Captain Silas Soule in 1865. Courtesy of Byron Strom.

Rocky Mountain News
April 24, 1865 p. 2 c. 1

The Homicide Last Night

Our city was thrown into a feverish excitement last evening by assassination of Captain S. S. Soule, of the Colorado First. The sad affair took place about half past ten o’clock, and was evidently coolly and deliberately planned, and as systematically carried out.

For some time past the Captain had been in charge of the provost guard of the city and neighborhood, and his duties in that capacity had, as a natural consequence, created many enemies. Threats against his life have been freely and frequently made – so we are informed – and no longer ago than yesterday he said that he was expecting to be attacked.

In the evening he and his wife were visiting at the house of a friend and returned home between nine and ten o’clock. Shortly after, a number of pistol shots were fired in the upper part of the city, evidently to decoy him out, and the Captain started to ascertain the cause. Whilst passing along Lawrence Street, Near F, and directly in front of the residence of Dr. Cunningham, he seems to have been met by the assassin, and the indications are that both fired at the same instant, or so near together that the reports seemed simultaneous. Probably the Captain, expecting to be attacked, was in readiness, and when the other man presented his pistol, he did the same, but the intended assassin fired an instant soonest, with but too fatal effect.

The ball entered the Captain’s face at the point of the right cheek bone, pressing backward and upward, and lodging in the back part of the head. He fell back dead, appearing not to have moved a muscle after falling. The other man, from the indications, was wounded in the right hand or arm; how severely is not known. His pistol was dropped at his feet and he immediately started and ran towards the military camp in the upper part of the city, leaving a distinct trail of blood where he passed along. When the shots were fired they were standing about four feet apart, face to face.

Within less than a minute after the fatal shot, one of the provost guard and Mr. Ruter reached the spot. The Captain was already dead, and his murderer had disappeared. They alarmed Dr. Cunningham, and a guard was sent for. A number of persons, soldiers and civilians, soon gathered around, and after a few minutes the body was removed to the building occupied by the officers of the Headquarters of the District.

The excitement this morning, when the facts became generally known, was intense. Hundreds of citizens visited the scene of the tragedy, and it has formed the burthen of conversation throughout the city all day. Patrols were dispatched in every direction, and it is hardly possible that he will escape more than for a day or two.

Probably he will be overtaken to-day. Of his identity we shall at present refrain from speaking, though there is scarce a doubt but it is clearly known. The cause is said to have grown out of an arrest made by the Captain in the discharge of his duty as Provost Marshal.

Captain Soule was highly respected by his brother officers, and beloved by the men in his company. He was married in this city on the 1st inst., and consequently leaves a young wife to mourn this terrible and untimely fate. It is the hope of all that his murderer and his accomplices will be speedily brought to judgement, and a punishment meted out to them such as the base crime deserves.

B50 Note: Silas Soule was assassinated in Downtown Denver (on Lawrence Street, between what is now 15th and 16th) on the evening of April 23rd, 1865, just three weeks after his marriage to Hersa (Coberly). Silas Soule is best remembered for his presence at the Sand Creek Massacre, where he refused to allow the men of his company to fire on the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped there. He was also present at the Camp Weld Council, where he was photographed with Black Kettle, White Antelope, Amos Steck, Ned Wynkoop, and others.

Though no connection was ever proven, Ned Wynkoop maintained that Soule had been murdered in retaliation for his testimony against Colonel John Chivington in the congressional inquiry regarding Sand Creek. Both Silas Soule and his wife Hersa are buried at Riverside Cemetery in Denver.

For more biographical information on Silas Soule, visit Byron Strom’s site, silas-soule.com.

She included some family photographs:
• Rusty, her dad’s dog, in front of the house, in the early 1930s
• A wedding picture of Henry and Mary Roth
• Henry Roth the granddad
• Mary Roth and Henry’s sister Mabel
• Henry and his granddaughter Dianne
• Three generations of Roths: Henry, Dianne, and Milton
• Milton Roth in the bathroom, which doesn’t look that much different from today.

It’s nice to get to know the builder and paterfamilias, through his family. We expect to see more of the family this summer or next, for a planned reunion.

The Roth Family in the 1930's

Henry and Mary Roth Wedding Photo, 1908

Henry Roth in the Denver Post during the 1930's

B50 note: Henry Roth built the bungalow style houses in the Baker Neighborhood by hand in the 1920′s and 1930′s. The house is on the national historic register. M Thornton added this as a postscript to his original post, The Henry Roth Houses on Fox Street.

