HOT SPRINGS – Calvin Larive, Sheriff of the Jedediah Smith Corral of Westerners inHotSprings,wasrecognized this past December by the Westerner’s International as the Best Small Corral.
“The reason we have the award is because we have good programs and speakers but we also have Carol Sides, a verygiftedwriter,”saidLarive. “Carol is so talented and she applied for the award.”
Larive credits Sides as she brought the Jedediah Smith Corral’s works to the attention of the Westerner’s Internationalhighlightingtheir many field trips, new website, history programs and growing membership.
Awards were given to Corrals across the United States at the 2023 Westerner’s Gather held in Tombstone, Ariz., in September 2023. The awards varied from best programs to best shoot outs, as well as best books and research work.
“A great honor to be recognized,” said Larive.
WhenLarivewasgrowingup in Hot Springs, the history of the area was very far from his mind.
“Iusedtodrivebythehistory conference and I thought who in the world would want to know anything about Hot Springs,” he recalled. “The knowledge of Hot Springs history was unknown to me even though I lived here.”
After graduating Hot Springs High School, Larive went on to college and eventually opened a business making wood products to sell in country malls.
Soon he opened a business in Hot Springs selling Black Hills Gold, and this is where history began to come alive for him.
“I wanted to highlight the other businesses in town as well as my own so I started a merchant tabloid,” he said. “In order to make it a little more interesting I started to add historical information about the area and its people. I began to realize that Hot Springs was a gem, if there had been a movie made about Hot Springs it would be more famous than Deadwood.”
Soon the tabloids began to take on a life of their own, pulling Larive into the history abyss.
“It was like digging for gold and each story was a gold mine,” he said. “This town is filled with a very unique history.”
As his tabloid became more history-oriented, his original thought of making it a walking tour to include all the historic places as well as businesses morphed into stories collected from families who had been here for generations.
Fifty thousand copies later, Larive was hooked on history; hook, line and sinker.
That is when he found the Jedediah Smith Corral.
“When I became a member, Bernice Landers was the Sheriff (leader of the group) and was doing such a great job and winning a lot of awards,” he said. “And when she was ready to retire, due to my knowledge of local history they recruited me to be Sheriff.”
Now with a few years as Sheriff under his belt and the bar raised with an award in hand, Larive strives only to learn more and share more.
“We just want to have fun,” he said of his Sheriff philosophy, “we are looking at adding more field trips and more speakers this year.”
One of his hopes for 2024 is to add a drive/walk tour of Hot Springs stained glass and also a few ancient hikes too.
“I would like to offer a hike to Craven Canyon to see the pictographs and petroglyphs there and maybe to Newcastle to see what I understand to be one of the oldest pictographs in the country.”
Larive has also added to his history keeper repertoire that of Pioneer Museum President.
“Carol is really so amazing, she was President for a long time and is now Vice, so I joke that my position as president is just a pretty face,” he laughed. “But truly, we have such a great history group between the museum and the Westerners; one never knows what amazing history we will find next in Hot Springs.”
“History has become a powerful addiction, there is always a new discovery especially in Hot Springs,” said Larive.
The Jedediah Smith Corral of Westerners meets the last Friday of each month at the Stay USA motel. The meetings are open to the public, membership is optional. Members meet at noon, prior to the open meeting to share a meal together and chat.