Crib Poisoned

Dogs had an interesting set of challenges to overcome in early Denver.



[RMN, May 23, 1865.]

Where Was Soule When He Was Shot?

The article in the RMN about the assassination of Soule says he was moving along Lawrence and was shot near F Street and Lawrence (15th and Lawrence). It also says he was shot in front of Dr. Cunningham's house, but that was at F and Arapahoe, according to Cunningham's ad (see below).

I guess I would like to know right where Soule was and which direction he was walking when he encountered the shooter.

Both of these intersections, currently, are some pretty dead locations, monuments to the ill-conceived post-modern development boom that reshaped downtown in the 1970s. There's very little going on along that section of 15th. Almost no destinations there for a citizen on foot. The view is dismal. There is the Fed Reserve Bank, taking up an entire city block right in the middle of downtown and fenced to the world. When trucks come and go there guards come out with shotguns and face the meager scattering of bystanders. Very welcoming. Isn't that what the Fed Center is for? Oh, that's right. The Fed is not a part of the govt., but a privately owned corporation. There is a parking lot, and the back of the new Four Seasons, six or eight stories of bare nothing. There is a black high-rise. On one corner, a failed and empty restaurant space. Jane Jacobs could use this section of town as an example of how bad urban planning kills a city for decades.

The Rocky plays up the angle of Soule's enemies from his Provost Marshall duties. Byers is playing games here, as always. Soule told Price and others he expected to be killed for his testimony about Sand Creek. And Chivington very publically endorsed the killing of "Indians and their confederates," reported in the same paper: http://pioneerplates.blogspot.com/2010/01/citizen-meeting.html





[RMN, April 24, 1865.]

Strange Timing

Just a little something I've never really considered before -- The proximity of Soule's assassination to this other event, the marriage of his young bride's mother (Sarah Coberly) to her second husband William Crull. I don't know, it's probably nothing. But it is somewhat weird timing. Then, rather than move back in with her mom in Huntsville, Hersa heads to Kansas to stay with Soule's brother. Perhaps there is an explanation in the letters, I don't know.

Access to Denver

Daily Mining Journal pokes fun at Denver's situation in the high water season. Somewhat cut off at times.


[DMJ, May 12, 1865, p. 3.]

Hunting the Shooter

Squires would have been better off going north.


[DMJ, May 11, 1865, p. 3.]

..Not that he didn't escape in the end anyway.