On the road to my property I pass this small cemetery. From what I understand there's a couple dozen people buried here but only two graves are marked. There are a few depressions in the ground, and the rest, only God knows. The two marked graves are only marked because they are people of note. This grave belongs to John Badger. John Badger served his country and was decorated in both the Civil and Mexican-American wars. But his claim to fame around here is he was a very early and prosperous pioneer and one of the mountains that overlooks my property is named...Badger Mountain.
This unfortunate pioneer rancher met his fate at the hands of, what some say were the largest mass murderers in Colorado history, the Espinoza brothers. The story goes that the Espinoza brothers were murdering their way through Colorado when they stopped at a saloon near here and heard the locals talking about a rancher named Addleman and how he had gold hidden on his property. They found Addleman's ranch and tortured him in an effort to lead them to the gold. The sheriff investigating the incident found Addleman's body buried in a shallow grave at the ranch and since there was a few inches of snow on the ground he was able to see tracks that told him what had happened, and there was no sign any gold had been found, if any had ever existed. It turned out to be a mixed blessing for Addleman, he ended up dead, which is not good of course. But he received a measure of immortality in Colorado history, not only because of his unwitting participation in the Espinoza's killing spree, but all the legends of buried gold that still abound in this area.
6 Comments
Linda Sand
9/9/2018 02:17:45 pm
If you willing to drive an hour and a half south to Centennial there's an IKEA store there. A Poang armchair and ottoman will cost $130 or so but you have to assemble them. Dave and I find them very comfortable and spend hours every day sitting (and sleeping) in them. Plus, they are extremely portable.
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Tom
9/9/2018 04:10:57 pm
Thank you for that recommendation but I already purchased one from American furniture warehouse and am just waiting to pick it up tomorrow.
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Barney Ward
9/9/2018 10:57:05 pm
Tom T Tobin from the headstone had quite a life. Check him out.
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Tom
9/10/2018 08:26:50 am
I'm rather amazed that you're familiar with Tobin since he wasn't a western hero that many people have even heard of. I think most people we think of as Western heroes all had publicity agents to spread the stories of their largely embellished lives. But Tom Tobin was the real thing.
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Tim
9/10/2018 09:52:02 am
I had never heard of Tom Tobin before, but when I read your post, I read up on him (it's great to live in the age of internet). Really interesting character. Also read about the Espinosas brothers (which I hadn't heard of either) - they were some scary dudes; good thing for guys like Tom Tobin back then.
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Tom
9/10/2018 12:01:45 pm
I became interested in the Addleman murder back when prospecting was one of my hobbies. And one of the legends surrounding Addlemans gold was that he had found an old Spanish gold mine that was rumored to be in this area and that's where he was getting his gold from.
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