Today's Wednesday Wonders features
Disasters of the Pikes Peak Region
by a consortium of authors for
Pikes Peak Library District Special Collections
Book description:
Disasters of the Pikes
Peak Region serves as an intense summary of many of the major fires, floods,
and other catastrophes of this area. Though thoroughly researched by the
contributors, this book is not intended to be a comprehensive accounting, but
rather a collection of some of the more significant calamities impacting the
area—many of which were discussed at the 9th Annual Pikes Peak Regional History
Symposium, also titled “Disasters of the Pikes Peak Region.”
Readers will learn that recent misfortunes experienced in the Pikes Peak region were unprecedented in their destruction, but were not unfamiliar, or even unpredictable, events. In fact, we should expect some natural disasters. For example, did you know that Colorado was designated the “hail capital of the U.S.”? Or did you know that Colorado is on the western borderline of Tornado Alley and that twisters have damaged property in both the El Paso County plains and Manitou Springs, where an estimated $1 million in tornado damage occurred in 1979?
In these pages you will learn how the devastating 19th century fires in Cripple Creek and Colorado Springs influenced how these communities developed and how waging battle against destructive flames evolved from making fire breaks by blasting buildings to sophisticated military missions involving satellites, GPS, and aerial firefighting methods. You will understand, from first-hand accounts, how the 1898 Antlers Hotel fire started and quickly burned an extensive area of Colorado Springs three blocks long and two blocks wide. And you will be shocked by the damaging 1935 Memorial Day Flood, and other floods, that swiftly overcame Colorado Springs’ parks, streets, and buildings.
Readers will learn that recent misfortunes experienced in the Pikes Peak region were unprecedented in their destruction, but were not unfamiliar, or even unpredictable, events. In fact, we should expect some natural disasters. For example, did you know that Colorado was designated the “hail capital of the U.S.”? Or did you know that Colorado is on the western borderline of Tornado Alley and that twisters have damaged property in both the El Paso County plains and Manitou Springs, where an estimated $1 million in tornado damage occurred in 1979?
In these pages you will learn how the devastating 19th century fires in Cripple Creek and Colorado Springs influenced how these communities developed and how waging battle against destructive flames evolved from making fire breaks by blasting buildings to sophisticated military missions involving satellites, GPS, and aerial firefighting methods. You will understand, from first-hand accounts, how the 1898 Antlers Hotel fire started and quickly burned an extensive area of Colorado Springs three blocks long and two blocks wide. And you will be shocked by the damaging 1935 Memorial Day Flood, and other floods, that swiftly overcame Colorado Springs’ parks, streets, and buildings.
449 pp. Maps,
illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
ISBN 978-1-56735-318-1 (print), $24.95; 978-1-56735-344-0
(Kindle), $5.99; 978-1-56735-345-7 (Smashwords ePub), $5.99 (available for free
to your readers at Smashwords.com through 30 April with coupon code ZU66Q)
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Purchase Links for Disasters
of the Pikes Peak Region:
Amazon
(Kindle) | Smashwords
| Clausen Books (Print)
(Clausen Books will eventually list the
print version on Amazon and AbeBooks)
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CONTENTS
Defining Disaster: Death, Destruction, or Distress?
Michael L. Olsen • 1
FIRE
Evolution of Fire: Our Changing Views of Fire in the Pikes
Peak Region
Erinn Barnes • 15
Colorado Springs Burns, 1876 • 52
Pikes Peak Timberland Reserve Fires
John G. Jack • 62
The Antlers Burns:
The 1898 Fire that Destroyed a Landmark • 64
The Antlers Hotel Fire of 1898
Bill Crosby • 90
Help from on High: Space Assets & Military-Civil
Cooperation during the Waldo Canyon & Black Forest Fires
Rick W. Sturdevant • 105
In Our Own Backyard: Excerpts from the Waldo Canyon Fire
Oral History Project
Heather Jordan • 129
Crossing the Denial Divide: Arid West Lessons from the Waldo
Canyon & Black Forest Fires
Katherine Scott
Sturdevant •
166
FLOOD
Harbinger: The Fountain Valley Flood of 1864 • 187
When the Waters Rise: Recovering & Learning from Pikes
Peak-Area Floods
John E. Putnam • 191
The
Memorial Day Flood of 1935
Preston & Lindsay Petermeier
• 231
Hell & High Water: Natural Disasters at Glen Eyrie
Susan A. Fletcher • 245
Flash Flooding: A Legacy of the Waldo Canyon Fire
John E. Putnam • 282
OTHER
CATASTROPHES
The Cripple Creek Volcano: A 35-million-year Disaster
Doris A. McCraw • 319
Earth, Wind, Fire & Other Mini-disasters in the 1800s
Nancy K. Prince • 344
The Fountain Depot Explosion of 1888 • 357
“Worse Than Fire or Flood, Tornado or Earthquake”:
The Collapse of the Building & Loan Industry in
Depression-Era Colorado Springs
Alice Echols • 388
Selected Bibliography • 417
INDEX • 421
You may connect with the Pikes
Peak Regional Library and their collection at the following:
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Featured
Author – Doris A. McCraw:
Author of “The Cripple Creek Volcano: A 35-million-year
Disaster”
Doris McCraw is an actor, historian, poet, photographer, and
(of course) writer. After she retired Doris decided to pursue her other dreams.
She performs as Helen (Hunt) Jackson, Katharine Lee Bates, as stand alone
historic characters. She researched and wrote on Karol W Smith, Colorado's
first film commissioner, and currently is researching the early women doctors
of Colorado prior to 1900.
She writes and post haiku with her photographs, five days a
week on her fivesevenfive page. http://fivesevenfivepage.blogspot.com
Writing fiction under the pen name, Angela Raines, she
contributes to the following blogs: http://sweetamericanasweethearts.blogspot.com,
http://prairierosepublications.blogspot.com,
https://writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com and yes, she finds time to write her Western and Medieval romances. She claims it keeps her young.
https://writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com and yes, she finds time to write her Western and Medieval romances. She claims it keeps her young.
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Other
books in the
Regional
History Series
The Colorado Labor Wars: Cripple Creek 1903–1904,
A Centennial Commemoration
“To Spare No Pains”: Zebulon Montgomery Pike
& His 1806–1807 Southwest Expedition
Doctor at Timberline: True Tales, Travails,
& Triumphs of a Pioneer Colorado Physician
Legends, Labors & Loves:
William Jackson Palmer, 1836–1909
Extraordinary Women of the Rocky Mountain West
Lightning in His Hand:
The Life Story of Nikola Tesla
Enterprise & Innovation in the Pikes Peak Region
The Pioneer Photographer:
Rocky Mountain Adventures with a Camera
A City Beautiful Dream: The 1912 Vision for Colorado Springs
Film & Photography on the Front Range
Doctors, Disease, and Dying in the Pikes Peak Region
Rush to the Rockies! The 1859 Pikes Peak or Bust Gold Rush
Candy Makers’ Manual for the Household
Massacre, Murder, & Mayhem in the Rocky Mountain West
Thank you for sharing this information. While depressing, it also is a beacon of hope, for the community came together and became stronger because of these events. Doris
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