In my Romance in the Rockies books, Defiance is a fictional town in the San Juan mountain range of Colorado. The town where Charles and Naomi live is based loosely on the bawdy mining town of Mineral Point. In my story, three good, Christian girls roll into town and shake things up for God.
To my delight, I learned recently that the REAL town of Glenwood Springs, CO used to be named Defiance! And what happened to change the name? Why, a God-fearing, red-blooded American girl rolled into town. That’s what happened.
Sarah Cooper and her husband settled in the encampment of Defiance in 1883. A pair of no-nonsense Iowans, they weren’t thrilled with the name of the town or the behavior of the citizens and worked with the founders to incorporate the settlement into a real municipality. Law and order and churches followed and Sarah pushed to rename Defiance to Glenwood Springs, after her hometown of Glenwood, Iowa.
Give an American pioneer woman an inch and she’ll take a mile every time. I love it.