By Jackie Powell
Filling stations. Service stations. Gas stations. Aren’t they all the same thing? Maybe and maybe not. But they have certainly changed since I was a child in the 1950s.
My father would drive into a gas station and the attendant would come out wiping his hands on a greasy red cloth. Full-time attendants wore a complete uniform – jacket and shirt with embroidered name and logo, slacks and cap. High school boys working part-time often only had a shirt with their name on it.
By John McManus
The tale of Duke stems, as most legends do, from the seeds of reality. Where reality ends and myth prevails can only be personally resolved.
The name of the lonely Denver and Rio Grande Western railroad worker who brought Duke the dog to the Salida rail yard is lost forever. Duke, however, a smart, obedient and friendly canine, soon became part of the scene in the Salida yard during his master’s shift. A rail worker’s life in the 1890s could be described as hard, dirty and dangerous work with little compensation. The dangerous part of the job caught up with Duke’s owner one day when he was caught between a boxcar wheel and rail.