Malcolm Osborn, a senior at Vail Christian High School, can now add book author to his resume. What started out as an independent study project has now taken on a life of its own as an 83-page read entitled “The History of Belden, Colorado and a Biography of Judge David Douglas Belden.”

At the beginning of the school year, Osborn worked with Steve O’Neil, the head of school at Vail Christian High School when O’Neil taught the independent study course on Eagle County history. O’Neil tasked Osborn with reading “Early Days on the Eagle” which Osborn describes as the bible of Eagle County history.

“It’s insanely detailed for having been written in the 1950s. All of the information in it still stands today,” Osborn said. “Mr. O’Neil asked me to pick a topic and become the utmost expert on that topic.”

Osborn had an interest in Eagle County history and a sense of wonder that was reinforced when he would get out and explore the area with his dad, Jarrett Osborn. The younger Osborn recalled hearing about the Belden Mine, which is below Gilman on U.S. Highway 24 between Minturn and Red Cliff.

“In the early ’90s, my dad was an extra in some random Disney movie called “Tall Tales” and they filmed part of it at Belden and he was telling me stories about it and all these crazy, huge old abandoned buildings down there and all the abandoned mines,” Osborn said. “I was fascinated by it because you can’t go there, it’s private land, and it’s virtually invisible because you can’t see it from the road like you can see Gilman.”

Soon Osborn was digging for any information about the Belden Mine and learned about David Douglas Belden, more commonly referred to as Judge D.D. Belden. One helpful resource was a website that’s called Colorado Historic Newspapers.

“That website was my best friend for this because I was finding newspaper clippings from the 1870s and that explained the history of the mines and the name that kept coming up was D. D. Belden, the namesake of Belden, Colorado,” Osborn said. “Mr. O’Neil suggested I write a biography about D.D. Belden and at first I wasn’t interested because I was so much more interested in the mining industry than I was about the people. But in the end, learning about Judge Belden was my favorite part about this whole project.”

Osborn traced Belden’s footsteps from being a prominent lawyer in Ohio, to him getting married and moving out to Nebraska and Colorado.

“The thing about D.D. Belden was he was good at everything, and he was well-liked, but remained humble. He partnered up with prominent Denver businessmen like G.W. Clayton and Walter S. Cheesman – think Cheesman Park and Cheesman Reservoir – but Belden didn’t care to have landmarks named after him. Belden was Eagle County’s first county commissioner once Eagle County split up from Summit County,” Osborn said.

Osborn is passionate about Belden’s accomplishments and the history of the mines and what they were able to do at the time, which is fitting for the senior, since he’d heading to college at Virginia Tech this fall.

“I’m really interested in engineering and that was one of the things that really got me going on this project about the mines. I just think it’s crazy how the industry had to work around this horrendous terrain and with zero infrastructure at the time,” Osborn said.

To help research the topic, Osborn reached out to Kathy Heicher at the Eagle County Historical Society.

“The Historical Society was really excited to hear Malcolm’s proposal. We did not have a detailed history of Belden’s pioneer years in our files. We also knew almost nothing about Judge David Belden,” Heicher said. Osborn’s project was also perfect for a new grant that the Historical Society was offering called the Charley Peterson Research Fund, which supports projects that focus on Eagle County’s history.

Osborn’s book will be available at Eagle County’s libraries and at Vail Christian High School.

“It’s very exciting for me to see a high school student like Malcolm take on the mantle from generations in front of him to tell the early story of Eagle County and its pioneers,” O’Neil said. “We need this younger generation to carry that torch forward to help us more fully understand our place in time and the men and women who forged the path before us and on whose shoulders we stand.”

“One of the things I’m hoping the book leads to is having people my age care about the past,” Osborn said. “There are thousands of kids in this valley and even if just 10 of them say, “Wow, I want to learn about Eagle County history,” they should seek it out because if history is forgotten, it’s just gone.”

This story is from VailDaily.com