Pathfinder #16: Recreation, travel, and leisure of the Southwest: a partial descriptive list of special collections at the Center. Arrangement is by topic, then roughly chronological.

Bicycling:

• Collection I 057: Frank Whitt papers on microfiche.  38 microfiche of selected papers, pamphlets and books on the topic of human powered vehicles, especially bicycles, collected by Frank Rowland Whitt and organized by Fred DeLong and David Gordon Wilson, et al.  Frank Whitt (1911-1984) was the principal author of Bicycling Science (The MIT Press, 1974 and 1982), technical editor and correspondent of several bicycling journals, notably Cycle Touring, and president (1971-73) of the Southern Veteran-Cycle Club.  On shelf 166 38.8 (ask at Delaney Library reference desk).
• Collection M 192: Ed Zink mountain biking papers.  Durango mountain bike competition records and ephemera. Ed Zink, lifelong Durango resident and FLC Foundation board member, organized and founded the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic (held in and around Durango annually since 1971).  Includes records of the first-ever World Mountain Bike Championships, held at the Durango Mountain Resort (Purgatory) in September of 1990.

Skiing and other outdoor recreation:

• Collection M 016: Durango (Colo.) Chamber of Commerce records.  23 document cases and 2 flat boxes.  Records and correspondence, circa 1892-1998, of the Durango Area Chamber Resort Association and its predecessors, the Durango Chamber of Commerce, the Durango Board of Trade, and also of the Durango Exchange. Includes a volume for the period 1915-1926; Board of Director's minutes, 1955-1958 and 1965; subject files; printed materials; and a Chamber chronology/history for 1883-1972.
• Collection M 023: Colorado Land Use Commission records.  7 document cases.  Includes agendas and minutes of meetings, 1970s; legislative printed materials, 1971-1974; reports, 1973- ; project records and correspondence (including Marble Ski Area, etc.). Also records pertaining to plans for the 1976 Winter Olympics in Colorado.
• Collection M 180: Four Corners printed materials and ephemera collection.  Includes many printed materials pertaining to recreation and leisure.
• Collection M 130: Spanish Trails Fiesta records.  6 document cases.  Legal records, minutes, correspondence, publicity materials, newspaper clippings, and photographs of an annual fair and rodeo held in Durango, Colorado.  This fairgrounds holds claim to being the first venue for photo finish documentation of a horse race.  The Spanish Trails Fiesta and San Juan Basin Rodeo, an annual event held at the La Plata County Fairgrounds in Durango during the latter part of July and early August, now goes by the name Fiesta Days.

Travel and transportation (including early travel in the Four Corners region):

• Collection I 098: An American sampler: life in the 1800s: An exhibit catalog compiled by the Exhibits Office.  4 color microfiche of a catalog of a traveling exhibit that consisted of lithographic prints, photographs, etc., and of quotations from travelers' journals, newspapers, and other sources, all from the collections of the Library of Congress.
• Collection M 053-021: John Watts journal. Approximately 300 pages.  Journal, bulk 1859 Mar.-1860 Sept., kept by John Watts while he and his brother J. Howe Watts lived in Santa Fe, March - October 1859.  John Watts was one of the sons of John S. Watts, the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court justice, Territorial delegate, and land grant attorney. Appointed to the Territorial Court in 1851, John S. Watts was from Bloomington, Indiana.
• Collection M 050: Thomas Tully papers.  James Terry Gardiner's letters and stories from the Old West, 1863-1875.
• Collection M 053-063.  Kirk Munroe correspondence.  Photocopied typescript of letters from Kirk and Susan M. Munroe to his parents, et al., 1867 May 28 - July 9, during a trip across the Plains, from Salina, Kansas, to San Francisco. Also, a 1967 article by Irving A. Leonard about Kirk Munroe.  All in 1 folder.  Kirk Munroe (he dropped the first name Charles when he became a writer) left his devout parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in April of 1867, at age 16. Later, he was captain of the New York Bicycle Club, a world traveler, journalist, and popular writer.
• Collection M 053-064: Sport, travel and scenery on the Southwest Colorado frontier. 1 folder.  Photocopy of an article on pages 540-541 of The [London] Field: the country gentleman's newspaper, 1878.
• In Collection M 197: Une Française chez les chauvages ["A Frenchwoman among the Savages"] by Jeanne Goussard de Mayolle (146 pages; all accessible online here).  Rare narrative by a French woman of a trip with her husband, a mining engineer, to "savage" southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico. She and her husband and his secretary traveled from France to New York, by rail to Chicago and then to Pueblo, Colorado, and on by rail over La Veta Pass to Durango (which she describes in some detail), then by horse and carriage to Bloomfield, New Mexico.  It seems that the trip was in the 1880s or early ‘90s (at least before 1892), because she says they visited Chicago prior to the World's Columbian Exposition.  This rare book has never been translated into English.
• Collection M 053-039: A. I. Sanborn diary.  1 folder (25 pages).  Transcription of the diary that A. I. Sanborn, a traveling pioneer, kept from in the fall of 1883.
• Collection M 053-013: San Juan Basin toll roads documents.  All in 1 folder.  Two letters and two maps, all circa February 25-26, 1885, describing various apparently related issues of transportation. Includes a letter from John A. Porter to C. M. Williams of the Durango Board of Trade, supporting the proposed purchase of the La Plata County portion of the Rico toll road. Also, a letter to Williams from John F. Watkins, secretary of the Pasadena Production Company in Rico, regarding a proposal for freighting to Montrose. Also, a drawing of the roads between Durango and Montrose and notes as to distances and bullion freighting costs. The fourth item is a map on linen of the Rockwood Road from Conley's House to the Rockwood Depot, passing through a number of sections labeled Porter, Conley, etc.
• Collection M 053-041: William F. Saunders memoirs. 1 folder.  "The Joy of the Frontier", undated memoirs of W. F. Saunders, former editor of The New Mexican. Also, a copy of a newspaper clipping from the New Mexican, Dec. 1956. Photocopies. The author was a child in Alabama during the U.S. Civil War, grew up in Norfolk, VA., attended college in the South, and traveled west to Denver in an emigrant car. He describes mining, meeting Chief Ouray and the Ute Indians, and other topics.
• Collection M 102A: Susan A. Davies papers: Navajo Trail Highway materials.  1/2 document case.  Brochures, sheet music, articles, tape and transcript of a radio advertisement, and other printed materials and ephemera, circa 1962-1979, regarding the inter-state Navajo Trail.
• Collection M 205: Navajo Trail Association records.  2 records boxes.  Records, printed materials, and ephemera, circa 1962-79, regarding the Navajo Trail, "America's shortest, paved, all-weather, East-West Scenic Highway."  Robert S. Ayres of Durango was its Vice-President.
• Collection M 194: Nina Heald Webber Southwest Colorado printed materials.  Items pertaining to the San Juan Basin in Southwestern Colorado from the late 19th century.  Topics include narrow gauge railroads, Mesa Verde, Spanish Trails Fiesta, etc.  Also, related artifacts. The printed materials are Series 1 and include ephemera, leaflets, pamphlets, etc.  The post cards are Series 2, and are described by more than three thousand item-level records.
• Collection M 052: Frank Yeager papers.  3 document cases.  Printed circulars on Colorado travel.  See inventory dated 11/16/1983 by Robert Delaney, in collection case file. 
• Collection M 083: Arizona printed materials. 1 document case.  Articles, circulars, photos, etc. pertaining to Arizona. Compiled from various sources.
• Collection M 085: Utah printed materials.  1/2 document case.
• Collection M 128: Roadless Area Review and Evaluation printed materials.  1/2 document case.  Reports on RARE II, including large fold-out maps, draft environmental statements, assessment, and a trial plan. For Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain national parks.
• Collection C 001: Southwest maps.  A diversified collection of maps, of miscellaneous origin, re: the Four Corners region (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah) and surrounding area of the Southwestern United States. Topics include history, tourist spots, Jeep trail maps, and transportation. Arranged by these and other broad topics. Filed topically by broad categories.

