Walsenburg
1881: Beef is currently worth 20 cents a pound. Some one has suggested this is the highest it has been since the cow jumped over the moon.
1890: At the Rouse mine, crews are framing a new chute and preparing to raise the 700-foot long trestle 30 inches. The mine was forced to close one day when both the engine and a wire rope broke.
1896: Nearly three feet of snow Saturday and Sunday caved in the roof of G.R. Moore’s store and flooded the streets when it melted. It looked as if a ferry boat line should be started at the street crossings.
1902: This county needs a new court house. The current one built in the ‘80s is a low adobe with dark and crowded conditions in its tiny rooms. The yard is all sand and looks like a corral. The only respectable looking public building in this county is the jail.
1908: Charles Harriman purchased M.R. Jones coal and transfer business and Mr. Jones will confine his attention to his new livery on west Fifth Street.
1916: During recent weeks, a Y.M.C.A. was installed at Cameron and a separate association with the Y was established for negro employees with T.D. Scott secretary and 30 members.
1923: A new Moose Lodge was organized at Aguilar Monday night with about 100 charter members, including some from Walsenburg.
1928: A new marble and plate glass display case installed in City Pharmacy has increased candy sales according to Glen Mathews.
1933: Malcolm MacDonald was elected president of Rotary Club, Carl Sporleder, vice president and Glen Mathews, secretary and treasurer.
1939: Four Walsenburg residents left for California to watch the Joe Louis and Jack Roper world heavyweight championship fight in Los Angeles and visit the World’s Fair in San Francisco.
1945: Harry S. Truman was sworn in as president yesterday. 1950: Carl Ludvik, a junior, has been elected student council president for next year at Huerfano County High school.
1956: Seventeen members of the St. Mary school band will go to Denver to participate in the music festival for the 25th anniversary of the Very Reverend Urban J. Vehr.
1961: School District Re-1 has purchased all 30 lots of the Huerfano Industries in blocks 20 and 41 in the Spargo-Winter addition for approximately $3,000.
1967: Gold Bond coupons are available at Safeway Store, Eccher’s Clothing and Shoes, Fawks Drug Store, Habib Brothers, Leonard’s Gifts, Model Cleaners and Walsenburg Mills.
1973: Huerfano County retails sales for the final quarter of 1972 increased 75 percent over the same period in the previous year, totaling $2,844,000, compared to $199,000 in 1971.
1979: To reduce expenses, Re-1 School Board eliminated drivers education classes at John Mall High School and will henceforth put custodial care of all buildings up for bid.
1985: The county commissioners acquired the sandstone pillars for the courthouse retaining wall from an old railroad trestle just east of I-25 on Lascar Road through Alvin Fosseco.
1992: District Judge Claude Appel has cited Huerfano/Las Animas County District Attorney Jon Neil Barclay with contempt of court in two separate cases for failure to appear in court.
La Veta
1877: To give an idea of the business transacted at our little post office, I will quote the following as an average based on the quarterly reports: received daily, 250 letters; mailed daily, 300 letters; 40 pounds of newspapers received daily. The office is kept open from 7 o’clock in the morning until 11 at night.
1884: After the new town board members were sworn in, they voted to order the marshal to remove all dead animals from town limits and approved the bill of Town Attorney McCaskill of $100 to be paid for his annual salary.
1893: Thursday’s wind storm destroyed Mr. Ritchey’s new barn two miles northwest of town and blew down to chimney on the Mack schoolhouse, which in consequence will open for the term one week later than scheduled.
1899: Will Willis, son of W.R. Willis, was baptized in mill lake, and the pastor was also immersed when he fell in too.
1905: The La Veta Enterprise has again disappeared from the field of action last week and so did its new proprietor. J.M. Elrod moved the press and outfit back to its old home.
1911: Messrs. Atchison and Daly are having a 24 by 32 foot barn built on their property north of Mr. Owens’ ranch and when finished the crew will build a dwelling.
1917: The literary and farmers’ club meetings in the Cuchara schoolhouse are held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
1922: Frank Hefferty of the United Mine Workers will speak Sunday afternoon in the Crystal Theater on “The Coal Strike”.
1927: Efforts are being made to locate all 120 graduates of La Veta High School from the past 20 years.
1934: A.B. Dickinson is planning to move a house down from Oakview and set it on his 80 acres north of town where he will live and farm.
1940: Baldo Yacconi, 49, died today at home on his ranch. A native of Italy, he came t Huerfano County in 1909 and was a coal miner until 1926 when he began farming. He leaves his wife Ergene, daughter Theresa, stepsons Robert and Geno Andreoli, stepdaughter Jean Leri, brothers Sisto of Denver and Victor in Italy.
1946: Mary Berno, Daisy Nauerth, Verna Vasquez, Josephine Falk and Norma Drury are the new officers of the Womens Relief Corps.
1952: Mr. And Mrs. Myrl Goodwin bought a fine trailer house and have placed it on the Smalley lots west of the school building.
1958: Mrs. Nell Frost had a birthday dinner April 13 in honor of her father, W.A. Rollins, who turned 85 years old that day.
1964: Army S/5 Leland Heikes, 1957 graduate of La Veta High School, participated in a missile firing exercise in New Mexico.
1970: Mrs. Belle Sager celebrated her 98th birthday in Texas. A former resident, she also spent summers in later years in the little log cabin at the south end of Main Street.
1976: The La Veta Parent Teacher Organization has changed its name to the Academic Booster Club.
1982: Wrecker Service. Home Cooked Meals with Luncheon Specials. Open 24 Hours. Triple G Truck Stop, Highway 160, La Veta.
