The Dig • A Contemporary Speakeasy

07/12/2025

If you love music already or just want to know why some songs make you feel the way you do, be sure to drop in at the Backroom at the Sentate on Wed July 16 for the next edition if THE DIG with Gavin Grant. https://Gavin.eventbrite.com

07/12/2025

The videos for Javier Quinones and Rachel Kutskill will be uploaded toi the 2025 playlist very soon. If you like music and the power of sound and emotion, you won't want to miss Gavin Grant this coming WED 7/16 at the Backroom at the Senate Bar & Grill. Tickets at Eventbrite: https://Gavin.eventbrite.com

07/12/2025

Molly's amazing and inspirational talk abour the power of LOVE is now on YouTube and if you want to listen to her manifesto and be inspired, go immediately to the 6:45 minute mark and skip the introductions.

The Power of Love as the Foundation of Community & Social Justice with Molly CotnerWhat if love isn’t just an emotion but a radical force for building strong...

04/25/2025

Last night at The Dig at the Senate Bar, educator, activist, and journalist, Molly Cotner rocked the room with her powerful call to action to use LOVE as a change agent in community and social justice. Molly invited her former high school students, CSU Pueblo students, family and friends to the conversation. Her talk was truly a MANIFESTO and offered pathways to foster change in our community. As soon as her video is ready, we will share it with the community. Special thanks to Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) and the City of Pueblo for their generous support for this series. Next up in the series is Javier Quinones. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.

04/25/2025

Episode No 2 of the Dig 2025 featured Tyler Shown who shared how he created his current career in film and music from grassroots to grand stages. The presentation takes you on a grand journey around the world with snippets from many of his projects. Sit back and enjoy this impactful and entertaining talk by Tyler.

Grassroots to Grand Stages Making Music More Than GigsTyler Shown is a force in Pueblo’s creative landscape, shaping its music and media scene with a passio...

04/25/2025

First in the series this year was Megan Moore from the Pueblo Food Project. Here is her presentation which was captured by filmmaker Justin Bregar.

Megan Moore, executive director of the Pueblo Food Project, kicked off The Dig 2025 Young Leaders Series with a powerful and heartfelt presentation focused o...

04/21/2025

What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything.

Join us this Wednesday, April 23 as Molly Cotner takes the stage at The Dig 2025 with a powerful talk on the power of LOVE—as the foundation for community, connection, and social justice.

This is a talk you won’t want to miss.

📍 Backroom at the Senate Bar
🕔 Doors open at 5 PM | Stories begin at 6
🎟️ Tickets on Eventbrite https://loom.ly/l2e-e74

04/21/2025

Last month we celebrated Grassroots to Grand Stages with Tyler Shown. If you missed the event, stay tuned the event was recorded and the video will be available soon. This Wednesday we have Molly Cotner who has a provocative talk on the Power of Love as the Foundation for Community and Social Justice. Tickets at Eventbrite.

02/17/2025

Tickets are now on sale for Megan Moore's presentation on Wednesday, February 26. https://dig2025.eventbrite.com

01/13/2025

The Dig 2025: A Contemporary Speakeasy | Young Leaders Series Reignites Community Connection in Pueblo

The Dig returns in 2025 with a powerful new installment, The Young Leaders Series, showcasing the voices of our youngest and brightest community members. This dynamic speaker series is more than a platform for storytelling; it’s a call to action to reinvigorate the fabric of community life. Following a troubling trend of declining civic engagement—documented in Robert Putnam’s seminal work Bowling Alone and the new documentary Join or Die—this series seeks to reverse the narrative by fostering a renewed sense of belonging and purpose through shared stories and the simple act of breaking bread.

Over the past decade, participation in community-based clubs and organizations has plummeted by up to 70%, eroding the hyper-local social capital that defines and strengthens our communities. The Young Leaders Series aims to change that by offering a space for our emerging leaders to share their unique perspectives on who we are, what we have to say, and where we are heading. Hosted monthly in the welcoming Backroom at the Senate Bar, these evenings of storytelling and connection promise to inspire and uplift, reminding us all of the power of community and the importance of investing in the voices that shape our future.

The 2025 lineup includes: Javier Quinones, Tyler Shown, Megan Moore, Shannon Palmer, Jennifer de Groot, Gavin Grant, Vicy Stone, Jocelyn Martinez, Antonio Huerta, Haley Sue Robinson, Molly Cotner, and Rachel Kutskill.

"We believe that understanding our shared stories is key to building a stronger, more connected community," says Gregory Howell, Founder of The Dig. "This series is an invitation to not just listen but to engage, to laugh, to reflect, and to rekindle the bonds that hold us together. The time to invest in our hyper-local connections is now, and we couldn’t be more excited to share these stories with Pueblo and beyond."

