"Jauntily humorous as it recounts her travels around the state in search of old-timers, aimed to memorialize the independent miner." -Women Writers of the American West (2012)

"Touring the state to collect old-timers' stories." -The Women who Made the Headlines (1998)

"Ranks among the notable women of her day." -Colorado Pioneers in Picture and Story (1915)

"Careful and feeling historian." - Colorado, the Queen Jewel of the Rockies (1918)

"Her literary mind was many faceted." - Poetry Review, 1969

"Was Colorado's first poet laureate." -Colorado Encyclopedia

Illustrating the dangers and difficulties the Pioneers had to meet and overcome in order to carve a state out of the wilderness and establish good government, was the goal of Alice Polk Hill's intriguing 1889 book "Tales of the Colorado Pioneers."

"Tales of the Colorado Pioneers" ingeniously holds the reader's attention by weaving around a thread of history the legends, traditions and reminiscences of the Pioneers, which accentuate the great phases in the development of Colorado, from its earliest history to the time it became a State in 1876.

For example, one old-timer prospector, miner, Government scout, cowboy, stage driver and trapper relates that during his life in Colorado he had "been handled pretty roughly'" including have been "chawed by grizzlies, scalped by Indians, nearly burned at the stake, shot and knifed dozens of times, blowed up once or twice, and on one occasion fell into a quartz mill...."

As Alice describes, in 1864 raids by Sioux, Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahoes and Cheyennes began, with stages waylaid and robbed; mail bags were cut open and their contents scattered over the plains; wagon trains were assailed and the vehicles plundered. All along the route down the Platte valley there was a reign of terror and communication was almost entirely suspended.

One of the hostile parties was led by a chief named Spotted Horse, and for a time he had the communication with Denver cut off and the city practically in a state of siege. In describing events after the capture of Spotted Horse, Alice writes:

"The Major surveyed him for a while in meditative serenity; then offered the Indian, who sat in sullen silence, his life, if he would surrender his band. This he refused to do. He then ordered his men to drive a stake and prepare to roast the Indian alive. The chief gathered his coat around him and sat contemplating his funeral pyre with stoical indifference. When the fire was kindled the Major gave orders to bind him to the stake, saying, 'you have seen many a white man die this horrible death, and now we propose to let you know how it is yourself.'..."

One pioneer woman described a wagon harrowing chase by a hostile band:

"The Indians had gotten some distance up the ravine, when they caught a glimpse of our moving wagon. They turned with a fiendish whoop ... their flaunting and fantastic embellishments, arms and ornaments, glittering in the morning sunshine, were enough to strike terror to the stoutest heart. The white man, who was completely unstrung by the ordeal through which he had passed, sprang to the tongue of the wagon, and drawing a knife commenced to cut the harness from the horse, saying that he intended to make his escape. 'Stop!' commanded the negro, leveling his revolver at him..."

"Tales of the Colorado Pioneers" is an entertaining historical record of incidents in the lives of the brave people who "First spied the country out, and pioneered the way," and makes for an interesting read.