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Sherman Bell

General Sherman Bell. Photo from The Pinkerton Labor Spy, published in 1907. His uniform was custom made, with gold lace, cords, and tassels at an estimated cost of a thousand dollars.[1]

Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell (1866 or 1867 – January 9, 1942) was a controversial leader of the Colorado National Guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04. While Bell received high praise from Theodore Roosevelt and others, he was vilified as a tyrant by members of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM).[2]

Sherman Bell, a former deputy United States marshal in Cripple Creek, Colorado, participated in the Spanish–American War as one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders. General Bell was active in the Masonic Order and the Order of Elks, and was honored by the Knights of Pythias. A former hardrock mine manager, Bell took the side of the Mine Owners' Association against the strikers during a strike of smelter workers, which ultimately included the miners of the Cripple Creek District.[3]

  1. ^ J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America, Simon and Schuster, 1998, page 226
  2. ^ Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, ed. (1904). The Province and the States: Biography. Vol. VII. Madison, Wisconsin: The Western Historical Association. pp. 393–396. Retrieved August 12, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, University of Illinois Press, 2000, page 28

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