Four Corners region travel scenes (photographs):

• Collection P 015-016: Colorado's beauty spots souvenir photographs booklet.  1 volume.  Views of Colorado along the Colorado and Southern Railway. B/w lithographs in a published booklet.
• Collection P 011:  Durango (Colo.) Herald photonegatives, 1955-1992.  Includes numerous views of recreation in and around Durango.
• Collection P 002: Colorado scenes slides.  18 boxes.  Miscellaneous scenes photographed in the state of Colorado.
• Collection P 013: Arthur Wyatt slides.  Approximately 8,000 film transparencies, in 4 document cases.  These are Arthur Wyatt's photographic views of scenes in and around Durango and the Four Corners region.  Arthur Wyatt came to Colorado in 1901 and was in Durango by 1929. He owned and managed the Brookside Tourist Court, reportedly the first motel in Durango, and established the Basin Truck and Implement Company in Durango.
• Collection P 033: John Funk photographs.  2 flat boxes and 1 document case.  A Durango resident's views of nature in the Four Corners region.
• Collection P 047:  John Funk slides.    3,102 color photographs of Southwest scenery, 1950-1990.
• Collection P 049:  Blackington Southwest photographs.  Compiled by an Easterner for his tourism slide show on the Southwestern U.S.
• Collection P 017-002: Four Corners slide collection of Sherry Ballard.  55 film transparencies, in 1 folder.  27 color slides of Canyon De Chelly, Arizona, and 28 color slides of other Four Corners region views. All are identified and marked S. Ballard.
• Collection P 060: Al and Edith Ingersoll family slides.  106 glass film transparencies, in 1 document case.  Color slide photos of Al and Edith Ingersoll and family and scenes in La Plata Canyon and vicinity, circa 1960-1967.
• Collection P 061: Terry Hobbs slides.  365 film transparencies, in 19 sleeves in 1/2 document case.  Color slide photos of family and Four Corners (?) scenes. None are dated or identified. Perhaps from the 1950s. Donor believes they came from around Ignacio, Colorado.
• Collection P 058:  Gayle Maloy slides.  Views photographed by Gayle Maloy in the Southwest, especially in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, with an emphasis on Monument Valley and Arches.  677 color slide transparency photographs (including 362 glass transparencies) in 2 document cases.
• M 194: Nina Heald Webber Southwest Colorado collection (includes 3,000 postcards of Southwest Colorado -- most of them, digitally available and described online).

See also:

• Pathfinder #10: Railroad-related collections at the Center of Southwest Studies 
• Pathfinder #13: Movies of the Durango area: A descriptive list of feature films that were filmed in Southwestern Colorado