Colorado history books make ideal Christmas gifts

By Wayne Sundberg
Correspondent

It's not too early to begin searching for books for those aficionados of Colorado's colorful past on your Christmas shopping list! One can go online to either Amazon.com or abebooks.com and find endless lists of books about Colorado, or you can browse the shelves of new or used bookstores. Amazon lists 21,806 books about Colorado, with 2,596 books on Colorado history within that number.

So how does one decide which are worth having? These are some from my personal collection that I would recommend as good general Colorado sources.

One small book, that has been enduringly popular, readily available for almost 50 years, and very readable, is Caroline Bancroft's "Colorful Colorado," published by Johnson Publishing Co. in Boulder in 1959. It has gone through several editions, but with very few changes. It gives the reader a quick, easy overview of our state's history, and includes many photos.

There are a few general histories, which are still available online or from rare book dealers, that would serve as very good reference sources. Three of these are "The Story of Colorado" by Arthur Chapman, published by Rand McNally in 1924; "Colorado" by Arthur H. Carhart, Coward-McCann, publishers, 1932; and "Colorado: The Centennial State" by Percy S. Fritz, Prentice Hall, publishers, 1941. All are good, early basic histories of the state. LeRoy and Ann Hafen's "Colorado: A Story of the State and its People," published by The Old West Publishing Co., originally in 1949, and used as both a senior and junior high text for many years, is a fact-packed book that many of you may have studied from in Colorado schools.

There are also a couple of multi-volume sets that a good Colorado reference library would be incomplete without. Frank Hall's "History of the State of Colorado," was published by the Blakely Printing Co. in four volumes, starting in 1889. This is the early, premier history of the state's early days, and is almost like a primary source. Another, Jerome C. Smiley's "Semi-Centennial History of the State of Colorado," in two volumes, Lewis Publishing, 1913, was published two years after the 50th birthday of Colorado's territorial birth date, 1861. A third, "History of Colorado" by Wilbur Fisk Stone, 1918, in three volumes, published by the S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., is still a widely used reference source on the state. Surprisingly, all three are available on abebooks.com, with prices ranging from $25 for a single volume to $400 for a set, and with one volume of Smiley's "Semi-Centennial History," in very good condition, being offered for $375 on Amazon.

A magazine-size book of interest to the general public, and long out of print, is "Colorado: The Colorful Centennial State" by Marshall Sprague et. al. published by the popular Golden West Publications in 1959, which was a popular publishing year because of "The Rush to the Rockies Centennial," which celebrated the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush.

A book that has been continuously in print since 1941, and is a great state reference book, is "Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State." It was compiled by the Federal Writers' Program as part of the Depression-era's W. P. A. efforts to keep people employed in the '30s. While some of its data is out of date, it is still an excellent source for the various communities around Colorado.

Probably the most popular state history book of the last thirty-some years is Carl Ubbelohde's "A Colorado History," which has added authors Maxine Benson and Duane Smith to its byline over the past several years. It is widely used as a college-level text, and is very rich in detail about Colorado's exciting past. The publisher, Pruett Publishing Co., is continually updating it.

Three modern general histories that are very good state overviews and eminently readable are "Colorado: A History of the Centennial State" by Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel, published by the University Press of Colorado, fourth edition, 2005; "The Colorado Book" by Eleanor Gehres, Sandra Dallas, Maxine Benson and Stanley Cuba, published by Fulcrum Publishing, 1993; and "Colorado: The Highest State" by Thomas J. Noel and Duane A. Smith, published by the University Press of Colorado, 1995. All of these authors are well-respected Colorado historians and have many years of active involvement in researching, writing and presenting programs about Colorado and its diverse and exciting past.

Hopefully, this brief overview will give you some shopping tips as you go seeking that "perfect" Colorado gift.

Contributor Wayne Sundberg is a research consultant specializing in Fort Collins and Larimer County history. He is available to lead tours on topics of local history. His phone number is 493-3749.