John Hirn (’93) is listed on Colorado State University’s official athletics site – CSURams.com – as a volunteer historian. It would be more accurate, however, to describe him as an accidental historian. That’s because he never dreamed he would be doing what his three children call “the job I don’t get paid for.” “I don’t […]
It was 1946 when Dan Tyler was 12 and his family left their suburban Philadelphia roots to head out West. Tyler’s father had been stationed in North Africa with Field Marshal Montgomery during WWII, and when he returned home, he considered his career options. Already a successful businessperson and banker, the elder Tyler anticipated that […]
What do you do with a passion for history? There is no one clear cut answer to this question because the possibilities are endless. While some people become historians, others go to law school, some work in museums, and some take a more circuitous route. Michael Childers and Adam Thomas, history professors at Colorado State […]
They asked, “why are you studying history?” throughout my entire undergraduate education; they questioned, “what are you going to do with that degree? You must want to teach.” My response was always one of opposition. “Not at all,” was the common refrain, “I want to work in a museum.” However, since beginning my formal study […]
The Public Lands History Center at Colorado State University played an integral role in restoring the Johnson Space Center’s Apollo Mission Control Center that was used during the Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years ago. The CSU center created the historic furnishings plan that was used to restore the mission control room in Houston to […]
In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold wrote, “There is an allegory for historians in the diverse functions of saw, wedge, and axe.” The saw works across years to pull out “little chips of facts”; the wedge splits wood into collective views; the axe lops limbs for the “peripheral rings of the recent past.” Leopold’s comparison of […]
