Lost Highways Podcast

FAIN: TR-269774-20

History Colorado (Denver, CO 80203-2109)
Noel Black (Project Director: August 2019 to present)

Production of eight forty-five- to sixty-minute podcast episodes about Colorado and Western U.S. history.

The Lost Highways podcast begins by inviting listeners to draw connections between western history and current events. Hosts and lifelong Colorado residents Noel Black and Tyler Hill’s engagement with historical topics opens a personal door and invites listeners to cultivate a sense of wonder at the stories they discover along the way. Episodes span diverse cultures, geographies, and time periods in the history of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. Taken as a whole, the season will leave the listener with a deeper understanding of how the American West has long been seen as a place of freedom and opportunity, but that reputation for freedom is complicated by individuals’ lived experiences.

Associated Products

A Line in the Sand (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: A Line in the Sand
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: President Donald J. Trump’s promise to build a border wall between the US and Mexico and his move to deport undocumented immigrants shows what a powerful hold immigration has on the American political imagination. It isn't the first time a politician promised to build a wall against immigrants. In 1936, Colorado Governor "Big Ed" Johnson declared martial law as he attempted to close the state's border with New Mexico to prevent "immigrants" from coming to Colorado. We'll explore that historical episode and how it worked out.
Date: 09/16/2020
Primary URL: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-line-in-the-sand/id1477656916?i=1000491491395
Primary URL Description: A Line in the Sand Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020/Lost_Highways_A_Line_in_the_Sand_transcript.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript from "A Line in the Sand"
Access Model: Open access
Format: Web

Back Allies and Backpages (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Back Allies and Backpages
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: In late 1894, three sex workers were found strangled in their homes on Denver’s notorious Market Street: Lena Tapper, Marie Contassoit, and Kiku Oyama. As we investigate the mystery of their deaths, we explore how the past is echoed in the lives of sex workers today. Sex work - stigmatized and romanticized in equal measures throughout history - has always been among the rare industries where women have had the potential to make more money than men, yet they’ve seldom been able to reap the financial benefits of this disparity because of the physical and moral risks.
Date: 10/14/2020
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/back-alleys-and-backpages/id1477656916?i=1000494712013
Primary URL Description: Back Alleys and Backpages Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020/Lost%20Highways%20Back%20Alleys%20and%20Backpages.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript for Back Alleys and Backpages
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

Snake, Rattle, and Roll (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Snake, Rattle, and Roll
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: Katherine McHale Slaughterback - aka Rattlesnake Kate - claimed to have killed over a hundred rattlesnakes outside Greeley, Colorado in a single day in 1925, and then fashioned a flapper dress from their skins. Though she went on to become a legend - a kind of “feminist Paul Bunyan” for Colorado - we’ll look at the real life ways she broke down gender roles as a woman in the west. To help tell this story, we talked with Neyla Pekarek, a member of the Colorado band The Lumineers, who recently wrote a folk opera about Rattlesnake Kate.
Date: 04/28/2020
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/snake-rattle-and-roll/id1477656916?i=1000472901473
Primary URL Description: Snake, Rattle, and Roll Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020/%5BICYMI%5D%20Lost%20Highways%20Snake%20Rattle%20and%20Roll%20FINAL%20%283%29.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript for "Snake, Rattle, and Roll"
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

Maybe They Should Call It The Kansas Flu (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Maybe They Should Call It The Kansas Flu
Writer: Tyler Hill
Writer: Noel Black
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: An extra episode that looked back at the history of the Spanish Flu in Colorado in light of CoVid-19 quarantine and examined the ways different communities responded to the pandemic differently with vastly different results.
Date: 04/14/2020
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/maybe-they-should-call-it-the-kansas-flu/id1477656916?i=1000471456426
Primary URL Description: "Maybe They Should Call it the Kansas Flu" Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2021/lost_highways_%5BUPDATE%5Dmaybe_they_should_call_it_the_kansas_flu_transcript.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript from "Maybe They Should Call it the Kansas Flu" Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

Tuned In Dropouts (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Tuned In Dropouts
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: In this time of the #metoo movement, we look back at the so-called "Naropa Poetry Wars" - a sex scandal at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado involving Chogyam Trungpa, the poet Allen Ginsberg's spiritual teacher, and the frenzy of gossip, fingerpointing, and betrayal that divided the community after Trungpa was accused of inapprorpiate sexual behavior. This episode focuses on the experiences of women in the 1970’s, how freedom doesn’t always mean freedom for everyone, and how poets felt the need to look the other way on Trungpa’s sexual misconduct in order to maintain loyalty to the vision of the Institute.
Date: 12/09/2020
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tuned-in-dropouts/id1477656916?i=1000501847186
Primary URL Description: Tuned in Dropouts Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2021/Lost%20Highways_Tuned%20in%20Dropouts_transcript_FINAL.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript of "Tuned in Dropouts" Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

A Tale of Two Communes (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: A Tale of Two Communes
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: Drop City in Southern Colorado, one of the first communal living experiments of the twentieth century, launched the modern hippie commune movement and helped redefine notions of freedom and community for an entire generation. While Drop City failed shortly after its creation, it spawned a new commune that survives to this day -- Libre. Interweaving the stories of these two communes seeking freedom and opportunity in the West with interviews of historians and artists we explore the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
Date: 11/20/2020
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-tale-of-two-communes/id1477656916?i=1000498168177
Primary URL Description: A Tale of Two Communes Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Secondary URL: http://https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020/Lost%20Highways%20A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Communes%20FINAL.pdf
Secondary URL Description: Transcript of "A Tale of Two Communes" Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

Going Back to Trinidad (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Going Back to Trinidad
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: In 1969, a trans woman asked Dr. Stanley Biber in the small Southern Colorado town of Trinidad if he’d be willing to perform sex reassignment / gender confirmation surgery. He kept his first few surgeries secret, out of fear of repercussions from the Catholic Nuns who ran his clinic. But eventually word got out and the community rallied around Biber and his patients. In this episode, we explore how Trinidad eventually became known as “The Sex Change Capital of the World.”
Date: 01/13/2021
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-back-to-trinidad/id1477656916?i=1000505264218
Primary URL Description: Going Back to Trinidad Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

The Miseducation of Freddie Freak (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: The Miseducation of Freddie Freak
Writer: Noel Black
Writer: Tyler Hill
Producer: Noel Black
Producer: Tyler Hill
Abstract: Our hosts join with oral historian Jose Ortega from History Colorado’s El Pueblo Museum to tell the story of Juan Federico “Freddie Freak” Arguello Miguel Trujillo, a young man from Southern Colorado whose identity and heritage was stripped from him as a child by nuns who forced him to Anglicize his name and give up his language. Juan Federico’s story of personal and cultural rediscovery leads us through the history of El Movimiento, the Chicano Movement.
Date: 01/28/2021
Primary URL: http://https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-miseducation-of-freddy-freak/id1477656916?i=1000506835653
Primary URL Description: The Miseducation of Freddy Freak Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Web

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