Longtime local journalist Bill Radford and his wife, Margaret, live on 5 acres in the Falcon area with chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, a flock of parakeets, goats and two horses. Contact Bill at billradford3@gmail.com.
The history guy
By Bill Radford
When Coben Scott posted on the online community Nextdoor, asking people if they would be interested if he offered some lessons on regional history, the response was strongly supportive.
Since then, he has posted lessons on Nextdoor on Indigenous people, “prairie monsters” (dinosaurs of the Colorado prairie), the Jimmy of Jimmy’s Camp and more.
In following his posts, I pictured Scott as an old codger, retired, sharing his wisdom from his many decades in the area.
In reality, he is a 20-year-old history student at Pikes Peak State College.
“I’m a lot younger than people on Nextdoor might think,” he acknowledges.
“After taking a Colorado history class and having a professor who is very involved with Colorado history, it kind of sparked my interest a little more into local history and I thought it would be fun to share that with people on Nextdoor,” he explains. He got on Nextdoor originally to promote his dad’s plumbing business, C&M Plumbing; on his Nextdoor profile, he calls himself “the history guy” and “plumbing recommendationer.” He also notes that he was “born and raised in this prairie, fifth generation Coloradan.” He attended Falcon elementary, middle and high schools; his brother is a junior at Falcon High School.
Scott has dreams of some day becoming a history professor, but “might go into plumbing for a while,” he says. His dad, Crade, is a master plumber and Coben is his apprentice. (It seems that unusual first names run in his family.) So why not C&C Plumbing? “One day it might be, but my mom might not be the happiest with the name change,” he jokes. His mom, Michelle, is the M in C&M. “She does all the job bidding and paperwork for the company,” Coben explains.
He started his weekly history lessons on Nextdoor by going back as far as he could (namely those dinosaurs). Eventually he’ll work his way up to current communities and their origins, like Falcon and Peyton and Black Forest. He has another 30 or so lessons planned out so far.
As for where he gets his ideas and his information, “A bunch of it came from my Colorado history class; I asked my professor about a bunch of stuff and some books I can pull stuff out of. Most of the time I get the ideas from just looking around and wondering, like how did this start, whether it’s a town or a building, then I scour the internet, seek the best resources I can find.”
Coben has also volunteered with the Old Colorado City Historical Society. So what is it about history, about the past, that grabs him?
“I like that it (history) helps explain why things are the way they are. Why is that building there, who did that, why do we think this way, why do we act this way? History sort of explains a lot of cool stuff.”
Coben Scott
“I like that it helps explain why things are the way they are,” he says. “Why is that building there, who did that, why do we think this way, why do we act this way? History sort of explains a lot of cool stuff.”
His favorite period to explore is probably the 1800s and America’s frontier days, he says, though it’s a darker time in history than some high school classes might acknowledge as far as the treatment of Native Americans. His posts on Nextdoor have delved into the Ute, Cheyenne and Kiowa people, among others; he also encourages people to visit the site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado.
History is not a subject that attracts many 20-year-olds. Does he have friends who share that interest or do they roll their eyes at the idea?
“A little bit of both,” he says. “One of my best friends is more into the ancient history aspect and battles and all that stuff, so we kind of bond and share what we know with each other. And then the rest of my friends, they’re kind of interested in it, but more often or not, they just listen to my rambling.”
History isn’t his only passion, though. “I’m pretty big into music,” he says, and plays a variety of stringed instruments. And he goes to a lot of concerts, but prefers the older performers — say Willie Nelson or Tom Petty or the Rolling Stones.
“I’m a fan of old things in general, I guess you could say.”
ls at having achieved his dream. There are days when he’ll pull into the driveway and just stare at the caboose. “I’m still not used to it.”
