When Colorado Was Kansas: Letters from 1859

News sent home of a new place out west was common as people were exploring the the Pike’s Peak gold region. Letters which they sent home included bits and pieces of the lives of former citizens ranging from reports of people traveling to engage in new vocations, marriage notices, deaths, and obits, murders, births, fights and shootings, legal notices, politics, prices for commodities and more. There was always some news being sent home of interesting happenings in the place to which someone had moved. For me, there has been no better way to retrace the steps of those who traveled west. Through these letters written to the folks back home, we will look further at Colorado when it was still Kansas Territory