Bike safety and public murals dominated Superior’s February 9 town meeting.

Public Works and Utilities Director Brannon Richards briefed Town Council on bike and pedestrian safety along 88th Street, the main access route to Monarch K-8 and Monarch High School for residents of Rock Creek and parts of downtown Superior. The corridor becomes heavily congested at the start and end of the school day, and cars illegally occupying bike lanes have resulted in injuries to cyclists and pedestrians.

A map of 88th Street. Promenade Drive is on the south side, and its terminus at Dillon Road is on the north side. Monarch K-8 and Monarch High are on the east side, near the center.

Richards presented video footage showing students riding on sidewalks and against traffic. “[Students] don’t want to cross 88th Street by the school,” he said. “They have to wait for the signal […]. There’s no sidewalk on 88th Street on the Louisville side.”

Staff recommendations included extending the 20 MPH school zone into Superior and adding a protected, two-lane bike lane on the east side. Richards noted the flex posts protecting the lane would not interfere with snow plowing. He closed his presentation with a blunt assessment: “[The] current situation is the most dangerous: if we do nothing.”

Mayor Mark Lacis praised the video evidence. “You can drive 88th Street every day, but if you’re not capturing it at […] school drop-off time, you’re going to miss the heart of the problem.” He added that the Council was “on board with staff’s recommendations.”

The meeting’s second major item drew sharper debate. Council considered a resolution to partner with Boulder nonprofit Streetwise Arts on a mural festival planned for October. Proposed locations included the amphitheater, concrete benches along Main Street, the Marshall Road underpass, public restrooms, and a dumpster enclosure, with a total budget of $74,000, including $10,000 drawn from the Art & History department.

Mayor Pro-Tem Jason Serbu didn’t hide his skepticism. “This whole thing was supposed to be big murals. I get the underpass, I get the breezeway, but… park benches? A garbage thing? And, forgive my language, but… a shitter?”

Liza McKenzie, vice-chair of the Cultural Arts and Public Spaces Advisory Committee, pushed back. “Those little pieces of art here and there, […] they’re integrated into places we want people to be. A public bathroom? I know it sounds silly, but people use them. That’s where the community is.”

Council members Jenn Kaaoush and Stephanie Miller backed the proposal. “I love the benches,” said Miller. “I’m okay moving funds into this, knowing it creates more of a sense of place.”

Art & History Supervisor Jennifer Garner acknowledged the budget impact plainly: “It’s workable, but it will absolutely take away from museum programming, public art maintenance, and other smaller programs.”

Mayor Lacis offered a closing argument in favor. “The one thing I’ve never heard from any resident, ever, is ‘You guys are spending too much on art.'”

The Council voted 5-2 to approve the resolution. Council member Foster and Mayor Pro-Tem Serbu voted against.

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The council chambers in Lafayette were packed Tuesday night, with overflow crowds filling the City Hall lobby after seats inside ran out. The unusually large turnout reflected the stakes of the evening’s agenda, which was dominated by discussion of The Range, a proposed development at Arapahoe Road and U.S. 287.

Currently located in unincorporated Boulder County, the plot is one of the last major undeveloped areas within Lafayette’s Urban Growth Boundary. The land would be annexed by the city as part of the Range’s development.

Debate over the 38 acre parcel, one of the last major undeveloped tracts in Lafayette, stretched across most of a six hour meeting and drew sharp criticism from residents, repeated calls for decorum from Mayor Tapia Vega, and pointed questions from City Council.

For the first time, City Council held a quasi judicial public hearing on a sketch plan for The Range, forwarded by the Planning Commission. The hearing was not a final vote, but an opportunity for council members to ask questions and issue comments on the proposal.

The project is being developed by Kensington, a firm specializing in mixed use and retail developments. The current sketch plan proposes 448 apartment units in buildings up to 60 feet tall, along with 156,000 square feet of commercial space.

Under Lafayette code, developers are required to dedicate a portion of their project to public use. The Public Land Dedication in the sketch plan is limited to walking paths along Arapahoe and 287, and the land around the detention pond, but not including the detention pond.

One corner of the site was left undefined in the sketch plan, marked only as To Be Determined. Council members and residents alike flagged the lack of detail as a major concern. Kensington requested that the land be rezoned from agricultural to residential and or commercial alongside the rest of the property. The Kensington representative also noted that this corner sits at the highest point on the property and is included in the proposed height increase to 60 feet.

Council Member David Fridland questioned the placement of a pedestrian path so close to a busy highway, prompting audible hoots from the crowd inside chambers.

Resident Tyler Johnson Remarking on The Range proposal

Public opposition intensified during the second public comment period, with residents repeatedly criticizing the scale and design of the project.

Speakers described the plan as “Short sighted,” and “A copy and paste look at what is across the street in Erie.”

One resident likened the proposal to “Concrete boxes next to concrete boxes with concrete parking spaces in between.”

Richard Binzel, a resident of the nearby Stonehenge development, held up a recent photograph of the parcel and pointed to the unobstructed mountain views. He noted that the view mirrors the imagery used in Lafayette’s city logo and warned that the proposed 60 foot buildings would permanently block it.

