Sunset Slope

Sunset Slope is a collection of twenty-two true tales by Wilson Rockwell about the cowboys, rustlers, politicians and lawmen of Western Colorado. The stories come from the late 1800s and early 1900s, a time when the law was still being worked out on the Western Slope and some of the fights were deadly.

The catalogue description is short, so we will say only what it supports. The book is nonfiction, it is made of separate tales rather than one long narrative, and it takes in both sides of the law. Open Library's subject headings for the book include anecdotes, local history and history.

Open Library lists the edition we carry as published in 1999 by Western Reflections. At 290 pages in the catalogue record, the tales have room to run, and each one can be read on its own.

Sunset Slope is for readers who like Western Colorado history in short pieces. It works for anyone who wants outlaw and lawman stories from a particular region rather than a general survey of the West. Collectors of Wilson Rockwell's other books will want it beside his town and Ute histories. Teachers and librarians in Western Slope communities may find it useful for the local anecdotes it collects.

Wilson Rockwell wrote Sunset Slope along with four other books we publish, on Western Slope towns, the Utes, and a lawman's memoirs. The University of Colorado Boulder finding aid for his papers lists him as a Colorado rancher, author and state senator. We do not have more detail about when each of these tales was first gathered, so we will not guess. Rockwell's author page lists his other books.

More about Wilson Rockwell →

Western Colorado in the late 1800s changed quickly. The Denver Public Library records that on August 28, 1881, 1,458 White River Ute men, women and children set out under cavalry escort for a reservation in Utah, about 350 miles away. That removal opened the Western Slope to a wave of settlers, ranchers and town builders.

A public radio history of the Uncompahgre Valley adds that Montrose was founded in 1882, a year after the Utes were removed from the area. The valley around it was largely desert before irrigation, with only a few productive farms near the river.

In places like these, ranchers, cattle thieves, elected officials and sheriffs shared the same small, fast growing communities. Rockwell's tales draw on that setting, though the catalogue description does not name particular towns or events, and we will not add any.

Source: Denver Public Library, Ute Removal and the Hunt Treaty