Colorado Mountain College, Alpine Campus

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Friday & Saturday, June 24 & 25

chau•tau•qua n : a traveling circuit of lectures, plays, and musical programs begun in
1874 at Lake Chautauqua, New York. (see Chautauqua: An American Institution)

Join Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus in Steamboat Springs for Alpine Chautauqua: Women of the West. Live performances portraying western legends Clara Brown, Isabella Bird and Calamity Jane will take place in the lower Monson soccer field performance tent. No pets, please. All shows are free and refreshments will be served.



This event is sponsored by Colorado Mountain College and the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, call CMC at (970) 870-4444.



Friday, June 24, 4:30 - 6 p.m.

• Pre-Show Music by Emerald City Jewel Singers

• Calamity Jane

Born in Princeton, Missouri, in 1852 Calamity Jane was a hard drinking woman who wore men's clothing, used bawdy language, chewed tobacco and was handy with a gun. She drove freight wagons in Arizona and the Dakotas, where she helped nurse the sick during a smallpox plague in Deadwood, South Dakota and joined in during the Dakota Territory Gold Rush. Condemned by some, admired by many, she was known through the west for her generosity, courage and eccentricities. She died in 1903 and is buried near Wild Bill Hickock in Deadwood. Presented by Glenda Bell.




Saturday, June 25, 3:30 - 6 p.m.

• Pre-Show Music by Avalon Quartet

• Clara Brown

Born a slave in 1800, “Aunt Clara Brown” was a pioneer, crossing the country on foot to join the frontier communities of 1850s Colorado. As an entrepreneur, she became one of the wealthiest women in the West. A tower of strength who never turned away a person in need, she dedicated the rest of her life to finding her four children and helping newly-freed slaves relocate to Colorado. Throughout her life she tirelessly searched for her lost daughter, with whom she was finally reunited prior to her death in 1885. Presented by Opalanga Pugh.

• Isabella Bird


English traveler and writer and first female member of the Royal Geographical Society, Isabella Bird made an extended tour of the Rocky Mountains in 1873, where she climbed Longs Peak, traveled through Estes Park and Big Thompson and St. Vrain canyons all to "improve her health." Her book A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains chronicles her experience living in the Rocky Mountains during this period. By the end of her life, this unlikely adventuress had traveled the globe three times over. Presented by Lynne Swanson.