Several weeks ago, I was giving a behind-the-scenes tour and randomly opening some of our map cabinets, when I spotted this certificate. The imagery and some of the verbiage caught my interest, and I made a mental note to return to it. What I found was an interesting little bit of maritime history that is now part of the History Colorado Collection.

Since the grand juries returned no indictments in the killings of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, MO, and Eric Garner, on Staten Island, NY; and a videotape of the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH, was viewed, America has been roiled in massive protests and cries for justice — not only justice for Mr. Brown, Mr. Garner and Master Rice but for all those who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement across the country.

I always thought that historic preservation simply implied that a building was saved from demolition. I was wrong. After an eye-opening internship with History Colorado’s Preservation Programs as a first semester graduate student, I realized that historic preservation is so much more than saving bricks and mortar -- it’s about preserving the memories of the people who used and loved those buildings. Additionally, losing those old buildings severs our ties to the past and the stories that evolved within those structures. Many times, they are the stories of people often forgotten in history. One of the greatest local examples of keeping our connection to the past, and one that intertwined with my family history, is the story of Dr. Justina Ford.

Picture this: A dusty road leads out to a vast expanse of prairie land. You’re in the small town of Campo, Colorado, population 109. Tumbleweeds skip across the path like somersaulting skeletons. The land is flat so the wind is apparent, and if you listen closely, you can hear the war cries of the Comanche from another era. At the end of the path is the Little Homestead house, a one-bedroom cabin that withstood the harsh times of the Dust Bowl.

“But I thought it wasn’t polite to talk about someone’s race; why are you asking me to talk about it?” This is one of the many questions I often get from both kids and adults when I suggest that we (parents, caregivers, teachers, etc.) talk to each other and especially to the younger people in our lives about race.

Quick—what’s the first word that comes to mind when you read “hospital”? Cold? Plastic? Linoleum? What about craftsmanship, creativity, or uniqueness?

On the upper Huerfano River amid the Greenhorn Mountains, this isolated unincorporated ranching town is the shrunken hub of a large mountainous chunk of northwestern Huerfano County. Gardner's roots, however, lie in a predecessor Hispanic town, according to tales I heard in the Gardner Tavern.

We recently made an exciting discovery in our collection: we found photographs of Salida’s first annual boat race, now known as FIBArk (First in Boating the Arkansas). We’re going to show you how we made this discovery by “reading” the photograph and how you can improve your visual literacy skills, too.