Lost Sopris with author Genevieve Faoro-Johannsen

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[00:01:22] Welcome back to Crime Capsule.

[00:01:24] I'm your host Benjamin Morris.

[00:01:26] I have to confess how easy it has been during this series on Lost Cities to enjoy the

[00:01:35] comfort of my armchair.

[00:01:38] To sit back and read about these vanished locales, coffee mug at my side and breeze blowing

[00:01:44] pleasantly through the window.

[00:01:46] In a way it's too easy, suspiciously so almost like it's a form of entertainment rather

[00:01:54] than education.

[00:01:56] I don't have the direct impact of the loss of a place tugging at my heels or worse

[00:02:03] still the memory thereof.

[00:02:07] To remind me of the reality of change.

[00:02:11] It's a humbling realization and one that makes me even more grateful for our next guest.

[00:02:18] Genevieve Farrow-Jahansson co-author along with Robert V. Hill Jr. of Lost Sopras published

[00:02:26] by the History Press.

[00:02:27] Why is this?

[00:02:28] Well, it's because there's no easy way to say so except that Genevieve is from

[00:02:34] the Lost City she writes about, a mining town in Colorado that was abandoned in the

[00:02:40] 60s to make way for a reservoir.

[00:02:43] She grew up there, formed her earliest friendships there and then through no fault of her own

[00:02:51] had to watch one day as the place she loved was swallowed under the waves.

[00:02:57] On the eve of publication of Lost Sopras Genevieve joins us this week to tell us

[00:03:03] that story.

[00:03:04] And here's the thing, it's not that story, it's her story and we could not be more grateful.

[00:03:15] Genevieve welcome to Crime Capsule and congratulations on your new book.

[00:03:19] Thank you so much, Shorie.

[00:03:20] Thank you for inviting me.

[00:03:22] I understand that it is coming out very, very soon in just a matter of a few weeks.

[00:03:30] How are you feeling?

[00:03:31] Excited and anxious and wanting people to like it as much as we hope they will.

[00:03:37] Well I can vouch it is excellent and it is fascinating and everybody should go and pre-order

[00:03:41] a copy right now.

[00:03:43] That is my completely unbiased opinion, I assure you.

[00:03:47] Tell me this, you have such an interesting personal connection to the subject of this

[00:03:57] book.

[00:03:58] When we ask our authors, our guests how something came to be, they'll say something like, oh

[00:04:05] I just stumbled across this case in the local newspaper and no one had ever done anything

[00:04:10] on it before.

[00:04:11] Oh, I used to hear people talking about it down at the old watering hole or that sort

[00:04:16] of thing.

[00:04:17] But this was not stumbling upon, this was not overheard gossip.

[00:04:21] This was about as personal connection as you can possibly get.

[00:04:27] Tell us about Sopris and being from there.

[00:04:31] Well, yes.

[00:04:32] And Sopris is definitely unique and thanks to Loretta Archuleta and Father Jim Canexfeld

[00:04:39] for starting the first reunion in 1970 and then Loretta and Mary Jane and Cheety continued

[00:04:44] to plan them.

[00:04:46] So while I was states away my parents were always there and always anxious to re-gather

[00:04:52] with people.

[00:04:53] And so when I did come back home to be with my parents for health reasons, I had time in

[00:05:01] the house and so I spent my evenings exploring for things because it was obvious we were

[00:05:07] going to be losing them.

[00:05:10] So obviously we're going to have to put the house on the market.

[00:05:13] And there were also the where are those pictures of me when I was?

[00:05:16] So I was digging through albums and boxes and went, oh my goodness, look at this treasure

[00:05:23] trove.

[00:05:25] And my father was like, none of those pictures leave this house.

[00:05:27] It's like, dad we can scan them.

[00:05:30] It doesn't damage them.

[00:05:31] They're fine.

[00:05:32] But this is everyone's history.

[00:05:34] We need to give it back to them.

[00:05:36] Well, again, he was very protective of them as he rightly should have been.

[00:05:41] But then in time I was able to scan them and then before the last SOPRS reunion, I volunteered

[00:05:49] to put up a Facebook page so that I could share them back to people because they were class

[00:05:54] sponsors both mom and dad taught at the high school.

[00:05:57] And so I had these beautiful pictures of every senior class from 52 to 60 and even

[00:06:06] if they weren't there.

[00:06:07] So it was like, no, no, these people's kids need to know what their parents look like.

[00:06:12] So I just was very anxious to get this back to people and I didn't know these people.

[00:06:18] So thank goodness.

[00:06:22] The camp kids were always the camp kids from the SOPRS camp from Segundo and Primero and

[00:06:28] Aguilar.

[00:06:30] And so we grew up with this bond between people my dad had grown up with when we

[00:06:35] had to leave SOPRS.

[00:06:36] He took a job at Pueblo South High School, Joe Bassetti's teaching manual arts and

[00:06:41] doshans there and all of these people that they grew up with.

[00:06:46] So we continued to have a second generation that knew each other.

[00:06:49] So I had these pictures and Phyllis Bassetti was from Segundo.

