Turning Back the Pages

30 years ago - October 7, 1983 Two men decided to test their repelling skills in a mine stope Saturday afternoon, but only one was able to get back out of the 70-foot hole. After renting horses, Cecil W. Huffmaster and Terry Riley rappelled down a stope of the Antoinette Mining Claim on Justice Hill, near the junction of Russell Gulch and Lake Gulche. Huffmaster was able to get out and get help for his trapped friend who had bumped his elbow on the way down, making it numb, and was fatigued. About 15 people helped with the rescue. Riley was about 60-feet down, on a ledge, about nine to 10 feet from the bottom. Riley was described as very “scared” and very “embarrassed.” The Gilpin County High School Marching Band received a superior rating at CSU Band Day festivities on Saturday. The band joined 27 others in a parade in Ft. Collins which was followed by the CSU-Utah football game. This was the first appearance for the Gilpin County Marching Band. Lon Huckaby is band director. A handsome new sign now acknowledges the existence of Gilpin County School. It was donated by the RE-1 Booster Club with the designing and much of the work done by Booster Club member Terril Ferguson. Letter to the Editor: Now that we have returned to the U.K., I would like on behalf of Max Boyce, Opix Films and the film unit of BBC Wales, to thank the ‘peoples’ of Central City for their full cooperation and friendship during our stay with you. Never, in all our world travels, have we found such kindness and made so many friends in one place. For myself, I celebrated my birthday while in Central City and I can truly say it was the most memorable one I have ever had. Thank you to all the peoples of Central City. Trefor Davies. (Editor’s note: These people were in Central City in August doing a Western series for the BBC.) The first Charles Dickens Christmas Festival is about to burst upon Central City and Colorado. Since this will be a community event, we are looking for a community effort. Businesses in the area will be putting on their best Christmas face to bolster the atmosphere. Members of this community are needed to make visitors most welcome to an 1865 Little Kingdom of Gilpin. You can contribute to the overall atmosphere by dressing as your favorite Dickens character. Colorado’s best hardrock miners met recently in Grand Junction to compete for over $6,000 in cash and $1,500 in trophies for the fourth annual Colorado State Mining Championship. When the dust settled, crowds watched as a new champion was crowned for 1983. Tom Payne, “The Trapper,” a veteran competitor edged out all 28 state champions to win the coveted “Colorado All-Around Miner” trophy. The Flight-for-Life helicopter was called to Gilpin County School last Thursday afternoon, September 29, to take a 14-year-old boy to St. Anthony Hospital. The young man was playing soccer with his eighth grade physical education class when the accident occurred. School Principal Dan Ryan said the boy was running for a ball when he backed into the gymnasium wall. He complained of pains in the upper back and numbness and appeared “very vague.” The hospital determined that the lad had only been bruised, Ryan said. There were no internal injuries. He was able to return home that evening. Two Black Hawk teenagers were cruising Central City’s Main Street about 11:00 p.m. Saturday night when they became involved in a verbal confrontation with several people walking on the sidewalk. According to the teenagers’ statements, the four people – two men and two women – jumped into a pickup truck and began chasing them around Central City. According to witnesses, a man and a woman jumped out of the truck on Spring Street behind the Gold Coin and hid behind a retaining wall. When the two teenagers came down Spring Street again, still being pursued, the man and the woman threw several large rocks at the vehicle, breaking the windshield and severely damaging one side. Witnesses reported the license number of the truck to the dispatcher’s office. All four were arrested for criminal mischief and charges are pending Jessica Marie is the latest addition to the Kohler family. She was born on October 2, 1983 at 7:00a.m. Her parents are Cheri and Jeff Kohler of Bald Mountain. She weighed six pounds and measured 18 ¼ inches in length. 60 years ago - October 2, 1953 The Army Air Force reports that super-sonic gear for pilots has already been created. The latest is a new helmet for pilots who someday may have to bail out of supersonic planes. By cutting slots into the new helmet behind the forehead portion, the designers were able to make the helmet stick to its job. The slots create a small vacuum that holds the helmet firmly in place. The slots also permit air to escape from inside the helmet. This prevents the building up of air pressure inside the helmet that eventually becomes so great that it blows the helmet off the pilot’s head. The Navy Department has announced that female Waves will be assigned to see duty in the future. The Waves, to be drawn from volunteers in the Hospital Corps, will fill sixty-three billets on ships of the Military Sea Transportation Service. They will supplant twenty-four officers of the Navy Nurse Corps, who will be assigned to short duty. According to Dr. Raymond M. Hainer of Cambridge, Mass., the human nose is equipped to distinguish about 16,000,000 odors. Smelling, he reports after much