This week in Aspen history

“Snow makers are everywhere,” declared a headline in The Aspen Times on Nov. 20, 1964. “With snow-making machines on all sides this winter, Aspenites are in the position of cavalrymen in the Light Brigade with ‘cannons to the right of us, cannons to the left of us, and cannons in front of us.’ If Aspen hires weather-modifier F. Neal Bosco of Denver, there may even be ‘cannons on top of us.’ But the artillery in this case will fire silver iodide crystals rather than shells. Bosco uses flares instead of mechanical generators in his war with the weather. Last week, the Aspen Association awarded him a $250 contract to produce more snow in the six-day period than would normally have fallen. The success or failure of the venture was to determine whether he would be hired for a three-month period, at $1500 a month. Local businessmen would have to pay the bill. That determination still had not been made today but a rising tide of protest indicates that there is much more resistance to the plan than there is favor of it. Cloud seeding has been tried here several times before but each time the weather modifiers failed to provide substantial evidence of even moderate success.”

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