Delaney Library E-News about Archives
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- Fall 2007 -
 Archival Booster Award
Collections newly
described
New additions to collections
New digital images
online
Archives personnel
news
Archival volunteers |
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Archival Booster Award Summer/Fall 2007 recipient
honored!
Esther Greenfield, archival volunteer at the Center of
Southwest Studies, has a knack for connecting the
historical record with personalities. Our first contact
with Esther was when she showed up at the Delaney
Library with her
drawings of arborglyphs (aspen tree carvings) in the
 Durango area – which she documented through her
volunteer work for the San Juan Mountains Association. She cataloged and scanned these images for access on the
Center’s web site. Her current project is organizing,
classifying and filing many thousands of
Western Colorado Power Company early twentieth century
photographs.
When Esther finishes a day’s volunteer work at the
Archives, she enjoys looking at the records stored here
and thinking about the human beings who made those
records. Her research on arborglyphs and on
Frank Fitchue, early African-American pioneer in
Durango, has been published in the Durango Herald.
This award is our way of expressing our appreciation to
Esther for reviving an awareness of hidden individuals
of local history and telling their stories for the
researchers of today and the future.
Previous recipients of the
Archival Booster Award
are:
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Marilyn Brown,
President of the League of Women Voters
of La Plata County and volunteer
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Nina
Heald Webber,
donor
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Ruth Cross,
volunteer
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Jan Lips,
volunteer
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Diana Novara,
former archival staff
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Paula Wiseman and Bud Davis,
volunteers
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Read
more news (about the Center as a whole) at
http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu/NewsLetterCurrent.pdf
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New Online Resources
(click here for the online inventories home page)
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United Pueblos Agency records.
Administrative
correspondence and other records of the United Pueblos
Agency in Albuquerque, circa 1920-1960. 9.5
ten linear
shelf feet
(lsf).
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Nina Heald Webber Southwest Colorado printed materials
and
photographs.
Hundreds of thoughtfully selected items documenting
southwestern Colorado, circa 1880-1990.
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Al and Alice Lancaster papers
regarding early Southwest archaeological work, circa
1863-1963. 10 lsf.
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Alden Hayes papers of another
Southwest archaeologist,
circa 1958-1973. 10 lsf.
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De Lasso Loos Four Corners oil and gas engineering
collection.
Records and manuals used
at the Northeast Blanco Unit and elsewhere in
northwestern New Mexico, circa 1948-1985. 10 lsf.
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La Plata County (Colo.) Search and Rescue records,
circa 1981-2004. In 2 document cases.
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Phone books: Southwest telephone directories of
the Southwest: nearly 300 volumes of phone books.
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Ed Zink mountain biking papers.
Durango mountain bike competition records,
circa 1988-2000. 20 lsf.
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Uranium mining collection.
Papers collected by
Denny Viles regarding uranium mining on the Colorado
Plateau, in Rhodesia, and elsewhere in the world, circa
1945-1966. In 4 document cases.
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Olga Little photographs
of a notable woman who was a Southwestern Colorado mule
skinner.
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Pen-Dike Studio (Durango, Colo.): historic
images on postcards and photographs in special
collections at the Delaney Library from the early 20th
century.
Highlights of Some Recent
Archival Acquisitions at the Center
For the
Fort Lewis College archives: photo of President Dwight
Eisenhower decorating Lt. Gerald Murphy with the
Congressional Medal of Honor. The accompanying plaque notes
that Murphy was a Fort Lewis College alumnus who lettered in
football in 1947-48. The paper caption to the photo states
that the 1954 issue of the Cadet Fort Lewis yearbook
was dedicated to Raymond G. Murphy, who received this medal
in recognition of his combat heroism in Korea.
Added to the
photographs collections: 6 photos of Pueblo tribes,
1899-1900, by A. C. Vroman. The late Bob Michaels gave these
to former FLC President Joel Jones when Dr. Jones was the
professor supervising Michaels' America Studies dissertation
at the University of New Mexico on the economic development
of the Pueblo tribes.
For the
Nina Heald Webber Southwest Colorado collection:
American Smelting and Refining Co. smelter map, showing
adjacent areas in the city of Durango, including barns,
warehouses, sheds, a slaughter house, a rendering house,
mills, stock yards, the railroad yards, and a pump house,
etc., east/across the Animas River from the smelter and
other structures including coke ovens, a dwelling, a barn,
scales, and a power house on the same side of the river as
the smelter.
New Digital Images
Accessible Online
(click here for the digital images home page)
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Werito family Eastern Navajo photographs:
pictures of Delaney Library Professional Native American
LIbrary Intern Venaya Yazzie's grandmother, great
grandmother, and others, circa 1925/1959. Includes views
of the BIA boarding school at Ignacio, Colorado.
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For the Southwest historic printed materials collection:
online edition of a rare book:
Une Française chez les chauvages, by
Jeanne Goussard de Mayolle, in French. Published in
Tours: Alred Mame and sons, 1897. 144 pages, illustrated
with 10 drawings by Pichot. This is a French woman's
account of a trip with her husband, a mining engineer,
to "savage" southwestern Colorado and northern New
Mexico. The title can be translated, "A Frenchwoman
among the Savages." She and her husband and his
secretary traveled from France to New York, by rail to
Chicago and then to Pueblo, Colorado. She speaks
disparagingly of conditions in Pueblo, the bad smell of
the hotel dining room, the yellow water from the
Arkansas River, impossible to filter. They then went on
by rail over La Veta Pass to Durango which she describes
in some detail, then by horse and carriage to
Bloomfield, New Mexico on the San Juan River. Bloomfield
also was disappointing. It consisted of 10 wood huts and
its leading citizens left much to be desired: Mr. Cox, a
merchant; an Irishman named Hains who is "a forger and
dangerous bandit;" and his associate Mr. Hugues, "an
ancient schoolteacher of the same moral virtues." Here
her husband began his reconnaissance of mining
prospects, and they encountered Navajo Indians, who to
her sophisticated European eyes seemed most primitive.
