A few samples from stories told in Volume 4 of Great Sage Plain To Timberline: Our Pioneer History follow:
From the account entitled Erastus Thompson, of Dolores Colorado Lacy was killed at Fort Lewis. He had cattle on the Mancos, Thompsons Park and through the San Juan, generally. Perhaps, when Lacy was waiting at Fort Lewis to see about some cattle, which he had lost, and he suspected had been sold to the government, a man who was in with the rustlers who had stolen his cattle saw him and killed him. That is the supposition of mine.
From Sarah Ann DeMariss Menefee, of Mancos, Colorado Mr. Downs, a cowboy, had sold his father a wagon and took our wagon seat temporarily. He brought us another wagon seat. Henry Perrine, the boy, felt smart and wanted to take the substituted wagon seat, and my son, Johnny saw him. When he told me, I went out and told him to leave it alone. He called to me, You may run some men, but you cant run me. I went to the other cabin to get Henry Porters six-shooter and stood off Henry Perrine. I talked to them and Henry Porter, who came up, talked to them. I got the Perrine boy and the one with him in rotation and held the gun on them while Henry Porter made them hand down the seat off the wagon. As they left, they told me not to suppose I had made them give the wagon seat up.
From Horse Racing Montezuma County to Repeat History Silver Dick, raised and raced by Curg Williams of Mancos in 1900, became a world record breaking racer in Montana during his career, was run in polo matches in England, and was the famous match horse at the Mancos racetrack who won for his owner a new sewing machine, buns, watches, a sow with six piglets, tons of hay, and a setting of 13 White Plymouth Rock Hens.
During his career, Silver Dick was reported to have won a total of over $200,000, a formidable sum of money in the early 1900s.
From Ernest Lewis Maynes, Rural Route Carrier The mail must go through. That was the motto in those early days, so it didnt matter how many hours it took or how dark the day or cold, snowy, rainy or windy the weather. Ernests first means of transportation was on horseback which wasnt so bad in the summer but froze his tush in the winter.
He next went to a car but the muddy un-paved roads beat the car to pieces so he soon changed to a pick-up truck, which he used for many years. But he still had to buy a new one much too often, so he carried his mail on his farm tractor on which he built a cab to give him some protection from the elements.
From Claude Henry Wilson (and) Carrie May Wyatt Toys in those days were match box trains and people, cut from the mail order catalogs and pasted onto cardboard and some clothes from the mail order catalog along with the yearly orange in the Christmas stocking and a bit of candy and nuts also a homemade pair of pants and a new shirt.
The family table was laden with hot biscuits or homemade bread and gravy with home grown Root Cellar Vegetables and lots of canned fruit. Big hearty meals of hot cereal, thick cream, butter, sausage, bacon or beef, all home produced. The main source of income was potatoes. Other than hay and corn the usual crops were the raising of melons, the Kleckley sweet watermelons and cantaloupes. Each year these were sold at the markets in Cortez and Dolores and at least once a week a wagonload was taken to the sawmill at McPhee, Colo.
From Mary L. Lamb, From Utah to the Mancos in 1882 My husband and I were well prepared for the road with a stove in the front part of our covered wagon and a bed with springs in the back. There were many friends to see us off on our long journey that February day.
We came up the McElmo until we struck Montezuma Valley. When we were traveling along somewhere east of the present site of Cortez, we saw a séance of some sort that has always remained a mystery to me. We were going along pretty well ever toward the Mesa Verde and headed for the Mancos. We passed near a ranch with a little house and a stock corral where horses were rounded up. There were two men with saddle horses here, and the men were off the horses, running about in a peculiar manner and acting strangely. A cloud of smoke began to rise from inside the corral just before one of the men came out of there. And out of the cloud of smoke came the most terrible and unearthly yells I ever heard. The two men got on the horses and started to ride away. Then, possibly because they noticed our party at a distance and knew we must be hearing those yells, they rode back and fired some shots into that smoke. The yells ceased. Whatever they had tied there they had killed, of course.
