Settler Farm Wife’s Initiative

Here is a story from the Colorado Transcript of August 12, 1885:

“We like to hear a good story, and here is one on Jim Boyd: Last spring Jim’s wife wanted to peddle vegetables in Denver. Jim laughed at her, believing ...

Irrigation and Farming

Clear Creek irrigation ditches provide water to farmers east of Golden. Many irrigation ditches were dug in the 1800s, making the Clear Creek valley the breadbasket of early Colorado. Golden’s first resident, David King Wall, introduced irrigation following his arrival ...

Transportation

In 1860, Col. Thomas W. Know, a famous traveler and editor of the Western Mountaineer newspaper, believed the route up Clear Creek Canyon was a place he “never expected to see a mule go who had his senses, or a ...

Native Americans on Clear Creek

For many years, the Ute Indians lived in the mountains west of the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, hunting and trading with area travelers. The Arapaho, refugees from the Great Lakes region, and the Cheyenne arrived in the area during ...

Prehistoric Irrigation in the Salt River Valley

Approximately 300 B.C. Prehistoric Indians entered the Salt River Valley. They developed an extensive canal system and raised corn, beans, squash, agave and cotton.

Over 500 miles of Hohokam canal have been recorded in the Salt River Valley. Estimates suggest that ...

Shaker-Concentrator

The shaker-concentrator, also known as a shaker table, was used in gravity beneficiation (the concentration of ore) for sorting fine-grained materials, such as heavy cinnabar, from ordinary rock and dust particles. The beneficiation process was carried out on the surface ...

Frank Padget Water Tragedy

Heavy rains in late Jan. 1854 left the James

River and the treacherous Balcony Falls in

full flood. On 21 Jan., the canal boat Clinton

and its passengers became stranded in the

raging waters. Frank Padget, a skilled

boatman and slave, led four other men ...

United States Merchant Marine Veterans

In memory of

United States

Merchant Marine Veterans

of

Foreign Wars

Courtesy hmdb.org

Creating a National Park

[Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park]

“It is a refuge, a place of retreat, a long stretch of quiet and peace at the Capital …”William O. Douglas.

Look around you. The park you stand in exists because people cared. In January ...

Great Falls Tavern

Panel 1 - plaque on the C&O tow path:

Life was very different around the Great Falls Tavern during the canal era. The building before you began as a small lockhouse and was added onto twice until it became what ...