Indian Attack
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The Senior OIC August 2007 VLocal Attractions • Scenic Places • History • Money •E Health • News Indian AttackGhost TownMeeker InMassacre Northern in Colorado1879 LongsScenic Drives InPeak Colorado Pioneer WyomingClimbers PioneersOutlaws InOn Early the Oregon Trail Colorado Estate PlanningSkiing Steamboat Plus Health Springs And News 2 • August 2007 • The Senior Voice Veteran’s By U.S. Senator Services Ken Salazar olorado’s veterans will soon gain problem experienced by our nation’s h/NLINEBANKINGISMY Cbetter access to the health care veterans, but also by a number of they deserve. America’s seniors and low-income &IRSTLINEOFPROTECTIONv In late June, the Senate Veterans’ families. That is why I am pleased to Affairs Committee authorized the announce that La Plata County in construction of a state-of-the-art southwestern Colorado has been desig- veterans care facility at the Fitzsimons nated a Health Professional Shortage campus in Aurora. This a major leap Area, which will make doctors in the forward towards completion of what county eligible for Medicare bonus will undoubtedly become a “crown payments, possible re-payment of $ONT LET CRIMINALS TAKE HOLD jewel” for veterans’ health care in the medical school loans and other incen- OF YOUR ACCOUNTS "E ON THE United States. tives—which should attract health care ALERT WITH FREE ONLINE BANKING As a former farmer in Colorado’s professionals to the area. San Luis Valley, I am aware of the This opens the door for better /NLINE"ILL0AY n0AYYOURBILLS WITHOUTCHECKSORCREDITCARDS inequities that exist between veterans health care access for the low-income who reside in rural, as opposed to residents who are currently forced to %LECTRONIC3TATEMENTSn'ETUPTO urban, settings. That is why I fought travel to Grand Junction. THEMOMENTDETAILSONYOURACCOUNTS to include a number of initiatives in I look forward to continually % MAIL!LERTSn"EIMMEDIATELY the Veterans Affairs legislative working on behalf of people NOTIlEDOFACCOUNTACTIVITY package which I believe will help to throughout Colorado. 4AKETHElRSTSTEPTOMAKINGYOUR significantly improve the lives of ________________ ACCOUNTSSAFER 6ISITSTNATIONALBANK rural veterans. You can call Sen. Salazar’s Fort COMTODAYTOENROLLINONLINEBANKING Access to health care is not solely a Collins office at 224-2200. ■ ORCALLFORMOREINFORMATION Calls to Medicare Hotline ome people wonder how many but numerous calls never got through SMedicare participants have at all. The staff received what they success when they call the Medicare called “a dizzying array” of responses hot line for information, 1-800- to questions. Medicare. Medicare officials said their own Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) tests show much shorter waiting had his staff call the phone number times. Calls that don’t get through numerous times recently. They may be due to local phone service reported long delays for responses, problems, they said. As for confusing and they received answers to ques- answers to questions, Medicare tions that varied widely, according to spokesman Jeff Nelligen told investi- a New York Times report. gators that the agency takes reports of The average waiting time for problems seriously and works to someone to answer was 12 minutes, resolve them. ■ Drug Resistant Infections rug-resistant infections (like staph) 22 percent since 1995 and cost America’s hospitals billions in extra 9OURE!LWAYS&IRST7ITH5S Dthat patients get during hospital stays kill more people each year than treatment. diabetes or Alzheimer’s—100,000— Hospitals that have done some- according to the U.S. Centers for thing include the Veterans Affairs Disease Control and Prevention. Hospital in Pittsburgh, which cut its But studies show that hospitals can infection rate by nearly 80 percent by virtually eliminate the infections by doing things like testing each patient, doing simple, inexpensive things such providing hand sanitizers in every TUOBUJPOBMCBOLDPN as testing all patients for infections room and discarding blood pressure when they enter the hospital. cuffs after using them. Why don’t all hospitals do it? Only one-fourth of U.S. hospitals Many think nothing can be done or take such measures. Several European 'SFF)PVS#BOLFS0OMJOFTFSWJDFJTSFRVJSFEUPSFDFJWF#JMM1BZ#JMM1BZBMMPXTVQUPQBZNFOUTGPSQFSTUBUFNFOUDZDMF that they don’t have a problem—even countries have all but eliminated such "EEJUJPOBMQBZNFOUT JO&YDFTTPG BSFKVTUQFSQBZNFOU though the infections have increased infections. ■ The Senior Voice • August 2007 • 3 The Senior VOICE Indian Attack 1879 Published Locally Since 1980 By Bill Lambdin VOL. 27, NO. 9 t began as a beautiful September www.theseniorvoice.net Iday in 1879, but it ended in horror with the last Indian uprising in PUBLICATION INFORMATION Colorado—the Meeker Massacre. The Senior Voice newspaper has been Arvilla Meeker was in the kitchen published locally the first of each month at the Indian agency her husband ran. since 1980 for 40,000 residents age 