[00:06:56] And so she, Primero, Segundo, Phyllis Bassetti was from one of the camps just to

[00:07:02] the north a little bit into the west.

[00:07:05] And so, and Liz Antista grew up in SOPRS Plaza.

[00:07:08] So they were friends that my parents knew.

[00:07:10] So they came over to the house.

[00:07:12] It's like, who are these and Phyllis is like, oh, Mr. Benedetti is like, do you know anyone

[00:07:18] else in the photo without their help?

[00:07:20] I would never have been able to identify these people.

[00:07:23] I'm so grateful to them because without them I wouldn't have had a story to tell

[00:07:27] it would just be pictures in a box.

[00:07:30] And absolutely.

[00:07:31] And it's funny for us here because as we have undertaken this series on lost cities, I'm

[00:07:40] going to say it's going to be really awkward what I'm about to say.

[00:07:43] But I mean this with like just all joy and affection.

[00:07:47] We've looked at lost cities in Alabama, old mining towns that have been gone for generations.

[00:07:56] We've looked at Indianola, Texas, which was wiped out by hurricane 150 years ago to actually

[00:08:02] have a guest to get to speak to you who is from a lost city.

[00:08:07] I mean it feels like I'm speaking almost to like an ancient Carthaginian.

[00:08:11] You know what I mean?

[00:08:12] It's sort of like, wait, it's not on the map anymore and yet, here she is ladies

[00:08:17] and gentlemen.

[00:08:18] So this is extremely exciting for me to get to speak to someone who has a foot both

[00:08:23] in past and present the way that you do.

[00:08:27] It's really fascinating.

[00:08:30] So part of the story that you were telling here involves a co-author, which is Robert

[00:08:38] V. Hill, and he is also from the region originally.

[00:08:42] How did the two of you meet and begin to collaborate on this particular book?

[00:08:47] We really need to give a lot of credit to Facebook because there are so many groups

[00:08:53] that focus on this aspect or that aspect.

[00:08:56] And so there is a Facebook page called Trinidad Historical Photos and Memorabilia.

[00:09:02] And Sharon Fernandez started it, I believe, and then Robert took it over as the

[00:09:07] administrator.

[00:09:08] And so they post pretty much daily facts.

[00:09:11] And so I was seeing things there that I could contribute more information to,

[00:09:16] but he had such a breadth of knowledge and he works for Trinidad abstract

[00:09:20] and title. So his drawers are full of these wonderful archival documents.

[00:09:26] And so it's like, and he is in Trinidad, so he's boots on the ground.

[00:09:30] And when I, you know, I'm thousands of miles away.

[00:09:33] So there are times when it's like, hey, can you check on this for me?

[00:09:36] Hey, can you go over and look at this?

[00:09:39] And so can you?

[00:09:40] And so there is a photo person across the street who's willing to scan

[00:09:46] things for us so he can upload those files to me.

[00:09:49] And then I can use those maps that he has a hand drawn map of St.

[00:09:53] Thomas in red ink.

[00:09:55] And so it was a good partnership.

[00:09:59] He was there, I was here.

[00:10:00] We both loved history.

[00:10:01] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:02] And you even include the plats, the old plats in the back of the book.

[00:10:06] Those are marvelous to look at.

[00:10:08] I mean, you're just looking at the past right then and there.

[00:10:11] Took a bit of research to get ahold of those, but

[00:10:14] I was thrilled to be able to find them.

[00:10:17] Yeah. No, that is, that is remarkable.

[00:10:20] So this is your first book, which is very exciting.

[00:10:25] What kind of research did you have to do in order to kind of

[00:10:30] get the raw material for the story?

[00:10:32] Where did you find your threads that you would then weave together?

[00:10:36] So there was so much that I knew, obviously, and had photos to support.

[00:10:41] But the ancient history, I mean, someone had uncovered

[00:10:44] that Elbridge Bright-Sopras was the person who was the founder

[00:10:47] and someone had uncovered that.

[00:10:50] And so we all grew up knowing that we were CFNI company town.

[00:10:54] But then it was really exciting to discover that we were Denver

[00:10:58] Fuel Company, company towns and sold to CFNI as they merged

[00:11:04] with Colorado, Coal and Iron and Colorado Fuel Company

[00:11:08] to become Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

[00:11:11] And so the plaits.

[00:11:12] And I love a good mystery.

[00:11:14] When I looked at the plait for Sopras, it was signed by race

[00:11:18] president, Dada James.

[00:11:21] And James, I knew to be the name of a street in Sopras.

[00:11:26] We never knew there were street names.

[00:11:28] We there was not a stop sign in the town.

[00:11:32] But I was going through my parents' documents as I was.

[00:11:36] And there was an insurance policy from the school district,

[00:11:39] but it was addressed on Dexter Street.

[00:11:41] And I thought, that's really unusual.

[00:11:44] How can there be a Dexter Street?

[00:11:45] What were they mailing it to?

[00:11:47] Because we always had post office boxes, five or six in a row

[00:11:50] that sat next to the cottage adjacent to the playground

[00:11:53] and our grandparents.

[00:11:55] And we all shared box three, six, zero.

[00:11:57] And so then I found a map from Colorado Fuel and Iron

[00:12:01] that actually showed the street names on it.

