Shoot ’em Up in Colorado Mining Towns

Contact Creede! Book CoverDestination: 19th century Creede and Cripple Creek, Colorado

Book:CONTACT CREEDE! A Novel of Old Colorado
(NEW 2011) by Barbara Marriott

Contact Creede! is a fun romp with an endearing heroine that travels to two Western mining towns in the early 1800’s . Both towns, Creede and Cripple Creek shriveled after the silver and gold mining booms, but survive as tourist attractions in a beautiful location in Colorado.

In this old west adventure melodrama, “Leo”–short for Leonarda Worthington) leaves staid society of Boston when her grandmother dies and she needs to find the father who deserted her in her childhood. Her quest puts her in peril from the moment she steps off the train, and as a young woman from a protected background, it takes her some time to figure out who she can trust and who she can’t.

Along the way Leo becomes a reporter, asserts her feminist leanings,  learns  from Jack Dempsey how to throw a punch and befriends the town newsboy, Lowell Thomas, and con man Soapy Smith. The real characters that show up in Contact Creede! add veracity, and Barbara Marriotts descriptions of the old mining towns take us right back to that rough and rowdy time.

Barbara Marriott
Barbara Marriott

Marriott, who has written several history non-fiction books, does a good job for a first novel, but a few kinks might annoy the reader.  After starting Leo’s story with a bang in Creede, and piling on the danger and difficulty, the book suddenly swerves at the beginning of part two and talks about historic incidents like a boxing match which Cripple Creek residents “watch” by reading posted printouts of commentary. For a few chapters, Leo’s quest nearly disappears from view. I felt like someone had pulled back on the reins of an exciting runaway stagecoach ride. Maybe the research calls for a whole new book about the boxing game in the old west.

Despite all the excitement that pulled me through part one, I was disappointed when the conclusion happened  suddenly and without any action required on the part of the hero and heroine. Rather than the detective work of Leo and her Pinkerton boyfriend revealing the bad guy, the bad guy reveals himself in one desperate and not entirely believable act.

Ever the historian, Marriott not only weaves in real events and people, but also by includes historic photographs of the two towns and some of the characters.

Cripple Creek and Victor N.G.R.R.For planning a trip to Colorado, here’s a guide to Cripple Creek, probably one of the better known mining towns in Colorado. Not only because it stands  near Pike’s Peak, and many ride the Cripple Creek railroad each summer, but the whole town of Cripple Creek has been designated a Historic Site.

 

 

The Power Of WaterIsolated Creede, the only town in its county, offers historic interest but even more spectacular scenery and adventures like hiking, fly fishing and river rafting.

I must say that reading this book inspired me to start travel planning for an adventure in Colorado where I can explore more of those back roads and old mining towns. And I’m kind of hoping that Leo will show up in more historic novels.

Disclaimer: I know Barbara Marriott personally, and she supplied this book for review. She also gave me a book cover photo and her own author photo, but the other images came from Flickr with Creative Commons License. Click on the photos to learn more. The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

What’s your favorite old West destination? (Sorry, Tombstone doesn’t count. Just too obvious.)

 

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About Vera Marie Badertscher

A freelance writer who loves to travel. When she is not traveling she is reading about travel. When she is not reading or traveling, she is sharing with the readers of A Traveler's Library, or recreating her family's past at Ancestors In Aprons . She has written for Reel Life With Jane, Life is a Trip and other websites. Also co-author of a biography, Quincy Tahoma, The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Contact Vera Marie by e-mail.

8 thoughts on “Shoot ’em Up in Colorado Mining Towns

  1. I love all the old west towns up in the Gold Country here in California. The history of the 49ers is fascinating to me, and the crazy lives they led camped out in these isolated hills. I’m not big on westerns but love reading historical memoirs of the Gold Rush.

  2. Hi Pen4hire,

    Actually, we moved down the hill from Truckee to Minden, NV, thus cutting three hours travel time on our treks to our favorite eastern Sierra Nevada places. We’ve made several trips down Hwy 395 to enjoy this photogenic route that connect many fun places to visit, from Reno to Mammoth and all the way to the western portals of Death Valley. One could spend a lifetime just traveling this corridor. Pardon me for some self-advertising, but check out my website for a blog about these places: http://www.ringaroundbasin.com

  3. Two of my favorite old west destinations are right in my neighborhood: Virginia City, NV and Bodie, CA. One town is still very much alive and kicking and one’s the official ghost town of California. Virginia City, while gleaning the pickings from a mother lode of tourists, is a refuge for libertarian minded folk who ‘live” the old west every day. The buildings have not received a lot of update and indeed still smell of the old wood and dirt of a booming mining town of the 1800s.

    Bodie sits in eerie, arrested decay out on a high desert plain east of the Sierra Nevada. Even though tourists and photographers are wandering about, one wonders, as one peeks into a window of an old miner’s shack, if the miner will be peeking back. A true ghost, and ghostly, town.

    1. I love the collection of Old West sites we’re collecting here. I hope they’ll be useful for people planning to visit the western United States. And Sue, I see you’re from Truckee. We stop there on our way to the coast or to Lake Tahoe.

  4. Cripple Creek features in two songs I know: a bluegrass one called Cripple Creek which has been recorded by all sorts of folk from Bill Monroe to Buffy Sainte Marie, and Up on Cripple Creek, a sort of folk rock update of the song by The Band (Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and others) in the 1960s. both of them kind of throw a way somngs really, more enjoyed for melody than words.

    Favorite old west destination: Taos. although I tend to think of it as a contemporary town it sure has the old west about it. Old Town Albuquerque also works. There’s a lot more of the west I’d like to explore.

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