This is the trailer for “Things To Do In Denver Before You Die,” a Colorado rollerblading video filmed and edited by Greg Freeman. The film is scheduled for release in February. Visit the film’s page on myspace for more information.

mamie eisenhower in 1913

Mamie Geneva Doud was born in Boone, Iowa, on November 14, 1896, the daughter of John Sheldon and Elvira Matilda Carlson Doud. The family moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa the following year, where Mamie’s father started his own meat-packing business. Very successful, the Doud family moved to Colorado for opportunity and to ease a medical condition effecting Eleanor, one of Mamie’s three sisters. The family lived for a brief time in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, before moving to Denver in 1905, where the Doud family lived for the rest of their lives.

With his successful business and investment holdings, John Doud was able to pay a little over seven thousand dollars in cash for his home at 750 Lafayette Street, in Denver. This is the home Mamie would grow up in, the only family home she would know and recall with great fondness, the home she would later be married in. This home, so rich in family lore and history, would remain in the family until the death of Mamie’s mother, in 1960.

The Doud family were well known in the community as being fun-loving, involved with their neighbors, a caring, loving family, with deep religious commitments. They attended church in the community, where they often helped the needy. Mrs. Doud was the cornerstone of the neighborhood “women’s social tea.” This amazing woman organized regular social events in the neighborhood, usually hosted in her home. Among the neighborhood housewives included in Mrs. Doud’s teas, was my great grandmother, Olga Berglund. She often spoke of the kindness, generosity, and more importantly of the ordinary manner the Doud family preferred.

Just a short seven years after arriving in Denver for a better climate, Mamie’s sister, Eleanor Carlson Doud, died on January 8, 1912. Sadly, Mamie’s younger sister, Eda Mae Doud, died on November 9, 1918. Both were buried in the family cemetery plot in Denver.

In keeping with the community lifestyle, young Mamie attended Denver’s public schools, Corona Elementary (later named Dora Moore Elementary), and then went on to graduate from East Denver High School. At her parent’s insistence, she completed her education at Miss Wolcott’s, a prestigious, private finish school for the daughters of prominent Denver families. During all of her schooling years, Mamie attended dances classes and piano lessons. As a young teenager, Mamie and her friends often took the trolley to Colfax Avenue or Curtis Street, popular teenage hangouts. They would shop, attend various shows or movies, snack on sodas and ice cream at Baur’s shop.

The Doud House

For the last four years of Mamie’s teenage years, the Doud family spent a portion of the winter months in the warmer climate of San Antonio, Texas, where the family had a home. Mamie disliked the trips, as it took her away from her friends in Denver. However, that thinking soon changed when she met a young West Point graduate.

It was at nearby Fort Sam Houston in October 1915, that Mamie was introduced by mutual friends to the striking Second Lieutenant, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Both say there was an instant attraction to the other. Of that first meeting, Ike would later say, “…a vivacious and attractive girl, saucy in the look about her face and in her whole attitude.” And of Ike, Mamie would say, “…he was different…I think his vitality appealed to me.” The young officer, just out of West Point, courted young Mamie with patience and steadiness of character, and in the end the Denver socialite was won over. He got on well with the Doud family, frequently visiting their Denver home.

When the couple announced their engagement on Valentine’s Day 1916, the occasion was bittersweet. Ike marked the ceremony by placing a miniature copy of his West Point ring, an amethyst set in gold, on Mamie’s finger. However, the news astonished Mamie’s Denver friends. It was their opinion that Mamie was marrying beneath her class. West Point graduate aside he was still just a soldier, they said. And, while the Doud family had a fondness for Ike, John Doud had a stern fatherly talk with his nineteen year-old daughter about life as an Army wife. In the end, Mamie’s strong will and good sense won out, as she later said, “…I was willing to accept whatever would come.”

The Doud home, on Lafayette Street in Denver was the scene of the wedding, at noon on July 1, 1916. The wedding was a grand event, yet held to the Doud family values of respectful modesty. Only family and close friends were in attendance. Even so, my great grandmother later recalled, the narrow street scene on Lafayette was crowded and impassable due to all the vehicles.

The wedding ceremony was simple in style, yet strong on family and religious values, when Ike pledged his vows and took Mamie as his bride. Mamie was radiant in an ivory laced gown, escorted down the family staircase by her father. Ike was equally splendid in his dress white military uniform, completed with sword and stars and bars of rank. Following the ceremony, the new couple enjoyed a ten day honeymoon, spending the first days in Colorado. Then, the newlyweds left by train to Abilene, Kansas for a brief visit with the Ike’s parents.

Looking back in history, this was perhaps Denver’s finest hour in the first decade of the 20th Century, yet no one in Denver or the nation knew at the time how important this union was, or how fortuitous it would become in later years.

Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower

B50 note: Linda Wommack is a denver-based writer and historian. She is the author of From the Grave: A Roadside Guide to Colorado’s Pioneer Cemeteries among other books, and is a frequent contributor to True West Magazine.