She also watched a performance by Ute Indians on
horseback in Durango, and describes a possibly
apocryphal fight with Apaches. She gives quite detailed
technical information on the mineral ores found and
analyzed by her husband. It appears the trip was in the
1880s or early ‘90s, before 1892, because she says they
visited Chicago prior to the World's Columbian
Exposition. An original of the book is in the Division
of Rare and Manuscript Collection at the Cornell
University Library. Not yet translated into English.
Anyone want to volunteer?
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Vallecito Dam
construction photos: black and white photoprints
(with typed captions) depicting the work of Major C. A.
Burns (grandfather of the owner of this album, Dr.
William R. Burns), construction engineer with the Army
Corps of Engineers, in the construction of the Vallecito
Dam, 1938-1940. Loaned to the Center of Southwest
Studies via Bayfield Public Library through the agency
of the Center's
volunteer Jan Lips. A related collection at the Delaney
Library is M 103 (Pine River Irrigation District
records). Of particular
interest among these 425 historic images are the following panoramic photos of
the Vallecito region before the flooding of the valley:
D003001,
D003006
through D003013,
D003096,
D003097,
D003102,
D003103, and
D003390.
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News
of Archives Staff, Students, and Volunteers
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The
Center is fortunate to have six very talented student
work-study employees this fall. They are moving
mountains (of papers, photos, maps, etc.) to make many
more special collections accessible to you. They are
Gretchen Grey (a senior from Seattle, who has worked in
the Delaney Archives all four years) and five new
freshmen: Kery Allen from Aurora, Nicholas Costa from
Boulder,
 Elizabeth deJong from Hesperus, Stephanie
Harwood from Boulder, and Meredith Provera from
Littleton.
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This past July and
August, we were blessed by the bright, energetic
presence of Erica Olsen, a graduate student intern from
Western Washington University. Erica spearheaded the
final overall arrangement of the massive assortment of
materials in the
Richard Ellis papers.
See that web page for a larger view of Erica and several student workers filling the
research room with a portion of that collection at the
peak of its arrangement and description.
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Listen to voices from
41 years ago:
Center founder
Robert Delaney's interview with
Southern Ute leader Leonard Burch, November 1, 1966.
This interview was part of a KREZ television program entitled Assignment 6, hosted
by Delaney and former state Representative and long-time
resident of the San Juan Basin, Arthur Wyatt. Digitized from the
master reel to reel audiotape (skip the first minute and a half
to hear the broadcast).
It is part of the
Southwest oral history collection at the Center of Southwest
Studies.
A local sight, 90
years ago:
Western Colorado Power Company's reconstruction of the Durango
Steam Plant,
November 15, 1917:
In recent
years,
this building (minus the tall smoke stacks) has again been undergoing
massive historic reservation to prepare it to house Durango's
new Discovery Museum.
Upcoming special events:
[Archival] treasures of the
Center –
Annual reception for
Friends of the Southwest Center,
November 4, 2007 2-4 p.m.
Most items
in Special Collections spend 99.9% of their lives in the dark,
safely protected inside an archival box. For the benefit of the
Friends of the Southwest Center, Archivist Todd Ellison will be
showing off selected treasures from the Center's collection at 2
p.m. on Sunday afternoon, November 4, in the Delaney Library.
Come join
other Friends and see a 400-year-old world map that shows
California as an island; documents that date back to the
earliest days of banking in Durango; correspondence (and secret
telegraph code book) of L. L. Nunn when he was pioneering the
world's first commercial use of alternating current near
Telluride in 1891; a rare atlas of Sanborn Fire Insurance
Company that maps portions of the City of Durango; a mystery
object that, at 71 feet long, is the longest single item in the
many miles of collections in storage at the Center; and many
other very special items, each of them a cog in the railway of
time that brings us to where we are today in southwest Colorado.
Thursday evening hours at the Delaney Library
Does your
work during the weekdays keep you from making it to the Center? No problem!
The Delaney Library on Thursday evenings until 7 (and the museum
galleries are also open on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4). Parking on campus
is free on weekends and after 5 pm on weekdays!
(Click here for current updates on hours at the Center.)
Suggestions?
Tell us
what you'd like to see featured in upcoming issues.
Send
us your suggestions
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Archival volunteers at the Delaney Library
The Delaney Library is fortunate to have the contributions
of many volunteers, interns, and student archival
assistants. Archival arrangement and description is a
labor-intensive activity. The hundreds of hours these
dedicated individuals contribute each year makes a huge
difference in the amount of details we are able to display
on the Internet for the benefit of researchers worldwide. Nearly every on-line collection inventory shows the
influence of these workers. Students with work-study
funding are also encouraged to apply for this archival
experience.
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Volunteer at the Delaney Library!
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This is a publication of the
Center of
Southwest Studies,
Fort Lewis College
Todd Ellison, Certified Archivist & Professor
(and editor of this e-newsletter)
1000 Rim Drive, Durango, CO 81301-3999
Phone 970/247-7126 FAX 970/247-7422
Center of SW Studies website:
http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu | |
