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1936 Border Closure

Added by yongli on 02/07/2022 - 17:42, last changed on 09/03/2022 - 08:37
For ten days in 1936, Colorado governor Edwin “Big Ed” Johnson declared martial law in the state, which allowed him to close Colorado’s southern border to migrant workers from nearby states and Mexico. Amid record unemployment during the Great Depression , Johnson closed the border because he...

Coal Mining in Colorado

Added by yongli on 02/16/2021 - 13:06, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 22:39
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coal mining was the most important industry in Colorado. Coal mines served as the crucibles of empire, churning out the fuel needed to power the railroads, precious-metal mines , and smelters that helped develop the region. They were also...

Ludlow Massacre

Added by yongli on 09/29/2016 - 16:39, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:54

Ludlow Strikers, 1914

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The Ludlow Massacre began on the morning of April 20, 1914, when a battle broke out between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners at their tent colony outside of Ludlow in Las Animas County . Nobody knows who fired the first shot, but the incident is remembered as a massacre because...

San Miguel County

Added by yongli on 08/16/2016 - 10:45, last changed on 11/15/2022 - 15:40
San Miguel County covers 1,289 square miles in southwest Colorado. Named for the river that flows northwest across its eastern flank, the county is bordered to the north by Montrose County , to the east by Ouray County , to the southeast by San Juan County , to the south by Dolores County , and to...

Teller County

Added by yongli on 08/16/2016 - 10:40, last changed on 03/29/2023 - 05:39
Teller County, named for former US senator and railroad mogul Henry M. Teller , covers 559 square miles of the high country west of Pikes Peak in central Colorado. It is bordered by Douglas County to the north, El Paso County to the east, Fremont County to the south, and Park County to the west...

United Mine Workers of America

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 14:09, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 09:43
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed in 1890 to fight for better pay and working conditions for the nation’s coal miners. In Colorado the union was most active in the early twentieth century, with thousands of members joining strikes in the southern coalfields of Fremont , Huerfano ,...

Vulcan Mine Explosions

Added by yongli on 02/08/2021 - 15:47, last changed on 10/25/2022 - 19:40
Between 1896 and 1918, the Vulcan Mine in Garfield County exploded three times, killing a total of eighty-five workers. The successive blasts prompted action from labor unions and politicians to make coal mines safer. At the site of the Vulcan Mine today, there remains an active underground coal...

Western Federation of Miners

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 15:17, last changed on 01/04/2023 - 04:38
Founded in 1893, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was one of the largest and most active labor unions in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American West. The union was involved in some of the most important labor disputes in Colorado and American history, including the 1894...
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