Lamar Public Library

At dawn on November 29, 1864, a volunteer Denver militia swept down on a sleeping Cheyenne and Arapaho village camped on the Big Sandy River in southeastern Colorado, exacting brutal revenge for a year-long campaign of terror waged by tribal warrior societies on the Kansas and Colorado plains. When the smoke cleared, Colonel John M. Chivington's troops returned to Denver, waving Indian scalps and body parts to an adoring crowd that hailed the conquering...

Colorado Territory in 1864 wasn't merely the wild west, it was a land in limbo while the Civil War raged in the east and politics swirled around its potential admission to the union. The territorial governor, John Evans, had ambitions on the national stage should statehood occur, and he was joined in those ambitions by a local pastor and erstwhile Colonel in the Colorado militia, John Chivington. The decision was made to take a hardline stance against...

"Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo. Their names ring down through history as symbols of noble defiance against overwhelming odds. These great warrior chiefs challenged the might of the U. S. Army in desperate and doomed attempts to end white encroachment on their land and preserve their traditional way of life. We honor their memories not for their success, but for their courage. There was another great chief, no less courageous, who believed that...