Mines, Massacres and Memories: Colorado Fuel and Iron's Creation of a Company in Southern Colorado, 1880-1919

Abstract

From 1880-1919, residents of southern Colorado faced a change in regards to the structure of their geographic, social, and ethnic status. With the introduction of an East Coast based company into this area a new world emerged which changed the culture of the Southwest from heavily influenced by a mestizo culture, a hybrid of Spanish and native American Culture, to one entrenched with East Coast corporate ideals based in the Progressive movement. With this change in influence, by World War I residents of southern Colorado came to be categorized as and showed characteristics of a loyal American community. From 1880-1919 Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, CF&I, structured a corporate mentality that shifted Nuevo Mexicanos conceptions of ethnicity and gender to fit within a state structured identity which saw them as employees, with the onset of World War I this identity shifted to that of American citizens. Nuevo Mexicanos and others in this area used the Ludlow Massacre as a means of signifying how CF&I had treated its citizens and structured their collective memory around this event.