny Simpson, of New Orleans, in the third round of a 10-round bout here
tonight. In the preliminaries George Manley, of Denver, won over Buck Easterling,
Grand Island, Neb., in the seventh round by a technical knockout.
May 3, 1931
Coshocton Tribune
MULE BREAKS LAW
Alamosa, Colo. May 2-In direct violation of the game laws of
the state of Colorado, Mike, who lives at Parma, Colo., recently killed a
beaver. Mike was not arrested, however, when his crime became known to
game wardens. Mike is a mule owned by Bain Ashford. The mule came across a
beaver in a pasture. The beaver indicated by his actions that he was not a
friend of any mule, least of all Mike. It was claws and teeth against hoofs, and
when the dust settled a dead beaver lay before Mike. Ashford reported the
unlawful killing to Game Warden Clarence Goad.
December 29, 1932
The Chronicle Telegram, Elyria Ohio
Recall Hardy Pioneer Family
Alamosa, Col.-Forty years ago this month, 220 residents of
Holland arrived in Alamosa to make their homes in the San Luis Valley.
The Hollanders, consisting of 50 families, were brought to
the United States through the efforts of the Holland-American Land Company and
the Empire Canal Company. They planned to establish a colony of the farm lands
of the valley.
The plan, however, was doomed. After making the trip across
the Atlantic on a special boat, they took special trains to their new home and
were housed in two large buildings, which had been erected to shelter the
colonists until they were able to build their own homes.
Soon after the party moved into their temporary homes,
scarlet fever broke out among the children and several died.
Lack of water, poor land and the hard winter, coupled with
the epidemic of fever, discouraged the Hollanders, and six weeks from the time
when they arrived in Alamosa only one family remained.
The other 49 families scattered to various parts of the
nation, several to eastern Colorado. The Adolph Heersink family decided to
"stick it out" and this earned the title of the first "ditch" family in the
valley.
The Heersinks still make their home in the Waverly district,
near Alamosa.
Another family, that of Andrew Hof, which came to the San
Luis Valley with the colonists, moved to Iowa, but later returned to the valley
and settled in Waverly, where it still lives.
September 19, 1933
Chronicle Telegram, Elyria Ohio
DOWNPOUR OF FROGS REPORTED IN COLORADO
Alamosa, Colo.-People talk about it "raining cats and dogs,"
but it remained for C.L. Dynes, chamber of commerce Secretary, to make a report
of "raining frogs," and he swears it's true.
Dynes and his family with Mr. and Mrs. E.L. Wieber were
returning to Alamosa from Antonito, when the rain of frogs began. Dynes says
they fell on the top of the car, thumped on the radiator, and fell on the road
in large quantities, making driving difficult. At the Star school house he
perceived what appeared to be a stream of foamy water, extending all the way
across the road. He stopped and investigated, and found that the road was
covered with tiny frogs. Whence they came and why, he could not say.
June 23, 1935
Nevada State Journal, Reno Nevada
DANDELION SCOURGE WINS
Alamosa, Colo.-There are no dandelions in Alamosa. Mayor
Everett Cole recently offered a theatre ticket to each boy and girl who would
gather 15 pounds of dandelions. One hundred pounds were turned in the first day
and 200 the second.
November 5, 1937
Deming Headlight, Deming New Mexico
AGED NAVAJO ONCE SOLD INTO SLAVERY
Now He Herds Flock of Sheep in Alamosa Canyon
Alamosa, Colo-Francisco Gallegos, eight eight year old Navajo
who herds a flock of sheep in Alamosa canyon, thirty miles west of here, is one
of Colorado's few former Indian slaves now alive.
Gallegos was born among a tribe of desperate Indians who
raided and plundered Spanish settlements in southern Colorado nearly a century
ago. He narrowly escaped death in a pitched battle which his tribe fought with a
group of white settlers after the Indians had stolen the white men's horses.
One of the Spanish settlers sighted the Indian baby sitting
on the ground crying in the center of the battlefield on which the bodies of his
mother father lay. The settler started to shoot but changed his mind and
picked up the infant and returned him to the Spanish settlement where he was
sold to Juan de Jesus Gallegos for a slave.
He was reared by the Gallegos family but was never legally
freed.
When treaties between the whites and Indians were signed
which provided that each give up their slaves, his master agreed to comply with
the treaty but did not know to whom the child slave should go. The Indian child
had no known relatives and his tribe refused to take him.
Francisco Gallegos knows nothing of his own people and is
even unable to speak his own language. To him Spanish is his native tongue. He
is a crack shot with a rifle and has uncanny success as a hunter.
In the past he has acted as a guide in the uncharted mountain
routes.
His master left his "slave son" flocks of sheep numbering
more than 2,000 upon his death. Gallegos moved up the canyon and built the adobe
hut where he lives today.
Conflicting reports are offered as to what became of
Gallegos' sheep. Some persons say that unscrupulous neighbors stole his herd and
others that he lost them gambling. He herds a few sheep of his own today, but a
county pension is chief subsistence.
Age has left few marks on Gallegos, who is only slightly
stooped. His hair is black and plentiful and he can walk twenty-five miles a day
within tiring. Each year his marksmanship accounts for numerous coyotes,
mountain lions, bears and deer.
January 27, 1938
Appleton Post Crescent, Appleton Wisconsin
Pets Get Burial Plot In Masters' Cemetery
Alamosa, Colo.-Thanks to Frank Barrow, cemetery caretaker, Alabama[sic] pets
will have a burial place not far from where their masters eventually may rest.
He asked for donations of from $1 to $5 from animal lovers,
and with the money prepared a plot near an Alamosa cemetery, constructed a fence
about it and announced that henceforth pets would be buried there free of
charge.
Already three dogs, two cats and a canary rest in the plot.
Their graves are marked by small metal plaques.
April 13, 1938
Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana Pennsylvania
18 YEARS OLD, ON FIRST TRAIN
Alamosa, Colo., April 13-Eighteen year old Lila Marion
Elliott, a Colorado ranch girl, rode on a railroad train today for the time
first time in her life.
A senior at the small Mosca, Colo., high school, she won
recognition as Colorado's outstanding high school girl and the D.A.R.'s award of
a "good citizenship" pilgrimage to the nation's capital.
May 27, 1943
The Marion Star, Marion Ohio
AFTER 56 YEARS
Alamosa, Colo-After 56 years of riding horseback, Douglas
Rentie, colorful Alamosa cowboy, has retired. "There isn't the riding and the
roping there used to be." said the 65 year old Rentie, who regrets the passing
of the days of the open range, when a man could ride all the way to the Brazos
and the Valecitos without opening a gate.
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