When council members weighed in later in the meeting, several echoed the sense that the project still needed significant work.

Mayor Pro Tem Tim Barnes acknowledged improvements Kensington has made since discussions began in 2022 but said the plan still falls short. “We haven’t hit the flow […] I don’t think we’re there yet,” Barnes said.

He also returned to the unresolved corner of the site. “I’m not comfortable moving out of sketch without knowing what [this land] is [for],” he said.

Council Member Kyle Beaulieu was more direct, calling the proposal “astronomically far away from core aspects of our comp plan.” He added, “It’s almost like you designed it with spaces where people don’t get to know each other.”

Following the City Council meeting, a preliminary plan for the Kensington development will head to the Planning Commission.

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Lafayette City Council convened at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 20 for a brief meeting that centered on a proposed expansion by hazardous materials company Ionex and reflections on the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.

During public comment, a resident thanked the council for its recent federal petition to the Federal Aviation Administration challenging changes to flight routes out of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield. Another resident spoke in support of the planned expansion of the Ionex complex on 120th Avenue, urging council to approve the project.

Chelsea Pennington Hahn of the Lafayette History Museum introduced herself to council and invited members to tour the museum at 103 E. Simpson St. She reminded council that the museum is partially funded by an excise tax on Lafayette storage units and that the city owns the historic Lewis House, which serves as the museum’s headquarters. Pennington also noted the museum recently received a grant from the State Historical Fund.

She was followed by Mike Pascoe, president of the Lafayette Historical Society, who announced a new exhibit titled New Views of Lafayette. An open house is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 24, from 10 a.m. to noon and will include a family-friendly time capsule project.

Another resident raised safety concerns about the west side of the Coal Creek Trail, describing it as too narrow for mixed use by pedestrians and bicyclists. That section of the trail dates back to 1992 and is the oldest portion of the system.

Council unanimously approved minutes from its previous meeting and issued a proclamation recognizing Great Kindness Challenge Week. Mayor Pro-Tem Tim Barnes noted the proclamation was fitting coming the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Lafayette’s Peak to Peak Charter School has participated in the challenge since 2022.

The main item of regular business was a resolution to approve a Site Plan and Architectural Review for Ionex, a Lafayette-based company founded in 1978 that develops processes for handling hazardous materials. Ionex moved to Lafayette in 1982 and currently operates an office building and technical research center at the site.

The company plans to construct an additional 23,000-square-foot building, partially funded by a government grant. The proposal also included a request to reduce required parking from 155 spaces to 120, a 22.5 percent reduction that triggered City Council review. Ionex currently employs about 90 people and expects to grow to 120 employees.

Planning Manager Jake Nitchals told council the Planning Commission had unanimously approved the site plan. He highlighted the project’s preservation of existing trees and its water conservation features. The new design would replace the parking lot along 120th Avenue with a centrally located lot to allow trucks to load and unload from the new building, according to Catherine Wilkinson of the architectural firm Holland Basham.

Councilor Annmarie Jensen asked about lighting and potential light pollution. Nitchals said the plan emphasizes downward-facing fixtures to minimize impact. Jensen also asked whether Ionex handles hazardous waste at its Lafayette location. CEO Doug Porrey said it does not, and Nitchals added that the fire marshal identified compressed gas as the most dangerous material on site.

CEO Doug Porrey Speaking

Councilor Adam Gianola, attending remotely, questioned the parking reduction and future bicycle parking. Nitchals said parking was not heavily debated by the Planning Commission but confirmed interest in adding interior bicycle storage for employees. Wilkinson said bicycle parking had been discussed but not formally included, though Porrey said encouraging bike commuting was a “great idea.” Wilkinson also noted an abandoned railroad corridor near the property is expected to become a future bike path.

Several council members praised the landscaping plan, with Jensen calling it “very exciting” and expressing hope it could serve as a model. Council unanimously approved the resolution.

Council then approved a separate resolution extending the city’s ground lease on the Louisville Tower, a 150-foot radio tower in Louisville owned by Lafayette since 2001, through 2031.

In staff reports, City Attorney Mary Lynn updated council on Lafayette’s ongoing lawsuit against the state challenging 2024 laws requiring certain cities to increase housing density and reduce minimum parking requirements. City Manager Kady Doelling recapped the city’s MLK Jr. Day celebration and announced applications are open for Lafayette’s Poet Laureate position, which includes a $2,500 stipend. Applications close Feb. 20.

Council reports focused largely on praise for the MLK Jr. event. Mayor J.D. Tapia Vega called it “incredible,” while Jensen credited Councilor Crystal Gallegos and the Youth Advisory Board for their work organizing the celebration. Gallegos thanked East Simpson Coffee Company and Tacos Ay Ay Ay for their support.

Additional updates included Jensen’s attendance at the opening of a quilting exhibit at the Collective Community Arts Center, Councilor David Fridland’s first meeting with the Colorado Municipal League, and Barnes highlighting grants available through the Downtown Development Authority. Tapia Vega also acknowledged former council member Kenny Nguyen, now serving in the state House representing District 33.

