Red Mountain
David Lavender is the author of nearly forty books on the West, including two that won Pulitzer Prize nominations. He writes about southwest Colorado from first-hand knowledge. He was born in Telluride, Colorado, and witnessed the final days of Colorado's great mines. As a young adult he worked at the famous Camp Bird Mine and on his father's cattle ranch in southwestern Colorado. He graduated from Princeton but returned to Colorado until his family's ranch failed during the Great Depression. Afterwards he moved to California.
- Published
- 2000
- ISBN
- 1-890437-35-2
- Pages
- 540
- Category
- Reprints
- Place
- Telluride
- Publisher
- Western Reflections Publishing Company
- Listed at
- $19.95
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer.
- Direct from us info@westernreflectionspublishing.com or (336) 565-6915. We pack and post from Lake City.
- Amazon Buy from Amazon.
- Any bookshop Quote ISBN 1-890437-35-2 and your local bookseller can order it.
About this book
Red Mountain is a novel of the Colorado silver boom by David Lavender, the Colorado-born historian. Doubleday brought it out first, and Kirkus reviewed it in January 1962. It follows Johnny Ogden, a man freed of a murder charge for lack of evidence, who tries to rebuild his standing by building a road to Red Mountain to open up the district's mineral wealth.
The setting is Colorado in the early 1880s. Kirkus calls the novel a fictionalized look at that period, with the familiar frontier ingredients of boomtowns and volatile mining shares, and judges it more than a typical Western.
Our catalogue lists this edition under Reprints, dated 2000, from Western Reflections Publishing Company. Lavender knew the country: the record says he was born in Telluride and worked at the Camp Bird Mine.
Who it is for
Red Mountain is for readers who like historical fiction grounded in real places. Fans of Lavender's histories may want to see how he handled fiction. It is a long book, and the Kirkus reviewer found it somewhat long as well.
Ways to use this book
Driving the Million Dollar Highway
Read the Red Mountain Project page before the drive, since it ties the toll road to the district. Check road and weather conditions before you leave, because mountain passes close in snow.
Reading fiction beside the record
Pick a local fact from the museums, such as a mine name, then see how a novelist might use similar places. Keep the two separate in your notes.
Researching a miner ancestor
The Silverton society's site mentions an archive and newspapers from 1874 on. Write to them with a name, a rough date and a mine or town.
Go deeper
The novel is set around a road to Red Mountain in the early 1880s. These sources cover the real Red Mountain mining district and the nearby towns, which gives a reader the actual ground behind the fiction.
Red Mountain Project, Fort Lewis College
A history page for the Red Mountain Mining District. It says the district was among the richest in the world for a little more than a decade in the late 1800s.
San Juan County Historical Society
Based in Silverton, it runs a mining museum, jail and archive. Its site lists the Mining Heritage Center and Otto Mears road history.
Ouray County Museum
Housed in the former St. Joseph's Miners' Hospital, built 1886 and 1887, with artifacts from mining, ranching and railroading.
Good to know
Is Red Mountain fiction?
Who published the original?
Is Lavender connected to Telluride?
Where can I buy it?
Have a book of your own?
This is the kind of book the house publishes: regional history, biography, memoir and the stories that belong to a place. Send us yours and a person will read it.