Frontier in Transition: A History of Southwestern Colorado

O'Rourke, Paul M. Frontier in Transition: A History of Southwestern Colorado. Denver: Colorado State Office, Bureau of Land Management, 1980.

This government publication contains the following chapters:

1. The Natural Setting and Its Relation to Historic Development
2. The Ancient Ones
3. Exploration and the Fur Trade
4. The Great Reconnaissance and the Rediscovery of the Southwest
5. The Utes in Southwestern Colorado: A Confrontation of Cultures
6. Early Mining and Transportation in Southwestern Colorado
7. The Permanent Settlement of Southwestern Colorado
8. Transportation and Mining, 1881-1920
9. Ranching and Agriculture: The Economic Diversification of Southwestern Colorado
10. The Federal Government in Southwestern Colorado
11. Southwestern Colorado in the Modern Era

This volume is available at many Federal Depository libraries and online through the FDLP.

The Valley of Opportunity: A History of West-Central Colorado

Mehls, Steven F. The Valley of Opportunity: A History of West-Central Colorado. Denver: Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Office, 1982.

Chapters in this government publication include:

The Natural Backdrop and Spanish Exploration
The Fur Trade and Government Exploration
Inter-racial Contact and Ute Removal
West-Central Colorado's Mining Frontier
The Transportation Frontier in West-Central Colorado
The Stockmen's Frontier 1880-1920
West-Central Colorado Farming 1880-1920
The Urban Frontier
The Federal Government in West-Central Colorado
Depression Decades
Mining Since 1920
The New Prosperity

This volume can be found in many libraries of the Federal Depository Library Program, online at the BLM website, or in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The New Empire of the Rockies: A History of Northeast Colorado

Mehls, Steven F. The New Empire of the Rockies: A History of Northeast Colorado. Denver: Bureau of Land Management, 1984.

Chapters in this government publication include:

1. The Natural Setting
2. Exploration and the Fur Trade
3. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush and After
4. The Ranchers' Frontier
5. The Sodbusters Arrive
6. Early Mining in Northeastern Colorado
7. The Transportation Frontier in Northeastern Colorado
8. The Urban Frontier
9. The 1890s, a Time for Change
10. The Early Twentieth Century
11. Depression Decades, 1920-1940
12. Northeastern Colorado Since 1940

This volume is available at many libraries associated with the Federal Depository Library Program or online through HathiTrust Digital Library.

Land of Contrast: A History of Southeast Colorado

Athearn, Frederic J. Land of Contrast: A History of Southeast Colorado. Denver: Bureau of Land Management, 1985.

Chapters in this government publication include:

1. The Natural Setting
2. The First Europeans
3. An American Invasion
4. The New West Is Explored
5. Early Agricultural Settlement
6. Pike's Peak or Bust
7. Confrontations: Removal and Transition
8. A Period of Transition: Into the 1870's
9. A Time of Building, 1870-1880
10. Into Maturity, 1880-1900
11. A Period of Change: 1900-1920
12. Hard Times: 1920-1940
13. From War to Prosperity: 1940-1980

It's available at many Federal Depository Library Program libraries and at HathiTrust Digital Library.

An Isolated Empire: A History of Northwest Colorado

Athearn, Frederic J. An Isolated Empire: A History of Northwest Colorado. Denver: Colorado State Office, Bureau of Land Management, 1976.

This useful government publication contains the following chapters:

1. Northwestern Colorado Prior to Exploration
2. The Fur Trade
3. Exploration in Northwestern Colorado
4. Mining and Transportation in Early Western Colorado
5. Confrontations: Settlement Versus the Ute Indians
6. Settlement in Middle Park and the Yampa Valley
7. Development of the Cattle and Sheep Industry
8. Mining and Transportation 1890-1920
9. The "Moffat Road" and Northwestern Colorado, 1903-1948
10. Development of Northwestern Colorado 1890-1940

It can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library or in many Federal Depository Library Program libraries.

The Pony Express

Fike, Richard E. and Headley, John W. The Pony Express Stations of Utah in Historical Perspective. Salt Lake City: Bureau of Land Management, Utah, 1979.

This government publication focuses on the Pony Express in the state of Utah. It is filled with maps and photographs to help readers understand the location of each station in the state.

Today, the Pony Express has a national museum in St. Joseph, Missouri. The website offers short biographies in its historical notes, a timeline, and a list of riders which may be of interest to genealogists.

The Pony Express National Historic Trail spans eight states--California, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. The website contains information on the history and culture of the trail and a bibliography for those seeking additional information on the Pony Express.

John Jarvie of Brown's Park

Tennent, William L. John Jarvie of Brown's Park. Salt Lake City: Utah State Office, Bureau of Land Management, 1981.

What a fascinating biography provided to us all by the Bureau of Land Management's Utah office! The subject of the publication, John Jarvie, was born in Scotland in 1844. He was murdered at Bridgeport, Utah 6 July 1909. The narrative is full of cattle rustling, outlaws, and other things that bring the area to life. The researcher provides many photographs and maps that break up the well-documented text.

Fortunately, it is available to us through HathiTrust Digital Library. Hard copies are available in many libraries associated with the Federal Depository Library Program.

