Meeker

Long before settlers arrived, the free-roaming Ute people were the first modern inhabitants of the White River valley in northwestern Colorado. Rising tensions finally broke into open violence, including an attack on the Indian agency near what is now Meeker, and the Ute were removed from the region in 1881. Meanwhile, bold newcomers were moving in from every direction. Land speculators and ranchers drew settlers to the rural area, where residents made or hoped to make their living through ranching, hunting, guiding, and the extraction of coal, oil shale, oil, and natural gas. Meeker offered a bit of frontier excitement and the promise of prosperity, along with a landscape that would even attract Theodore Roosevelt. The book offers glimpses of the peoples, customs, festivities, and daily routines of those who lived in this valley before the present day.