Lost Highways: Dispatches From The Shadows Of The Rocky Mountains podcast

#Society #History #Tyler Hill #History Colorados #Podcasting Education #Documentaries

22:08

Host Francesca Amiker sits down with directors Joe and Anthony Russo, producer Angela Russo-Otstot, stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, and more to uncover how family was the key to building the emotional core of The Electric State . From the Russos’ own experiences growing up in a large Italian family to the film’s central relationship between Michelle and her robot brother Kid Cosmo, family relationships both on and off of the set were the key to bringing The Electric State to life. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts . State Secrets: Inside the Making of The Electric State is produced by Netflix and Treefort Media.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

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History Colorado’s critically acclaimed podcast, Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains, expands the history of the American West by exploring how overlooked stories from the past have shaped current world events and continue to impact our lives today. Each season, host Noel Black, producer and producers Maria Maddox and Dustin Hodge delve into stories from our shared past that we couldn't believe we'd never heard. Lost Highways is made possible by and a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by a founding grant from the Sturm Family Foundation.

48 episodes

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

28 subscribers

updated about a year ago

Series home•Feed

48 episodes

#Society #History #Tyler Hill #History Colorados #Podcasting Education #Documentaries

All episodes

1
Slavery in the South(west) 1:03:22

40 weeks ago1:03:22

1:03:22

It’s often said that slavery is America’s original sin. But the kind of slavery most of us learn about in history class—the brutal, dehumanizing enslavement of Black people in the Southern states—wasn’t the only or even the first kind of bondage in the Americas. On this episode of Lost Highways, we look at a far-less institutionalized form of forced labor and servitude widely practiced in the American West. And as we’ll see, enslavement has taken many different forms. We’ll look at the ways power and economics in the Borderlands helped to perpetuate slavery in the United States long after its official abolition. We’ll also look at the ways this history of Indigenous slavery continues to affect descendants, some of whom struggle to reconcile their familial and genetic pasts with their sense of belonging in what has been their homeland for generations.…

1
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Columbus 1:06:21

41 weeks ago1:06:21

1:06:21

A monument to Christopher Columbus, sitting in the middle of Pueblo, Colorado has been dividing the town for years. To the large population of Italian-Americans whose ancestors came to Pueblo around the turn of the twentieth Century, it has long been a point of pride and a symbol of cultural belonging. But for the Indigenous and Chicano communities who also call Pueblo home, the statue of Columbus is a dark reminder of the long history of colonialism and genocide his voyages sparked. On this episode, we look at how community identities have been formed around historical heroes, and what happens to those communities when the actual history of those heroes catches up with what they’ve come to symbolize.…

1
Set in Stone 44:32

43 weeks ago44:32

44:32

Since the racial justice protests of 2020, when most people think of monuments being torn down, they think of confederate statues in the south being toppled from their pedestals. But a Civil War monument to Union soldiers that stood in front of the Colorado capital for more than a hundred years was also pushed over during the protests that followed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. On this episode, we’ll look the ways History Colorado has pioneered a new approach to dealing with controversial monuments. We’ll also take a look at what monuments should mean, the purpose they serve in maintaining our cultural narratives, and the challenges of reframing those monuments as the stories we tell ourselves about the past evolve over time.…

1
The Unfairer Sex 1:05:16

45 weeks ago1:05:16

1:05:16

On this episode of Lost Highways, we’ll take a look back at how Title IX’s passage in 1972 inadvertently codified the separation of sports by sex. And while the law opened the door to equal opportunity in sports and education for women, it also placed sex at the center of how we define fairness without fully addressing issues of equality where gender and race are concerned. We'll also meet Donna Hoover, the young woman who, in 1976, went out for the boys soccer team at Golden High School in Golden, Colorado and wound up changing women's sports in America forever.…