Forced to Leave

"Forced to Leave: The Removal of the Unangax̂ of Unalaska, 22 July 1942," Aleutian Voices, vol. 2, no. 1 (2015).

One of the perks of my day job is seeing many of the U.S. government publications arrive in the library. While most are somewhat routine publications that report legislation, Supreme Court cases, and the like, occasionally a really interesting one appears. Such is the case of this second issue of Aleutian Voices. It's a special thematic issue devoted to the forced removal of the Unangax̂ from the city of Unalaska. The issue explores their culture, provides photographs from the time period, and details their removal. It's a short read and does not appear to be available online yet, although the first issue which was dedicated to the S.S. Northwestern is. If you can't make it to a government depository library to peruse the print issue, be sure to keep checking the link to see when this one becomes available.

I've Been Working on the Railroad . . .

Railroads play an important role in the lives of many of our 19th century ancestors (and even 20th century ancestors). A recently distributed government document details many of the cartographic resources relating to railroads that are available in the National Archives. Entitled Records Relating to Railroads in the Cartographic Section of the National Archives and published as Reference Information Paper 116, the 142 page government document describes each collection for researchers. The 2010 edition was compiled by Peter F. Brauer and can be found in most depository libraries under the SUDOC classification AE 1.124:116. Be sure to check an individual library's catalog as there are some libraries which incorporate government documents in Dewey or LC classification numbers.

Clara Barton

There's an interesting government document that should be arriving in most depository libraries entitled The Life of Clara Barton: A Chronology, 1821-1912. It is put out by the Clara Barton National Historic Site which is administered by the George Washington Memorial Parkway as part of the National Park Service publications. It appears to be online at http://www.nps.gov/clba/forkids/chron1.htm. To get to the parts after 1860, you must click on the links at the bottom of the page. While the resource lacks documentation, it is an interesting read and does show how to incorporate other history and social history into a person's life to give a fuller picture of that person and how he or she fits into history.

San Antonio in the Mid-19th Century

As I was cataloging government documents today, I came across a rather interesting publication entitled The Post at San Antonio, 1845-1879. It was published by the Fort Sam Houston Museum as part of the Historic Neighborhood Awareness Program in 2002, but it has just recently been distributed to federal depository libraries. Its SUDOC classification is D 114.20:77. The publication has many historic photos and maps as well as historic information on this area. If you had ancestors who were in this area during this period, you'll want to take a look at this publication.

A First Time for Everything

Today I was cataloging some recent arrivals for our government documents collection for which we had failed to receive (at least to date) records from Marcive. One of these documents was a map of the Holly Springs and Tombigbee National Forests in Mississippi which is near the area in which I grew up. As I began to look at the map, I noticed that they had labeled U.S. 78 not only U.S. 78 but also Interstate 22. Now, those of us who have travelled that road frequently know that the corridor is the "Future I-22" so I was a bit surprised to already see its new moniker on an official government map.

As I began to think about this, I thought of all the street name changes I've encountered over the years. For example, the 1930 census of Amory, Mississippi includes the street names for the town, but they do not match up with present-day street names. I was eventually able to pinpoint most of the locations by asking my parents. Even they did not remember the old names for the streets, but they were able to tell me the locations of the streets when I told them who lived on the streets. I'm sure that if I'd gone to the trouble of locating an older map of the town that I might have been able to find the names of the streets and then compare to a newer map to identify the present-day locations. After all, there was a "first time" that the new name appeared on a map.

By the way, this particular national forest map would be useful for persons researching areas near the national forests because it shows the sections, townships, and ranges for of not only the forest itself but also the nearby land. The main part of Holly Springs National Forest shows significant portions of Benton, Marshall, Union, Lafayette, and Pontotoc Counties. The Yalobusha Unit for that county shows a large part of Yalobusha County and a small part of Grenada County. For the Tombigbee National Forest, the Trace Unit map shows a large portion of Chickasaw County, some of Pontotoc County, and a couple of sections in Lee County. The Ackerman Unit map shows a significant amount of Winston County and parts of Choctaw and Oktibbeha Counties. The interesting thing is that landmarks such as churches are also identified on the map as well as bodies of water (down to the creek level).

Boston Public Library Digitization Project

Exciting news . . . Boston Public Library is going to digitize a lot of government documents. [Free registration required to view article.] That is exciting news because government documents often contain genealogical information; however, the thing that really excites me in the article is this statement:

The Boston Public Library is also interested in scanning local Boston and Massachusetts documents and is in the process of creating its own digital archive.

Apologies for Lack of Posting

Wow . . . I just realized that it's been over a week since I posted. I've been busy. Can you tell? I was having headaches over last weekend and earlier this week. I think those have settled down. I've also been extremely busy at work and at church this week. I probably worked with over 1000 cataloging records for government documents this week in addition to teaching several students to repair books and other miscellaneous things that technical services librarians do. When I had the headaches, I just didn't feel like getting on the computer at night. I did index a few census records this week. Last night I came across one family where the mother was born in the summer of the year, and it said that the person born in the fall of that year was her son! That has to be a record. I think she was 3 months old when she gave birth if that was true. I believe that one was in Adams County, Mississippi, but it could have been an Arkansas record. Needless to say, I had a little chuckle as I keyed that information.