Peterson, Arthur O. “Colorado Pete” (1896‒1932)

Though his life was tragically short, Colorado Pete made his mark on the history of Clearwater County, Minnesota, through both his civic activities and his poetry.

Arthur Owen Peterson (also spelled Pederson) was born in Fosston, Minnesota, on July 23, 1896, to parents P. H. and Minnie Peterson. P. H. (Peder) and Minnie were naturalized citizens originally from Norway, having immigrated with their young son Andie in 1895. They moved twelve miles east to Bagley, Minnesota, in April of 1898 to open the second general store in the new and growing town. Peder’s brother Hans came from Norway to join him, and the brothers operated Peterson Hardware on Main Street.

By 1905 the Peterson family had grown to include four sons: Andie, Arthur, Harold, and Peder M. Arthur was sixteen when he graduated from Bagley High School in 1913. After high school he headed to southern Minnesota to attend Carleton College in Northfield.

In the fall of 1917 Arthur taught at a high school in Hendrum, Minnesota, (about eighty miles southwest of Bagley.) The United States joined World War I in the spring and Arthur resigned his teaching job to enlist in the Army. He was mustered in on April 13, 1918, at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and then was sent to Camp Hamilton, New York, for training.

On July 14, 1918, Peterson was shipped overseas to France as a sergeant in the Fifty-fourth Coast Artillery Corps. He spent eight months in Brest, Houssimont, and Angers. After the war ended Peterson, ill with amoebic dysentery, was discharged and returned to Bagley in March of 1919. His disease was common among soldiers in the trenches and led to lifelong health complications.

Peterson and other veterans organized Post 16 of the Bagley American Legion in 1919, and Peterson became its first commander. He was considered an enthusiastic worker as he organized novelty dances and became chief “stunt and fun producer” for convention tours. Around this time, he purchased the Bagley Herald newspaper and became its outspoken editor.

In the 1920s, Peterson’s health started to deteriorate. Diary entries show a cycle of periods of fever and tiredness, gradual recovery, and short-lived reinvigoration before fever again set in. In the summer of 1921 he spent a short time in Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis and returned home feeling so much improved that he decided to take a job in Chicago working for the Illinois Agricultural Association. His good health didn’t last, and he was soon back in Minnesota consulting the Mayo Clinic.

On February 19, 1923, Peterson wrote in his diary, “I called in the afternoon and two doctors gave me the hard-to-take dope.” He had tuberculosis. Shortly after his diagnosis he applied and was accepted to the Woodmen Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Woodmen, Colorado. He spent thirteen months there being treated for his lung disease with the thin, cool air, bedrest, and sunshine.

While at the sanitarium, Peterson learned basket weaving and knitting to fill his time. It was there he started writing poetry and was soon sending his poems to the Chicago Tribune, where they were published under the pen name “Colorado Pete.” The Chicago Tribune had a readership of 700,000 people by 1926 and it published 111 of Arthur’s poems. The first of them, “The Dentist Intervenes,” appeared on September 14, 1923.

Arthur’s health improved and he returned to Bagley in 1924. The improvement, however, didn’t last long, and he spent the winter of 1924‒25 at the Veterans’ Hospital in Whipple, Arizona, and the winter of 1925‒26 at Fort Snelling, all the while publishing poems in the Chicago Tribune. He improved for short periods of time, but his final hospitalization occurred at Fort Snelling in October of 1930, where he died from a massive hemorrhage of his lungs on February 15, 1932, at the age of thirty-five.

Although his life was short, Peterson brightened the community and added a bit of color to the history of Clearwater County. Upon being notified of his death, the Chicago Tribune noted, “Most of you . . . knew him only through his beautiful poems in the Line; but to those who knew Arthur Owen Peterson personally, he was, more even than a fine poet, a brave and gallant lad.”