1
Unforgetting Los Seis 55:59

49 weeks ago55:59

55:59

On a sleepy summer evening in Boulder, Colorado, in 1974, three young Chicano activists sat in a car at Chautauqua Park at the base of the iconic Flatirons—the giant red sandstone rock formations that sit above the foothills. Then, at approximately 9:50 p.m., the car exploded. Two days later, another car in downtown Boulder exploded, killing three more young activists. Their deaths came against the backdrop of the Chicano movement and the social justice activism of the 1960s and ‘70s. On this episode of Lost Highways, we’ll look back at Los Seis de Boulder—the nearly-forgotten group of six activists in the Chicano movement who were fighting for student aid and representation on the CU Campus, and the unresolved mystery of their deaths.…

1
Oral Histories of the Sand Creek Massacre from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Located in Oklahoma 45:52

51 weeks ago45:52

45:52

The Sand Creek Massacre was the deadliest day in Colorado history, and it changed Cheyenne and Arapaho people forever. On the morning of November 29, 1864, US troops under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington attacked a peaceful camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho people made up mostly of women, children, and elders along the Big Sandy Creek in Southeastern Colorado, near the present day town of Eads. The scale of the massacre was horrifying. More than 230 men, women, and children were murdered in the most brutal ways imaginable. US troops mutilated living and dead bodies, taking body parts as gruesome trophies back to be paraded and displayed in Denver. This is the first episode in a series about the Sand Creek Massacre. Throughout the series, we’ll focus on sharing Cheyenne and Arapaho accounts and oral histories.…

1
American Gothic 54:59

1 year ago54:59

54:59

In 1881, white residents in the mining town of Gothic, Colorado lynched a Chinese man. Or did they? As the latest episode of Lost Highways investigates this reported act of anti-Chinese racial violence from Colorado’s past, we consider what it means to belong in the places we call home, and how such acts of violence continue to echo into the present—whether it actually happened or not.…

1
When History Burns 1:03:11

1 year ago1:03:11

1:03:11

With the new reality of megafires in the West, we take a look at what happens when history itself is destroyed and how we hold on to who and what we are when we lose the artifacts and records that tell our stories. We’ll take you from the Waldo Canyon Fire of 2012 near the town of Manitou Springs to the Denver suburbs of Louisville and Superior, Colorado where the 2021 Marshall Fire wiped out not only hundreds of homes and businesses, but also the entire Superior history museum, along with centuries of artifacts, archives, and community memories.…

1
From Sefarad to the San Luis Valley: Crypto-Judaism in the Southwest 58:32

1 year ago58:32

58:32

Colorado's San Luis Valley is the last place you might expect to find a centuries old lineage of Sephardic Jews. But a rare form of breast cancer and a host of odd traditions, artifacts, and rituals led researchers to discover an enclave of Crypto-Jews that fled Europe for the New World in the 16th Century to hide out in one of the most remote areas of the lower 48 states. On this episode, we’ll unveil a secret Jewish faith and identity rooted deep in the American Southwest.…

1
Mesa Verde of the Mysteries 54:44

2 years ago54:44

54:44

For nearly a century-and-a-half, archaeologists have been studying Mesa Verde in hopes of deciphering what happened to the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived and thrived there for so long. For many, it remains one of the great mysteries in the history of North America. On this episode of Lost Highways, we’ll explore the way that historians and archaeologists try to solve these kinds of mysteries, and how they know what they say they think they know. Where does that confidence come from? How confident are they, actually? And what happens when what we think we know changes?…

1
A Wild Horse Isn't Just A Horse, Of Course 52:39

2 years ago52:39

52:39

On this episode of Lost Highways, we look at the mustang, the wild horse of American myth and legend. Though they’re widely revered as symbols of untameable American freedom in the West, the reality of the wild horse in the 21st Century is far less romantic. From the long history of the horse's evolution in North America to the helicopter roundups on rangeland in The West, we'll follow the blurry line between the way we've mythologized horses to how we actually treat them.…

1
How the Western Won 48:18

2 years ago48:18

48:18

Westerns often reveal more about the period when they were produced than the era they portray, but the genre won't die. On this episode of Lost Highways, History Colorado's Dustin Hodge traces the rise of The Western in American pop culture, the significance of landscape in film, and the moral guidelines that set the boundaries for US films produced from the late-19th Century to the present. From classic to revisionist and contemporary films, Westerns have both created and pushed back on the myths America tells itself.…

