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Central City local history book

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Central City local history book

jenn  (View posts) Posted: 22 Feb 2004 1:09AM GMT
Classification: Query
I just acquired a small local history of Central City entitled "Historic Central City: Gold! and now Glamour" by Caroline Bancroft, copyright 1974 (originally published 1951). Here is the surname list from the index of the book. Feel free to drop me an email if you are interested in one of the names below. I will email you the contextual paragraph, and if desired, can mail a photocopy of the appropriate page(s).

Index of Names:

Bates, Wm.
Beecher, Henry Ward
Belford, JB
Bush, WH
Byers, Wm.
Casey, Pat
Casto, DJ
Chappell, Edna
Colfax, Schuyler
Cozens, Wm.
De Frees, Wilkes
Evans, Anne
Fisher, Alan
Gish, Lillian
Grant, US
Greeley, Horace
Gregory, John
Gunnell, Harry
Haidee, Rose
Hale, Horace
Hale, Irving
Hall, Frank
Hill, NP
Jones, Robert Edmond
Lake, HH
Machebeuf, Father
Massman, JC
McFarlane, IK
Pullman, GM
Quackenbush, Paschal
Randall, Bishop
Raynolds, J
Richardson, AD
Ricketson, FH
Russell, WG
Sabin, Florence
Stanley, C St. G
Tabor, Baby Doe
Tabor, Horace
Taylor, Bayard
Teller, HM
True, Allen
Villard, Henry
Williams, Sheriff
Wolcott, EO
Wolcott, HR
Young, FC

Re: Central City local history book

Rosemary  (View posts) Posted: 2 Aug 2004 1:24AM GMT
Classification: Query
I would be interested in what this book has to say about Sheriff Williams. He is/was distantly related to my husband. His mother was a sister to my husband's gggrandfather. Thanks for your help.
Rosemary

Re: Central City local history book

mezzemare  (View posts) Posted: 3 Aug 2004 2:03AM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi Rosemary...

The brief mention of Sheriff Williams is in a section regarding the building of the Opera House on Eureka Street in the town. I can post the surrounding text about the opera house if you like...

Re: the opera house, Bancroft writes:

"[The citizens] were more interested in using their theater for minstrel shows, Cornish wrestling matches, action picture slides of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight, a boxing exhibition by John L. Sullivan, graduation exercises of the high school and political meetings. In 1896, when big, beloved Sheriff Dick Williams, owner of the Williams Stables, was murdered, his funeral was held there."

That's all... hope this is a help to you! =)

-Jenn

Re: Central City local history book

Rosemary  (View posts) Posted: 3 Aug 2004 2:28AM GMT
Classification: Query
Thanks! We have other info on Dick Williams that also indicates his funeral was held there. I won't need you to send anymore info from that article for now, but thanks for the offer. Rosemary

Re: Central City local history book

Twegian  (View posts) Posted: 14 Jan 2006 4:42PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Raynolds, Reynolds, Elliott
Thank you for your help, in advance.
I was wondering about the J. Raynolds listed. I have a distant Uncle (William Elliott) who married a Rachael Raynolds (Reynolds) and census records show them as Wm and Rachie Elliott in 1880 then they just seem to vanish. I was hoping to possibly locate other family from her side of the family and see if they may have gone somewhere. Thank you for your help.

Re: Central City local history book

mezzemare  (View posts) Posted: 14 Jan 2006 6:19PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Raynolds
Hi Tracy,

There's not much to the section, but there is a clue or two you may be able to follow. The snippet is about a fire in Central City in 1873:

"The section destroyed was largely on Lawrence St. (The eastern end of Eureka Street after being intersected by Main, is so called.)
...

In those days the ground floor was the office of the Hazard Powder Co. and large quantities of blasting powder were stored in its rear. The manager of the office, J. O. Raynolds, and his musical, talented wife, lived upstairs where Mrs. Raynolds' favorite possession could be found--a piano. When the lapping and jumping flames sped up Lawrence Street, inadequately controlled by a bucket brigade, Mrs. Raynolds realized that if their building caught fire, the powder would explode, causing wide-spread havoc and reducing her piano to bits. She gathered all the rags she could find, and tore up every sheet in the house to dip in water. While the fire singed her skirts and the men threw up dirt barricades, she kept the wooden doors, window sills, and frames of the building cool and damp by constantly changing the wet rags with which she had them draped. The powder magazine--and her piano, the only one in the camp in the '60s--were saved."

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