Four Hundred pages

Today, the school in Cotopaxi does not teach local history.  But in 1978, the students at Cotopaxi High School conducted a series of local interviews in order to preserve history.  Between 1984 and 1989, Lanell Bullard and Joann Gillespie conducted additional interviews.  I have always known that these interviews existed.  But I had never read them.

All of these interviews have been typed up and put into pdf files.  They total over 400 pages!  What an incredible testament to preserving the oral histories of this tiny community.  They are kept by the Western Fremont Historical Society.

Two weekends ago, I sat down and read all 400+ pages.  Word after word verified and confirmed what I had already documented about the area.  And for the most part, the oral stories handed down by the gentile families who resided in Cotopaxi when the Jews were there....are the same stories that the Jewish families have handed down to their descendants.  Interesting that the 2 sets of oral histories match up almost perfect.

Some of the highlights of these interviews:

After the Civil War and the loss to the Union, many people who lived in the south and had been sympathetic to the Confederate side, left and moved west.  And as they came west, they tended to find work in the mining operations, or in other fields that supported the mining communities.  That's how many of the ancestors of those living in Cotopaxi got there.  Although there are only 2 Confederate graves in the cemetery, many of the genealogies trace back to Confederate soldiers buried elsewhere....or to those sympathetic about the South.

Many of the early residents of Cotopaxi were Catholic - but there was no Catholic church in the area.

There were Indians in the area, but they were not "wild" or "murderous".  These interviews show us that they were  just hungry.  And the people who lived in Cotopaxi gave them food when they could.

The photo I shared earlier from 1927 - right before the great depression.  The mine wasn't producing and there was little means of income in the areas.  Might explain the desolation of the photo.

Lots of stories about gold nuggets being found, bones being dug up, and deaths.  I could tell that the students had a set list of questions to ask each resident.

The Mullins place was the Hart store.  The building that was just to the west of it, used to be the Dyer's boarding house (now the Post office parking lot) is where Gold Tom died.  About as many different versions of how he died as there are of the date he died!  But I can solve that one!  He died on or before May 30, 1884.  I have found a note from the person who cleaned his body and prepared it for burial and it is dated  May 30, 1884.

And it was confirmed in these interviews that the train used to go down much closer to the river.  I have documents that tell me DG&R plotted land down there and now this interviews confirm that's where the tracks originally went.

E. H. Saltiel - brought the Jews to Cotopaxi to farm, but really wanted them to wok in his mines.

The Jewish immigrants starved and had to leave.

I totally enjoyed reading through all the interviews and give a huge congratulations to the students and others who conducted these interviews.  Job well done.

Cotopaxi schools

The "london" Saltiel stated in the Westword article:

 points out that the subject is kept alive in Colorado. “The students of Cotopaxi senior year study this story as part of their local history program,” he says. “The Cotopaxi library has it as well. I can’t oblige them to set out my point of view." 

So Thursday, I drove out to the school to see what they have and what they teach.  The librarian was quite shocked!  She said they have very little about the history of Cotopaxi and that the students do not study the history of Cotopaxi.   She suggested that I contact Betsy Denney who is active in the Western Fremont History Society.  Betsy descends from longtime Cotopaxi residents and has done a great job collecting and preserving information on Western Fremont County which includes just about everything west of Canon City.

Betsy has also been a substitute teacher in the Cotopaxi school and she said,

The school does not teach anything about Cotopaxi history.    4th grade does teach Colorado history but only what is printed.  They don't ask for guest speakers.  If it isn't in the curriculum,  they don't go over any history. 

And that would make sense.  Teachers today are mandated to follow a curriculum and that is not going to include the history of Cotopaxi...and certainly nothing to do with the Jews who settled in Cotopaxi.   Anything related to Colorado history would be limited to history that was generic to the entire state.

One has to wonder where the "london" Saltiel came up with the idea that the story of the Jews in Cotopaxi is kept alive in Colorado.....considering the senior year students do not have a local history program.

The earliest school yearbook is dated 1950 and there wasn't anything else dating earlier than that about Cotopaxi.  I wish there had been!

Once again, a person can write anything.  My "job" is to prove it true or false.  In this case - 100% false!!!


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