Two Worlds, and the End of One

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:10:08 GMT · 18:35

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## About this episode
The overlap years in the Yampa Valley, from the 1830s to 1881: trappers passing through, the Crawford family settling among an active Ute community, and the federal and state decisions that ended one world and opened the ground for another. Told from the written record, with its one-sidedness named plainly.

## In this episode
- Wislizenus in 1839 and the earliest written mention of the steamboat-sounding spring
- Gold at Hahns Peak while the rest of Colorado Territory boomed around a quiet valley
- The trapper story behind the town's name, predating its founder
- James and Margaret Crawford, daughter Lulie's account, and the yellow Harrison rose
- The Crawfords living alongside roughly a hundred Ute teepees — Yamonite, Colorow, and a complicated coexistence
- The 1868 treaty, the 1873 Brunot Agreement, and the pattern before Meeker
- Meeker's plow order, Milk Creek, the agency killings, and Ouray, Chipeta, and Shawsheen negotiating the captives' release
- Governor Pitkin, "The Utes must go," the 1880–1881 removals, and the 1887 Colorow War
- The town's own phrase "recently vacated," and the 2020 city proclamation naming the Nuche

## Hosts
- Marv Sundstrom