Southwest Colorado's mining heritage is a defining piece of the area's history and so are the characters from that era. The men who brought electricity to the San Juan Triangle are being brought to life in a new book and accompanying photographic exhibit called "Tough Men in Hard Places."
The book of the same name was written by Durangoan Esther Greenfield. She scoured the archives at Fort Lewis College's Center of Southwest Studies to look at photographs of men she describes as "rugged" and who "worked despite the handicaps of the weather and rough terrain of the Colorado mountains."
Injuries, avalanches and electrocution didn't - and couldn't - stop the men from electrifying the gold and silver mines at the turn of the 20th century. Scores of people relied on this new utility, which would affect communities, families and businesses for generations.
Greenfield's book, which was released in October, was born from her work as a volunteer at the center, where she worked with archivists and curators poring over more than 8,000 photographs from the Western Colorado Power Co.
The grainy but historically fascinating black-and-white photographs almost can stand alone once you see the ways in which the men raised electrical poles, braved harsh weather in the spectacular San Juan Mountains and worked while covered in creosote, not to mention having to lay down planks of wood to cross raging mountain streams.
"This work was not for the fainthearted," Greenfield writes.