research, is an extraordinarily complicated process involving nose and brain. Women are putting the pressure on congress these days. Thirty registered during the first quarter of 1953 as lobbyists. Twelve of the women said they had registered as lobbyist for the first time. They added that they did so voluntarily, under the provision of the 1946 Lobbying Act. Tom has been retired to green pastures. According to the Army News Features the old soldier, a mule that lacks the traditional stubbornness of a cantankerous breed, has “cleared the post” and departed to civilian pastures after a long military career. He was, the Army reports, the last of his kind in the Third Army. As a draft mule, Tom was one of the elite in Army mule-dom, but he never pulled his rank on his pack mule colleagues. Even in civilian life, however, Tom will have Army companionship. He was bought at auction by Col. R.J. Whatley of Columbus, Georgia, a retired Army man. 90 years ago - October 5, 1923 Stained and brittle from resting four years in its niche, subject to the elements, the confession of a murderer, Lee Singleton, a native of Crisfield, MD, and some fifty years a resident of this city, was found recently in a crevice between the logs of a cabin by James Thornton, a surveyor, according to word received here. Found with the skeleton was a confession admitting to the murder of John Murphy, an “overbearing man who insulted me often and who struck me one day.” Mr. Singleton, according to his confession, waited two weeks before striking Murphy on the head and threw his body into the furnace. Frank Eaton, a seven-year-old lad of Orlando, FL, proved himself a hero when he saved his two-year-old sister from their home, which was in flames. Franks parents, who were attending their dairy trade at the time, saw their home in flames and rushed to the scene, only to find entrance impossible. As they returned to the front of the house, they met the boy coming out, his baby sister in his arms. If you take a dollar and give it back that’s stricken conscience. If you take a million and give it back, that’s philanthropy. Silver may be used for monetary purposes as reserve against notes or other liabilities, or a circulating medium. Since 1914 its employment for reserve purposes has considerably decreased in most countries. Its place has been taken in many others by paper and base metal substitutes. Died: Mrs. Harriet Dexter Parvin, wife of State Game Warden Roland G. Parvin, died on September 26. Deceased was one of the twins born to Mr. and Mrs. Dexter, in Leavenworth Gulch, in Gilpin County. Died: Sara A. Weir, widow of the late Sheldon Weir, died on September 25, aged 73 years. Died: Mr. Afred E. Schultz, who lost his life in the railroad disaster on the Burlington road near Casper, Wyoming. Died: Edith Svaldi, the infant daughter of Mrs. Rosina Svaldi, died October 1. Before moving to Denver the family lived in Black Hawk, and two of their children were drowned in Clear Creek, falling off a plank across the creek near the Polar Star Mill. Died: Alexander McLeod, a pioneer of Gilpin County and a former resident, died following a long illness, aged 89 years. Died: Mrs. Mary Tank died September 28, aged 79 years. 120 years ago - October 6, 1893 For many years Heidelberg University has had the honor of owning the largest barrel, or “tun,” as they call it, in the world. They have had the honor, although it does not really belong to them, for Arizona has a barrel that makes theirs fade into insignificance. Messrs. Mcleod & Co. are still carrying on operations with a vim on the west claim owned by Messrs. John Meagher and Alex McLeod. They find the ore bodies still producing well in the 150 foot levels east and west, as also the 100 feet east and west levels. Their east chimney is particularly valuable, not only from the large size of the pay body, but also from its richness, producing a number of shipments that netted $150 per ton. The Chaffee Nottaway, now worked by Thomas Davinson and son, with Martin Welch associated as underground manager. They find in the shaft by the road or trail, which is the second shaft they have tackled, a fine of body gray copper ore. The size of the blocks show the pay streak to be of very good size. The Hampton Tunnel, which is being worked by Messrs Gorge Fubrinan and Thomas Warwick are still leasing on the Hampton Tunnel. Fortune has beamed smilingly upon them. About the time of the great slump in silver prices their ore, which had been running about 60 ounces of silver and 1 ounce gold, took a sudden change and has since run from 3 to 3.25 ounces gold, only about 19 or 20 ounces silver per ton and 30 percent lead per ton. That portion of the Homer Lode, situated on the easterly slope of Central City hill, owned by Messrs. Bitzenbofer, Altvater and Schaffnit has been leased and bonded to Eugene Traupell, James Hambly and Frank Rickard. The lessees have commenced work and are driving a level west as a depth of 135 feet. Mr. Abbott of the Alice Mine had some tests made of concentrates from that mine lately that gave returns of $130 gold to the ton for one and $40 to the ton in another. A nugget worth $60 was found yesterday on the Cripple Creek placer by one of the men working on a percent. One of the men working on a particularly rick streak has averaged $10 per day for the past two weeks.

Patrick Henry Sweeney

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