A Little R&R

Colorado Railroad Museum.
Image: Jen Baldwin, 2014

Once in a great while, I actually get to just do something for fun.


However, with my family and our mutual interests, this often leads me to a historical or genealogical discovery anyway. Camping trips often include exploring nearby cemeteries (hubby doesn't have to ask anymore, he just pulls in), weekends include museums and historic towns, you get the idea. This past weekend, we decided to enjoy some warmer temperatures and mad a jaunt to Golden, Colorado, home of Coors Brewing, the Colorado School of Mines and enough historic buildings to keep just about anybody happy. They also happen to have the Colorado Railroad Museum. All three of us were anxious to spend the day in t-shirts, so off we went.


It started out innocently enough. Lunch, a walk around the historic core of the downtown of Golden. Then back to the Colorado Railroad Museum. We had passed it once, and it looked amazing, so there was no stopping us! I've been wanting to explore this site for a while, as they house the Robert W. Richardson Railroad Library, "one of the most comprehensive railroad research and reference collections in the United States."(1)  Who doesn't love trains? I sure do, I grew up with them, and still own some of my tracks and engines from the display in the basement.

Historic restoration in progress; watching #50 take a turn
around the yard was a great experience.
Image: Jen Baldwin, 2014

The Depot Museum was great, but the real action was outside in the Railyard. Their collection is quite massive, and includes several steam engines, a rotary snowplow, and some unusual work horses made out of pickup trucks. The Cornelius W. Hauck Restoration Roundhouse Facility was quite interesting for the adults in the group, and we watched for several minutes as a crew of men worked on a smaller engine, I think diesel. We were happily surprised later in the day to watch as they moved the engine out of the roundhouse for the first time and took a little tour of the yard. The energy was palatable, and it was quite obvious it had been a while since the last time it ran under its own power.


So what does all of this have to do with genealogy? As great as it was, I could go on and on about this museum, and I have multiple photos I could share. One of the real highlights for me occurred when I was waiting for admission to be paid, and was wondering through the stacks of rail history books they sell in the gift shop. On a nearby table, there was a basket marked "free," so I took a chance. Inside, I found one copy of the April 1899 "The Colorado Road, Colorado and Southern Ry" schedule, map and time table. It's a reproduction, of course, printed in 1978, but the information is invaluable to someone like me. Since so much of my research is focused on Summit County, finding the timetable for the Denver to Breckenridge and Leadville route was incredibly exciting. And then I realized there was maps inside!

Are you still trying to figure out what the big deal is? Let me provide an example. I find little bits and pieces in the local newspaper all the time, "Mr. Westerman traveled to Denver today to discuss his mining operations and other business." "Mrs. Hamilton ventured with a party of three other ladies for a day of shopping in Leadville this week." You see these mentions all the time in the society and "local happenings" columns in the newspapers. Now I can tell you, in 1899, it would have taken Mr. Westerman seven hours to get from Breckenridge to Denver on the railroad. SEVEN. It would have taken Mrs. Hamilton just over three to get to Leadville, with 12 stops in between the two towns and two significant mountain passes. (These are real life examples, by the way.)


Learning that Mr. Westerman traveled to Denver for business is one thing, realizing that he would have been gone at least three days - two days for travel and one for actual business doings - is quite another. The detail of a personal timeline for these individuals just upped to the level of minute.


This past week, I've been toying with making Breckenridge a true One Place Study for me; and if I can gain the support of the local historical organization, it may happen sooner than I originally planned. An in-depth study of the community, its people and this particular time frame would benefit greatly from a timetable such as this, and the information you can find in it. Far beyond just a schedule, this is an incredible piece to have in my arsenal.


And to think, all I had to do was peek in a basket on the free table.

"The Colorado Road" map from the Colorado & Southern Ry.
Image: Jen Baldwin, 2014

Timetable for the Denver to Breckenridge and Leadville Route, and return.
Colorado & Southern Railway, reproduction 1978.
Image: Jen Baldwin, 2014

(1) Colorado Railroad Museum brochure

1884 Snow Plow

Living in Summit County means you have to deal with snow. Sometimes, a lot of snow.

One of the heaviest winter's recorded was that of 1898-1899. The piles were massive, trains and supplies were stopped, and many of the mountain's small communities were cut off for weeks at a time. From the Breckenridge Heritage Alliance's website:

A record snowfall hits Breckenridge and residents are forced to dig snow tunnels to get around town. Rail service resumes on April 24th, after a 78 day blockade.

