HerStory, by Midge Kirk, which highlights the vital role played by women in history, will be at the Cortez Cultural Center, 25 N. Market St., on March 4.
Cost is $5 for members and $7 for non-members. A cash bar and appetizers will be offered before the program.
Following are a couple of those stories:
Betty Pellet, 1887-1976
Pellet started her career as a Broadway actress and also starred in one silent movie. After marrying Bob Pellet, a mining engineer, she was transformed into a miner when they moved to Rico to work some claims. Betty served 18 years in the Colorado House of Representatives. During her first year in office, 1941, she staged a one woman lobby in Washington, D.C., to save the Rio Grande Southern and the Galloping Goose from extinction because of impending bankruptcy proceedings. She was able to secure a government loan which kept the railroad running and ensured Rico’s survival for another decade during and after WWII.
Lizzy Knight
Lizzy Knight was an important female pioneer in early Colorado. Her homestead still remains and helps to tell the colorful story of her life and the settlement of and agricultural practices in the Disappointment Valley. Born in England, Lizzy broke all traditional gender barriers and became an expert blacksmith. She and her then husband, made the journey to America in 1875 and eventually settled in Rico where Lizzy and her daughter were the first female residents. Lizzy operated a small dairy supplying the nearby mining camps with milk and butter. Later, in Disappointment Valley, the Knight Homestead became the social and commercial center where, married to her son in law (her daughter being rather disagreeable had divorced him), she kept her dairy and beef herds going, ran a store and became post mistress, occasional farrier and informal banker. She hammered a trail of sparks, gold coins, cow hooves and tobacco and gun cartridges through southwest Colorado.
