Centennial
James A. Michener, 1974, Random
House, 1087 pages.
Centennial
is a fictional town a few miles east of
Greeley
,
Colorado
, along the
South Platte River
. It is the setting for Michener’s
depiction of the settling of the west, and of particular interest for our
history, the development of the cattle ranching business.
He illustrates quite nicely through the story of the development of the
Venneford Ranch, the importance of the British remittance
men – especially their money –in the development of the cattle business
in the west.
A
map at the beginning of the
book shows the size of the Venneford extending between the South Platte River on
the south, the Wyoming-Colorado border (generally) on the north, the
foothills west of
Fort Collins
to the west, and to
Nebraska
on the east. I think the
Wyoming
Swan
Land
and Cattle Ranch is the template for the Venneford.
It was based on British money and it was quite large.
Go the following website and see what you think, http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/swan3.html.
From the website: in 1884, the Company purchased from the
Union
Pacific 550,000 acres for $2,300,000, giving it control over 3.25 million
acres.
The second chapter tells the story of the birth of the earth, working
forward in time to the birth of the Rockies (which occurred several times)
narrowing in on the forces which created the
South Platte River
. It is one of the easiest ways to
learn this complicated material. Chapter
three is the settlement of North America from
Asia
; Chapter Four is the Native Americans, and so it goes, coming forward to modern
time describing the conflicts among the various peoples and modes of living –
cattle, sheep, agriculture. It
includes a murder mystery.
It was made into a movie shortly after its publication.
The library has the DVD of the movie, the book, and, audio book.
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