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Colorado\u2019s mining camps during the state\u2019s Gold Rush in the late 1800s were no place for a lady. And yet, numerous women and girls lived in the rowdy, rough camps with husbands and fathers who were hoping to strike it rich.<\/p>\n
The hardships of living in a mining camp from the female point of view is the subject of a Rocky Mountain PBS Colorado Experience episode, \u201cLadies of the Mines,\u201d which will be screened Jan. 12 in Durango.<\/p>\n
The topic was suggested by Rudy and Andie Davison, who have homes in Durango and Telluride, in the station\u2019s Viewers\u2019 Choice contest in spring 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overarching theme is life during the Colorado Gold Rush, when mining towns and camps were popping up all over the place,\u201d the episode\u2019s writer-director Mariel Rodriguez-McGill said. \u201cThen we look at what it was like overall for women.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among those interviewed for the story were Rudy Davison, a historian and author who sits on the boards of the Telluride Historical Museum and Mining History Association, and Fort Lewis College Professor Emeritus Duane Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuane told us there are tons of books by men about mining, and most of them are pretty technical,\u201d Rodriguez-McGill said. \u201cHe said the visual, colorful stories come from women writing letters, journals and memoirs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The episode illustrates the difficulty for everyone living in the camps as well as focusing on the female experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were living in Victorian times and still had to cover their ankles, wrists and necks even though they were living in muddy, muddy towns,\u201d Rodriguez-McGill said. \u201cAnd there were so many risks: the weather; illness, like the Spanish flu pandemic; childbirth, when so many died, leaving children alone. For the children, even if they survived, so many died before they had a chance to grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The short documentary focuses on three women \u2013 Harriet Fish Bacus, of Tomboy Bride fame, who lived near Telluride; Mabel Barbee Lee and Anne Ellis. Ellis grew up in poverty near the Bonanza Mine in Saguache County before ending up in Cripple Creek; Lee grew up in Cripple Creek.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarriet grew up in Oakland, California, and she hadn\u2019t even cooked before,\u201d Rodriguez-McGill said. \u201cAnd here she was having to order groceries by mule train and cook two miles above sea level.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project used resources from History Colorado, the Denver Public Library\u2019s Western and Genealogical Collection, the University of Colorado-Boulder, Telluride Historical Museum and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. The Animas Museum, Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College and the San Juan Basin Archaeological Society are co-sponsoring the screenings, which will include a reception at the start of the evening and a panel discussion with Rudy Davison and the producers afterward.<\/p>\n
Colorado Experience, in its third season, received more than 100 submissions for the Viewers\u2019 Choice contest. Rodriguez-McGill and Executive Producer Julie Speer winnowed them down to six finalists, which was a tough task, they said. Viewers were asked to vote for their favorite of the six.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 300 voted, many on social media, but we allowed them to vote by email, too,\u201d Rodriguez-McGill said. \u201cA lot of them voted for multiple ideas because they couldn\u2019t pick just one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other finalists were Caribou Ranch, the studio near Nederland where scores of famous musicians and bands such as Michael Jackson, Elton John, Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire recorded; the first sheriff in El Paso County, Rankin Scott Kelly, who captured Big Tooth Jim, also known as \u201cThe Terror of the Rockies\u201d after he killed 35 people; the Big Thompson Flood; the KKK in Colorado; and George Gallious Ross, Colorado\u2019s first African-American lawyer who challenged the state\u2019s Jim Crow laws.<\/p>\n
Speer and Rodriguez-McGill were so taken by Kelly\u2019s story that they made an episode about him even though the topic didn\u2019t win. And they may return to Durango in a future season to work on the KKK involvement around the state.<\/p>\n
But for now, the focus is on the women who braved the harsh conditions of Colorado\u2019s mining communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMabel\u2019s father saw how hard it was and didn\u2019t want her to marry a miner,\u201d Rodriguez-Miguel said. \u201cHe wanted her to have a great education. So he sent her to a finishing school in Colorado Springs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee eventually graduated from Colorado College and became its dean of women before she went on to be the admissions director at Radcliffe and Bennington colleges.<\/p>\n
But when she retired, Lee returned to her roots in Cripple Creek, perhaps because no matter how tough life was there, it was still home.<\/p>\n