[00:12:05] Look at you. It was news to everyone.

[00:12:07] I know it's fabulous.

[00:12:09] It's like my number four, 1909 or something, I think.

[00:12:13] And it's like, oh, my gosh, look at this.

[00:12:16] And there's Eddie.

[00:12:17] And I said to my husband, you know, I bet

[00:12:19] every one of those streets is named after someone in that company.

[00:12:23] And so the more I researched and I love Colorado

[00:12:27] historical newspapers, and so you can put in one thing

[00:12:31] and it leads you in nice bin hours.

[00:12:34] And I look at the clock and it's 11 and I look at the clock

[00:12:36] and it's 3 AM.

[00:12:37] But I mean, it's fabulous to be able to go back

[00:12:41] and read the original newspaper articles.

[00:12:43] And so sure enough, it was Walcott.

[00:12:48] It was Wood. It was Sullivan.

[00:12:51] It was James. It was, you know, Dexter.

[00:12:54] All of these people were leading stockholders

[00:12:57] and board of director members for Denver Fuel Company

[00:13:00] when that town was founded.

[00:13:03] And so every street is named after them.

[00:13:05] So I have since put that on Facebook and everyone's like,

[00:13:12] where do I get a copy of this map?

[00:13:13] It's like order it from CF and I go to Call Steelworks Museum

[00:13:17] and order it from them, support them.

[00:13:19] For the non historians out there in the crowd,

[00:13:24] I don't think I'm exaggerating to say this is like a Rosetta Stone.

[00:13:28] I mean, like that that particular document unlocks

[00:13:33] so many other documents, right?

[00:13:35] And so many other resources that you have to work with.

[00:13:38] And it explains them and puts them in a context

[00:13:42] to find a map of street names like that,

[00:13:44] which had never been known to exist before.

[00:13:47] That really is a major discovery, Genevieve.

[00:13:49] You must have been ecstatic when you found it.

[00:13:53] Oh, I was. In fact, Victoria Miller,

[00:13:55] who's also an author for History Press,

[00:13:59] is the curator at Steelworks Museum

[00:14:02] and so a couple of years ago,

[00:14:04] we were filming interviews for the documentary

[00:14:07] that accompanies the book,

[00:14:09] but she was kind enough to arrange for us to come for an afternoon

[00:14:13] and worked with their archival people.

[00:14:16] And we went downstairs and looked at these huge maps on the table.

[00:14:19] And it was amazing to see what

[00:14:22] and one of my other favorite maps has all of the mine tunnels.

[00:14:27] But then in yellow,

[00:14:29] you see the houses that were in the Sofra's community,

[00:14:33] not up the canyon, which are the company homes nearest the mine.

[00:14:37] And they were in yellow and the school is like an I-beam.

[00:14:41] It has the center.

[00:14:43] It has a slightly extended front two wings

[00:14:45] and more thoroughly extended back two wings.

[00:14:49] But you can identify that school so easily

[00:14:51] because of the shape and the size.

[00:14:54] And so my grandparents were right behind the school

[00:14:57] and Kamoras were right next door

[00:15:00] and Terri's were to the right of them as you face the school.

[00:15:03] So it's like, you know, this map is amazing.

[00:15:06] And I believe it's also in the book

[00:15:08] because we can see where we fit into the big picture

[00:15:12] of where those tunnels were that our grandparents

[00:15:14] and our dads were going to every day.

[00:15:17] That's amazing.

[00:15:18] Well, speaking of that big picture, let's do this.

[00:15:20] Let's zoom out just a little bit.

[00:15:22] And if you would be so kind as just to locate

[00:15:26] on sort of a map of Colorado,

[00:15:29] sort of where roughly in the state are we

[00:15:32] when we're looking at lost sopress?

[00:15:35] And why was it so significant as a mining town

[00:15:41] at the turn of the last century,

[00:15:43] sort of between the 1800s and the 1900s?

[00:15:46] So if you're looking at a map,

[00:15:48] we're very close to the New Mexico border.

[00:15:50] You drive down into Raton, 17 miles maybe.

[00:15:54] You come into Trinidad and then you take Highway 12

[00:15:58] to the west called Highway of Legends

[00:16:02] because so many wonderful historic things happen there.

[00:16:06] And you pass through Janssen

[00:16:10] and then you pass through what was sopress.

[00:16:12] But if you look to the south side, there is a reservoir

[00:16:16] and the slack dumps were there, the black and orange.

[00:16:20] They have reclaimed them.

[00:16:22] They're still somewhat obvious to those of us who know what they are.

[00:16:26] LHS, some towns as you drive around the highway,

[00:16:30] you see a large R on a hillside

[00:16:31] that tells you're in Rawlings, Wyoming.

[00:16:34] R's had LHS that was very visible from the highway

[00:16:38] for Lincoln High School and the classes went up

[00:16:41] and painted it every year.

[00:16:42] And growing up, it was very visible.

[00:16:46] Now it's become very overgrown with some cedars.

[00:16:50] So it's not as visible to us,

[00:16:53] but we would love for it to always be a beacon.

