Louis Tikas was born Elias Spantidakis in Loutra, Crete, and came to the United States in 1906.

By 1912 he was organizing for the United Mine Workers of America, and he led the Ludlow tent colony through the southern Colorado coal strike. That role put him between two worlds. He spoke English and Greek, which made him the man immigrant miners turned to and the man company officials singled out. Roughly a thousand people lived in the Ludlow colony, families included, after being evicted from company housing for striking.

On April 20, 1914, the day after Greek Orthodox Easter, he was shot and killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The site was named a National Historic Landmark in 2009, and in 2018 a bronze statue of Tikas was dedicated at the Coal Miners' Memorial in Trinidad. The story stayed alive for decades largely because Greek Americans in Colorado kept telling it. AHEPA continues to honor and preserve stories like his as an important part of the Greek American experience.