Forgotten Tales of Colorado

Forgotten Tales

by Stephanie Waters, Kristen Solecki (Illustrator)

Wild characters, diverse cultures, spooky myths and slippery sales schemes color Colorado's past. In a place where shameless showdowns and dusty shootouts over money, drink and women were once standard procedure, storytelling around campfires became an integral part of a rich heritage. From the jackalope and vampires to Indian curses and snake oil salesmen, the Centennial State has it all. Weirder still are the strange but true stories like that of the first body buried in La Junta's Fairview Cemetery, a man who landed there for refusing alcohol to a kid, and that of the hotel in Telluride that once offered a promotion that included funeral costs with your stay. While history may have neglected these silly, seedy and salacious stories, author Stephanie Waters has rediscovered Colorado's best forgotten tales.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2013

Reviews

[Heather Layne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and entertaining. Lots of puns and plays on words and such. It made me want to do more research/reading on some of the stories!

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somebody please buy the author an E! Greeley, Creede, and Cheesman Park are constantly misspelled as Greely, Creed, and Chessman. The stories are interesting, but the writing is terrible. There are hardly any transitions from one thought to the next and paragraphs are infrequently used (or not used well at all). It was tough to follow.

[BETTY SEARCY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love It

I was raised in Colorado & had to learn it's history. I never heard these stories but would have enjoyed the class more if this book had been included. I laughed about many of the tales but most loved recognizing the location of each.

[Jessica Wagner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fun and quick intro to the stories of Colorado but gets 2/5 stars for its many misspelled town names, typos, and poor structure. Regardless was fun to read each chapter and use as a launch point for researching more.

[Katie George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating and weird.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

some enjoyable tidbits...but, OMG...the editing was horrible and so is her MATH with determining ages.

[Mallory Mac · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good premise, but poorly executed. It needed much, much better editing.

Biggest issues were:

1) Lack of clarity - some of the stories were hard to follow - what was purported fact vs obvious fiction?
2) Inconsistent coverage - the author expanded greatly on some stories, referencing newspapers, etc., while others were completely glossed over and without any citation.
3) Inaccuracies/misspellings - biggest ones for me were calling Cheesman Park "Chessman Park" (that's a pretty big miss for a book about Colorado!) and referring to a diamond as a "three-carrot bobble" (no joke).

I plan to research a few of the more interesting tales on my own, but overall, I can't trust anything I read in this book as being factual.

[Larry Stones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some fun stories. Not particularly well written. Paragraphing was not her best subject in school.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

entertaining, but needed a better editor

[Holli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and gave me some of the info I was looking for.

[Nickey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easy read with fun stories but editing left something to be desired. The author spelled Greeley incorrectly, omitting the third e, throughout the entire book. The author also placed Virginia Dale close to Greeley and it is actually north of Fort Collins. This is the area I grew up in so I can't speak to whether other stories may have had similar mistakes but it does leave me wondering. Lastly, as another poster mention, paragraphing was done poorly, though I was reading an electric copy so I am not sure if this was the software or not