This column tells the stories of the people whose faces appear on “A Colorado Panorama: A People’s History,” a two-block-long tile mural on the southeast side of the Colorado Convention Center. Inspired by Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking book, “A People’s History of the United States,” the mural was created by artist Barbara Jo Revelle in 1989 to celebrate those who rarely make it into the history books, but who have nonetheless had a profound impact on the history of our state. This week we’re featuring profiles of George Bent and Julia Archibald Holmes.
George Bent – Cheyenne Interpreter (1843-1918)
Son of William Bent, founder of Bent’s Fort in southeast Colorado, and Owl Woman, daughter of a Cheyenne chief, George Bent was a fluent speaker of both English and Cheyenne. At the age of 10 he was sent to a private school in St. Louis to be educated. After serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, he returned to Colorado where he was wounded in the Sand Creek Massacre. He later joined the Dog Soldiers with whom he fought the Americans to exact revenge for the attack. After the Indian Wars, he went on to serve as a Cheyenne interpreter for the U. S. government. He later collaborated with anthropologist George B. Grinnell on a history of the Cheyenne people and with ghost writer George Hyde, who turned his letters into a biography.
Julia Archibald Holmes – First Woman to Summit Pikes Peak (1828-1887)
The daughter of an abolitionist father and a suffragist mother, Julia Archibald moved with her family to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1854. There she married James Holmes, and in 1858 traveled with him to Colorado to pan for gold. In Colorado Springs, they joined two others in a successful bid to climb Pikes Peak. Julia scaled the mountain in bloomers and a mid-calf-length skirt, earning herself the moniker, “Bloomer Girl of Pike’s Peak.” From the summit she wrote her mother, “Everyone tried to discourage me, but…I would not have missed this glorious sight for anything at all.” She later served as a correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, and ultimately moved to Washington, D.C., to work for women’s suffrage. She was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014.
Week One: Barney L. Ford and Agnes Smedley
Week Two: Benjamin Barr Lindsey and Anne Bassett
Week Three: William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Clara Brown
Week Four: William “Big Bill” Haywood and Anne Evans
Week Five: Buckskin Charley and “Babe” Didrikson-Zaharias
Week Six: Antonia Brico and Chief Black Kettle
Week Seven: Casimiro Barela and Daisy Anderson
Week Eight: Chogyam Trungpa and Ellen Elliot Jack
Week Nine: Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone and Chin Lin Sou
Week Ten: Emily Griffith and Dalton Trumbo
Week Eleven: Chipeta and Wallace Werner
Week Twelve: Eve Drewelowe and Davis Waite
Week Thirteen: Dr. Carl J. Johnson and Florence Sabin
Week Fourteen: Damon Runyon and Emma Langdon
Week Fifteen: Ellison Onizuka and Golda Meir
Week Sixteen: John Lewis Dyer and Helen Hunt Jackson
Week Seventeen: Edward Berthoud and Frances Wisebart Jacobs
Week Eighteen: Hattie McDaniel and Enos Mills
Week Nineteen: Isabella Bird and Francis Schlatter
Week Twenty: Laura Gilpin and Henry O. Wagoner
Week Twenty-One: Justina Ford and George Norlin