Column by Hal Walter
Pack-Burro Racing – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
BACK IN 1949, Melville Sutton won $500 in the inaugural “Rocky Mountain Pack Burro Championship” race. The Rocky Mountain News provided the cash award for the first finisher to wrangle his burro the 23 miles from Leadville to Fairplay, a route that included the small matter of 13,187-foot Mosquito Pass. All other finishers received a case of beer from the bartender at the Hand Hotel.
Review by Ed Quillen
Local History – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Beyond the Gorge – A History of Western Frémont County, Colorado
by Carol McNew
Published by the author
Available from Carol McNew, P.O. Box 54, Coaldale CO 81222
No ISBN
Review by Ed Quillen
Wildfire – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Charcoal Forest – How Fire Helps Animals and Plants
Written and illustrated by Beth A. Peluso
Published in 2007 by Mountain Press
ISBN 0878425322
Review by Annie Dawid
Novel – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Rise, Do Not Be Afraid
by Aaron Abeyta
Published in 2007 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN 0-9789456-8-9
Article by Shanna Lewis
Local Artist – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
AFTER MONTHS OF WORKING on a new home, fabric artist Grace Wever was finally back in her studio. Ready to make art, she got out her materials and tried to begin. Nothing came. Stymied, after such a long hiatus, she couldn’t get started. “I was at loose ends. I’d walk to the drawing board and walk away again,” she said. So she did something she wouldn’t normally do. Picking up her bible, she said, “Lord, I never play bible roulette, but please, give me a verse.” Opening to the powerful poetry of King David ignited a spark of inspiration for her.
Letter from Slim Wolfe
Modern Life – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
We read that George Sibley is concerned about the next generation which won’t have a legacy of a free higher education to help it cope with an increasingly complex world. Meanwhile Hal Walter worries that his son’s legacy will be a poisoned environment, and John Mattingly is philosophical that his son doesn’t want to inherit a crop circle but prefers just to make money….
Letter from Virginia McConnell Simmons
Colorado Central – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editors:
The short article “Colonel Pfeiffer’s Grave” by Marcia Darnell, who is ordinarily a responsible writer, has rendered me amazed but not speechless. The header, “Not Exactly a Roadside Attraction” should have been “Not Exactly an Accurate Article.” I respond herewith, not to honor Pfeiffer but to bury the article along with its errors. Most but not all of these are trifles when compared to weightier matters in today’s world, but I value the writing of history as a discipline requiring accuracy and honesty to the best of one’s ability.
Letter from Paul Brown
Colorado Central – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Ed and Martha,
Columnist Hal Walter’s spat with reader, Dennis Sprecher gives me an opportunity to weigh in on two beefs that occasionally irritate me when reading your fine magazine.
Letter from Roger Williams
Colorado Central – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I just finished the latest issue I have, May 2007, N° 159. If a later one is out, I must have left it at McDonald’s across the street where I have McBreakfast in a “senior moment.” A few comments are in order:
Page 8, a steam unit: I’ve ridden the Cumbres & Toltec, Durango & Silverton and others like the Cripple Creek & Victor or Georgetown Loop, Ski Train etc. several times. Hope to ride the new train over La Veta Pass this summer. Appreciate the details.
Letter from Dick Stacy
Food – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I enjoyed the essay by Sharon O’Toole on horses (mostly dead ones) in your June edition. I guess that I was surprised about the current status of dead horses and what happens to them.
I grew up in a small town in southwestern New York State during the years of World War II. The town is on the Alleghany Indian reservation. During my high school years, I worked in a small, locally-owned grocery store, where I was apprenticed to the butcher, who was teaching me the trade.
Column by John Mattingly
Agriculture – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
I ALWAYS KNEW MY FATHER was older than I was, but I didn’t realize he was actually old until one day when he faced me after a bout with the flu. A cold spring wind blew at us under a darkening sky. His face had no color; his hair was the color of snow. I was in a hurry, as usual, pushing to get some field ready for planting, and I didn’t want to stop, but there he was, detaining me, looking at me, an old man, and it drained the rush right out of me. Father somehow always had been young. He didn’t grow old and decay. He stayed strong and smart. But there he was in the cold gray wind, facing me, an old man, talking about how he needed me to do some ground work in his orchard.
Column by George Sibley
Education – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
LAST MONTH I was looking at the way in which we have gradually transformed what we call “student financial aid” from a program for insuring the education of the coming generation, to yet another form of transfer payments from the still-poor to the already-wealthy.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
In recent years, passenger trains have made a comeback in Central Colorado — not as regular modes of transportation for people interested only in getting from here to there, but as tourist excursions for passengers to enjoy the scenery and the experience of riding on the rails.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The photo on pages 28-29 is by Otto Perry, and comes from the Denver Public Library Western History Collection, which holds the copyright. It is Call Number OP-10893. That also holds for the picture on page 34, except it is Call Number OP-10884. The timetable on page 36 is from Laird Campbell.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Last scheduled narrow-gauge passenger train from Alamosa to Durango: the San Juan, Jan. 31, 1951. After that there were special excursions chartered by the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club and similar organizations, and these continued into the 1960s. Summer tourist service on the segment between Antonito and Chama, N.M., resumed in 1970.
Sidebar by Kirby Perschbacher
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
My last train trip from my Grandparents’ Cain home in Climax to our home in Salida was when I was probably about ten and my brother Mike was eight. Grandma took us to the station at Malta and bought tickets for the trip to Salida. As we waited around with several other people for the train, I remember a man noting that the D&RGW wouldn’t continue to talk about closing the line if there were this many passengers every day. I recall there being about fifteen people in line.
