35 mm color slide depicting the abandoned town of Ashcroft in Pitkin County, Colorado, circa August 1978, taken by Diane Dufva Quantic (b. 1941). The photo shows four wooden buildings in a row. The building at the far right is possibly the former post office.
Diane Dufva Quantic has been an associate professor of English at Wichita State University since 1973, where she teaches courses in Great Plains literature and in nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature. Quantic is a native of Manhattan, Kansas and holds three degrees from Kansas State University: a6 BA in 1962, an MA in 1966, and a Ph.D. in 1971. During her research for her Master's, she studied Leadville and other Colorado mining towns as the setting for fiction. Diane Quantic also taught at the University of North Colorado and at Alameda High School in Lakewood, Colo. and is the author of several books, including "William Allen White" (1993), "The Nature of the Place: A Study of Great Plains Fiction" (1995), and "A Great Plains Reader" (2003).