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J. Bradford Bowers

Brad Bowers is a History Professor at Pueblo Community College, where he has been teaching full-time since 2011. He earned his BA in History from the University of Southern Colorado in 2003 and an MA in History from Utah State University in 2005. Brad’s first book is Bound by Steel and Stone: The Colorado-Kansas Railway and the Frontier of Enterprise in Colorado, 1890-1960, a book about local Pueblo history in the early-twentieth century, published by University Press of Colorado. He is also the first-place winner in the 2023 Pueblo Chile & Frijoles Festival Non-Commercial Green Chile category.

The Colorado-Kansas Railway is a prime example of how shortline railroads helped to integrate the rural landscape with the larger urban and economic world. Bound by Steel & Stone reveals the constant adaptations driven by changing economic forces and conditions. Utilizing economic, political, environmental, and women’s history, the railroad highlights the successes and failures of the men inspired to pursue these new opportunities as well as the story of one woman who held these fragile industries together well into the second half of the twentieth century. Bound by Steel & Stone is an insightful addition to the history of industrialization and economic development in Colorado and the American West.

“The scholarship of this work is outstanding. Bowers’s research is excellent, and his manuscript is very relevant to the research within the field. His work is a great addition to the railroad and southeast Colorado history.”

“The scholarship is excellent; the author has done an outstanding job with his research, exploiting a wide range of primary and secondary source materials.”

“J. Bradford Bower's comprehensive research, well written and supported by pertinent maps and illustrations, makes Bound by Steel & Stone an important addition to the history of America's railroads.”

“Bowers…has produced a valuable study of infrastructure and economic development in southeastern Colorado. The book, which occasionally gets bogged down in detail, will be useful primarily to historians of Pueblo and the surrounding region.”