About this Item
Hard cover. Octavo. Green cloth with gilt and black stamped decoration. [xxvi] 543pp. Once owned by Wilbur F. Stone. Signed by him with an inscription to George E. Lawton. Associated newspaper articles and postcard pasted to front preliminary pages and rear end papers.Charles Edwin Hewes hosted guests at the Hewes-Kirkwood Inn for four decades. Although Hewes had a limited education, he enjoyed a literary career as a poet and novelist. He was best known for "Songs of the Rockies." Author of: The Theatre Terrible (novel, 1910); Songs of the Rockies (poems, 1914); The America (epic poem, 1941). He vociferously opposed the formation of the Rocky Mountain National Park championed by his neighbor Enos Mills.Wilbur F. Stone Sr. (Dec. 28, 1833 Dec. 27, 1920) was a teacher, lawyer, newspaper editor, miner, elected official, historian, and associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. He compiled the four volume A History of Colorado. He practiced law and worked at newspapers in Evansville, Indiana, and Omaha, Nebraska. In 1860, he moved to Tarryall, Colorado, and worked as a miner, prospector, and lawyer. When Colorado Territory was organized, he served in the first territorial legislature as the representative from Park County. He was re-elected in 1864 and also served as the Assistant United States Attorney from 1862-1865. He married Sallie Sadler, in 1866 and moved to Pueblo, Colorado, to practice law. In 1868, he was appointed to serve as the district attorney for Colorado's Third Judicial District and was later elected to the same position. Also in 1868, upon the founding of The Pueblo Chieftain newspaper, Stone became its first editor, a position he held until 1873.In 1875-1876, Stone was a member of the Colorado Constitutional Convention, in which Colorado's constitution was drafted. Stone promoted and worked for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, serving as its attorney until he was appointed to serve as an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court in 1877 following the resignation of Ebenezer T. Wells. He served on the court until 1886. He practiced law and held several positions until President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to serve as one of five judges on the Court of Private Land Claims on June 10, 1891. Stone died on December 27, 1920 and is buried in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery.George Lawton, an old pioneer, had seen the West tamed firsthand. When Lawton went west in the early 1870 s to join Western Union in Denver, he wore a six-shooter to the office, and over the next forty-two years he saw more than his share of what he called "the bad habits of the frontier." He strung wire across hostile Ute country and, as the first telegraph agent for the Associated Press in the Rocky Mountains, he reported the details of countless gun battles, holdups, and hangings often from the scene itself. Between messages he liked to collect things: Indian knick knacks, autographs, paintings of Western scenes, and photographs of peace officers and the outlaws they chased.Friends and fellow telegraphers sent him grisly mementos from all over the West: one view of a spectacularly dead bandit is inscribed "it gives me great pleasure to add another horror to your collection." Lawton was careful to identify his pictures, pasting newspaper clippings to the backs of some, writing out lengthy captions on others. He loved Colorado, even named one son "Denver" - American Heritage.
Seller Inventory # 734
Contact seller
Report this item
