Local History Thursday: Ute Removal and the End of the Colorado Frontier (Nathan Meeker, part 2)

Read part one, “Temperance and the Colorado Frontier.” Content Warning: This story describes racist attitudes towards Native Americans during the 19th Century and includes some graphic depictions of violence. Reader discretion is advised. As Nathan Meeker departed from Greeley to the Indian Agency on the White River, he reflected on his past experiences in self-sufficient […]

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Local History Thursday: Temperance and the Colorado Frontier (Nathan Meeker, part 1)

Read part two, “Ute Removal and the End of the Colorado Frontier” When you think of the Old West, what comes to mind? For most people, it’s images of saloons, drunken cowboys, and whiskey flowing like water. It’s usually assumed that most pioneers had a strong appetite for alcohol, at least outside of Mormon country. […]

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PHOTO I.D. - Screenshot of a Department of Energy video depicting the detonation of an underground nuclear bomb in their Project Rulison experiment.

Local History Thursday: Splitting the Atom, Project Rulison and Project Rio Blanco

When you take a core of enriched uranium-235 and start flinging neutrons at it, something very special happens. First, the neutron strikes the nucleus of a single atom of uranium-235, causing it to split into fragments. Then, these fragmented atoms release neutrons of their own, which strike the nucleus of neighboring atoms, causing a cascading […]

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[PHOTO ID:] A man enters a car packed with his belongings as he prepares to leave B

Local History Thursday: …The Harder the Bust (Black Sunday, part 2)

On Wednesday, April 26, in a boardroom located in a Sixth Avenue skyscraper in Manhattan, a group of Exxon executives decided to kill the Colony Shale Oil Project. They considered a variety of factors, including the rising cost of the project, an unfavorable petroleum market, and declining first-quarter profits. They made their decision, shook hands, […]

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