Laserfiche WebLink
<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />IMPORTANCE OF PRIMARY SOURCES <br /> <br />The use of prinary source material is especially vital to a study such <br />as this because "hearsay" evidence, such as that found in newspaper <br />reports or undocumented studies, needs verification in order to be <br />sustained or disMissed. The primary sources used for this study <br />include government and scientific records, diaries, manuscript collection <br />papers, professional and business correspondence, meeting notes, city <br />council minutes, legal records, oral history interviews and photographs. <br /> <br />Previously published secondary sources such as government agency <br />reports or consulting firr:1 studies produced by hydrologists and <br />engineers were scrutinized for this project first. Then primary sources <br />were examined at libraries, university special collections, museums, and <br />historical societies. Newspapers and radio stations in Boulder County <br />aided in appealing to citizens for privately held written information and <br />photograrhs, or personal experiences that they might wish to share in <br />an "oral history" interview. "I nformation Wanted" posters were placed <br />in towns and on rural community bulletin boards throughout the area, <br /> <br />LIMITATIONS OF SOURCE MATERIAL <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The available historic record (written accounts) poses several problems <br />when applied to the study of natural events in the western portion of <br />the United States. This study has been affected by those <br />considerations. The overriding probleM is the region's relatively short <br />written history (which is confined to the late nineteenth and twentieth <br />centuries). Boulder County was incorporated in 1862, but most of the <br />towns were not settled until the early 1870's and r.1any did not <br />incorporate until the 1880's. Although there were explorers, <br />surveyors, fur trappers, miners, and some homesteaders in the area <br />prior to that tiMe, the mobil ity of those people has produced an <br />incomplete historic record. Diaries and early government reports exist, <br />but they are the exception rather than the rule. <br /> <br />Although Indian tribes populated the area prior to white settlement, <br />most of their histor~1 has been passed down to subsequent generations <br />by storytelling. The oral tradition of the Arapahoe, the Ute, and other <br />tribes who resided in the County has not been adequately preserved. <br />That valuable source of historic information is, therefore, nearly <br />nonexistent. <br /> <br />In addition to a relatively short, written account of the area prior to <br />settlement, another research problem is the absence of a consistent <br />population density after settlement. Vast sections of the County were <br />virtually uninhabitated, others only sparsely populated. In 1894, for <br />instance, a large percentage of Boulder County citizens lived in small <br />mining caMps, on farms, or in semirural unincorporated areas. The <br />1890 census figures illustrate that fact. Of the 14,082 total inhabitants <br />in the County, only 3,341 lived outside established townsites.3 Manv <br />areas of the County remained predOMinantly rural until the late 1950'5. . <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Beside sparse population, some rlll1l11g towns and farm communities <br />boomed and then declined, leaving no record after a rarticular date. <br />