Colorado Baxters: Frontier History Museum & Glenwood Caverns

We recently enjoyed a school field trip to the Frontier Historical Society Museum in Glenwood Springs. This unique museum has a very unique and diverse collections of original items from western Colorado's early days, including items from Doc Holliday's last months in the fair city. He has been romanticized by western movies, and frankly, if you look him up, he was an empty soul in desperate need of God's salvation- an alcoholic barely getting along from day to day. The therapeutic waters of Glenwood actually did his tuberculin lungs in because of the heavy amounts of sulfur. His famous shoot-out at the OK Corral? Well, you'll discover it was just another average day in the Wild West if you read about the history of Denver and the Front Range of Colorado. Apparently people from far and wide (Europeans in particular) come to this museum inquiring specifically about this strange dentist-gambler.

The museum has the bedroom set that was in the room of the Clarion where Horace and Baby Doe Tabor lived during some of their time in Leadville (probably before the silver crash). A special saddle used by President Teddy Roosevelt is on display in this museum, along with the fossilized imprint of a palm leaf and a fossilized dinosaur knee cap- and the largest chunk of iron pirate any of us have ever seen! "The Great K and A Train Robbery" plays continuously in an upstairs room, as this silent-film starring Western movie hero, Tom Mix, was filmed in the Glenwood Canyon.

There was a lot more interesting stuff to see and hear about as well- but those are some of the highlights. We were limited on time, as the second part of our field trip took us to the top of Iron Mountain to visit the Glenwood Caverns. These caverns are still alive and growing (i.e. dripping water through limestone- which results in carbonic acid), and our camera and one or two of the kids enjoyed a "cave kiss." These caverns have the deepest/tallest main room of any cave in Colorado, and our guide told us that sonar has revealed an even larger room below the room we were in. They are currently digging to find it. In the meantime, we enjoyed cave bacon (eyes only- no taste testing!), straws, stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and phosphorescent minerals. It was beautiful!

Our guide left out the millions and billions of years, and gave credit to the Creator, who made the beautiful creation. He included a lot of facts about the minerals, but didn't give information about how caves like the Glenwood Caverns would have formed. Cavern experts will typically tell you that the caves take a LOOONG time to form (drip... drip... drip...), however, given the conditions that are likely to have existed after the flood in Noah's days, caves and their formations could actually have formed very quickly. Here are a couple of good articles about cave formation as related to the worldwide flood. The one from Answers in Genesis is a little shorter and simpler to read, and the Institute for Creation Research article is more thorough. The AIG article discusses the prevalence and role of sulfuric acid in rapid cave formation. Interesting to note is the high amount of sulfur associated with the Glenwood hot springs (which are just one of over 30 hot springs- tamed and untamed, in the Colorado mountains).

https://answersingenesis.org/geology/caves/cave-formations/

http://www.icr.org/article/origin-limestone-caves/

On to the pictures!!!

Just another beautiful spring day in Glenwood Springs.

Frontier Historical Society Museum...
some of our pantry items haven't changed!

A cool crowd in the bedroom... with Horace and Baby Doe Tabor's
furniture. The crazy quilt was made by a Leadville seamstress who
included a panel with a drawing of Baby Doe.

Where's the interstate???

Up to the top of Iron Mountain! View is looking west at I-70.
Storm King Mountain is on the right, and the effects of the
2002 Coal Seam Fire can be seen on the left.