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30 Years Ago - April 29, 1983 Record snowfalls plagued Colorado Sierra this winter. Despite the warming weather and dryer days recently, the subdivision remains covered with several feet of snow. The heavy snow load is believed to be the reason for the collapse of what was a pitched roof on the house owned by Fred and Coleen Crenshaw on Athena Road. Next week, Gilpin County residents will be receiving a letter from the County Commissioners asking for comment on a one percent county-wide sales and use tax. Commissioners want residents’ input before they go ahead with the proposal to institute the tax. Use tax would be collected on motor vehicle registrations. The sales tax would be levied on utility bills. It’s estimated the revenue from the two taxes would be about $100,000 per year. A pickup truck belonging to Lloyd and Tina Larsen of Apex Valley was stolen from their home during the night Monday and was discovered early Tuesday morning in Clear Creek. Skid marks revealed the driver had lost control of the truck on a curve. No one was in it when it was found and there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been hurt in the accident. After seven years of negotiations between the Gilpin County Commissioners and the State Highway Commission, the state has finally decided to accept County Road #70 as a state highway effective April 21 st . The road runs through Golden Gate State Park to the Gilpin-Jefferson county line. The state has agreed to pave the 1.1 mile section that is currently unpaved and will redo the highway inside the park. They expect the paving to be completed within two years. Esther Campbell was one of three senior citizen interns to attend the Wirth Washington Seminar held last week in the nation’s Capitol. Immigration and Naturalization of the U.S. Department of Justice is proposing a Service Processing Center to be located near Denver. It would house males, females and families that are en route back to Mexico from the northern part of the United States. The owners of 1,100 acres on Highway 119 from Douglas Mountain Estates north to Robinson Hill Road, are proposing the center be located there. Pvt. Blair K. Bowles, daughter of Herbert and Geraldine Bowles, has completed training as an Army military police specialist at Fort McClellan, Alabama. A new mushroom-style exhaust vent at the Teller House produced a prompt and unfavorable reaction from the Central City Historic Preservation Commission. One commissioner said it looked like a space ship which had just landed. The vent was put in without getting a permit. It will be removed and the new vent will protrude only four to six inches from the building and painted to match the brick. Frederic B. Rodgers, Municipal Court Judge for Central City and Black Hawk, was reappointed by Governor Dick Lamm as a member of the Colorado Commission on Children and Their Families. Deputy Sheriff Steve Foellmer responded to a complaint from a Dory Lakes resident of a pack of dogs running at large. The dogs allegedly killed 25 chickens during several weeks. Undersheriff Eric Klemp responded to a complaint of two large dogs running at large in the Isle of Pines Subdivision. The dogs allegedly were harassing a horse which caused extensive fence damage. We’re supposed to average 340 days of sunshine a year here in Colorado and we look forward to each and every one of them. You may have noticed that we are getting seriously short-changed this year. 60 Years Ago - April 24, 1953 A real estate deal was closed last week wherein the Harris Block, owned by Kenneth Ohlander, of Georgetown, was sold to Lemon Saks of Denver. This Central City building is one of the oldest in the city, is made of stone and brick, and has three large rooms on the ground floor and smaller rooms on the second. It is the intention of the new owner to use the center room on the street level for his display of imported antiques, the other two rooms being now occupied by Mrs. Mona Robb operating the museum, and Mrs. Robinson, who has an antique and candy store. Rooms on the second floor will be renovated and remodeled and made into modern apartments. On May 1 st , the fate of the long hoped-for gymnasium and auditorium rests in the hands of the qualified tax-paying electors of Gilpin County. Vote YES on the $45,000 bond issue - it’s an affirmative vote for the welfare of the community in general and the students in particular. An advertisement by the U.S. Post Office department is now displayed at the Idaho Springs Post Office calling for bids to