[00:16:57] So if you continue up, then you go through Valdez

[00:17:01] and into Primero and Segundo.

[00:17:03] And you can actually take that clear up

[00:17:05] and hook up with the highway from Elimosa

[00:17:07] that connects to I-25 again.

[00:17:10] So but just about five miles

[00:17:14] to the southwest of Trinidad.

[00:17:16] So 150 years ago then when there was no I-25,

[00:17:20] how did how did Sopris become such a prominent town

[00:17:26] in the Colorado Gold Rush?

[00:17:29] Definitely.

[00:17:30] There were six things that actually brought people through that area.

[00:17:33] And one of them was the Santa Fe Trail ran through Trinidad

[00:17:37] and the Maxwell Land Grant is claimed to have some of that land there.

[00:17:43] It's gone into legal questions about just where the perimeters were for that.

[00:17:49] And then the rush to the Rockies was in 1859

[00:17:53] and people were going more toward Cherry Creek, more toward Denver,

[00:17:57] but they were still passing through civil war.

[00:18:01] A lot of ambitious young men and they were the Battle of Glorietta Pass

[00:18:06] in New Mexico was a significant battle

[00:18:08] that turned back the Texans essentially.

[00:18:10] So a lot of young men were in that area and saw what was there.

[00:18:16] And then the Homestead Act opened up all the land.

[00:18:19] There was a river that ran through.

[00:18:20] It was rich agricultural land.

[00:18:22] People who had been on the Santa Fe Trail

[00:18:24] were very anxious to apply for land grants there.

[00:18:28] And then, of course, the trains in 1859

[00:18:32] in 1860s, the Transcontinental Railroad.

[00:18:38] So they came into Trinidad in 1879

[00:18:41] and it became a very much a hub for railroad travel.

[00:18:44] So people who knew the area knew the wealth of the area.

[00:18:49] And then General William Jackson Palmer

[00:18:52] founded a steel mill in Pueblo

[00:18:56] and he needed coal to fire the blast furnaces.

[00:19:00] And so other people who were familiar like Albridge Bright-Sopras

[00:19:04] applied for, you know, bought coal lands

[00:19:06] and started putting together the pieces to get that coal to Pueblo.

[00:19:12] The coal just sticks out.

[00:19:13] You don't have to go looking for it.

[00:19:14] The seams are visible.

[00:19:17] I mean, it's not like you're digging to find it.

[00:19:20] It's readily available there.

[00:19:23] And it's a very, very rich vein of coal.

[00:19:27] And so people were able to put in land claims

[00:19:33] that moved north along that coal seam for a very long time.

[00:19:37] And with the demand for coal became the demand for labor.

[00:19:42] And then we get the immigration from Europe.

[00:19:44] We get the immigration from Mexico,

[00:19:47] even though many stuff did New Mexico first and then came in.

[00:19:50] And that was what brought it to the attention.

[00:19:53] One of my favorite stories, Albridge-Sopras.

[00:19:57] Let's talk about him a little bit.

[00:19:59] He came to Colorado in 1859 at 17 with his father, Richard Sobras.

[00:20:06] And then the following year, the rest of the family joined them.

[00:20:09] But Richard was helping to settle

[00:20:15] Araria in the Denver area.

[00:20:17] And then Denver also is being settled at the same time.

[00:20:21] But he was a good person to work with people.

[00:20:23] And after they had he got into the gold mining

[00:20:27] and after they had settled some of these things, they went exploring.

[00:20:31] They figured it found where became Glenwood Springs

[00:20:34] and a mountain that seemed to be unnamed.

[00:20:36] So they chose to name it Mount Sobras over by Bon Carbo by Glenwood Springs.

[00:20:41] And so Albridge is watching his dad make all these connections

[00:20:45] and making all this happen.

[00:20:46] So he made amazing connections when he was

[00:20:50] a soldier in the Civil War in the cavalry.

[00:20:53] In fact, at like age twenty two,

[00:20:56] he was the person who was sent to represent

[00:21:00] when Lincoln signed a treaty with the Utah Indians and so on.

[00:21:05] So at twenty three to have your name on that document is pretty significant.

[00:21:11] And then he was appointed by this acting governor of the territory

[00:21:15] and that acting governor into various positions.

[00:21:19] And then in eighteen seventy three,

[00:21:21] he was made lieutenant surveyor for New Mexico and Colorado.

[00:21:28] So he sees all this land and knows it all well.

[00:21:31] And he submitted all of his reports, kind of left out the fact

[00:21:35] that there was so much coal there, such an abundance of it.

[00:21:38] What a sneaky little devil. How about that?

[00:21:41] Yeah, that was kind of my thought.

[00:21:42] And so when Palmer comes in and needs coal,

[00:21:46] he and William Littlefield put in

[00:21:50] a hundred or three three hundred and twenty acres of coal land.

[00:21:55] And that becomes like the first opus mine.

[00:21:57] But within six months, he sells it off,

[00:22:01] not totally legally to Charles Chase and moves on to other things.

[00:22:06] But Muldron was the Secretary of Interior.

[00:22:11] And he said that is fraud.

[00:22:14] He didn't tell us there was coal there.