50-plus. She was washing dishes when she heard the shots. She looked out the window and ADVERTISING saw the men of the agency running Advertising is sold by fractions of a page: and shouting. One full page, 1/2 page, 1/4 page, etc. Ad The Utes were shooting everyone, deadlines vary for publication the first of setting fire to the buildings. each month. Discounts for multiple issues. Bodies began falling before her For rates, call: eyes. Gunshots were everywhere, filling Wolfgang Lambdin the air with a deafening noise. Advertising Director She grabbed her young daughter, Associate Publisher Josephine, and yelled to the other Fort Collins woman, Flora, to get her children and (970) 229-9204 run for the milkhouse. It was the only building with thick walls. The Indians were shooting into all the buildings, screaming in high, wild SALES OFFICES: voices that rang out above the hail of Ft. Collins and Greeley bullets. (970) 229-9204 Arvilla hoped the thick walls of the milkhouse might stop the bullets. Loveland and Estes Park The women reached it and huddled in (970) 482-8344 a corner. Terrified, they didn’t dare look out EDITORIAL DEADLINE the window. They could only listen to Announcements and stories must be the slaughter outside. It went on for received by the 10th of the month. five hours. Arvilla heard the screams of the men when they were shot, then more LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Senior Voice welcomes readers' letters screams when they were scalped or Greeley founder Nathan Meeker in the late 1800s. and contributions. Enclose a self-addressed ripped open by knives. Hazel Johnson Collection. envelope and return postage to: The Senior She heard the buildings collapse as Voice, 1471 Front Nine Drive, Fort Collins, they burned, horses running and falling agency on September 29, 1879. had lived for centuries. CO 80525, or email [email protected]. when shot, screams from the animals Nathan Meeker had founded the The only survivors were the Typed, single-spaced manuscripts are rising with those of the men. town of Greeley in 1870, then become women—Meeker’s wife Arvilla and preferred. Manuscripts will be treated with When it finally ended, the Indians the government agent at the White daughter Josephine, a woman named care, but The Senior Voice assumes no dragged the women from the River Indian Agency in western Flora Price and her two small chil- responsibility for damaged or lost material building. Colorado. dren. They were later rescued by submitted by readers. Every white man at the agency lay He was an honest, highly princi- cavalry troops. dead or in the agony of death. pled man. But he didn’t understand Eleven white men died at the © Copyright 2007 Arvilla saw her husband dead on the people he was supposed to help. Meeker Massacre. It was the last major The Senior Voice the ground. He had been shot He insisted the Utes give up their Indian uprising in the United States, through the head at close range, then way of life and become farmers. and it never should have happened. scalped. A stake was driven through Without realizing it, he threatened The site is marked in western EDITORIAL OFFICE: his mouth, pinning him to the them in many ways. Colorado near the town of Meeker, 1471 Front Nine Drive ground. Meeker forced the Ute men to walk named for Nathan Meeker. Fort Collins, CO 80525 “My God!” she thought. “What behind plows, a supreme humiliation ________________ (970) 223-9271 has happened? Why did they do it?” for them in front of their wives and COVER PICTURE: American Gold- www.theseniorvoice.net It seemed to happen without children. He plowed up their horse- finch, taken by Fort Collins warning. But she should have seen it racing track and did other things they professional photographer Gregory No material may be reproduced by any coming. considered threatening. Mayse. See his photos at the Poudre means without permission of the publisher. The Meeker Massacre was the When he requested a cavalry troop River Arts Center and Benson Gallery result of misguided intentions and in Fort Collins, plus the Art Center of be dispatched to the agency, the Utes Dr. William Lambdin, Publisher poor judgment—white people trying figured they would be killed or forced Estes Park, and at www.gregory- to suddenly change the way Indians from their land. They attacked the mayse.com. ■ 4 • August 2007 • The Senior Voice Letter from a Greeley Pioneer (Editor’s Note: Greeley historian Hazel E. Johnson wrote the following story years ago.) By Hazel Johnson hen Willard Darling of In- Wdependence, Iowa, read Nathan Meeker’s “Call” in the New York Tribune in 1869, proposing “to establish a Colony in Colorado Territory,” Darling’s wife exclaimed, “That’s where we want to go.” Darling arrived at Greeley in May of 1870 with the first group of Union Colony settlers. His wife and children came in the spring of 1871. Following are excerpts from letters written by Darling to his wife. They show both the enthusiasm and disappointment he and many other Greeley settlers felt: “May 15, 1870.