haul mail between Denver and Silver Plume. In place of the two mails a day schedule now in effect both east and west, the new schedule calls for but one mail a day each way. For those who heat with wood, the following information is useful: If it’s heat you want, and lots of it, two of the best bets are white oak and hickory. One cord of each is approximately equal to one ton of coal. Others that rate among the tops in the heat parade are birch, sugar maple, red oak and white ash. For those who delight in exotic aromas and intriguing spark, white pine logs, along with a few pine cones, will fill the bill. Firs, in the evergreen family, offer the same performance, but their fuel value is less. The Indian Claims Commission has been directed by the United States Court of Claims to reconsider claims of Oklahoma’s Pawnee Indians for “just compensation” for millions of acres of land taken more than a hundred years ago. The tribe has asked “just compensation” for some one million acres of land in north central Kansas, 23,000,000 acres of land south of the Platte River; and some 10,500,000 acres in Nebraska. No one can estimate the amount the Pawnees would receive if and when they won their case. It would run into millions of dollars, however, since much of the land was taken for practically nothing. Idaho Springs Mining Journal: About a quarter of a mile east of their residence on Mill Creek, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Lucas encountered what they thought was a mountain lion cross the road last Tuesday. Throughout the school year, the Central City grade school students have been active members of a Square Dance club - dues were ten cents per session. In this manner, a fund amounting to $5.00 came into existence. Yesterday, these kids who had contributed to this fund, decided, that instead of the party which they had tentatively planned, the entire amount should be donated to the Cerebral Palsy Drive, and they did just that. Not a great amount, you say, yet it represented their total collections for the year, and emphasized their will to help others less fortunate than they themselves. 90 Years Ago - April 27, 1923 Sunday afternoon a committee of representative citizens and business men of Golden, to the number of about thirty, urged Jefferson County Commissioners to open up and improve the Golden Gate road. Gilpin County has a splendid road as far as the county line but improvement and upkeep on the Jefferson County end has been sadly neglected. Joe Casper is hauling a car of smelting ore from the Belmont Mine in Russell Gulch to the car at Central, for shipment to the smelter at Leadville. The Jupiter-Belmont Mine in Russell District, is loading a car of high grade smelting ore for shipment to the Leadville smelters. Twelve inches of snow fell on Sunday in Apex. No wind, no drifts on the road. Mail came through on time Monday. Mrs. Elizabeth M. Wilkins, one of the few remaining old-timers of Clear Creek County, passed away at the family home in Idaho Springs on Wednesday morning. She had come across the plains with her first husband, James Graham, in an ox cart in 1864 and they settled first in Black Hawk, relocating in 1871 to Idaho Springs. She was 82 years old. Bids for the construction of 568 feet of masonry flume in Black Hawk are being called for by the state highway commission to connect the flume in front of Blake’s Livery Stable with that portion in front of the hardware store that was finished last fall. When a fellow boasts that he has never been kissed, we feel justified in congratulating the other sex. The Dump Mining Company is erecting a stamp mill at Mountain City. The cuss words a pedestrian learns come in handy later when he buys a flivver and wishes to describe pedestrians. Mr. Eugene Perley, superintendent of the Black Jack properties in Silver Gulch, below Black Hawk, shipped a carload of smelting ore to the Idaho Springs sampling works on Monday. Supt. Johnson, of the Cornucopia Mine in Silver Creek is loading two carloads of concentrates for shipment to Leadville. Former shipments of this class of ore carried values of $250 per ton. Mr. L. G. Cavnah shipped a carload of 25 tons of second class ore from the Atlantic Mine, at Hughesville, to the smelters at Leadville. The Light of Western Stars, by Zane Grey, a splendid novel, will be published as our next serial. 