A Tale of Two Towns: A Mining and a Farming Community in the 1890s

The 1890s were a tumultuous decade in American history, with economic depression, war, heated politics, and labor conflicts surrounding AmericaÂ’s emergence as a world power. Against this chaotic background, life in the rowdy western mining town of Durango, Colorado, and the quiet agricultural hamlet of Sandwich, Illinois, seemed to be worlds apart. In A Tale of Two Towns, historian Duane Smith takes a comparative look at Durango and Sandwich in an effort to determine what life was like in these two small communities. His fascinating study, based on a close examination of papers, municipal records, and personal correspondence, offers a unique portrait of everyday life in these two towns. A Tale of Two Towns shows how small town life a century ago in these communities was quite similar, and hauntingly familiar to life in each town today.