Rollins Pass: Past and Present (2022)
Rollins Pass: Past and Present (available in paperback and hardcover) by B. Travis Wright, MPS and Kate Wright, MBA
Rollins Pass: Past and Present by B. Travis Wright, MPS and Kate Wright, MBA
96 Pages | 165 Images | Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.31 x 9.25 inches | Publisher: Arcadia Publishing | Publication Date: May 2, 2022 | Series: Past and Present | List Price: $23.99 | Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-4671-0795-2 | Hardcover List Price: $33.99 | Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1540251930
What’s the difference between your first book, Rollins Pass: Images of America (2018) and your second book, Rollins Pass: Past & Present (2022)?
While our two books cover the same core topics of Rollins Pass and the Moffat Tunnel, the 2022 book is not a republication of our 2018 work—in fact, there’s very little that’s duplicated between the two books. Our 2022 book discusses completely new details and information about Rollins Pass that transpired in the four years between publications. The 2022 work has never-before-published and extraordinarily rare imagery meticulously restored from the originals: all historic photographs are printed in black and white with modern counterparts in full color. While our first book involved two dozen people, our second book involved the efforts of more than six dozen experts to help tell this area’s vast story.
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BACK COVER TEXT
Rollins Pass holds 12,000 years of history; Paleoindians utilized the pass 65 centuries before the invention of the wheel. Later, wagon and rail magnates saw the pass as a “Great Gate” across the Continental Divide. Today, the area is listed as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS (BACK COVER)
B. Travis Wright, MPS, is a 2022 Colorado Preservation Inc. State Honor Award recipient for his advocacy of Rollins Pass. As historians and photographers, B. Travis Wright and Kate Wright, MBA, document the timeless landscapes atop Rollins Pass.
This paperback book contains black and white historical imagery and full-color modern photography.
MORE ABOUT THE PUBLISHED WORK
The finished work contains poetry about the pass from 1866, prose from present day, newspaper articles, scientific facts, stories about birth, death, and life, while answering many frequent questions that we have been asked over the years from travelers about the elusive mysteries of the pass and the surrounding areas. We touch on some of the earliest claims for gold in Grand County, how prohibition made the East Portal company town unique in Gilpin County during the construction of the Moffat Tunnel; the Winter Park Express, Yankee Doodle Lake, and nearly every area in between Rollinsville and present-day Winter Park.
The book contains over 160 years of photographs—each historical image was meticulously and painstakingly restored from the original. Our restoration process for a single image took on average 30 hours, with a handful of rarer images that consumed 125 hours each to remove stubborn creases, folds, dust, discolorations, scratches, tears, nicks, stains, and smudges. Every historical photograph has a match with a modern-day counterpart—printed in color.
This book reaches back to the beginning of time to describe the intricate formation of Rollins Pass and the story carries the reader through present day. We’re immensely proud of how this book turned out and we’re excited to share it with you.
This is our second book on Rollins Pass; our first publication from 2018 entered its third printing within its first year and we donated our first royalties to Colorado State University’s Archaeology Field School—they conduct field research and archaeology on Rollins Pass in the summers. We have also donated dozens of books to local libraries, preservation groups, county governments, and land managers. We are also committed to helping rebuild the home libraries of those who lost everything in the East Troublesome Fire of 2020—including attempting to replace their collection of Rollins Pass books. Per household lost, we provide a complimentary signed replacement of our 2018 book plus a free signed copy of our 2022 book; and, from time to time if/as availability allows, no-cost (and sometimes signed!) replacements of Bollinger’s books “The Rails That Climb” and “The Moffat Road.”
In this 3:46 segment of our 30-minute documentary, “Rollins Pass: Past and Present,” we detail our process of restoring original images. This segment discusses the construction photographs of Charles Crocker’s collection, provided by the Tyler Family, showcasing Needle’s Eye Tunnel, the Devil’s Slide Trestle, and the Riflesight Notch Trestle on Rollins Pass (Corona Pass):
ABOUT EACH OF OUR WORKS
Each of our books, presentations, and documentaries about Rollins Pass involve tens of thousands of hours of work in consultation with experts across the country. We would be honored to read your review.
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE
The primary purpose of our work is to inform the public.