[00:22:16] We need to get this land back.

[00:22:18] And not only was it that one, there were like twenty one other applications

[00:22:23] and the people could never be found.

[00:22:26] There's an entire lawsuit that I dug up on in my research,

[00:22:30] because that's what I do is research. No.

[00:22:33] And so there are all these twenty one people.

[00:22:34] There is one other person who actually did exist.

[00:22:36] He's like, no, those people never lived here.

[00:22:39] I don't know any of those things.

[00:22:40] So they were fictitious people putting together this large amount of coal land.

[00:22:47] And Porterfield script, are you familiar with Porterfield?

[00:22:50] I am not.

[00:22:53] Apparently it was the VA loan.

[00:22:57] It was a benefit of being in the Civil War.

[00:22:59] You had Porterfield script that you could buy land that was public land.

[00:23:04] But for example, you could be closer to a rail head by buying land

[00:23:08] in a closer proximity than anyone else was allowed to if you used your Porterfield script to do it.

[00:23:13] So he used his Porterfield script to retain the land,

[00:23:17] used it in several other situations as well.

[00:23:21] His partner William Littlefield was another fund discovery.

[00:23:26] They put in that application.

[00:23:28] I think it was granted in 1881.

[00:23:31] But.

[00:23:32] He had been the paymaster for the M.K.T.,

[00:23:35] the Cadyline Railroad in Missouri and Sedalia.

[00:23:39] And then one weekend he was just a strut and haggard and everyone had seen him around town.

[00:23:45] And and he'd been complaining of a headache and pain.

[00:23:48] And his doctorate said you probably should move to Colorado or somewhere

[00:23:53] where it's a drier climate.

[00:23:54] I think that would be beneficial to you.

[00:23:56] But then he just disappeared.

[00:23:59] His wife and children had no idea where he was.

[00:24:03] No one else in town did.

[00:24:05] And he ended up in Trinidad and in Missouri, he was William Morrill.

[00:24:11] In Trinidad, he was William Littlefield, his mom's maiden name.

[00:24:15] And because it was such a train hub, people would come through, get off the train.

[00:24:20] And you know, there was a Harvey House restaurant there and via around town.

[00:24:25] And they'd see him and say.

[00:24:27] Well, he's alive.

[00:24:28] He's well. He's, you know, and so they knew where he was.

[00:24:32] He was never forced to go back to Missouri and account for abandoning his wife and children.

[00:24:37] But between the two of them, they went together on this coal land.

[00:24:42] And I consider it a little bit of two birds of a feather.

[00:25:08] Well, there was money to be made.

[00:25:09] There was absolutely money to be made there.

[00:25:12] And I can tell you this, the reason, very likely the reason that

[00:25:15] that I never learned about Porta Field script growing up in the American South.

[00:25:21] Is because we didn't hear a lot about what you got for participating in the Civil War

[00:25:25] on the Union side.

[00:25:26] You know, we we tended to hear about, you know, being lucky enough

[00:25:30] to make it back to your farm with a horse.

[00:25:32] You know, that was about that was about the extent of it.

[00:25:36] Have a farm left that hadn't been or from which, you know,

[00:25:39] everything had not been seized by the desperate Confederate government,

[00:25:43] you know, trying to requisition whatever it could just to feed itself.

[00:25:47] So a lot of a lot of heartache and destruction there, for sure.

[00:25:51] Let me ask you this, not too long ago here on Crime Capsule,

[00:25:54] we had the real pleasure of speaking to Jane Bartol,

[00:25:59] who has written a book with the History Press about Colorado's

[00:26:02] Mrs. Captain Ellen Jack, who is one of the first female prospectors

[00:26:07] in Colorado, a little bit further north of where you're writing about.

[00:26:11] But, you know, she had a lot to say about what it meant to go off

[00:26:14] and, you know, strike strike claims in that era because there's a good bit

[00:26:20] of temporal overlap between her subject and yours.

[00:26:25] I was struck as I was reading your book,

[00:26:28] Genevieve, about the contrast between these independent minds,

[00:26:33] sometimes called wagon minds and the big sort of corporate outfits.

[00:26:40] Can you just help to unpack a little bit what it was like for

[00:26:44] for these coal seams in particular, what it was like for just your average Joe

[00:26:49] to sort of go out and say, I'll take this parcel or I'd like that stretch.

[00:26:53] How did how did that work in the in the heyday of sopress?

[00:26:58] And that is kind of how it worked.

[00:27:01] There was so much there was such an abundance of coal

[00:27:04] that they would file for this 160 acres or that.

[00:27:09] And so we had like the Billy Morgan mine, we had the LaBelle mines.

[00:27:13] There were a couple of those.

[00:27:15] My grandmother's oldest sister and her husband

[00:27:20] had land up at Riley Canyon for the Martirano mine.

[00:27:24] And so they have, you know, their sons involved with that.

[00:27:29] And in fact, Uncle Charlie

[00:27:32] was actually killed in that mine.

[00:27:34] I remember a ceiling fall one day when he wasn't even supposed to be at work.

[00:27:39] And and so but you would harvest the coal

[00:27:43] and they supplied the Trinidad Electric Company.

