Saguache County CO Archives Biographies.....Baker, Alonzo Lafayette  February 12, 1846 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net November 26, 2005, 10:25 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     With all our stirring activity in this country, and our immense flexibility

of movement, ease of transportation at this time and mighty achievements in all

departments of science, mechanics and the arts, and the unaccounted shades of

variety in occupation, enjoyment and condition which they give, we look upon

life as commonplace and scarcely realize that we are writing history with a

heroic pen and building enduring memorials as landmarks of time, so little

impression do the events and accomplishments of our fugitive days make upon us

until they can be viewed in a proper perspective and show forth their relative

weight and magnitude.  Yet what may properly be called the heroic age in any

portion of our land, that period which now seems remote because of the rush

rather than the lapse of time, wherein the wilderness was opened to settlement

and the foundations of its civilization were laid, is always pregnant with

interest and full of salutary lessons, notwithstanding the short audience the

present always gives to the past.  The story of the pioneers, though often told,

is never exhausted; and not yet has appeared the genius who can properly write

its poetry, although each age is bringing us nearer to the full utterance of

that stately epic.  To this heroic age belonged, in greater or less degree, most

of those whose lives and deeds are recorded in these pages.  Among them Alonzo

L. Baker, of Saguache county, this state, must be named with due consideration

and respect, for he has been a pioneer in more than one state and has confronted

and conquered the wilds amid widely differing circumstances.  Mr. Baker was born

in Fulton county, Illinois, on February 12, 1846.  His parents, Nathan W. and

Permelia (Wilson) Baker, came into life practically on the frontier, the former

being a native of Ohio and the latter of Kentucky, and born at a time when both

states were new and undeveloped.  They have lived in Ohio, Illinois and Iowa,

since their marriage, and now reside at South Haven, Kansas.  The father is a

graduate of the Ohio State University, but has passed the whole of his life

since leaving school in farming and raising stock, except the time passed by him

as a Union soldier, and member of the Eighty-third Illinois Infantry, during the

Civil war.  Because of a disability which precluded him from active service in

the field, his military service was rendered as a clerk in a hospital.  The

following children of the family are living, James, Charles, Alonzo L., William,

George L., Mary and Hattie.  The parents and many of the children are members of

the Christian church.  Alonzo attended the common schools near his home at short

and irregular intervals, and remained at home working with his parents until he

reached the age of twenty-five.  In 1872 he went to California, where he spent

two years in ranch work, and then, after a visit of a few months at his Iowa

home, caught the infection of the Black Hills gold fever and journeyed to that

promising region, determined to reach it whatever obstacles might interpose.  He

was obliged to go on foot the long distance between Fort Pierre, as it was then,

and the Hills, and arrived at Deadwood after many privations and dangers, now

surrounded by threatening savages, who, however, did not attack the party, and

now encountering wild beasts, rugged travel or the fury of the elements, and

sometimes all combined.  But all his toil and trials were for naught, for after

prospecting and mining in the Hills region from the fall of 1876 to that of

1877, he found himself with scarcely enough for “grub stake,” and so resumed his

weary march in search of more promising rewards, and returned once more to the

fertile fields of Iowa, making the homeward journey on a boat belonging to Dr.

Burleigh which started from Yankton but which burned to the water’s edge and

sank in the night at Hot Springs, on the  Missouri.  In August, 1878, he again

turned his face westward and came to Alamosa, Colorado.  Here he found a wild,

unsettled country, and pushed on to Saguache, passing only two houses between

the two villages.  On his arrival at the latter he assumed the management of the

Pumphrey ranch, of which he remained successfully in charge until 1880.  He then

went to prospecting and in time located the Klondike claims, which in 1899 he

sold to the Woods Investment Company at Cripple Creek.  Yet he did not wholly

abandon his interest in those industries ever since his advent in the state. 

For a period of eleven successive years he served as a deputy sheriff in the

county, and made a record in the office for efficiency, courage and

resourcefulness that any man might be proud of.  He is a stanch Republican in

politics and has always taken an interest in county affairs at once active and

serviceable.  On December 16, 1870, he was married to Miss Stella A. Tucker, a

native of Ohio.  They have four children, Alma E., Nellie, Annie and Alonzo. 

But all his years have not been passed in peaceful industry, or even the dangers

of the frontier.  During the Civil war he served in the Union army as a member

of the One Hundred and Fifty-sixth Illinois Infantry, Company K, and in his term

of eight months had much arduous and trying military duty to perform.  He was

mustered out at Springfield, Illinois.  Saguache county has no more worthy or

respected citizen.

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905



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