DORIS MONAHAN: Northeastern Colorado

Books by Doris Monahan
Paleo-Indians
Plains Indians
The Gold Rush
Sterling Settlement
prairie and platte river
Northeastern Colorado is a vast expanse of lumpy prairie, surmounted by a sky that stretches overhead from horizon to horizon. The sunsets are flamboyant. The wealth of opal, silver and gold lavished on the clouds is a stark contrast to the dun-colored landscape. A river runs diagonally through part of the area and across the rest of it. But it’s a lazy river and much depleted by irrigation. The climate is just tolerable. It isn’t humid—humidity wouldn’t have a chance with the wind blowing all the time. It gets hot in the summer, a little over 100 degrees sometimes, and it gets cold in the winter, as low as twenty to thirty degrees below zero once in a while. We get little snow and rain. People have come and gone. They tried to live with it, to make friends with it, or to beat it into submission. A few succeeded, many did not. History has changed this part of the country, but not much. History is still working at the task.
-Doris Monahan
photo of doris monahan

About Doris
Although Doris grew up on a farm in the Nebraska Panhandle, she has lived for over 60 years in Sterling, a pleasant town, rich in history, on the Northeastern Colorado plains. It is here that she became interested in The South Platte Trail, with its intriguing stories of stage stations, the Pony Express and continual conflicts with the Native Americans. After years of research Doris authored Destination Denver City:The South Platte Trail, which was published first by The University of Ohio Press in 1985 and has been recently reprinted.
Not far from Sterling is the community of Julesburg with its colorful reputation, and the former site of the much misunderstood but also fascinating Fort Sedgwick. Her newest book, printed this year, is Julesburg and Fort Sedgwick: Wicked City, Scandalous Fort. In addition to her interest in 19th century Northeastern Colorado, Doris is also interested in the Paleo-Indians of her region and has written articles about those long-ago first visitors. In addition, she has spent years researching the history of Sterling.

Books can be purchased from this website, or from the Overland Trail Museum, Northeastern Junior College Bookstore, or Barnes Pharmacy! Many Colorado and Nebraska Bookstores and msueums carry them also.

Doris welcomes comments and would love to discuss the topics that interest you!

Contact her: dmonahan@bresnan.net
Doris Monahan
PO Box 1231
Sterling CO 80751

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