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This week in history for December 27, 2012

Walsenburg

1881: We learn Fred Walsen has taken a grading contract with the Atlantic and Pacific Railway and is laying out a new camp for about 500 men. Fred is a rustler.
1894: The Turks at their plaza near Cucharas sold one of their bears to E.L. Duncan’s meat market for holiday meat.
1903: Get your cut flowers at James Hill’s City Greenhouse, north of the Rio Grande depot.
1910: A ball given in the Armory on Christmas Eve was well attended and all had a pleasant time there and at the supper afterward in the Hunter Café at midnight.
1917: Beginning Jan. 9, the Strand Theater Orchestra will give a dance every Wednesday evening in Maccabee Hall.
1923: Try the Dixie Café, on Seventh Street opposite the Lamme Hospital.
1930: Frank Panion Jr., 20, was slightly injured Christmas Eve when his automobile was struck and carried down the tracks by a train at the Seventh Street crossing.
1937: The Dick Brothers purchased the old Alamo Mine and will reopen it as Butte Valley. Their other interests include the Dick Coal Company, Jewel Collieries Corp., Gordon Coal Company, and numerous real estate holdings.
1944: The local office of the Agricultural Adjustment Agency will move next week from 504 Main to 621 Main because Montgomery Ward & Co. obtained the lease on the present building for a catalog store.
1950: In a rough and rugged game of basketball the Huerfano County High School alumni squad defeated the St. Mary graduates 33-32.
1956:Twenty-eight young men and women home for the holidays from college or the military service were guests today of the Walsenburg Rotarians at their weekly luncheon meeting at the Hotel Kirkpatrick.
1964: A house was moved to the 500 block of Pennsylvania Avenue from 211 W. 7th Street to make way for the expansion of Habib Brothers service station at the corner of 7th Street and Albert Avenue.
1971: Walsenburg Junior Woman’s Club hosted the annual Christmas caroling and party for the Huerfano Memorial Hospital’s Teen Aides Dec. 22 in the Elks Lodge.
1978: The old success story of the janitor who becomes chairman of the board came true for George Spock, who will retire Jan. 1 from the First National Bank in Walsenburg after 30 years with the bank, beginning Oct. 29, 1948 at the First State Bank.
1985:Gretchen Sporleder, 1981 graduate of John Mall High School and now a senior at Dartmouth College, was awarded a Rotary International Foundation Scholarship for a year of study in New Zealand.
1991: The Christmas holiday saw construction at the site of the $14 million Huerfano County Medical Center/Walsenburg Veterans Home shut down so M.A. Mortenson, general contractor, remains slightly behind schedule.

La Veta

1880: The happiest man in La Veta this Christmas was Jacob L. Moyer, the engineer, who received $1,000 in cash and a handsome gold time piece valued at $550 from the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad for his courage at the time of the runaway down La Veta Pass last month.
1896: On Wednesday one of the large four-horse coal wagons loading coal for the railroad for shipment got stuck in a snow drift and turned over.
1904: Hot ashes were dumped in the alley behind the coal and ice house of Mrs. Springer’s Hotel but happily the flames were extinguished without any damage.
1911: Plenty of snow is being piled up in huge drifts and the thermometer is again down to 20 degrees below zero.
1918: It required three engines to pull the water train out of a snow drift just below town Wednesday evening.
1925: Paul Ghiardi’s Essex is getting its regular midwinter exercise – [his son] Jimmie is home from college.
1932: The drug store is closed and in the hands of the trustees. Mr. Scott has for 40 years dispensed drugs to the community.
1938: Coleman Drug has added a neon sign out front which adds to the attractiveness of Main Street.
1943: The American Legion Auxiliary enjoyed their annual Christmas party in the Presbyterian Church which included a gift exchange and wedding shower gifts for Mrs. Ellis Smith.
1949: Mr. and Mrs. Casey Rowe have purchased the eating place recently established on Highway 160 about three miles northwest of town from John Legurski. The Rowes have been living at Rock Rest while Casey was employed by the Highway Department.
1954: La Veta got a belated white Christmas today with six inches of snow, while Cuchara Camps was buried with 18 inches.
1960: Huerfano County has received 17.15 inches of precipitation this year.
1966: Happy New Year from Young’s Honey Farm, Matteo Plumbing and Heating, La Veta Econo Wash, Mildred’s Café, Howard Lumber, La Veta Enco, Dixon’s Drive In, and the Park Lane Hotel.
1972: The La Veta Redskins knocked off the state’s fifth rated Class A basketball power, Custer County, 78-71, in a non-conference game played in La Veta Tuesday.
1980: La Veta School District Re-2 Board authorized the purchase of 10 tables and 100 folding chairs to eliminate the need for borrowing of such from the 4-H Council.
1986: Eighteen members of the Children’s Community Choir caroled around town last Wednesday after school was dismissed for the holidays. Afterward they enjoyed hot chocolate in Fellowship Hall.
1994: Alys Romer of New Jersey is the new manager of the La Veta Inn.

Cement plant concerns

Building inspector suggests a negotiated move out of Northlands to site near prison WALSENBURG — The Walsenburg City Council convened a special meeting Friday, March

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