THE GAZETTE

YourHub

v0.2 I No.46 I COPYRIGHT 2009

THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2009

LAUNCH OF VIRTUAL HISTORY

BY DAVE HUGHES

YOUR HUB CONTRIBUTOR

STORY ID: 598776

Old Colorado City Historical Society is just a few weeks from formally launching to a higher orbit as a Virtual Historical Society as an extension of our Physical History Society and Center/Museum. Now it's not as if we did not have a richly-endowed Web site for the last 12 years. In fact it was one of the first powerful Web sites for a nonprofit organization in Colorado Springs and the only one (still) that has been wirelessly connected at broadband speed to the Internet from its beginning in 1997. Its original link was funded by no less than the National Science Foundation as a technological experiment in “history by wireless!” But now, after months of work by both my technically advanced son, David, and a six-person volunteer “Tech Committee” under my guidance and substantial personal funding, the Society will launch, on May 8 the NEW http://history. oldcolo.com. The old site is still on line at http://occhs.oldcolo.com. It will stay up until we have moved over and properly installed all 500 historical photographs and their captions, hundreds of pre-photography 18803 sketches, maps, hundreds of thousands of words in stories, descriptions and biographies. What is the difference between the old and the new site? It will still have all the encyclopedic his- tory contained in the original site about Colorado City, early El Paso County, and the west side of Colo~ rado Springs. Its content was ac- ——,.——. m...— CONTACT US E-mail yourhub®coloradosprings com. Fax 636-0202. Mail items to 30 S. Prospect St, Colorado Springs, 80903. YourHub editor Tim Bergsten 719-636-0125 or tim. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Duncan 719-636-0190 or travis. duncan@coloradospringscom. Dave Hughes: Is a West Point gradu- ate, west-side resi- dent and Internet pioneer. cessed, not only by thousands of the general public over the years, and scanned by search engines, but it was discovered by an amaz- ing number of direct descendants of original Colorado City pioneers who, in their genealogical search for their family roots, found our site‘ While they learned from us things they did not know, in most cases they contributed to us and our archives large amounts of his- tory about their ancestors that nei- ther we nor any local historian or institution, such as the Pioneer’s Museum or Penrose Library, ever knew. An interactive Web site is as good for collecting history, as dis- tributing it! No less than 11 direct descendant families of the very earliest pio- neers have found us because our responsive Web site exists. They include the great great grand- children of Dr Garvin who built the 1859 cabin in Bancroft Park; Melanchthon Beach who drove the first stake for Colorado City in what is today Pleasant Valley on August 12, 1859; Irving Howbert, who fought at Sand Creek in the 8rd Colorado Cavalry; and Jacob Schmidt, whose Colorado City Beer Hall was famous in 1896. Further, many of these distant relatives have become dues-paying Society members, even though they YourHub communityjomnalist Travis ADVERTISE do not live in Colorado! But they are connected to us, online. And continue to offer facts and stories and learn from our site what life was like. The Net permits a Virtual Historical Society to exist! That history-collecting heritage will continue, but now our pow- erful new site has much more. It supports multimedia history. We are putting the 100 hours of re- corded interviews with old timers, now dead, we taped 30 years ago, online for browsing and listening. We have more recent videotaped interviews of descendant family members, such as 87-year-old Lou- ise Solberg, the granddaughter of Sylvester Buzzard who pioneered out in Eastern El Paso County in 1862. And we videotape outstanding illustrated lectures at our Center, or our history tours to places like Glorieta Battleground and can put them online. The new site has a powerful in- ternal search engine, which the old site did not have. You can do your own research. As a treat for dues-paying (a big fat $20 a year) members, the site contains the searchable full text and image replicas of every one of the 128 history-packed West Word newsletters the Society has pub lished since its beginning in 1985. But there is more. Our entire Book and Gift Store is online for browsing and remote purchase via secure Paypal or credit card. You can sign up as a new member, or renew your dues online. And you can'p'fifehase discount tickets in advance to our various events — such as the Cemetery Crawl, or the Central | Northwest | Cheyenne Mountain | 636-0246 Powers l Falcon l Eastern Plains l 636-0336 Tri-Lakes i Black Forest I Briargate I 636-0314 West Side I Manitou I Woodland Park I Teller County I 636-0314 Write about the the people, events and issues important to you. Start a blog or post photos. Your stories, your words, your opinions are important to us and other readers. Christmas Bed and Breakfast Tours. You can make donations to the tax exempt society online also, which is being done right now as we raise money for the Sesquicentennial Monument, which will be erected in Bancroft Park in August. You can see and capture or read presentations of our history, like this outstanding Colorado City Journal Sesquicentennial History of the last 150 years. There is more. The site will be interactive, not just one way. You can join, a discussion or debate by (blag-like) computer conferenc- ing, moderated by one of our vol- unteers. Wanna debate with Curt Neeley whether Sand Creek was a Battle or Massacre? Log in and sound off. And get authoritative answers. If that is not enough, you are invited to upload to the site the results of your OWN local or state research. Which, offerings by you, may become a permanent posted addition to the Web Site! You can ' add to our history. Our Artifact archives, are being progressively (SD-photographed so you can visit our Virtual Museum and look over items with your mouse as completely, if not more so, than if you were standing in front of our glass display cases at our History Center. Now all of this is being construct- ed out of powerful “open source" Ubuntu software with Joomla con- tent management tools that are infinitely (it seems) extensible by talented volunteer programmers. Yet the metadata is being entered consistent with national university and museum standards. And so we REGISTERED USERS I 6,845 I v0.2 i No.46 l COPYRIGHT 2008 YOURHUB NEED SOME HELP? Having trouble posting items? Call us to set up a time to help. Visit us at The Gazette offices, or we'll go to you, ;, ,,,... seen.» IAGE PROVIDED av DAVE HUGHES It's a long way from the first Cpl- orado City Online in Roger's Bar. have links to them. This is the culmination of a vision I had way back in 1979, when with my Model I Radio Shack Computer with the earliest spreadsheet and database and BBS software and a slow modem, I realized it would be possible to virtually present the entire history of the original 0010- rado City, including every person who ever lived in it, every block, every lot, every event that hap- pened from 1859 to yesterday! So browse the pre-launch system now, and then on Friday, be our guest at the History Center, right across from Bancroft Parkat 11 am, while I demonstrate on a big screen all the powerful features of Virtual Old Colorado City —- the most advanced historical online service in Colorado!