Speaker Kibbe Brown takes you on her family’s journey on the Western Frontier, 1858-1878. Three generations reside, intermarry, are born, and die in the present-day Colorado front range.
Learn how, in the autumn of 1858, Denver emerged along the site of a small camp of gold prospectors and the Winter Camp of the Arapahoe and Northern Cheyenne. This story traces the journey of William McGaa, a mountain man whose trading post served many of those present. McGaa, utilized by town organizers for his physical presence and peaceful relations with tribes, suggested that the name of the newly organized town be Denver. Additionally, he protected the land claim while the deed was filed in the Kansas territory in 1859.
Kibbe will also discuss LaPorte, Colorado, a community founded by trapper and mountain man Antoine Janis in 1858. Along the Cache La Poudre River, this community was a former rendezvous site of retired mountain men and their mixed heritage families. Federal policy in 1877 led to an exodus of Native families out of Colorado and Nebraska, and to the newly established Indian reservations in South Dakota. Though initially a hardship, this move and consequent resettlement on the Pine Ridge Reservation led to new opportunities and pathways for families such as the Janis family, the McGaa family, the Provosts family, the Claymore family, the Wards family, the Bissonette family, and others.
About Kibbe:
Kibbe (McGaa) Brown
Ret LCDR US Public Health Service
A fourth-generation South Dakotan and Oglala, Lakota Tribal member, Kibbe has a passion for family history. In May 2025, she retired after serving Indian Health Service for three decades. She is the owner of Dakota West Books, a wholesale book seller serving western South Dakota’s tourism industry. She first shared this presentation in Colorado with several Rotary Clubs. This is her first time to share “The Colorado Exodus” in South Dakota.