120 Years Ago - April 28, 1893 Dick Taylor, a notorious horse thief and desperado, was shot through the heart by Constable Daffer of South Denver, at midnight on April 20. The officer is exonerated, the general impression being that he did a good job in ridding the community of a dangerous and thieving character. Mrs. General Tom Thumb’s troupe of Lilliputians are booked for next Tuesday evening at the People’s Theatre, this city. The law passed by the last General Assembly closing barber shops on Sundays is to be contested on constitutional grounds, it being claimed that it is unconstitutional, being class legislation. Last Saturday’s evening train was delayed three and a half hours by the Denver mountain train jumping the track at Argo. It did not arrive here until nearly 10 o’clock. The Golden Treasure Company are driving levels in their main shaft at five different points. In three of these there has been a marked improvement in the quality of ore passed through. The new Cameron steam pump placed in the Buell Mine last week is working along smoothly, and lowering the water in quite a rapid and steady manner. It now stands about 40 feet below the 400 foot levels. The new 70-horse power steam boiler of the Concrete Mine pool was transferred to the mine on Monday morning by A.C. Reckling & Co. of Central. It required four span of horses to remove it. Jim Pierrepont doesn’t “feel well himself.” Sundry and divers parts of his system are minus their normal epidermis. Deep abrasions exist here and there in glowing profusion. Jim was on top part of the time and the horse and cart ditto. The latter are doing nicely, but the former is somewhat disfigured and disgusted. The exhibition occurred near Lake Pisgah last Sunday afternoon. Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning some person or persons effected an entrance through a back door to the store of C. C. Miller in Black Hawk, drilled a hole to the left of the dial knob of the safe and with a round piece of iron or steel broke the plate to the combination of the safe. They took out all the money amounting to $150. A large-sized railroad bridge builder’s hammer and a 1 ½ inch chisel were found on the floor in front of the safe. The latter belonged to the Black Hawk foundry. Suspicion rests on two strangers who were seen around on Saturday, who have not been seen since the evening of that day. The telegraph operator at Forks-of-the-Creek, says that about 4 o’clock Sunday morning two persons placed a hand car on the track near that station and took off down the track for Golden. An assay from a piece of smelting ore taken from the west 250 foot level of the Alger-Kansas Mine on Quartz Hill gave the following good showing: Gold, 5.61 ounces; silver, 48 ounces, and 12 per cent copper per ton, a total commercial value of $151.85 per ton. Colorado is the first state in the Union to pass a law prohibiting the insuring of children under 12 years of age. Quite an amount of fun was had at the race track on King Flats west of Nevadaville last Sunday afternoon. Fred Bolsinger made a wager with James Williams, a sport of the Town of Mines, that he could cover 50 yards and carry 150 pounds weight before the latter could cover 100 yards over the track. The result was Fred came out winner easily. Born: In Russell Gulch, April 24, 1893, to the wife of Samuel Roberts, a son. Born: In Central City, April 25, 1893, to the wife of Albert Nancarrow, a son. Died: In Black Hawk, April 24, 1893, of cancer of the stomach, Sophia, wife of William Sanders, aged 49 years and 24 days. The famous cowboy race from Nebraska to the Columbian Exposition will start from Chadron, NE at 8 a.m. on June 13. It is said that over 300 cowboys will enter the race. A friend over from Empire, Clear Creek County, informed the Register-Call that parties from Denver have in view the construction of an artificial lake at that place, excavation for which will soon be commenced. It is the intention to place excursion boats on the lake, stock it with trout, and beautify the grounds to make it a favorite resort with Denver and people from the other valley towns. There are several good subjects for the reform school among the street urchins of Black Hawk. The Capricornicus of the beer sign, the festive goat, whose appearance in the front windows of the duly licensed saloon proclaims the advent of the joyous “bock beer” season, will after tomorrow, no longer be ascendant. Wise beer bibers are now gulping down the contents of the beer vats that have been lying for so many months at the breweries. Bock beer is the real “lager” beer - which is hurried to the waiting summer “schooners.” With the end of April and the beginning of May the delightful yearly opportunity passes.

Patrick Henry Sweeney

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