Review by Martha Quillen
Salida – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Images of America – Salida Colorado
by Kay Marnon Danielson
Published by Arcadia Publishing 2002
ISBN 0-7385-2067-5
WHEN I TOLD Ed I wanted to review this book, he said, “But that came out a few years ago and I couldn’t see any reason to review it. It’s just pictures.”
Well, what do you expect from someone whose favorite newspaper is The Wall Street Journal? In fact, Ed thinks that the Journal sold out a few years back when it started including more pictures; in his view, words are of the essence.
Yet despite Ed’s insistence that words are superior to pics, I found him perusing this book several times.
And that certainly couldn’t have been for the writing. Images features pictures with cutlines. There’s no real narrative, and due to the extreme abbreviation of information, the book doesn’t really offer much of an historical perspective either. This reduction of data also leads to inaccuracies. For example, the chapter on railroads says:
“For 100 years the trains ran through Salida, leaving their indelible print on the history of the community and providing jobs for many families as well as a way of life. In the 1980s the Denver and Rio Grande pulled up stakes and moved its operation further north.”
And sure, kind of, but not exactly.
In fact, it’s unclear why the author thinks that the D&RG left Salida in the 1980s. But according to Ed, our resident expert: passenger trains stopped coming to Salida in the 1960s; and the D&RG quit changing crews in Salida in the 1970s; and the Monarch Quarry spur closed in the 1980s; and the last trains came through here in the 1990s — after the Tennessee Pass line was taken out of service due to a merger between the D&RG and the UP. In actuality, the railroad abandoned Salida to its future as a tourist town long before the 1980s, but trains came through into the 1990s.
Personally, I merely regarded the preceding example as a dubious oversimplification, but Ed tended to regard it as an untenable misrepresentation. Either way, however, this book also featured some flat out errors, including, “By 1889 Salida had 5,000 residents….”
Actually, I couldn’t find any stats for 1889, but if that’s true, then why were there only 2,586 people in Salida in 1890? And only 3,722 in 1900?
Furthermore, these images of Salida tend toward the antiseptic, with no pictures of Laura Evans or the red light district, and no mention of Salida’s high crime rates in its early years — or of murder, or rustling or lynchings.
So all in all, this book’s presentation of Salida’s history is questionable.
But Images offers pictures of Salida’s schools, hospitals, trains, churches, merchants, buildings, businesses, machinery, scenery, cowboys, families, and children, plus the old roundhouse, the old depots, the old downtown, and the Monte Cristo Hotel. It’s a 125-page collection of old pictures — some are fascinating, some are artistic, some are beguiling, some are beautiful, and some are not. But in this case, the pictures definitely make the book.
I leave it to you to decide whether that’s something you’d be interested in or not.
–Martha Quillen
