Tales of the Colorado Pioneers.
By The Only Female Co-Author Of The Denver Charter
Hill, Alice Polk. Tales of the Colorado Pioneers. [Illustrated by Eugene Field.] Denver: Pierson & Gardner, 1884.
8vo.; illustrated; hinges tender; page 47 lightly stained; preliminaries faintly foxed; brown cloth, spine stamped in gilt; light wear to extremities.
First edition of Hill’s history of Colorado’s first twenty-five years, told in stories, tales, and anecdotes gathered “from the lips of those who had taken part in the ‘First Act,’ over which the curtain had just dropped.” With eighteen small illustrations by Eugene Field. Hill relates stories of notable locales and events that were fast acquiring the status of legend, as well as poignant details from the lives of less-known pioneers. Some examples are the killing of Grantz by Gordon; the coming of the railroad; the Bonanza tunnel; Leadville; bandits of Colorado; and much more. Howes-H480(aa); Decker 264; I Soliday 1114.
Hill, who has escaped immortalization in standard encyclopedic reference works, was identified during her own lifetime by James Alexander Semple in Representative Women of Colorado: A pictorial collection of the Women of Colorado who have attained prominence in the social, political, professional pioneer and club life of the State. He identifies Mrs. Alice Polk Hill of Denver as an organizer of both the Woman’s Club and Denver Woman’s Press Club; as the founder of the Round Table Club, “of which she has been the able and gracious President for many years”; and as the sole woman among the twenty-one authors of the charter for the City and County of Denver. He notes that she has written this book, and “is compiling another”: Colorado Pioneers in Picture and Story was published in 1915 by another fugitive frontier firm, the Brock-Haffner Press.
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