[00:27:47] In fact, the story is and I truly believe it.

[00:27:51] Joe, the the older one was in the army

[00:27:54] and Salvatore was the next one and he was to be in the army.

[00:27:59] But the person from Trinidad Electric in power said, no, no, I need the coal.

[00:28:04] He can't go.

[00:28:05] He's providing a very necessary service here.

[00:28:08] So he was able to stay and work the mine

[00:28:10] and provide them with the fuel that they needed

[00:28:13] instead of going into the service at that time.

[00:28:15] For sure. So I mean, was it was just as simple as sort of trying

[00:28:19] purchasing the title or the deed to that acreage

[00:28:22] and then striking out with your pickaxe and potentially your dynamite?

[00:28:25] Simple as that.

[00:28:27] Because that was in the 1930s.

[00:28:28] So the Homestead Act was still in effect.

[00:28:30] So yes. But they they had come from

[00:28:33] they come from Sicily, from Alia.

[00:28:35] And so they had worked in the Coke ovens

[00:28:39] and they had worked in the soaps mines.

[00:28:42] So it wasn't that they didn't know how to mine.

[00:28:45] But even at that time, it surprised me

[00:28:47] as I learned from Robert Ritero, who is a UMWA regional director.

[00:28:52] If they grew up across the street from me, though,

[00:28:54] that the miners had to go buy their own dynamite

[00:28:57] and their own shovels and their own picks from the company store, of course.

[00:29:01] And so they had everything they needed.

[00:29:04] And it wasn't like the company was issuing anything to you

[00:29:07] to do your work each day.

[00:29:08] So why don't I just go mine for myself and, you know,

[00:29:11] just take what I get for the coal and raise my family with it?

[00:29:17] Was there any kind of systematized form

[00:29:21] once you've got the raw material out of the ground?

[00:29:26] What forms of transport were there to get it back to processing

[00:29:30] where people having to do this by mule, by wagon, by horse?

[00:29:34] But is there any little dummy lines,

[00:29:37] you know, railroad lines that could be used for little carts

[00:29:40] to go back and forth?

[00:29:43] Colorado and southern is one of the major ones.

[00:29:46] And I'm trying to think of the name of the second one.

[00:29:49] But what would happen was the ore carts

[00:29:51] would bring it out of the mine.

[00:29:52] It would all go into the tipple

[00:29:54] and it would go through a washery.

[00:29:56] And then the train cars would pull in under the triple

[00:29:59] and they'd load the car and they'd move on and load the next one.

[00:30:02] So in the book, there are some amazing pictures from Piedmont

[00:30:06] Mine that Boulder's Carnegie Library had because a lot of the mines

[00:30:12] that was Rocky Mountain Fuel Company

[00:30:15] that started out being some way and then eventually became John Roche

[00:30:20] and then came to his daughter, Josephine Roche,

[00:30:23] who unlike her father and all the other industrialists of the time

[00:30:28] were very anti-union and anti...

[00:30:31] She was a woman who had gone to Vassar

[00:30:33] and then she had worked with Jane Adams at Hall House.

[00:30:36] So her empathy was with the employees and the miners.

[00:30:40] So, you know, quite the turn about having that change of ownership,

[00:30:43] even though she came into power after the Soapers

[00:30:47] Rocky Mountain had closed.

[00:30:48] But that's why Boulder has so much of the archival material

[00:30:53] because Wells County and up north was a bulk

[00:30:56] of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company mines.

[00:30:59] In the south, we would call a lady like that a pistol.

[00:31:02] And I assure you it is the highest compliment that someone can receive.

[00:31:07] So tell me this, your book is so focused on when I think about

[00:31:15] the entire arc of the story of Lost Soapers.

[00:31:20] You know, it's a story about the ore, the raw material,

[00:31:23] the product and so forth, but really at its heart.

[00:31:28] This is a story about people and it's a story of the residents

[00:31:32] of the town and the communities within the town.

[00:31:35] And you have so many images and photographs of the folks

[00:31:40] who used to live there. And it just page after page,

[00:31:44] you know, you're sort of you really get to feel like

[00:31:46] you meet the people who were part of this historic community.

[00:31:52] Now, there's this interesting moment in your book fairly early on

[00:31:55] where you actually say that you and you and Robert together kind of say

[00:31:59] that this book was in some ways written by the people of Soapers.

[00:32:04] What do you mean by that?

[00:32:05] You know, it's their history.

[00:32:07] It's the stories that we heard at the dining room table.

[00:32:10] It's the gatherings that we were at.

[00:32:13] I went through the census and analyzed it.

[00:32:17] And at one point, like 40 percent of the residents were Italian.

[00:32:21] But we had Polish people and we had German people and we had Hispanic people.

[00:32:25] And so it wasn't only but but it's interesting because you would have a

[00:32:30] couple from this town, a couple from that town.

[00:32:32] My grandfather came from Fonzazo in northern Italy.

[00:32:35] If you go to the Chenson head on up and felt raised the nearest rail head,

[00:32:40] then there was I was there in college in 1978

[00:32:46] and the cousins, his nephews, who were being my guides

[00:32:49] and picking me up from my college group and then taking me back to my college group,

[00:32:54] made sure they took me to the cemetery so that I could pay respects.