Sidebar by Carol Slaughter
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
I remember my excitement when, as a young girl, I took my first ride on a passenger train, from Buena Vista to Salt Lake City. My cousin, Hazel Hemstedt, who traveled the world teaching for the U.S. Army, had come home for a visit. Apparently, she thought it was time I started my apprenticeship as a traveler by taking a short trip. My excitement grew as departure time drew near. It was like being in one of those movies I loved, where the action takes place on trains steaming through the night; characters eating and sleeping in those elegant cars.
Sidebar by Laird Campbell
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
My wife and I were privileged to ride this train when it went beyond Salida. We took it to Glenwood Springs, stayed overnight, and rode the California Zephyr back to Denver.
Sidebar by Suzanne Macdonald
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
What, who, will be waiting at the station?
Sidebar by Gwen Perschbacher
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine –
Riding the trains has been a life-long experience. My first train memory is riding to and from school in the second grade on the Galloping Goose in Kansas. The last was going through Copper Canyon in Mexico. However, it was during the 1940s that my train rides are most memorable. At the time, my parents were living in Climax and I was attending school in Kansas. The trip was often from Malta [the railroad stop near Leadville] to Pueblo, where I changed trains for Geneseo, Kansas — and vice-versa.
Sidebar by Bill Murphy
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
My first visit to Salida was by rail in the summer of 1959. I came here to check out a radio station that was for sale. I rode the Burlington from Chicago to Denver, then the Rio Grande from Denver to Salida. You didn’t get off that train; there was some switching when you might have to move from a sleeper car to a coach, but you never stepped off the train.
Article by Ed Quillen
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT WAS A BITTER January morning in 1985, so cold that my car wouldn’t start; so I walked downtown because I needed a power strip from Gambles. After a couple of chilly blocks, I turned the corner and looked down F Street. Instead of seeing Salida’s focal point, the art-deco Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad depot, I saw a pile of rubble.
Article by John Orr
Water – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Fryingpan-Arkansas Project News
Dueling bills have been introduced for increasing the storage in Pueblo Reservoir. Doug Lamborn’s (CO-5) seeks to study the feasibility of expanding storage in the Reservoir by 50,000 acre feet along with allowing long-term storage contracts. The bill would pave the way for Colorado Springs’Southern Delivery System project. The SDS consists of a pipeline from the main stem (or Pueblo Reservoir) to the city, with return flows running down Fountain Creek. Congress would need to separately authorize the reservoir expansion.
Essay by Martha and Ed Quillen
Colorado Central – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
SINCE WE STARTED PUBLISHING Colorado Central in 1994, we’ve seen postal rates increase several times, usually less than 10%. On May 14, 2007, new rates were issued. Our category, “automation flats,” went up by 40%.
Thus we have little choice but to raise subscription and advertising rates, effective July 1, 2007.
Article by Melvin and Camille Getz
Water – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
WAY BACK IN 1952, the San Luis Valley celebrated a major water-related centennial. That event recognized the 1852 People’s Ditch of San Luis as the very first irrigation right granted in Colorado and noted the great accomplishments and challenges of one hundred years of irrigation. Governor Dan Thornton delivered the keynote address, and almost every notable water authority in the state took part in one way or another — speaking, listening, eating, and even marching in a parade through the streets of San Luis. The 1952 celebration is documented in a publication put out by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College (now CSU) entitled A Hundred Years of Irrigation in Colorado; 100 Years of Organized and Continuous Irrigation; 1852-1952.
Brief by Ed Quillen
Local News – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Jack Frost hangs around
One might ask “Where’s that Global Warming when we need it?”
When Marcia Darnell sent in her “SLV Briefs” from Alamosa on June 8, she commented that “Hey , it froze here last night!” The official reading of 28° put that morning’s low in Alamosa well below freezing.
Brief by Central Staff
Politics – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Locals rate well in Legislature
Central Colorado appears to be represented pretty well in the Colorado General Assembly, at least if you go by a “report card” issued at the end of the session by Colorado Confidential, an award-winning website that should fascinate any Centennial State political junkie.
Brief by Shanna Lewis
Events – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Since 1984 jazz lovers have converged in Westcliffe during the annual Jazz in the Sangres festival for a weekend of “hot jazz in a cool place.”
Now, it looks as though the festival’s days may be coming to an end. Due to dwindling attendance numbers during the last few years, festival organizers decided to give it a break this summer.
Brief by Central Staff
Federal Land – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Entrance fees at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument may go up in 2008, because operating and maintenance costs have risen.
The current fee for a seven-day pass is $3, and that would rise to $7. An annual pass, now $15, would be $30.
Brief by Central Staff
History – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Dow-Jones Company, which produces the Wall Street Journal and other business publications, has been in the news lately because Rupert Murdoch (Fox News, New York Post and many other newspapers) is attempting to buy it from the Bancroft family, which has controlled the company for many years.
Brief by Marcia Darnell
San Luis Valley – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Centauri
Centauri High School in La Jara was ground zero for controversy. A group of kids apparently decided it would be fun to become openly racist. The teenagers made bigoted comments around school and ran a Confederate flag up the school’s flagpole. Finally, they posted photos of themselves doing the “Seig Heil” salute on the web and threatened violence.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Central Staff
Wildlife – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is not native to Colorado, but it is a popular sport fish. According to a recent study conducted by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, it’s also a valuable part of our economy.
Brief by Allen Best
Fire – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
It was, said one shop-owner, the most interesting thing that happened in Crested Butte during the spring shoulder-season. A storage shed located in the town park spontaneously combusted.
Essay by Mike Beagle
Recreation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Flashing red and blue lights sent me a strong message: I was busted. I’d just passed a truck as I drove into a small, southwestern Oregon town and neglected to slow down to 30 mph. I got a ticket.