1
The Ship Inside the Mountain: A Hidden History of NORAD and North America's Nuclear Defense 1:03:07

2 years ago1:03:07

1:03:07

On this episode of Lost Highways, we take you inside the history of NORAD, or North American Aerospace Defense Command. AND we’ll take you inside The Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the base that has stoked the pop cultural imagination of generations with movies and shows from Dr. Strangelove to Stargate to Interstellar. As the war in Ukraine and Chinese spy balloons have brought long dormant fears of a nuclear attack back to public consciousness, we look at the way the Cold War reshaped and modernized the already militarized American West as it became the stage for a global high noon with the Soviet Union. We also look at the ways NORAD’s vigilant watch for threats beyond our borders may have made us feel safe, but also left us vulnerable to threats from within and the instability of our own nuclear arsenal.…

1
You Don't Know Barney Ford 47:32

2 years ago47:32

47:32

Barney Ford was one of the most successful and resilient Black businessmen in the early American West. He came in search of gold, owned and operated hotels and restaurants, lost them in fires, rebuilt them, and enjoyed a reputation as a King of hospitality in early Denver, Breckenridge, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Much of his legend was built upon a 1963 biography called "Mr. Barney Ford: A Portrait in Bistre" written by a hack journalist named Forbes Parkhill who moonlighted as a screenwriter for schlocky westerns. And for almost 60 years, Parkhill's colorful account of Ford's birth, his enslavement, and his heroic escape to freedom were taken largely as fact. But then, in 2022, history happened.…

1
Cathay Williams/William Cathay: Buffalo Soldier 52:15

2 years ago52:15

52:15

Cathay Williams was an African American Woman who was conscripted to work as General Philip Sheridan's cook during the Civil War. When the war was over, she wanted to join one of the all-Black Army Regiments that later became known as the “Buffalo Soldiers." But women weren't allowed to serve at that time. So she put on men's clothes, changed her name to William Cathay, and spent the next three years as a Buffalo Soldier in the "Wild West." Her story could easily serve as a western myth – a portrait of so-called frontier courage in the face of insurmountable odds. But we look more closely at the way her choice to live as a Black male soldier also reflect the extremely limited options available to Black women at the time.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
The Man Who Regretted His Millions 1:01:42

2 years ago1:01:42

1:01:42

If you work hard enough, or get lucky enough, the distinctly American myth goes, anyone can become rich. And once you’re rich, of course, you’ll be happy … right? In the nineteenth century, no one embodied that American myth of the rugged individual than Winfield Scott Stratton, the first millionaire of the Cripple Creek Gold boom in 1893. He'd spent half his life searching for gold and, once he found it, became rich beyond his wildest dreams. But his sudden wealth made him miserable, even as he tried to give away, and he drank himself to death in 1902. On this episode, we complicate the rags-to-riches American myth of the rugged individual as we look at Stratton's life and the equally fascinating history of the miners and unions of Cripple Creek who made him rich.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Busted: The Case of the Denver Police Department 52:45

3 years ago52:45

52:45

Two years after the murder of George Floyd, we look back at the origins of policing in America through the lens of the Denver Police Department, how their role in communities has transitioned over time, what happens when they abuse their power, and the long struggle for change.

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Colorado's Gulag Archipelago 1:00:24

3 years ago1:00:24

1:00:24

Less than an hour south of Colorado Springs, Fremont County is home to more than a dozen prisons, including the Colorado State Penitentiary and ADX, or Supermax, aka "The Alcatraz of the Rockies." On this episode of Lost Highways , we look into the history of the architecture of those prisons to see what they reveal about our belief in the power of incarceration to make society a better place.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
The Mother of All Strikes 1:04:41

3 years ago1:04:41

1:04:41

On this episode of Lost Highways, we look back at Mother Jones, one of the fiercest labor organizers in American history, and her role in the United Mine Workers of America's massive strike in the southern Colorado coalfields that led to the Ludlow Massacre on April 20, 1914.

