The Heritage Library at the John W. Rawlings Heritage Center in Las Animas, Colorado houses obituaries, photographs, maps, newspapers, school records, local business records and other historical resources for Bent County. Our librarians and volunteers take pride in the preservation and study of our cultural heritage. Research requests are welcomed.
If you are interested in news through the years, the library has full sets of all three newspapers published in Bent County:
- Bent County Democrat – Complete issues from 1887 through 2020. These are bound by year and are available in the Heritage Library. Issues from 1932 forward are also available on microfilm at the Las Animas Bent County Library.
- Las Animas Leader – Complete issues from 1898 through 1963. From 1929 on, these are bound by year in the Heritage Library and available on microfilm at the Las Animas Bent County Library.
- Hasty Herald – Complete issues from 1939 through 1941.
If you are interested in a specific person or family, ask the librarians about:
- Obituaries and funeral records from 1880 to the present
- Old telephone books from 1912 to the present
- Bent County WWII veterans’ individual military records and stories
- School census records, yearbooks, graduation lists and class rankings including:Bent County High School yearbooks: 1918, 1930, 1941 through 1962 when the school closed (No yearbook was printed in 1945)
- Las Animas High School yearbooks: 1963 through 2018
- Las Animas Middle School yearbooks: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, and 2009
- Las Animas Elementary School yearbooks: 2005, 2009
- Hasty yearbooks: 1954, 1955
- McClave yearbooks: 1957, 1963 – 1994 with five or more missing years
- The Bent County and Las Animas High School yearbooks are also digitized
If you are interested in businesses, homesteads, towns or ghost towns we have:
- Business records from 1873 to the present
- Extensive history and real estate files
- Maps of ranges, townships and sections
- Maps of towns old and new, including Bent’s Fort (both Old and New), Boggsville, Caddoa, Fort Lyon, Fort Wise, Granada, Higbee, Holly, McClave, Nineview, Prowers, Toonerville, and Two Buttes
- Maps of post offices and 39 rural school districts
- Thousands of historic photos
The library houses a small book collection that emphasizes Bent County and Southeastern Colorado, including:
- History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado (1881)
- Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado (1899)
- Bent County, Colorado, History (1986)
- The Homestead Years, Bent County, Colorado (1999)
- Colorado Biographical Dictionary (1899)
- The Historical Encyclopedia of Colorado, Vol. 1 and 2 (1975)
- Many public and privately published histories, geographies and biographies written by or about people, places and events in Bent County and the Arkansas Valley.
The Rawlings Center’s Heritage Library is a work in progress as volunteers continue to categorize, alphabetize, index, and archive. Volunteers interested in research are needed and welcome! If you are curious about a person, event, business or happening in Bent County, be sure to contact us.
Our suggested donation for research requests is $10/hour for each request and $1/page for copies.
719-456-6066 • bentcountyheritage@gmail.com