The Tin Cup Years
Extracts From the Diary of Minnie Coupeau
January, 1902 - June, 1919
Minnie Coupeau (standing, left) pictured with her older sister Martha (seated), her
brothers James (standing, upper right) and George (standing in front of James), and their cousin Annie in
Denver around 1902.
|
Imagine, if you can, what it might have been like for a young girl to grow up in a town like Tin Cup,
Colorado, a town rife with the corruption and depravation that frequently accompanied life in the many mining
communities of the Rocky Mountain West. We've attempted to provide a glimpse into what life may have been like
by taking historical events that occurred in and around Tin Cup and presenting them in the words of a young lady
between eleven and twenty-eight years of age. In this case, the young lady is Minnie Coupeau, the youngest of
Albert Coupeau's two daughters, and the second of Albert and Myrtle's two children. Few of her peers could boast
of their family's wealth, despite the presence of the gold and silver mining operations near the town. She attended
the Tin Cup School, as did her siblings, and graduated with her class in 1908. She was witness to the 1906 fire,
which destroyed the business district along the south side of Washington Avenue, and was one of the many children
not directly affected by the fire to assist those whose parents lost virtually everything. She also was witness
to the second boom in Tin Cup when new seams of silver ore were discovered, and Tin Cup began to grow again following
nine years of relative inactivity after the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893. She watched as her
father's efforts to provide rail service to the struggling town and its mining operations nearly failed, then rose
to prominence with the second boom in 1902. But the relative affluence of her family, and its position in the community
couldn't protect her from the fears of growing up a child in a nearly abandoned town of questionable reputation, and whose
future was dictated by the economic decisions of far off Washington, D.C.
But Minnie's life was more typical than one might assume. Her ability to observe her surroundings and capture what she
saw in words makes us all aware that, despite the hardships of life in Tin Cup, she was still a child growing up and
experiencing the same things that other children experienced. Here, in encapsulated form, are some of her observances:
