Lillybridge III: Final Page of an Early 20th Century Photo Essay

An ecosystem is held together by complex interactions between living organisms and their inorganic environment. When early farmers and ranchers transformed the landscape in Colorado, were they destroying an ecosystem, or becoming a part of it? Perhaps there was a bit of both. The settlers who camped near Lillybridge's studio probably didn't have time to question it. It was life. If you worked hard enough, you'd survive.

In 1999, Robin Chotzinoff leafed through the Lillybridge collection for an article in Westword. One quote stood out above all the others, capturing the essence of struggles and change in the early 20th century:

Ice, milk and coal were delivered to the door. Babies frequently died.
The South Platte River area was no greenbelt, but you could camp there for weeks, bringing along the Conestoga your grandpa came to Colorado in. You could swim there without fear of death by sewage. You could catch a cheap fish dinner. You could take your sweetheart there...although her mother might not have approved. You could buy some land cheap, build yourself a foundry and start paving the whole thing.

Maybe it has changed, maybe it hasn't. Maybe it was changing before we arrived. Do the elements of an ecosystem ever cease to adapt? Of course, people weren't the only element in the changing life along the Archer canal. Livestock walked the same trails as people. Here's a couple with a family of goats:

and a bull:

Where there was livestock, there was also hay... lots of it. (Don't you just want to flag this guy down for a hayride?)

I'm not sure if the next picture depicts work or play. We see two boys and a donkey... one of the boys is carrying a gun. Were they on patrol?

Others traveled with a bit more class, like this man in a carriage being drawn by two gorgeous horses:

But by far, the most popular and fashionable mode of transportation at the time was the bicycle--very high tech for its day:

Women rode them, wearing long skirts (hence the origin of the lower bar on women's bikes):

Men rode them, wearing their lodge uniforms and bearing steel:

The bicycle was an essential part of the paperboy's equipment, even then:

Sometimes, in order to get by, you didn't need a bike, or horses, or goats--all you needed was a fishing pole and a basket to store your catch:

When it came to larger jobs, a helping hand went much further than any technology at the time. Here, a crew builds a footbridge across the canal, near Lillybridge's studio:

Charles Lillybridge ended up using the footbridge for--what else?--portraits:

The ad on the bridge is for "cheroots", only three for five cents. The cheroot (for all of the non-cigar aficionados out there) is also known as a "stogie". The gentleman below, holding on to his dog, appears to be gnawing on one:

So, was the life that Lillybridge captured in his photographs so different from life 100 years later? If some of the people passed by you on the street, you probably wouldn't look twice. (Ok, the man with the sword would probably draw a bit of attention.) Will life 100 years from now be so different? The early settlers in Colorado had a profound impact on the land around them, but such impact was just a matter of survival. We have an impact today, as well. Our impacts, too, are simply a matter of survival. But don't be surprised if people look back a century from now, and question why we did things the way we did.

Part I. Part II. Check back tomorrow... The Lillybridge collection just might appear in the Friday Fractal.

Image notes: The previous images have all been cropped to fit, but have not been reduced from the sizes posted in the online collection. To save time, these are not linked, but can be easily found by searching the collection. All images here via the Western History Photos collection at the Denver Public Library.