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Spirits of Place: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and Its Legacy 59:52

3 years ago59:52

59:52

In November of 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) into law. Now, more than 30 years later, we look back at both the letter and spirit of the law, which aims to return tens of thousands of stolen Indigenous remains and funerary artifacts to their tribes.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Beyond the Valley of a Doubt 48:54

3 years ago48:54

48:54

In 1863, two brothers from Colorado's San Luis Valley allegedly went on one of the most infamous killing sprees in the history of the American West. But the story's sensationalized lore has been entwined with the deeply contentious and unresolved history of land rights in the Borderlands of Southern Colorado for centuries. In this episode, we work with folklorist Jake Rosenberg to peel back the layers and see why the story still resonates today.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
The Original BlacKkKlansman 53:45

3 years ago53:45

53:45

In 2019, Spike Lee's 2018 film "BlacKkKlansman" won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film brought national attention to the story of Ron Stallworth, the first Black Detective to work in the Colorado Springs Police Department, who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. But what many people don't know is that Colorado has been home to THREE Black Klansmen. In this episode, Noel and Tyler talk to experts, scholars, Theo Wilson (the most recent Black Klansman), and more as we explore the story of Dr. Joseph Westbrook, who infiltrated the KKK in the 1920s in an effort to protect the thriving Five Points community in Denver.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
A Lynching in Limon 58:45

3 years ago58:45

58:45

Content Warning: Racial Violence People don't often think of Colorado when they hear the word "lynching." But in 1900, one of the most horrifying racial terror lynchings in US history took place in the small town of Limon on the Eastern Plains. Hundreds of spectators looked on as fifteen-year-old Preston Porter, Jr., was burned alive. More than a century later, a group of people from across the state of Colorado came together to make sure that he was remembered—and that his story was told.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Flesh for Fantasy 51:38

3 years ago51:38

51:38

In the winter of 1874, Alfred Packer led a group of prospectors into the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. After returning alone, he confessed to eating the remains of his travel companions, and was convicted of murder despite claiming self-defense. The conviction sealed his place in history as the "Colorado Cannibal." After almost 150 years, Noel and Tyler look back at Packer's story and discover there’s much more to it than simple questions of guilt or innocence.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Lost Highways Presents: The Order of Death 37:48

4 years ago37:48

37:48

As we get to work making Season 3 of Lost Highways, we wanted to share a podcast we think our listeners would love as much as we do. This is Episode 2 of a 4 part series called "The Order of Death" by JoshMattison and Shannon Geis. It's an in-depth look at the neo Nazis who assassinated Denver radio host Alan Berg, who was the subject of the S1 Lost Highways episode, "The Passion of Alan Berg." To hear more go to https://www.theorderofdeathpodcast.com/ or search "The Order of Death" on any podcast app.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
The Miseducation of Freddie Freak 1:05:37

4 years ago1:05:37

1:05:37

Juan Federico Miguel Arguello Trujillo lost his name, his language, and his culture at a Catholic school in Trinidad, Colorado in the 1940s. When he found them again he found himself at the center of some of the most important moments of 20th Century Chicano history.

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Going Back to Trinidad 1:04:34

4 years ago1:04:34

1:04:34

On this episode, how Trinidad, Colorado -- an iconic Western mining town along the old Santa Fe trail on the New Mexico border -- became the unlikely location for two pioneers of gender confirmation surgery. Their work would earn Trinidad the now-dated nickname: "the sex change capital of the world."…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
[Update] "Maybe They Should Call it the Kansas Flu" 32:15

4 years ago32:15

32:15

As the Covid-19 Pandemic rages on, we update this episode about what we can learn from the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu outbreak in Colorado. In particular, we look at Gunnison, the mountain town that almost managed to avoid the outbreak altogether.

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
Tuned in Dropouts 58:35

4 years ago58:35

58:35

In 1970, a man named Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche came to the US with the mission of teaching Tibetan Buddhism to Westerners. He enthralled hippies across the country and paved the way for a distinctly American Buddhism. But there was also a "shadow side" to his charisma. On this episode, Noel and Tyler explore the life and times of a beloved teacher who was no stranger to controversy.…

Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains

1
[UPDATE] Mascots, Mask Off 1:02:47

4 years ago1:02:47