Ice Cream Social – an appetizer for July history talks

       The public is invited to the fourth annual “Old-Fashioned Ice Cream & Pie Social” Tuesday, July 5 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the back patio at the Old Colorado City History Center, 1 S. 24th St.
       Admission is free, but there is a cost for the treats - $1 per ice cream scoop and $2 for a slice of pie, according to a press release from Jo Cervone of the Old Colorado City Historical Society (OCCHS).
       Other activities will include a kids craft table and prize drawings. The event started in 2008 as a lead-in to the OCCHS' annual Tuesday Nights in July program series.
       This year these will be July 12, 19 and 26 - each offering a presentation on a different historical subject. All will start at 7 p.m. There is no charge, although donations are welcome.
       Here are capsules on the presentations, as taken from Cervone's press release:
  • July 12 - “Making the Gather: Longhorns, Loving and the Goodnight Trail into Denver,” by Robert Carrigan, a Denver resident and third-generation Colorado native. An account of the cattle drive by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving shortly after the Civil War.
  • July 19 - “The First Battle of Manassas,” by OCCHS member Johnie Jackson, whose great-great grandfather fought for the South in this, the first major battle of the Civil War.
  • July 26 - “The Colorado Boys and the Settlement of Central Kansas,” by historian Mike Nelson. Included will be stories about how that area got settled after the Civil War and the 1868 Battle of Beecher Island near present-day Wray.

    From a press release