Whitney, W.H.:

$4,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

DIRECTORY OF TRINIDAD, COLORADO, FOR 1888. TOGETHER WITH A RESUME OF ITS ADVANTAGES AS A MINING, MANUFACTURING, AND DISTRIBUTING CENTRE. A significant association copy of this very rare directory of Colorado's chief coal mining center, inscribed by one of Trinidad's leading citizens, who also contributed to and published the book. This copy is inscribed on the front free endpaper by "M. Beshoar," an important figure in Trinidad and a chief contributor to this publication. Michael Beshoar (1833–1907) was born in Pennsylvania, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1853. He worked as a physician in Arkansas until the outbreak of the Civil War, enlisting as a surgeon in the Confederate army. After he was captured by Union forces in 1863, he signed an amnesty oath and resumed work at the Union army's hospital in St. Louis. He was eventually transferred to Fort Kearny and afterwards remained in the West, settling near Trinidad in the early 1870s. In Trinidad he continued his career as a physician, operated several drug stores, was elected a Colorado state representative and Las Animas County judge, and, most pertinently, founded the Trinidad Daily Advertiser whose offices printed this directory (including his portrait on page 19). Prior to this directory, Beshoar had done similar promotion for his new home with his 1882 book, All About Trinidad and Las Animas County Colorado. Given Beshoar's history (and the fact that he is the only person thanked by name in the introductio

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