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Edwin C. Johnson Boyhood Home

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1910. 6 miles west of Lay on the north side of U.S. 40

This one-room homestead shack has been transformed into a museum and memorial to one of Colorado's most enduring politicians, Edwin C. Johnson, governor (1933–1937 and 1955–1957) and U.S. senator (1937–1955). He arrived here from Kansas in 1910 with his family. Initially ill with tuberculosis, he responded to Colorado's salubrious climate. His daughter, Janet Johnson Howsam, and her husband Robert have turned the humble boyhood home into a homesteader's dream, complete with linoleum floor, plywood-paneled walls, and glass brick windows. To keep out coyotes and stray live-stock, a 5-foot wrought iron and brick fence has been transplanted from a demolished Denver mansion. This astonishing fence eclipses the house and separates cut from uncut weeds in the memorial to Big Ed's earthy roots.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Edwin C. Johnson Boyhood Home", [Craig, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-MF10.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 519-520.

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