Settlers lured to Colorado by climate promises met ruin

Evidence

The story of my host is a story of misfortune. It indicates who should not come to Colorado. He and his wife are under thirty-five. The son of a London physician in large practice, with a liberal education in the largest sense of the word, unusual culture and accomplishments, and the partner of a physician in good practice in the second city in England, he showed symptoms which threatened pulmonary disease. In an evil hour he heard of Colorado with its “unrivalled climate, boundless resources,” etc., and, fascinated not only by these material advantages, but 1 The story is ended now. A few months after my visit Mrs. H. died a few days after her confinement, and was buried on the bleak hill side, leaving her husband with five children under six years old, and Dr. H. is a prosperous man on one of the sunniest islands of the Pacific, with the devoted Swiss friend as his second wife. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 85

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: how the 19th-century Western ‘unrivalled climate’ booster literature advertised a paradise that sent tubercular patients to an early grave — the marketing of a region as therapy for consumption.
• FICTION: Dr. H. losing his wife to childbirth on a bleak hillside, then remarrying the Swiss friend on a Pacific island, is a compressed tragedy that could seed a short story or novel.
• XREF: connects to: Colorado was settled largely by invalids seeking a cure — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 60

Broader Connections

• Colorado was settled largely by invalids seeking a cure #expands (0.82) — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 60