Robert E. Strahorn
1 book in the catalogue, published 1881.
Robert E. Strahorn was a journalist, war correspondent, railroad promoter and businessman of the 19th-century American West. He wrote promotional guides to Western regions. Western Reflections Publishing carries one of his books, Gunnison & San Juan, from 1881, his report on the mining country around Gunnison, Colorado.
About Robert E. Strahorn
According to Wikipedia, Robert Edmund Strahorn was born on May 15, 1852, in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and died on March 31, 1944, in San Francisco. At eighteen a doctor advised him to move west for his health, and he settled in Colorado, working for papers including Denver's Rocky Mountain News. He reported on the Great Sioux War of 1876 to 1877 and wrote eyewitness accounts of the battles of Powder River and the Rosebud.
He led the Union Pacific Railroad's publicity department from 1877 to 1883. He was an important figure in building the Oregon Short Line Railroad and founded the North Coast Railroad, later merged into the Seattle and North Coast Railroad. He was also a founder and trustee of the College of Idaho. The Online Books Page lists guides by him on Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Washington, and it lists Gunnison and San Juan as an 1881 title.
What the books share
Strahorn's books are promotion in the best sense of the word: eyewitness descriptions of Western country meant to bring settlers and investors. The works listed for him cover Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Washington, and Gunnison and San Juan turns the same eye on Colorado's mining country. In our catalogue book, he writes about mines, coal, timber, grasslands and the new towns of Gunnison country, and the pace is that of a newspaper correspondent.
Next steps for readers of this author
Comparing 1881 with the county today
Strahorn's report dates from the first years of Gunnison County. Reading the Colorado Encyclopedia articles beside it lets you see which camps became towns, which turned to coal and which became ski country.
Digging into a Gunnison family or building
If your interest is a house, a mine claim or an ancestor in the valley, the Jensen Room's maps and regional books are a sensible first stop. Check the library's catalog page before you travel.
Reading more of Strahorn's era
Strahorn's other guides cover Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Washington. Our library index at /library/ is a quick way to find other Western Reflections books on Colorado mining country.
Go deeper
Strahorn wrote about Gunnison country in 1881, when its towns were barely a few years old. These places keep the local record, from mining camps and coal to the valley's later story.
Colorado Encyclopedia: Gunnison County
An overview of the county, which the encyclopedia says was established in 1877, and of how its economy moved from mining and ranching toward tourism.
Colorado Encyclopedia: Crested Butte
Covers the town's start as a supply camp in the 1870s, its coal years and its turn to skiing.
Helen A. Jensen Western Colorado Room
A collection at Western Colorado University's Savage Library of books, maps and other material on Gunnison and nearby areas, dating from the mid 1800s. The page says the room is open to the public.
Crested Butte Museum
The museum says it preserves the history of Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley, and its site mentions exhibits and historic walking tours of Elk Avenue.
Good to know
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