I found the map in a portfolio of old maps at the back of a used bookstore in Boulder Colorado. It’s an 1876 map of the then-new state of Colorado, published by the map-making company of Asher & Adams, as they styled themselves. 1876 being the one-hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the new state took on the nickname “The Centennial State.”
The map now hangs on the wall of my log home in Clark, Colorado. If you look at the map and seek where I live, and its main and largest community, Steamboat Springs, the map informs me there is nothing there, save the Bear (or Yampa) River and the Elk River. The immense, empty area is referenced as Grand County, which still exists but with much-reduced boundaries. These days the county in which I live is called Routt County, larger than the State of Rhode Island.
The Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians were the original occupants of the area until they were forcibly removed. Over the years, Spain, Russia, Mexico, France, and the USA all claimed sovereign rights. The French and Anglo fur trappers were active in the territory in the early 19th Century. 1875 was the time when the first white settlements were recorded. In time it would become a mining, ranching, and ski resort area. In 2000 Steamboat Springs recorded a population of about six thousand. Today it’s about fourteen thousand.
Steamboat Springs is said to have earned its name when French trappers heard the gurgling sounds of the area’s many natural hot springs and thought they were hearing steamboats.
The area is also the inspiration for a number of my books.
- 1998—Perloo the Bold
Written for my skier/snow-boarding sons, it’s an adventure fantasy about the Montmers, rabbit-like creatures with long feet that enable them to ski among the mountains.
- 2000—The Secret School
When a Routt County 1925 one-room schoolhouse loses its teacher, the eight students choose 14-year-old Ida to run the school secretly so they can graduate.
- 2001—The Good Dog
McKinley, an Alaskan Malamute, who lives in Steamboat Springs, has to choose between joining a wolf pack and protecting his dog community as well as his human family.
- 2008—Hard Gold
A tale of the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859.
- 2015—Old Wolf
Nashoba, an old wolf, the raven Merla, and Casey, a teen-age boy, struggle with life and death along the edges of Routt National Forest. Illustrated by Brian Floca.
- 2023—The Secret Sisters
A sequel to The Secret School, Ida, having earned the right to go to Steamboat High School, moves from a rural world to encounter the fast-changing roaring twenties world of 1925, and struggles to become a modern young woman.
1 thought on “Colorado, the Centennial State”
I was going through your “Story behind the Story” blog series again, and realized there is one more book that was left out. “Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation”. Please write a blog post about that book and also what specific message and moral you were trying to convey in the story “Bored Tom” and “The Shoemaker and old scratch”. Thank you.