Special thanks to Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) for their generous support. Final dates and speaker lineup to be announced on January 15, 2025.

04/27/2024

On Thursday, May 2, I will be launching the second edition of The Dig: A Contemporary Speakeasy at Blo Back Gallery in the Grove. I will be talking about the Nationality of Pueblo featuring the historic images of Floyd. Tickets are available at Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-a-contemporary-speakeasy-with-gregory-howell-tickets-885593733697?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

PHOTOGRAPHER & FILMMAKER JOHN WILBUR CLARENCE FLOYD
As part of this 100 year commemoration, The Dig and Pueblo PopUp will showcase a collection of Floyd's photographs from May 2-5, 2024. John Wilbur Clarence Floyd was a prolific photographer in Lock Haven, Conn. After marrying Blanche Bickford (he had been widowed twice before) in 1906, the couple departed for Pueblo, where they spent the rest of their lives. Floyd continued his photographic work in Pueblo, and in 1915 began a career in silent movies. In those days, operating a movie camera was no small feat of coordination. The awkward camera had to be hand-cranked by the photographer, who, at the same time, had to move the camera to keep the subject in the frame and also in focus. "It's a q***r game," Floyd told the Pueblo Star-Journal. "In order to take a motion picture and get it correctly on the film, one must be able to make the mind and the hands perform two things at the same time. One hand must wind the film and the other adjust the machine and both hands must work constantly at their separate task." Floyd admitted the job was an acquired skill. "I have had my machine for long enough now to manage it, but at first, it seemed to me the work was about the most difficult I have ever taken." When Floyd wasn't making movies, he was taking photos. It is estimated that he took thousands in and around Pueblo. In 1925, Floyd's photo studio on Main Street was destroyed by fire. Floyd died in 1930 at age 77. His wife, Blanche, died in 1948. That's where the story of his photos becomes interesting. He took his photos on glass negatives. It is thought that after Blanche's death, those sorting through her belongings decided to get rid of the glass plates and took them to the dump. Fortunately, they were salvaged before they could be destroyed by Suhay. Source: Chieftain, Mike Spence, August 24, 2016

04/19/2024

JOIN US TO CELEBRATE 100 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE NATIONALITY OF PUEBLO.

DOORS OPEN AT 5:00PM. REFRESHMENTS. STORYTELLING AT 6:00PM. SNEAK PREVIEW OF PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION.

We invite you to come and experience Pueblo again for the very first time. Special thanks to Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) for their generous support of The Dig Lecture Series.

In 2014 as a member of the Board of Directors, Gregory Howell curated an exhibition at the Steelworks Center of the West titled Heritage Square | Embracing Cultural Diversity at the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. Since its earliest days, the citizens of Pueblo have brought to the fabric of the community a long tradition of exploration, discovery and self-expression. The region has been at the epicenter of opportunity in Southern Colorado since it's earliest days. CF & I was the first integrated steel mill west of the Mississippi River beginning production in 1872. At one time CF&I was the largest private landowner and the largest employer in Colorado. CF&I mines and mining towns operated throughout the west and the firm owned subsidiary companies located from Massachusetts to California. In addition to its importance to the industrial and business history of the West, CF&I played a fundamental cultural role throughout Colorado. It encouraged the immigration of diverse ethnic groups to Southern Colorado by recruiting Italian, German, Slovenian, Mexican, African-American, and Asian families to move to the west to work in the mines and Mills.

At the core of this 2014 exhibition was a CF&I report called the Nationality of Employees 1923-24 (see report below) which lists the entire workforce of 10,823 individuals and identifies the workers by their nationality and where they worked in the mines and mills. The data served as the foundation for the exhibition and reinforced our understanding of how powerful CF&I was in the development of this unique melting pot in Southern Colorado. The Camp and Plant Magazine was published weekly from 1901 to 1904 by the CF&I Sociological Department. It's purpose was to inform employees about the various activities and happenings at the company's steel mill, coal mines, iron mines, and quarries. Indicative of the multinational composition of the company workforce, some articles in Camp and Plant were written in German, Spanish, Italian and Slovenian.

The open door immigration policy of the United States would close in 1924 immediately after this CF&I report was issued. The Immigration Act of 1924 or Johnson - Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and the Asian Exclusion Act was a United States federal law aimed at restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of Middle Easterners, East Asians and Asian Indians. The Act controlled "undesirable" immigration by establishing quotas. Some 86% of the 155,000 permitted to enter under the Act were from Northern European countries, with Germany, Britain, and Ireland having the highest quotas. So restrictive where the new quotas for immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe that in 1924 more Italians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Spaniards, Chinese, and Japanese left the United States than arrived as immigrants. The quotas remained in place with minor alterations until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-a-contemporary-speakeasy-with-gregory-howell-tickets-885593733697?aff=oddtdtcreator