A Tale of Two Towns

The 1890s was a tumultous decade in American history, with economic depression, war, heated politics, and labor conflicts surrounding America's emergence as a world power. Against this chaotic background, life in the rowdy western mining town of Durango, Colorado, and the quiet agricultural hamlet of Sandwich, Illinois, seemed to be worlds apart.

In A Tale of Two Towns, historian Duane Smith takes a comparative look at Durango and Sandwich in an effort to determine what life was like in these two small communities.

His fascinating study, based on a close examination of papers, municipal records, and personal correspondence, offers a unique portrait of everyday life in these two towns. A Tale of Two Towns shows how small town life a century ago in these communities was quite similar, and hauntingly familiar to life in each town today.

Duane A. Smith is a professor of history at Fort Lewis College in Durango, and is the author or coauthor of more than fifty books on Colorado and the West. He also serves as chair of the Durango Parks and Forestry Board and on the Anima School House Museum Board.