Cotopaxi,
Colorado: Russian Jewish Colony
Click photos to enlarge
Welcome!
Shalom!
In 1882 there was a large Colony of immigrant Russian Jews in Cotopaxi, Colorado.
The links below will begin to explain.
I apologize for this slow loading page.
Description of Photos:
Top Left: Cotopaxi as seen looking north-west from the hill behind the Cotopaxi church.
Top Right:
View from Cotopaxi looking west through the canyon.
Bottom Left:
Looking south-west towards areas of the large black-shaded area of map.
Bottom Center:
BLM map with approximate colony lands shaded black. Related
Map Page
Bottom Right: Looking south over part of the lower colony lands.
With permission from Flora Jane Satt, her thesis "The Cotopaxi Colony" is being posted here.
This thesis contains a good history of Cotopaxi, and I think this is the best source of info on the Cotopaxi Colony.
Much credit is due to my wife,
Cruz, for entering most of the thesis into MS Word documents. As time permits, more will be posted online.New Photo - A panoramic view of the "upper" colony site. This represents a bit more than 180 degrees.
On the left side, you are looking towards the north,
you see towards the east in the center,
and on the right side, towards the south.
Click to enlarge!
Updates!
July 29, 2006
Time Flies.
Good fortune allowed us to meet a couple of more colony descendants! Marcia Snyder and Sheldon Altman visited us on September 20, 2005. We went to the "upper" colony site on the Oswald's ranch and also stopped by the cemetery in Cotopaxi. Marcia and Sheldon were able to explain some of the errors in our "Makovsky" tree.
I'll try to post some more details but for now here's a photo of Marcia and Sheldon at the site...looking north; that's Pikes Peak in the distance.
click
photo to enlarge
July 23, 2005
Well, I have a lot of stuff I need to get online. Haim and Evan Makovsky met with Cruz and me. We had the pleasure of meeting their mother, Haim's wife, a couple of Haim's grandchildren, and Evan's son-in-law.
Haim, his wife, grandchildren, Cruz, myself, and Steve Oswald visited one of the Colonist's cabin sites on the Oswald's property (Steve is Nancy's husband). I took some photos and will post them...sometime. I have also learned that one of the other cabin sites was just up the hill from where I live!
There are errors in the Makovsky Family Tree that need to be corrected. I have info on David Korpitzky genealogy that I need to get up.
And then I need to get some more info up on Saltiel. I'll post emails I've received from a Miles Saltiel, which I believe you will find interesting. Miles has taken Flora Jane Satt's thesis from this site and put it on his own site. He took out Flora Jane's footnotes and added his own. Miles contends that Emanuel Saltiel was in no way a villain, so he is rewriting history - literally!
Perhaps I'll do an aside page on genetics...
Seriously, without Saltiel, I wouldn't have met the Makovskys, so he is ok in my "book".
According
to the Makovskys, "Saltiel / Shaltiel / Shal-el" means "I have
requested of God" And even we Gentiles have "Emanuel" as
"God-with-us". So, I figure with a name like that, Emanuel
Saltiel had good in him. But not yet the theology, I think, so we stop
there.
February 19, 2005:
Milstein (Makovsky) Family Genealogy is up!!!
Here is a link to an article by Nancy Oswald. This is a good quick history of the Cotopaxi Colony, with nice photos:
Hard Times: The Jewish colony at Cotopaxi
February 5, 2005
Part IV, Conclusions, from The Cotopaxi Colony, has been posted here.
January, 17, 2005:
On Memorial Day, 2004, Evan and Haim Makovsky met with Nancy Oswald and my family at our house to go over the Makovsky genealogy and Cotopaxi Colony information. Haim and Evan are brothers who grew up in Pueblo, Colorado (75 miles to the east of Cotopaxi), and are descendants of the Colonists. Haim lives in Israel, while Evan resides in the Denver, CO area. We had good discussion and adjourned to the Cotopaxi School, where Charme Krauth, Colony descendant and teacher was located. Haim, Evan and Charme met at the Cotopaxi School, and while going over a handwritten genealogy scroll that Haim and Evan had, we were able to see how they (Evan, Haim, and Charme) were related - Sol Baer Millstien was her Great Great Grandfather (I think!). Great fun!
What we have:
Milstein
Family Genealogy (with
errors) Photo
below - on the left: Haim Makovsky, center: Charme Krauth, right: Evan Makovsky
Next is a photo of Evan and Haim just outside the Cotopaxi Cemetery.
Note that this is a gentile cemetery. While the first burials are reported to
have been Russian Jews, you must understand that the Russian Jewish colonists
were only here a few years, and now there are gentile burials surrounding the
Colonist's grave site. My understanding is that there was a small fence around
the Colony graves until the 1980's. I've been thinking about that, and perhaps I
could fabricate a metal fence around the site again. Being a gentile, I was not
aware that Haim and Evan and other Jews have religious restrictions concerning
cemeteries.
Therefore, here are some photos of the gravesite.
My
wife and I placed additional stones around the graves around 1993 or 1994, these
stones came primarily from the Cotopaxi Mine, with a few others that were
locally collected.
The inscription on the grave stone
says "Russian Jews Graves" and "1882".
Click on these images to enlarge
Thanks
to all the sites linking!
I will see if I can get a photo of Flora Jane Satt up.
Local rancher, educator,
historian and author Nancy Oswald has finished her fiction novel about the Jewish Colony. To read an excerpt of her book, Nothing Here But Stones, go to her website: click here! I read it and liked it!My other Cotopaxi Colony pages
Links
Additional information on the Jewish colony in Cotopaxi Colorado.
Maps and Photos
Cotopaxi Colony articles, documents and websites
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Miscellaneous
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Copyright
© 2001 Nelson Moore. All Rights Reserved.
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