Centennial (novel)

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Centennial

First edition cover
Author	James A. Michener
Language	English
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1974
Publication place	United States
Media type	print
Pages	909pp.
ISBN	0-394-47970-X

Centennial is a novel by American author James A. Michener, published in 1974.^[1] It traces the history of the plains of north-east Colorado from prehistory until the mid-1970s. Geographic details about the fictional town of Centennial and its surroundings indicate that the region is in modern Weld County.

Centennial was made into a popular twelve-part television miniseries, also titled Centennial, that was broadcast on NBC from October 1978 through February 1979 and was filmed in several parts of Colorado. NBC Universal released a six volume DVD set in 2008.^[2][3]

Michener lived in Greeley during the late 1930s and was familiar with the area. He used a variety of source material for his fictional town taken from various areas in eastern Colorado, and Centennial is not meant to represent a single settlement. His description of the town's location places it at the junction of the South Platte River and the Cache la Poudre River. This is roughly halfway between the Colorado towns of Greeley and Kersey, in central Weld County on the High Plains about 25 miles (40 km) east of the base of the Rockies. There is a city called Centennial, Colorado, but it did not exist until 2001 and its location and history are not like the town described in either the book or miniseries.

Many episodes in the book are loosely based on events in eastern Colorado and south-east Wyoming, which for novelistic reasons are brought to one locale.^[4] For example, "The Massacre" is based on the Sand Creek Massacre which took place in Kiowa County, Colorado, in 1864.^[4] Other parts of the book are loosely based on a family from Sterling in Logan County.^[4] In explaining fact from fiction, Michener states in the text that:

This is a novel. Its characters and scenes are imaginary. There was no Venneford Ranch, no prairie town of Line Camp, no Skimmerhorn cattle drive of 1868, no Centennial. None of the families depicted here were real, nor founded upon real precedents. There was no Lame Beaver, nor Skimmerhorn nor Zendt nor Grebe. On the other hand, certain background incidents and characters are real. There was a great convocation in 1851 at Fort Laramie. There was a drought in 1931–5. Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill, did frequent the English ranches near Cheyenne. Charles Goodnight, one of the great men of the west, did haul the corpse of his partner home in a lead box. Melchior Fordney, the master gunsmith, was murdered. The South Platte River did behave as described.^[5]

1. "The Commission": The fictional preface for the book.
2. "The Land": The formation of the Earth, specifically the Rocky Mountains and the land directly around Centennial.
3. "The Inhabitants": A series of stories about animal-life living near what would become Centennial; from the dinosaur Diplodocus to mankind.
4. "The Many Coups of Lame Beaver": A biography of Lame Beaver, an Arapaho leader and warrior, and his tribe.
5. "The Yellow Apron": The lives of Pasquinel and Alexander McKeag, both beaver trappers and mountain men who travel the rivers between the Rockies and St. Louis.
6. "The Wagon and the Elephant": Describes the journey of the young Mennonite, Levi Zendt, from Pennsylvania as well as his intention to start a new life in Oregon Territory.
7. "The Massacre": Colonel Frank Skimmerhorn plans and leads the Colorado Territorial Militia and U.S. Army to massacre a band of defenseless Arapaho.
8. "The Cowboys": Chronicles the establishment of the Venneford Ranch due to a Longhorn cattle drive from Palo Pinto County, Texas to Centennial.
9. "The Hunters": Describes three separate hunts which led to the near extermination of buffalo in the plains and east of the Rocky Mountains.
10. "A Smell of Sheep": Portrays the arrival of sheepman Messmore Garrett in Centennial as well as the subsequent disputes between him and the cattle industry.
11. "The Crime": Describes the arrival in Centennial of a grifting family of actors, the Wendells, and the crimes they commit.
12. "Central Beet": Describes Hans Brumbaugh's establishment of the sugar beet industry, irrigation, and the arrival of both Japanese and Chicano immigrant farmworkers to Centennial.
13. "Drylands": Explores the devastating dryland farming farming years in Colorado from the perspective of the ill-fated Grebe family.
14. "November Elegy": A snapshot of the 20th century life of Venneford owner Paul Messmore Garrett, whose ancestors were numerous characters in previous chapters.

Most of the primary characters of the novel are represented in the ancestry of Paul Garrett as follows:^[5]

• James Michener's Greeley, Jefferson, and Centennial