Volume 4 , Issue 1

Naming of Alva

Special Update: " Some say, 'Alva was NOT named for Alva Adams,' an attorney, for the Santa Fe Railroad. Most source quote that but while doing research for Centennial, Joan (Wagner-Hodgden) and a couple of others went to Topeka where there is a Sante Fe Railroad museum and they could not find where Alva Adams was an attorney for the RR. Joan wrote several articles for the Courier during Alva's Centennial that are most interesting and they are all in a scrapbook at the Alva Public Library. You would enjoy them and you know Joan (Wagner-Hodgden) never did anything halfway."

1895 - Alva, Okla. Downtown Square [CLICK photo for larger view.]

Naming of Alva - How Alva got it's name Alva Adams - "... Alva Adams, three time democratic Governor of Colorado, was born in Iowa County, Wisconsin on May 14, 1850. While Adams had little in the way of a formal education while he was growing up, he had a voracious appetite for literature which made up for his lack of schooling. By the time Adams died, he had acquired a collection of over six thousand books, which was one of the largest private libraries in the region. Like many people who settled in Colorado, the Adams' moved west when a member of the family contracted tuberculosis. The arid climate was reputedly beneficial for sufferers of this debilitating disease. At twenty-one years of age, Alva Adams began his rags to riches story by hauling ties for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad...."

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