Judy Buffington Sammons to Present Talk and Slideshow on Colorado’s Wild West, Aug. 17
Aug. 3, 2010 -- Local author and historian Judy Buffington Sammons will present a free talk and slideshow based on her new book, “Keepin’ the Peace, Early-Day Justice on Colorado’s Western Slope”, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at Western State College’s Leslie J. Savage Library.
This talk and slide show will cover some of the vignettes in the book, mainly concentrating on the situations that occurred in or near Gunnison. Lending historical detail, biographical sketches and good-guy-bad-guy stories of the era, this book takes a look at a time when "keeping the peace" went hand-in-hand with civilizing a hard and vast wilderness. This work highlights the early days of law enforcement in Western Colorado, encompassing the brazen criminals, the intrepid lawmen, the inhumane jails, the merciless vigilante "neck-tie" parties and the line that sometimes blurred and often disappeared between lawman and outlaw in America's "wild and woolly" West. Covering towns located along Colorado's New Mexico border north to Wyoming, from Creede to Gunnison to Delta and on up to Brown's Park, "Keepin' the Peace" captures the danger and excitement of Western Colorado's lawless past.
Sammons grew up on a ranch in the Ohio Creek Valley in Gunnison. She has an M.A. in education from Western State College and is also the author “Tall Grass and good Cattle: A Century of Ranching in the Gunnison Country”.
This program is free and provided in partnership with the Friends of the Gunnison Public Library and the Leslie J. Savage Library at Western State College.
