Suspicious death near Ludlow Massacre Memorial Site prompts state investigation
The Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office has requested help from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation after a suspicious death near the Ludlow Massacre Memorial Site on Sunday, according to a news release by CBI.
Deputies were dispatched around 1:45 p.m. to an abandoned building near the site after “a visitor” found the body of James Hedges, 43. Hedges was from Trinidad, about 15 miles north of the site.
Anyone with information about the incident can contact CBI or the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office at 719-846-2211, Extension 7.
The site memorializes the killing of 21 people, including 11 children, when National Guardsmen and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. attacked a tent colony of striking coal miners in 1914, according to the National Park Service. The 10 days of “continuous warfare” did not stop until President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to disarm both sides.
Uproar over what is now known as the Ludlow Massacre led to Congress producing a report that was “instrumental” to passing new child-labor laws and enforcement of the eight-hour workday, according to the NPS.





