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25-50-100 years ago

Compiled by Janet Urquhart
Aspen Times Weekly

One-hundred dollars was undoubtedly a lot of cash 100 years ago in Aspen. That was the reward being offered for an incident of vandalism, though. The Aspen Democrat-Times reported:

A $100 reward will be paid by the City of Aspen for information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who, last night, cut the section of fire hose laying along the Galena Street side of the Aspen Pharmacy. – Chas. Wagner, Mayor

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Convenience in communication took a step backward in Aspen a century ago. The Aspen Democrat-Times reported:

The local telephone exchange has been advised from headquarters at Denver that the railroad telegraphers at the union depot will no longer receive, day or night, messages over the telephone for transmission by telegraph.




The telephone-telegraph system, which was inaugurated a few months ago in this city, was a great convenience to our people and its discontinuance will be a source of disappointment.

Until some other arrangement is made, those wishing to send a telegram will either have to take or send the message to the union depot as formerly. …

Aspen is the only town in the state of any size or importance that is without a downtown telegraph office. …

It would seem to us that now is a good time to make proper representation to the telegraph company with a view to having an independent telegraph office established at a central point in the business section.

Discussions on redistricting hit an impasse at the Colorado Legislature this spring. Fifty years ago, Pitkin County’s fate in legislative redistricting was also on the table. The Aspen Times reported:

Pitkin County would be combined with Eagle, Gunnison and Saguache counties in a new district for representation in the Colorado House of Representatives, according to a plan proposed this week.

The idea, part of an overall reapportionment plan for the state, was suggested by Rep. C. P. (Doe) Lamb, R-Fort Morgan, chairman of a special legislative committee which is investigating the matter.

At present, Pitkin and Eagle are in a district with other counties to the east.

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The Re-1 school district was in an uproar 50 years ago. The Aspen Times reported:

More fuel was added to the explosive Glenwood Springs school situation this week with the resignation of the high school principal and the use of threatening phone calls to intimidate two opponents of School Board policy.

However, hopes for a solution were encouraged when School Superintendent Lucian Allen withdrew the resignation he had tendered on May 8.

Nicholas R. Massaro, principal of the Glenwood Springs High School, submitted his resignation this week. It will be discussed by the Board of the Roaring Fork School District next week.

In other developments, the wife of new School Board member, Pat Coryell, received an anonymous phone call last week threatening the safety of her children if her husband did not cooperate with the old school board.

Other threatening calls were received this week by Mrs. Imo McDonald, another Glenwood resident who has opposed past school board action.

Both Coryell and Mrs. McDonald favor the return to Basalt of the Basalt High School, moved by the Roaring Fork School Board last fall to Carbondale.

Mining plans were cranking up in the Aspen area 25 years ago. The Aspen Times reported:

Plans are still in place for mining to begin on Aspen Mountain this summer and for exploratory drilling on a mining claim in the Conundrum Creek Valley, according to the man who holds both mining claims.

Local miner Stephen Albouy, who also owns the Smuggler Mine on Smuggler Mountain, said he and others have been working throughout the winter in the Compromise Mine on the face of Aspen Mountain, and expect to begin active mining sometime in the summer.

Albouy and a dozen or so partners have been negotiating with the Aspen Skiing Company and the U.S. Forest Service concerning mine-related structures and activities at the mine, which is located at the top of the Little Nell slope, directly above town.

Albouy and Ed Smart, who together hold a mining claim on the valley wall in Conundrum, also have indicated that they intend to file an application for a special use permit to do some exploratory drilling this summer.