Ellen Swallow Richards
1842–1911
Environmental chemist whose water testing exposed a public health crisis — and helped build the standards that followed.
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Water tells the truth if you know how to read it. Ellen Swallow Richards learned to read it, and what she found changed everything. In 1887, she led a survey of nearly 40,000 water samples across Massachusetts — testing every river and reservoir for the chemical signature of sewage — and mapped the results by hand into something no one had ever made before: a portrait of where a state's water was safe, and where it wasn't.
Her findings became the first water-quality standards in American history, and the blueprint for the sewage treatment plants that followed. She called her larger philosophy human ecology — the idea that the environment people lived in was a public responsibility, not a private problem. Every town that has ever trusted its water owes her something: to know her name, and to keep fighting for her standards.
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The Artist
Katie Curcio is a Manitou Springs-based painter, muralist, and arts educator whose work explores the connections between people, place, nature, and history. Drawn to the movement and symbolism found in the natural world, she uses vibrant color, fluid motions, and expressive imagery to create work that invites reflection and connection. Her creative practice is rooted in storytelling, and she is especially interested in using art to highlight the people, histories, and ideas that inspire us. Through public art and community-centered projects, Katie hopes to create work that honors where we come from while encouraging curiosity, belonging, and possibility.
