La Plata County has a number historical women figures who left a significant mark on the area.
Amanda Cotton, the first woman to settle in La Plata County, was viewed as a natural healer who tended to the sick and even hosted social gatherings at her home.
Annette Aspaas, a Norwegian immigrant who helped operate a stage stop named Flag Station near Hermosa and later worked as a laundress at the Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School to make ends meet for her two children.
Candace Lambert, the first Anglo woman to come to La Plata County. Carrie Nichols, the first woman to give birth in La Plata County.
There are plenty more names who helped shape the area’s history, and the County Historical Society is honoring them as part of Women’s History Month.
Kathie Propp, a member of the county historical society’s board of directors, said it’s important that “people realize the role that women had played and what we’ve come up against through time, especially when we got the right to vote.”
“That was a significant change in how women were perceived in our communities. It gave them rights and a voice,” she said.
County historical society board member Susan Jones said women in the West, especially in Colorado, were “definitely pushing the envelope in bringing women’s rights to the forefront out here.”
During World II, a number of women from the Durango area made major contributions. They ventured out to California to help build ships and boats.
“That is a known contribution to history,” Propp said.
Other historic women the county is honoring include famed Olga Little, the first ever female mule-skinner at just 11 years old and a Durango icon.
“She was brave and compassionate,” Propp said. “And to this day, we hear stories about families that had miners that were saved by Olga”
A major goal with various events the historical society is holding in March is to reinforce that women have made such an impact.
“I think so many times, the impact women have had are quiet. They’re silent. A lot of people don’t know about it,” Propp said, adding such events help educate people.
Jones said prospectors were driven to the area by the gold and silver rush in the late 1800s, but needed clean clothes and food to eat. Those prospectors brought their spouses along with them.
They made the trip going over Stony Pass, which connects Howardsville just outside Silverton to Colorado Highway 149 near Creede, with no amenities they were accustomed to coming from cities like Chicago and New York, Jones said. Rather, they dealt with being in a log cabin with a puncheon floor.
Jones said the historical society also looks to keep educating people about not only how far women in general have come, especially in the trying times seen today, but to also remember how far Native and Hispanic women – once discounted as women, even though they were married to white men – have come.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com
