Since 1979, historian and author Sandra Mather has plumbed Summit County’s history, producing book after book, including the pictorial history “Summit County.”
The slender book, co-authored by the Summit Historical Society, is an Easter egg hunt for Colorado history fans.
Who knew that when Breckenridge’s hydraulic miners closed down for winter, people flocked to the drained, 8-mile ditch to harvest the exposed fish?
“It sounded like that was an annual ritual,” said Mather, who read that detail in an old newspaper.
Readers unfamiliar with Summit County history may be surprised to learn that developers added an “E” to “Silverthorn,” which was named after a prominent family that moved to Summit County from Pennsylvania. Something that didn’t make it into the book: the tale of daughter Martha Silverthorn’s priapic husband, who made headlines upon being discovered with a hooker. Mather, who wrote “They Weren’t All Prostitutes and Gamblers,” often sidesteps Summit County’s seamy past.
She prefers documenting the formidable conditions facing Summit County residents. Among the most illustrative: The famous 1899 photograph of a man and a woman in a tunnel dug through a drift of snow that covered Main Street’s two-story storefronts.
A photograph of downtown Dillon in the 1880s is accompanied by a caption quoting a newspaper reporter’s prediction that Summit County would attract tourists. Could the prescient reporter have imagined the T-shirt and souvenir shops that would replace the false-fronted dry goods and agricultural stores?
Claire Martin