Miner's cabin in snow. Colorado, taken between 1882-1900.
Photographer: W.H. Jackson
Source: Denver Public Library Digital Collections

 So, it was a tough way of life. Miner's were known to build doors and/or window's into the roofs or upper eaves of their cabins, and then use that as their primary entrance during the winter. There was no real reason for them to continually shovel around the ground level entrance; that was certainly a lot of work, and removed helpful insulation from around the home.

There were some folks who were determined to do something about the labor intensive task of keeping town streets clean of snow. If you look at any of the photos from that era of our high country communities, you will see snow piles lining the streets, at times as high as two story buildings! That is a lot of shoveling. Not only where the streets and residential areas a concern, but the railroad tracks became extremely important in this matter. If the train could not get through the snow, and avalanches over tracks and trains were common occurrences  burying both, then supplies, mail, passengers and other necessities were unavailable.

I recently came across a patent record issued in 1884 by a resident of Red Cliff, Colorado. One Mr. John Q. Day issued Patent No. 299750 for a "Snow-Plow".  His design requires the machine to move along the tracks, and;

"...The snow is gathered on the curved mold-board n ... and is shoveled or scraped therefrom into the wheel groves by the shovels..." 

Partial Image from Patent No. 299750
United States Patent Office

If you have not included a patent search in your own genealogy process, I highly recommend it. You can do this easily through Google (what else?), by using the Google Patents Search. Filters include filing date and type of patent. In the past, I have found a few connected with my family tree, including one for a design of a head lice remover.

Even if you don't find one submitted by an actual family member, you can certainly find other ideas from their neighbors, giving you a great look at the problems they experienced in every day life, and the solutions they were trying to come up with.

I do not know if this snow-plow was ever used by any railroad companies, but I do not think it would be difficult to find out. It does, however, make for a very interesting topic around the dinner table!

Have you had any success searching patents? Do you have any interesting stories? I would love to hear them.

Baaaaa.... Black Sheep

Creative Commons: scenicreflections.com

Black sheep.

Life is full of interesting characters, and some of those are considered the "bad guys," the "oddballs," the skeletons in the closet. My own husband claims to be one.

I firmly believe its important to research them, to learn about them. Certainly they must be included in any client research or volunteer project.

The question is, what do you do with them in your own family? Especially when no one else wants to talk about them?

Do you even blog about them?

Here's an example. When my great-grandfather was a young man in Nebraska, he got married, and they had one baby; a girl. The marriage failed, and he got on a train westbound, settled in Washington, married again and had a new family. No one ever really knew about the first wife, the daughter; that entire part of his history was completely absent from our collective knowledge as a family until I discovered the marriage certificate. That started to bring back some of the story.

If that's not sheepy enough for you, here's the rest of the story.

Researching the first wife and daughter led me to an interesting website; the archives of the Nevada state penitentiary system. The mother/daughter combo stayed in Nebraska, and the daughter got married there. Eventually, the couple headed west themselves, and made it to Nevada. In the 1930s, he came across a young couple, a soldier and his wife, along a quiet highway in the desert. He murdered them. Caught and thrown in jail, he was sentenced to the death penalty, and his life was ended behind the walls of the Nevada prison system.

They had children. They have descendants. Bet you can guess not one of them wants to talk about Grandpa or his wife.

So, now we know that these people exist, that we all came from a common ancestor in my great-grandfather. But, they want nothing to do with us, understandably, they don't want to relive, as a family, the history of their grandfather. I've decided to leave it alone. They know how to reach us if they ever change their minds, and in the meantime, my family has an interesting story to talk about among ourselves.

You'll note in this post, I haven't used any names. That's intentional too. Stories like this affect all of us, and it would be just as easy for a member of that second family to come across this post as it would be for one of my family. So, to respect their decision and their privacy, I've left out those  details.

Perhaps if I'd known them longer, had a more personal relationship with them, I would have pushed harder for information. I'm really more interested in their grandmother, anyway, the daughter of my great-grandfather. I want to know if they have any pictures of her, to see the family resemblance. I want to know if she knew about us growing up, to know if her mother told her about the family in Washington.

What does that family know about us that we don't?

Because of the black sheep, however, we may never find out. Perhaps someday our descendants will connect again, but for now, I am forced to let it sit.

What do you do with your black sheep? How do you deal with the emotional side effects that your research brings back to the surface for your family members?  I would love to hear your thoughts...