Description

Colorado’s Industrial Past

Duane A. Smith
with photography by Richard L. Gilbert

Early Coloradans dreamed of dominating the industrial revolution with everything fromcar factories in Denver, sugar plants on the Western slope, steel mills on the Front Range, and more. Abundant natural resources, mining, and manufacturing became the keys to a bright future – or so people thought. But where dreams once flourished, now there are abandoned factories and solitary smokestacks.

Here and Gone: Colorado’s Industrial Past examines early efforts to lead the nation in its march toward a new age, and the factors that thwarted industrialists’ ambitions.