Thompson, Helen Mar

Helen M. Thompson, who collected these newspaper articles about Boulder, was the daughter of the Reverend and Mrs. Nathan Thompson who came to Boulder in 1865 and left ten years later after pastoring the First Congregational Church in Boulder. Nathan's brother Charles (father of the donor, Gertrude Thompson Smith) was one of the New Braintree, Mass. friends who helped to provide funding for the church and school in Boulder.

Helen M. Thompson, who collected this photo and other materials about Boulder, was the daughter of the Reverend and Mrs. Nathan Thompson who came to Boulder in 1865 and left ten years later after pastoring the First Congregational Church in Boulder. Nathan's brother Charles (father of the donor, Gertrude Thompson Smith) was one of the New Braintree, Massachusetts, friends who helped to provide funding for the church and school in Boulder.

Phyllis Smith writes (A Look at Boulder, pub. 1981, p. 29-30) that Abner Roe Brown passed through Boulder City in June of 1860 on his way to build a quartz mill at Gold Hill, Colo. The mill failed, and Brown returned to Boulder two weeks later, rented half of a log cabin, and began teaching school. Soon, other pioneers helped him build the first building constructed as a school in the Colorado Territory, and students entered it in October of 1860.

According to the work, Colorado and Its People (LeRoy Hafen, ed., pub. 1948, vol. 2, p. 160), Abner R. Brown was a schoolteacher in Iowa before coming to Boulder County in 1860. A reminiscence by Brown appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on 12 April 1922; he died on 20 Sept. 1922 at age 93.