Uniting Mountain and Plain: Cities, Law, and Environmental Change along the Front Range

by Kathleen A. Brosnan

Overview

Tracing the birth of Denver and its sister cities Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Uniting Mountain and Plain recounts an important chapter in the transformation of the United States from a nation of traditional agricultural communities to a modern, urban, industrial society.

Standing at the intersection of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, Denver shaped the regional economy that grew out of the discovery of gold in 1858. As Denver grew, Colorado Springs and Pueblo developed economic niches to complement the metropolis. Challenging the idea that front-range entrepreneurs acted as conduits for outside dollars, Kathleen Brosnan explores the sources of their capital and how they invested it across the region, showing how they remained independent of the outside economy for more than forty years. Market values influenced the region, but farmers, miners, state officials, and others created regulatory schemes and other quasi-legal systems to advance the interests of local communities vis-á-vis larger corporate interests.

By linking widely separated ecosystems in the urban-based economy of the Front Range, Brosnan notes, entrepreneurs created irrevocable environmental change and restructured the relations of the region's inhabitants with the land and with each other. Hispanic and Native American people who had lived in Colorado since long before the gold rush found themselves marginalized or displaced, foreshadowing the subsequent surrender of regional industries to the Goulds, Guggenheims, and Rockefellers by the early twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826323521
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	10/14/2002
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.01(d)

About the Author

Kathleen A. Brosnan (J.D., University of Illinois; Ph.D., University of Chicago) is an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee.

Table of Contents

Contents
List Of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Holding The Purse Strings: Denver Emerges
Vanquishing The Indians: Denver Clears The Plains
Taming The Desert: Denver Turns To Agriculture
Creating A Valuable Niche: Colorado Springs And The Tourist Trade
Forging Steel: Pueblo's Incomplete Challenge
Mastering Nature: Reality And Illusion
Epilogue: Losing Control
Abbreviation Key For Footnotes
Bibliography