Sidebar by Ed Quillen
History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Pike Bicentennial celebration is winding down in Colorado, and we haven’t found anything scheduled for later this year in New Mexico, where history goes so far back that a mere bicentennial apparently doesn’t attract much attention.
At 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 3, historian Patricia Richmond of Creede will present a talk on Pike at the Rio Grande County Museum & Cultural Center in Del Norte. It’s the first installment of a series she will present on American expeditions into the West.
Other Richmond talks, all starting at 3 p.m. at the museum, will cover Long, Feb. 17; Beale-Heap, March 3; Gunnsion, March 17; and Fremont, March 31.
The big Pike event is the Zebulon Montgomery Pike Bicentennial Symposium in Alamosa on January 26 and 27, arranged by the Pike Bicentennial Celebration Committee, Inc., in collaboration with Adams State College and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, with funding from the San Luis Valley Historical Society.
The symposium is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jack Kyle Cooper, who was a founder of the historical society, a Pike researcher, an author, and the president of the symposium committee until his death in late 2006.
All scheduled activities will take place on the Adams State College campus in Alamosa.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike
Bicentennial Symposium Schedule
Friday, Jan. 26,
Luther Bean Museum in Richardson Hall.
5:00 p.m. Opening reception.
5:30 p.m. Mark Gardner, historian, author, and speaker at the 2006 Anza Day celebration in Poncha Springs. “Reconnaissance for Manifest Destiny.”
Saturday, Jan. 27,
Carson Auditorium, ASC Student Center.
8:30 a.m. Jenny Cooper, president, Adams State College Foundation. Greetings. 8:45 a.m. Dr. Edward R. Crowther, chair, Department of History, Adams State College. Reading from Zebulon Mongomery Pike’s Great Western Adventure, 1806-1807, by Jack K. Cooper.
9:00 a.m. Dr. Richard Goddard, Department of History, Adams State College. “The Archology of the Pike Expedition: Chasing Phantoms.”
9:45 a.m. Dr. Gene Smith, Department of History, Texas Christian University. “Zebulon Pike, Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, and the Empire of Liberty.”
10:45 a.m. John Murphy, attorney, Pike researcher. “Captain Pike Comes to Colorado.”
11:30 a.m. Lunch break; annual meeting of the San Luis Valley Historical Society.
1:00 p.m. Virginia McConnell Simmons, historian, author, and Colorado Central contributor. “James Wilkinson and the ‘Spanish Conspiracy’.”
1:45 p.m. Jim McChristal, historian, National Park Service. “Zebulon Montgomery Pike: In Defense of an American Soldier.”
2:15 p.m. Rick Manzanares, director, Fort Garland Museum. “The Spanish Perspective on the Zebulon Pike Exploration of 1806-07.”
3:00 p.m. Katie Davis Gardner, curator, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. “A Very Graceful Sort of Undress: Women’s Apparel and Adornment in New Spain.”
3:45 p.m. John Steinle, administrator, Hiwan Homestead Museum, Evergreen, CO. “The Perhaps Necessary Evil: Zebulon Pike and the U.S. Army.”
4:30 p.m. John H. Johnson, DVD producer. “Zebulon Pike and the Blue Mountain.”
5:30 p.m. Banquet, ASC Student Center. Reservations required.*
6:00 p.m. Tom Munch, Don Richmond, and Rex Rideouts, music/slide performance. “A Voyage of Such Nature: Music in Celebration of the Pike Expedition.”
7:00 p.m. Keynote address. Dr. John Logan Allen, chair, Department of Geography, University of Wyoming. “Zebulon Pike and American Science: A Jeffersonian Explorer in the American Southwest.”
*All events are free and open to the public, except for the banquet, which requires reservations before Jan. 19. (Unfortunately, our deadlines didn’t synch too well this time around.)
