The Editor S Run In New Mexico And Colorado

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

Architect Marci Riskin explores railroad depots from New Mexico's territorial days.

On a spring morning in 1914, in the stark foothills of southern Colorado, members of the United Mine Workers of America clashed with guards employed by the Rockefeller family, and a state militia beholden to Colorado’s industrial barons. When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns. Killing for Coal offers a bold and original perspective on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the “Great Coalfield War.” In a sweeping story of transformation that begins in the coal beds and culminates with the deadliest strike in American history, Thomas Andrews illuminates the causes and consequences of the militancy that erupted in colliers’ strikes over the course of nearly half a century. He reveals a complex world shaped by the connected forces of land, labor, corporate industrialization, and workers’ resistance. Brilliantly conceived and written, this book takes the organic world as its starting point. The resulting elucidation of the coalfield wars goes far beyond traditional labor history. Considering issues of social and environmental justice in the context of an economy dependent on fossil fuel, Andrews makes a powerful case for rethinking the relationships that unite and divide workers, consumers, capitalists, and the natural world.

From the 1880s to the 1980s more than eight thousand workers died in the coal mines of the Rocky Mountain states. Sometimes they died by the dozens in fiery explosions, but more often they died alone, crushed by collapsing roofs or runaway mine cars. Many old-timers in coal-mining communities and even some historians haveøblamed the high fatality rate on ruthless coal barons exploiting miners in the single-minded pursuit of profit. The coal industry preferred to blame careless miners. James Whiteside looks beyond those charges in seeking to explain why the western coal mines were (and, to some degree, still are) dangerous and why territorial, state, and federal laws failed for so long to make them safer. Regulating Danger is the first extended study of the coal-mining industry in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. It exceeds the scope of traditional labor history in focusing on working conditions and the problems of workers instead of unions and strikes. After examining the inherent physical dangers of the work, Whiteside shows how the interplay of economic, social, and technological forces created an envi-ronment of death in the western coal mines. He goes on to discuss evolving industrial and political attitudes toward issues of responsibility for mine safety and government regulation and the fundamental changes in the industry that brought about safer working conditions.

What can be learned from another retelling of the Tombstone saga? Recent revelations challenge the traditional view of Wyatt Earp's campaign against the Cow-boy confederation as a bloody personal feud a la western fiction. It was a seek and destroy mission sanctioned by the United States attorney general, the U.S. marshal and the Arizona Territory governor, following a year of corrupt law enforcement in league with the Cow-boys' livestock raids, stagecoach holdups and other atrocities. Presented in three sections, this book establishes the major players involved in the convergence on Tombstone, provides an account of Earp's activities during the 18 months prior to the final action and discusses the provenance and credibility of the "Otero Letter." Discovered in 2001, the letter--believed to be written by New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero--offers evidence that Earp's party was given government aid. The author examines the details of the letter, including the shotgun dual between Earp and Curly Bill, the split between Earp and Doc Holliday, sanctuary for the Earp posse in Colorado and Holliday's extradition fight, Earp's covert assault resulting in Johnny Ringo's death, and the controversial courtship and marriage of Earp and Josephine Marcus.