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1959: Aspen Motorist And Tame Elk Have Near Miss On Road

In celebrating the 125th anniversary of The Aspen Times, we are printing a story or two from each year the newspaper has existed – 125 historical selections in 125 days. This series is in conjunction with the Aspen Historical Society.Aspen Motorist And Tame Elk Have Near Miss On RoadNemnon, the tame elk who inhabits of Aspen’s east side, and a foreign sports car driven by a local resident played a highway version of London’s-bridge-is-falling-down recently, and the Aspenite lost.The incident occurred in the evening of Tuesday, July 28, on Highway 82 near the Highlander Lodge. Carl Hoffman, proprietor of The Garden Shop, was drving his Karmann Ghia coupe towards Aspen from Independence Pass.Temporarily blinded by the oncoming headlights, he managed to dicern the outline of Nemnon standing sideways directly in his path. The only action which Hoffman had a chance to take was to duck.When there should have been impact, there was only a slight scratching sound. The sports car had passed between the fore- and hind-legs of the animal.Hoffman brought his car to a stop and got out to inspect the damage. The eld was gone and the sports car had no more than a few knicks, which will cost less than $10 to have repaired.To make sure that the eld was no worse off than the auto, Hoffman went looking for the gelded animal the next day. Nemnon was not hurt and was as friendly as ever. (Aug. 13, 1959)