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New history book relays Summit’s past in photos
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"Images of America: Summit County"
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By LESLIE BREFELD
Summit Daily News
April 15, 2008
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SUMMIT COUNTY — Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series now has a Summit County edition.
Author credits are given to the Summit Historical Society, and mainly one of its members, Sandra F. Mather, who wrote the introduction and photo information.
The book, “Images of America: Summit County” consists of nearly 200 historic photos, some never before published.
Mather worked with Summit Historical Society members Charlie Bond, David Spencer and Maureen Nicholls on gathering the photographs, mainly from the Dillon Schoolhouse Museum archives.
Mather said she was “able to look at the pictures and put some things together in new ways.
“It was a unique collaborative effort between the four of us in the Historical Society,” she said.
The book came out in early March and is available at local bookstores as well as the Dillon Schoolhouse Museum, the Arapahoe Cafe and Pub in Dillon, and in Breckenridge at Nature’s Own and the Breckenridge Welcome Center. It can also be found online at arcadiapublishing.com.
Mathers, a primary resident of Pennsylvania, has spent her summers here since 1980, where she began volunteering for the Summit Historical Society. Her training is in geology, and her writing about Summit County began with her doctoral dissertation, “Landscape Changes in Summit County, Colorado — 1859 to present.”
She said she looks at history from a spatial point of view.
“I tend to look at the broad picture ... who were the people in the houses and where did they go,” she said.
Her other works of local history writing include “Dillon, Denver, and the Dam,” “Men, Mining and Machines,” and “Behind Swinging Doors, the Saloons of Breckenrige,” among others.
She is currently working on a book called “They Weren’t All Prostitutes and Gamblers,” which focuses on the women of early Summit.
Mather said she was inspired for this book by a diary she found at the Colorado Historical Society in Denver of a young woman named Anna who lived in Breck in the late 1800s. She said through the diary and newspaper articles she was able to put together her life.
“She was typical of women here. She came because she married (Robert) Hamilton and had no choice. She didn’t like it here and couldn’t stop looking back to her family in Illinois.”
Mather continues to lead the Dillon, Denver and the Dam tours in Summit in the summer beginning July 18 on Wednesdays at 10 a.m.
For more information, contact the Summit Historical Society at (970) 453-9022.
Leslie Brefeld can be reached at (970) 668-4626 or lbrefeld@summitdaily.com.
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