I've written before about the ruins of the Bradford/Perley pioneer house in our community, built in 1859-60 and expanded in 1872, which was an integral part of the Colorado Gold Rush and was honored with placement on the National Register of Historic Places.
Please click on the photo to enlarge it.
This placard outside the home is a condensed timeline of the house's history.
The front of the house faces east and has a view of these large red rock formations, which are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to major archeology digs that have taken place in this area that show these rocks were used by early natives for shelter and hunting for as far back as nine thousand years! One native who was a frequent visitor to this area in the early gold rush days was Chief Colorow, whom I blogged about in this post.
When my husband and I moved to Colorado, we joined our community's historical society and the History Colorado Center to learn more about our new state. We have remained members, and each year our historical society hosts an open house event where members of our community are invited to enter the home and learn more about it. That event took place this past weekend on a beautiful morning.
Our historical society's open house coincided with another community event taking place, called Nature Day, where families can gather in a nearby open space area to see a wild bird demonstration by Hawk Quest, take a short guided hike, participate in a nature scavenger hunt, and engage in fire safety education provided by the local fire department.
Inside the pioneer's home, our society members displayed photos and photo albums from our archives of the home and the surrounding land. This home had two owners before this area became a cattle ranch and eventually developed into a residential community.
We also answered questions and directed visitors to other points of interest on the land.
There were archeological displays...
...and my husband demonstrated an ancient native hunting instrument called an Atlatl. This way of hunting predated the bow and arrow and allowed a spear to be thrown further and with more force.
He showed interested visitors how to use the tool and aim at the bullseye target.
You can view a YouTube video about this instrument on this YouTube link.
Another historical society member is also a hobbyist beekeeper and had a bee display with a tray filled with bees. She answered questions about beekeeping and how to have us all improve pollination efforts in our community.
Another historical society member was in the pioneer's apple orchard, located in the rear of the house, answering questions about the remaining trees that are still producing Ben Davis heirloom series apples one hundred and sixty-six years later!
Our historical society maintains the trees, and starting in 2010, we undertook a program, with the aid of a horticulturist, to clone the trees by carefully taking cuttings and grafting them onto a sturdy root stock to grow new trees. This way, we hope to perpetuate the old orchard.
Our historical society also has a garden committee that works hard to plant and maintain flowers and planters around the house to beautify it for the community.
The weather was beautiful until the very end of our event, when rain clouds and wind rolled in, and we all scambled to gather our displays and run to our cars!
It was another successful open house event, and it was a joy to share some of the early history of our community with other residents.
PS: One of the new members of our historical society, who lived in our neighborhood for many years, asked me why we joined the society as relatively new residents. I told her my husband and I always loved history, and for many years we volunteered at a very historic cemetery in Brooklyn, New York called Green-Wood Cemetery in a multi-year Civil War Project where as a group we identified over 3,000 veteran soldiers and sailors of the Civil War, many sadly lying in unmarked graves, or under gravestones that have been so badly weathered that the stones have become unreadable.
We also filled out more than 1,200 applications for new markers since the Department of Veterans Affairs supplies them if originals are unreadable or lost. If you'd like to read more about this project and see some notable graves, click on this blog post.
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