[00:32:58] I kept seeing names.

[00:32:59] There's a Cimbruzzi name.

[00:33:01] There's a Siva name.

[00:33:02] There's a Lyra name.

[00:33:03] There's all these names I'd grown up with.

[00:33:05] And I had no idea they had all come from that one community.

[00:33:09] And then as I looked at the maps and I was there a few years ago

[00:33:13] and we were walking to Patevena, which is this lovely little town.

[00:33:17] And there's a Zancanero street sign.

[00:33:20] And it's like our Zancaneros from here also.

[00:33:23] And so yeah, it was it was amazing.

[00:33:27] Halfway around the world.

[00:33:28] Well, that's it.

[00:33:29] And then I discovered that Zancaneros are just at Arcee

[00:33:33] and it's just up and so was Fentaine.

[00:33:35] And so all these young men, that was that was a difference.

[00:33:38] All of these young men came from these towns that were probably,

[00:33:43] you know, 20 miles from each other and probably didn't know each other at all.

[00:33:47] They all ended up in Sofris and then realized how they had, you know,

[00:33:51] grown up in the same part of Italy and had been so close to each other.

[00:33:55] And they built those friendships after they got to America.

[00:34:00] And they often married their wives were the daughters of the older coal

[00:34:04] miners that were born in America.

[00:34:07] But a few wives came.

[00:34:08] So I'll go back to the wives in just a minute.

[00:34:11] But but then when they all had children,

[00:34:15] these were kids who grew up together from birth.

[00:34:18] In fact, I have reason to believe

[00:34:23] in the based on the census in 1920 and then in 1930.

[00:34:28] My grandparents were living on a block

[00:34:32] that looks like most of it was people from from Fonzazo

[00:34:36] and the two Seben brothers were there and and they were next to in

[00:34:40] Chitties and as I said, my father and Sam and Chitti were classmates.

[00:34:45] I think they were sandboxed as well,

[00:34:47] living probably next door to each other or very close to each other,

[00:34:50] two doors down and they grew up for life and they stayed in touch for life.

[00:34:56] And they, you know, my dad, I have so many

[00:34:59] little tracks from funerals because if a friend died, he was there to

[00:35:03] to say goodbye to them.

[00:35:05] And that went on the women.

[00:35:07] There were basically three types of women.

[00:35:10] There were the three categories of women, the ones who families came

[00:35:16] and they were born in Colorado.

[00:35:17] So they grew up among friends, daughters of immigrants.

[00:35:21] But there were those who were married in Italy, so the husband would come over

[00:35:25] and then he'd send for the wife and maybe a child that was already born

[00:35:29] a year or so later.

[00:35:31] And then there were because of the Homestead Act, the women

[00:35:34] who basically were from other states that suddenly found themselves in Colorado

[00:35:39] instead of Missouri, for example.

[00:35:41] There's a great newspaper letter because this young woman in 1901,

[00:35:46] her dad had asked her, will tell us about your new home.

[00:35:49] So she writes in this very lengthy letter about how different this

[00:35:53] arid land is from the well groomed farms of Missouri.

[00:35:57] Oh my.

[00:35:59] Yes, I haven't seen any cows and truly in Sopress,

[00:36:02] we had our resident dairy cows, but a little bit east in Honey.

[00:36:08] You know, my Murphy grandparents raised cattle and stuff, but she hadn't gone that far

[00:36:12] because you didn't put in road horses went by buggy in 1901.

[00:36:17] So so she was feeling a little bit like she missed home.

[00:36:21] And the women who came with children

[00:36:26] often had more children, but some of them were fortunate enough

[00:36:28] to be able to go back to Italy to be with their family for a while.

[00:36:32] And some were not.

[00:36:33] So they would try to go back.

[00:36:37] And in fact, my grandfather's cousin's wife

[00:36:40] continued to leave the home and and they actually declared her to need

[00:36:46] assistance and put her into an institution.

[00:36:49] And this is a story that other women tell

[00:36:52] because they were so lonely, you're at home with seven children under the age of 10.

[00:36:56] And you're not the men go to work every day.

[00:36:58] They have that socialization.

[00:36:59] They have that contact.

[00:37:01] But the women were somewhat isolated until they, you know,

[00:37:05] became bonded through church and through school and activities.

[00:37:09] No, it's important to bring that element of the story to light,

[00:37:13] because often those exact dimensions are the ones that go unrecorded

[00:37:16] through time and to have a window onto that experience is very important.

[00:37:22] Now let me just ask you this.

[00:37:24] I mean, you left when you were six.

[00:37:27] What are some of your memories growing up in this town that is now wiped off?

[00:37:34] Yes. Well, no, my my leash was pretty short.

[00:37:39] Sure. I will tell you.

[00:37:41] So, you know, my friends were the material kids across the street.

[00:37:46] And Jeannie Seben, when she was there before they moved to Colorado Springs

[00:37:50] and Beverly, who was the teenage cousin who lived up behind us.

