Outskirts Press, INC.

Follow the road signs through Colorful Colorado!

"Blake and Lopez bring the folklore of Colorado's road signs to life in these enchanting stories that will keep children captivated and their imaginations peaked.. A must have for families planning a road trip through the Western States!" -Donna Nordmark Aviles, Author

of Fly Little Bird, Fly! & Beyond The Orphan Train







Travel with Falling Rock, Bended Arrow and many others as they have adventures through the beautiful state of Colorado leaving signs for us to follow. The stories will entertain and delight children and adults with the great places, eras, and majestic sites as you travel the roads through mountains and plains of Colorful Colorado.

Back when the West was wild, a pioneer named Jebediah, or Jeb for short, left the civil East Coast to find his fortune in gold in the vast open country of the West. But that is jumping ahead...let me back up to where Jeb began his journey.
Jeb was a tall, slim man who was kind and courteous to all who crossed his path. However, he was also known for being very clumsy, and therefore, could not master the skill of being a blacksmith like his father. You see, before Jeb’s dream of finding gold, he had wanted very badly to follow in his father’s footsteps, and he worked hard as an apprentice in the family blacksmith shop in Boston.
One day, when his father was in town, Jeb decided to surprise him and finish making some horseshoes for Mr. Fitzgerald, one of their biggest customers. Poor Jeb, he could not get the shoes to come out flat and straight like his father’s. Yet, when Mr. Fitzgerald came looking for his horseshoes, Jeb offered him the shoes he had hammered himself, even though they were not as good as his father’s. Jeb then tried to put the shoes on the horse, thinking, “Maybe they will straighten on the hoofs of the horse”. Jeb leaned down and lifted the mare’s foot high in the air so he could adjust the shoes as best he could.
The horse snorted as he finished the first one and moved to the others, carefully fitting each shoe. With all four horseshoes in place, the poor animal could not take the pain of the crooked shoes and reared up, kicking over the fire in the middle of the shop. Flames burst quickly around the room as Jeb and Mr. Fitzgerald tried their best to stop the fire. Unfortunately, by the time Jeb’s father returned, the shop was burned to the ground and Mr. Fitzgerald was helping a very uncomfortable horse to remove horrible shoes.
When he saw the disaster, Jeb’s father looked at Jeb and yelled, “Get out! Do not return until you can rebuild my shop!”
Jeb left, ashamed, and wondered around town looking for a job he could do to earn the money to rebuild the shop. That is when he saw it. A story on the newspaper telling of all the gold and silver found out West near Denver, Colorado and of the rich men returning with great wealth.
“That it! I’ll head to Colorado!” declared Jeb and he jumped on his horse, Besse, and headed to the wide open country of what they called the “Wild West”. As he left the cities and continued across the country, Jeb saw beautiful herds of large buffalo roaming across prairies of golden grain. He saw wagons of people who waved and smiled with the same hope of treasure in their eyes that Jeb dreamed of.