With the release of the latest novel, "Chasing A Chance", I took a trip down research memory lane. There was a story I'd read that also played a part in the novel's creation.
So, where did this story come from? It all started with a story I read a number of years back by Lauran Paine called, "Holding the Ace Card". In the story, a woman left her son to be raised by a foster family. He hadn't seen her since that time, but she asks him to help her with a range war as he's become an outlaw and gunfighter. I was intrigued by the story of a women who would leave her child then ask for help from that same child. But other than an award winning short story, I didn't do anything else with the idea.
Next, I was at the library, doing my normal research. For those who don't know, normal research for me is finding pieces of information and traveling down rabbit holes trying to find everything I can about a subject. I came across a snippet about a town called Boston, Colorado. WOW! This is not to be confused with the Mining town associated with the Boston Mine Camp near Breckenridge, Colorado.
Boston came into existence in the Southeast corner of Colorado and had a brief and bloody existence. There were primarily two factions that led to the demise. But during its heyday, it had two newspapers, five saloons, a three-story hotel, bank, drug store, hardware store and three livery stables. It vied for county seat of Baca county with the town of Springfield.
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| Photo of the Comanche Grasslands outside La Junta,CO |
Digging into the history of that town and its demise is still a work in progress. I do know one newspaper reported that 'the town of Boston, Colorado was in flames'. However for those who want to read a bit more, there is information out there. I found this short piece interesting, but there is so much more to the story of this short lived town. Boston Colorado's Demise.
In future posts I will share more of the story of Boston, and other research. In the meantime, happy reading.
Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet
For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here
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Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here
Doris Gardner-McCraw -
Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History
Colorado and Women's History
Member of National League of American Pen Women,
Women Writing the West,
Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners
17 comments:
Thank you so much for this wonderful book you are a great author! this is a must read!
Interesting story, can’t wait to read the book.
This is so interesting! I imagine there are a lot of small towns that just closed up
Back then
Thank you for leading us to the blog that gives us an insight of the book. It sounds just like a wonderful read, peggy clayton
This is truly fascinating History, and I can't wait until you share more of it! I even enjoyed reading more on the site you recommended. I can't imagine living in a town with all this violence and problems!
I am very impressed with all you do. This is incredible. I live in a small Town in central Texas. Word is, in the day there were saloons and brothels up and down the railroad tracks. lol I’m sure it was mostly true.
Looking forward to reading this book!
I really enjoyed hearing about the historical nuggets that you found. I love to read that sort of thing, and enjoy researching also.
This is an interesting history lesson. I have the book, but want to read the series in order. It should be good!
perrianneDOTaskewATmeDOTCOM
Perrianne
Thank you for sharing this fascinating information. The town of Boston is waiting for it's story to be told.
These facts about the town are unusual. I'm glad I didn't travel to Boston, CO when it existed. Sounds like a violent wild west place. I'll be interested to see how the couple get back together. I have the e-book but I'm napping instead of reading lately.
For certain with the amount of research you do, there has to be tons of "history" embedded within your fictional story. It's wonderful to learn about the history of events and areas that never make it to a history book!! I'm a lucky one.. my have documents dating back to the 1400 on my mom's family.. every generation has contributed to an ongoing history of their lives... my grandmother wrote and published her book, dealing with a young girl in the 1850-1950's of her life. There are paragraph stories of countless adventures and such of her growing up. My great-grandmother had to fight off Indians with boiling water while she protected her 3 young daughters. This is one of my favorite story.. can you begin to fathom how frightened she was? My great-grandfather was gone at the time fighting in a war...my Mom wrote some history, not a lot but some, and I'm working on my story... pretty wacky growing up in the 1950-1970's in Big Sur, CA... plenty of "history" was made during the hippy movement in the 60's.... we had our house broken into a couple times by "hippies" looking for free handouts...With all this said.. I thoroughly enjoy reading a book that has historical significance as well as a great story line... inspires me to keep writing my "stories"... I'm hoping to someday put them all together into one big book to be passed onto my daughter and granddaughter.. and hopefully plenty of generations after her!
Wow, how intresting to find these little bits of information that are part of our history, I bet there are a lot of towns like this one that just died out. How sad that that had to happen!
I love to learn about things that were once a part of history that changed and was all but forgotten about until you start to dig. Sometimes you just don't know what you will find until you start digging. I'm researching my family tree and have come across some surprises along the way which keeps me intrigued enough to keep digging.
How neat and very interesting Thanks for sharing it with us
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