[00:37:54] And and then, of course, everyone in that block and then next to my grandparents

[00:37:59] was the Terry family with their children.

[00:38:01] And so that was kind of, you know, my grandparents,

[00:38:04] you go out the back gate down the alley to the end of one to the end of the other one.

[00:38:08] And and that was about as far as you could go.

[00:38:11] I wasn't every walking down into St.

[00:38:14] Thomas or over to Dairyville to see friends or anything or into the mines.

[00:38:18] Yeah. Well, you know, that was the thing that

[00:38:21] Sopers Canyon was gone. The mines were closed.

[00:38:26] Dad, we'd walk up the canyon.

[00:38:27] Sometimes the beautiful YMCA Clubhouse that's on the cover of the book

[00:38:33] was a foundation as I knew it as a child.

[00:38:36] But dad would, you know, there were times when we'd all, you know,

[00:38:40] walk behind and he take his four 10 and we'd go out and

[00:38:43] turtle doves after dinner on a summer night or whatever night

[00:38:48] it's in season.

[00:38:49] And and so that's about as far as I got up the canyon to the old

[00:38:53] mines kind of thing.

[00:38:55] But but no, the school was the heart of the town.

[00:38:59] And so we had catechism in school classrooms.

[00:39:03] It wasn't at the church.

[00:39:06] And then we had baby showers at the school.

[00:39:09] We had wedding receptions at the school.

[00:39:13] The school was just as, you know, school carnivals were the best.

[00:39:18] As you'll notice in the book, originally the Colorado Supply

[00:39:21] Company Store, which was the first when they opened just a few

[00:39:25] months after they incorporated in September of 1888,

[00:39:30] was across from what became the school.

[00:39:34] There were three schools.

[00:39:35] The first was a little Adobe one.

[00:39:37] The second one was a two story brick building that was on

[00:39:40] the corner of Walcott and Dexter.

[00:39:43] And then the third one was the I-beam shaped one on Dexter

[00:39:46] Street.

[00:39:47] So when they eventually took down the Colorado Supply

[00:39:50] Company Store in the mid 1950s, they put up a gym and it was

[00:39:58] built into the hillside.

[00:39:59] So the basketball court was down below.

[00:40:01] The stage was to your left.

[00:40:03] The concessions were in the wings of the in the wings of the

[00:40:07] stage.

[00:40:07] And so people gather there.

[00:40:09] I remember when polio vaccine first came out, there were

[00:40:13] the three and we were all sitting in lines of chairs waiting

[00:40:18] our turn in the gym on a Sunday afternoon.

[00:40:21] And there was always a class play to go to.

[00:40:24] The basketball teams were always a center of attention

[00:40:28] and we loved watching them.

[00:40:29] Fortunately, the women in the 1920s had basketball teams

[00:40:36] and they were amazing athletes and women that were so

[00:40:39] beautiful and sophisticated.

[00:40:40] We can't quite imagine being basketball players, but they

[00:40:44] were all out there winning championships and playing for

[00:40:46] championships.

[00:40:47] By the time the 1940s, the girls didn't play basketball

[00:40:51] anymore and they didn't have those teams.

[00:40:53] But the school between the gym and the school carnival,

[00:40:56] the best things we can do anymore throwing darts at

[00:41:00] balloons on walls.

[00:41:02] The fish tank was always my favorite because they could

[00:41:04] peek out and see who it was and no just which bag to

[00:41:06] attach to your fishing pole as you pulled it out.

[00:41:09] And so, you know, the school was a heart.

[00:41:12] Church was important, but it was where you went to worship

[00:41:16] and there was no fellowship hall as we all have today.

[00:41:19] So the school kind of met that need of the fellowship hall.

[00:41:32] Thanks for listening.

[00:41:33] Our guest has been Genevieve Farrow-Jahonson, co-author of

[00:41:37] Lost Sopress published by the History Press.

[00:41:40] To order a copy of the book, visit your local independent

[00:41:43] bookstore or visit ArcadiaPublishing.com.

[00:41:47] Join us next week as we continue our conversation with

[00:41:50] Genevieve. We'll see you then.

[00:41:52] Thanks as always to our producer, Bill Huffman,

[00:41:55] our production director, Bridget Coyne, audio engineer,

[00:41:58] Ian Douglas and our executive producers, Michael DeLoya

[00:42:02] and Gerardo Orlando.

[00:42:04] I'm your host, Benjamin Morris.

[00:42:06] Crime Capsule is a production of Evergreen Podcasts

[00:42:10] and a signature title of the Killer Podcasts Network.

[00:42:14] You can find Crime Capsule wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:42:18] Discover more great true crime and paranormal programming

[00:42:22] at KillerPodcasts.com.

[00:42:33] Hello, this is Dr. Grande, the host of True Crime, Psychology

[00:42:37] and Personality. On my podcast, I explore and explain

[00:42:40] the pathology behind some of the most horrendous crimes

[00:42:43] and those who commit them.

[00:42:45] We discuss topics like narcissism, psychopathy,

[00:42:48] sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder

[00:42:52] from a scientifically informed perspective.

[00:42:55] What is a narcissist?

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[00:43:03] It's not just about the stories, but also the science

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