25-50-100 Years Ago

Aspen Democrat editor Charles “Cap” Dailey let his readers know that a new holiday had been created in honor of one of the country’s greatest presidents.

Without amendments the [U.S.] senate today passed the house bill making Feb. 12, 1909, the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, a legal holiday and recommending its celebration throughout the United States. The bill also declares that as a part of the national memorial to Lincoln there may be built a highway from Washington city to the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., to be known as The Lincoln Highway.

The editor also informed the readers that the assassin of Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was not buried in the Booth family plot as commonly reported, based on a story published by a newspaper in the small town of Salem, Ohio.

That the body … was tossed into the Potomac River … is the belief of R. B. Thompson, a newspaper man of this city. [Thompson] based his story on a tale told by one Captain E.W. Hilliard, an army officer from Illinois. Hilliard, who died a few years ago, told Mr. Thompson that he and four privates of Sheridan’s army … at the old capitol prison in Washington one night a few weeks after the assassination [helped unearth] Booth’s corpse, disfigured by burns, from under a stone slab and carried it to a gunboat in waiting. The vessel dropped down the river ten miles and the assassin’s body was placed on a plank and shoved into the river.

Skiing and related activities already were popular and highly organized past-times in some parts of the country.

Final preparations were completed today for the annual tourney of the Ski Association of America, to begin [in Eau Claire, Wis.] the later part of the week. Thirty-five clubs, principally in Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, will be represented and there will be championship contests for both amateur and professional ski jumpers.

The Aspen Democrat continued its drumbeat of support for establishment of a state fish hatchery at Hallam Lake, as a way of boosting the local economy, weighing in with an interview of a former member of the state’s fisheries commission, a Mr. Callicotte.

Mr. Callicotte says the Hallam Lake and springs are naturally adapted to the hatching and rearing of trout … the water is clean, of the proper temperature and there is ample facilities for breeding spawners.

The editor informed his readers that his arch rival, B. Clark Wheeler of The Aspen Times, was moving to establish control over The Aspen Democrat, in the wake of Wheeler’s political defeats and business setbacks.

And now poor old B.C. is turning his attention to The Democrat, and has purchased the 100 shares of stock held by Judge Shumate, the purchase price being $10 [and] the stock held by Charles W. Stringfield, the gentleman who is an also ran in the political arena of this county … [and] Vince Johnson’s interest. Yesterday B.C. informed us that he and Vince were going to have a meeting of the stockholders … to elect new directors who would be more congenial to his and Vince’s interests.

(Microfilm of The Aspen Times 1904-1909 is missing from the Colorado Historical Society’s archives. These excerpts are from The Aspen Democrat.)

Editor Bil Dunaway, a diehard car racing fan and participant, revealed that Aspen would once again be part of the National Continental Divide Sports Car Rally, according to Hy Tatarsky, the Denver representative of the Sports Car Club of America.

Tatarsky told [Aspen Chamber of Commerce] officials that the SCCA would like to have the rally end its second leg in Aspen [on[ September 25, then begin and end its third leg here on Sept. 26. The first leg, which brought the cars from all parts of the country to the rally start, would be in Denver … The chamber directors voted unanimously to raise the [$750 fee requested by the race organization) by requesting a 10 percent levy on all business brought to town by the rally participants.

A little bit of Hollywood scandal touched Aspen, by way of a court in Denver.

The old saw, slightly amended, that a man’s hotel is his castle was challenged in a Denver court last week when movie actress Hedy Lamarr asked to have her estranged husband, Howard Lee, ousted from their Aspen motel, Villa Lamarr, [over allegations that] Lee had violated terms of a partnership agreement on the operation of the west end motel. They have been married five years and have been separated since August.

A new television station out of Glenwood Springs, KCWS Channel 3, got into hot water with local viewers when it knocked a Denver station, KCNC, off the air because of a lack of capacity on Pitkin County’s television translator system.

According to County Commissioner Michael Kinsley, the county is doing everything in its power to restore KCNC to the valley … “Frankly,” observed Kinsley, “I had no idea that this thing would be so important to people.” … Of the four channels on the translator system, two ” KCNC and KREX Grand Junction ” were NBC affiliates, so the commissioners decided that situation was somewhat “redundant,” according to Kinsley, and the most logical signal to drop was the more distant of the two.

An ongoing federal drug probe involving a number of Aspen residents led to the seizure of two local homes.

Two men … had their homes seized by the federal government … homes belonging to John David Rauch and Steven Grabow [that were alleged to have been] bought with the proceeds of cocaine sales. Both [homes] are listed with the county assessor as belonging to other persons … But documents [filed with the court] allege that Grabow and Rauch own the property in question.

As Aspen got more crowded, certain signs of that growth began to appear ” such as stoplights at busy intersections, which were not always welcomed.

Should another stoplight be installed west of Aspen at the Castle/Maroon intersection with the highway? The city council could not decide Monday … A stoplight at the busy intersection had been requested by Aspen Highlands to facilitate left turns onto the highway … Studies by the state highway department showed that traffic at the intersection justified a stoplight, but the state would not install one unless requested to do so by the city. Council member Chic Collins asked if there were not some alternative to a light, like having a police officer direct traffic.

” compiled by John Colson