Archives West Finding Aid

This collection of about one hundred items is arranged in six series. Series 1-4 contain correspondence related to Emerson Short and his legal practice and mining business, Series 5 contains correspondence of members of the Haskell family, and Series 6 contains miscellaneous correspondence that could not be connected to either Emerson Short or the Haskell family.

SERIES LIST

Series 1: Short Law practice (1899-1916). Letters to and from Short about a variety of legal cases including one involving the German Consulate at St. Louis.

Series 2: Short-Culman Letters (1901, 1903). Three letters from Harry or Henry Culman who evidently knew Short when Culman lived in Denver before 1901. Culman wrote to Short from San Francisco after Culman had been rounded up and interrogated by Secret Service agents due to a remark he reportedly made to a neighbor after President McKinley was shot on 14 September 1901. Culman was never charged, but wrote Short to ask him if he would take on a slander suit that Culman wished to pursue because the publicity surrounding his arrest had made it difficult for him to find work. Culman included newspaper clippings about being detained by Secret Service agents with his letter. In them he is referred to as a Socialist, a "Member of Anarchist Band," and someone who admitted that he attended lectures delivered by Emma Goldman when she visited San Francisco. Culman explained to Short the activism of the Socialist Party of California, the challenging conditions for working people in San Francisco, and the labor tensions due to many strikes. Culman wrote to Short again in 1903 by which time he was a jeweler in Hawaii.

Series 3: Short-Hecla Mining Company (1902-1905 and undated). The Hecla Copper and Gold Mining, Milling and Smelting Company was founded in 1901 and then reorganized in 1904 as the Hecla Mining Company with offices in Denver and operations in Laramie County, Wyoming. The company was listed as "[p]robably dead" in the 1922 "Mines Handbook." This group of nearly thirty letters concerns the early history of the company and especially the sale of stock. The company employed stock agents, among whom the most prominent was Edith Velaro, represented here by numerous letters on stationery with the letterhead "Mrs. Edith Velaro" and "Fiscal Agent for the Hecla Copper and Gold Mining, Milling and Smelting Company." Velaro was an entrepreneur not only in stock but also cosmetic sales. Historian Kathy Peiss in "Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture" identified Velaro as Ida Lee Secrest of Chanute, Kansas, who became the "cosmetic artiste" Madame Edith Velaro in New York City. George C. Norris, Hecla Vice President, evidently recruited Mrs. Velaro in New York, repeatedly praised her sales ability to his Denver partners, and predicted she could sell $25,000 worth of Hecla stock in the second half of 1902. Another stock agent in the first years of the company was Eleanor Kirk. Kirk wrote for the suffragist newspaper "The Revolution," authored "how to" guides such as "Periodicals that Pay Contributors," and founded the magazine "Eleanor Kirk's Idea." Kirk mailed out the company prospectus to 1200 to 1500 "Idea" subscribers. The letters list at least three other women engaged in the sale of Hecla stock from Tacoma, Washington, to West Virginia. In the handful of letters from male stock agents, one in Oakland, California, wrote to the company about stock sales to Chinese investors and sought approval to continue such transactions. The last letter detailed mismanagement of funds by the company president and possible defrauding of investors as a result.

Series 4: Short-Union Mining and Development Company (1916). The Union Mining and Development Company was founded in 1903 with offices in Denver and mine properties in Boulder County, Colorado. A 1908 "Engineering and Mining Journal" article noted that Chicago men had purchased the mine and that Short and associates planned to develop it. In the correspondence here, all from 1916, Short was listed as the company's president and the letters solicited the addressees to purchase stock in the company. The letters cited the tungsten ore and the increased price, due to the war and tungsten's use to alloy with steel. By 1922 the "Mines Handbook" described the company as "[i]dle since 1917" and identified Short's widow as the company's president and contact.

Series 5: Haskell Family Correspondence (1905-1920 and undated). This correspondence is primarily between the surviving Haskell daughters, Mary E. or May, and Ann N. or Annie, and in particular the letters from Mary to Annie. Mary often signed them with the initials "B" and "M." "B" or Bedelia was never identified. Only Mary and her mother Ann were listed in Denver city directories as residents of 1651 Emerson Street. Mary wrote to her sister Ann N. or Annie who seemed to be in California, resided for some time in Berkeley, and in 1915 attended the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Mary's letters often encouraged Annie to attend college in California and referred to changing requirements in Colorado that required high school teachers to have a college degree.

Series 6: Miscellaneous (1917-1923 and undated). Unrelated to the Emerson Short and Haskell family correspondence are several letters from unknown correspondents, some on United States Geological Survey stationery, and a couple of documents connected to J. Stanley Edwards and his insurance office in Denver in the first decades of the 20th century.