Council adjourned at 6:41 p.m. Members then headed into executive session to discuss annexations at Nine Mile Corner.

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The post Lafayette backs Ionex expansion, reflects on MLK Jr. celebrations appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

“If the West Wing is the mind of the nation, then the East Wing is the heart.” – Betty Ford

There is evidence that a fifth plane was almost hijacked on 9/11. It was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles that morning. Several passengers onboard raised red flags with the crew. When the FAA made the decision to ground all flights in the US later that morning, boxcutters were found left behind in the seats.

According to interviews with the men who planned 9/11, the target of United Flight 93 was the US Capitol. United Flight 23, the possible fifth plane, was likely targeting the White House. The dome of the US Capitol is is made of wrought iron; had it been hit it would have rained molten metal on whoever was still inside. As for the White House, we don’t have to imagine too hard about what that horror would have looked like. We have only to look at this week’s news.

Workers begin the demolition of the East Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21, 2025. Photo © Sizzlipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Trump Administration has used the chaos of the latest government shutdown to demolish the East Wing of the White House. The current costs are estimated at $300 million. Trump has said that he plans to replace the East Wing with a lavish ballroom. For Trump, the poor man’s idea of a rich man, “lavish” means gold on every surface. Civil rights attorney Ken White was spot-on when he described the plans as “What is Uday Hussein ran a Ramada Inn?” The destruction of the East Wing came not from radical terrorists, but a different ideology: the untrammeled worship of human greed and the thirst for power.

The US Capitol was spared on 9/11 thanks to the men and women Flight 93. This included the captain, a Denver native named Jason Dahl. Before he was murdered, it appears that Dahl made efforts to alter the plane’s radio frequencies. He hoped the hijacker’s messages on the intercom would instead be relayed to air traffic control. This may have, in turn, given crucial information to the FAA in its pivotal decision to ground all flights.

The names of passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93 are inscribed on Panel S-67 of the National September 11 Memorial’s South Pool in New York City, photographed on April 28, 2012. Photo by Luigi Novi

The passengers and crew of Flight 93 are honored in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Captain Jason Dahl is honored at Denver International Airport. Every time I fly out of Denver, I stop by the black stone memorial in Concourse B and pay my respects.

In 2025, the Trump Administration has given pardons to the men and women who stormed the Capitol on January 6, some of whom sought to kill legislators and called for the hanging of the Vice President. The polemicist Charlie Kirk, who plead the Fifth to the January 6 Committee about his role in the attack on the Capitol, was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And now the White House, seat of the US Presidency for 225 years, sits surrounded by rubble.

The images from this week brought up a small chapter from my own life. For two years, I volunteered for a local Historic Preservation Board. I reviewed the application for landmarking and demolition of properties. For any property in town at least 50 years old, we reviewed the demolition application based on the building’s cultural and historical significance. The builings in town, especially those dating back to its coal-mining past, are a record of the city’s history, and the board served as a check on the erosion of that history.

We were not a popular group. Every public comment section of an application had at least one screed from a citizen about our perceived uselessness. We were told that we held back growth and kept blight in town. It was common to be asked why “we” needed to keep “that old thing”, meaning whatever historic property was on the agenda.

I didn’t always feel good about the work, either. It felt like any efforts at educational outreach, the thing that might get the public to understand us, took years to plan. There were attempts to create public signage about local history; another city department said they would cost ten grand apiece to manufacture. Calling someone in another department was treated like an international incident. You would be surprised to this was a “have your people call my people” kind of place; so was I.

For anyone who has bristled at red tape with older properties, myself included, let’s all turn on the news and watch the dust rise from the debris of the East Wing. Those are the images of a world with no concept of history as part of the common treasury. A world where all property stands at the whims of its current resident. A world where nothing is of, for, or by “the People.”

Trump is the embodiment of “It’s mine, I’ll do what I want with it,” even if it’s the most famous house in the country. Even when it’s not home to just a man, but a country’s sense of itself, its heritage, both good and bad, its fears and its hopes. It’s the manifestation of Margaret Thatcher’s assertion that “There is no such thing as society, there are only individuals.”

I have known my share of people who thought “local character” and “sense of place” were punchlines, code words for stagnation. The question this week is: if “character” and “place” are not aspirations in the local township, why would they be respected at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Ongoing demolition of the East Wing, White House, Washington, D.C., Oct. 21, 2025. Photo © Sizzlipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The post The Heart of the Nation in Ruins: The East Wing Demolished appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Some news out of Texas A&M reminded of a similar dark moment in Colorado’s history, and the leadership that met that moment.

First, the present. Earlier this month, Texas A&M president Matt Welsh III fired senior lecturer 

Melissa McCoul. McCoul was giving a lecture on children’s literature, and mentioned that there were more than two genders. In an exchange recorded on video, a student objected to this statement, warning that it ran contrary to an executive order from President Trump, and her own religious beliefs. 

Initially, Welsh defended McCoul in a conversation with the student who had complained. When this conversation was leaked to Texas state representative Brian Harrison, the pressure was turned up. Harrison called for the government to investigate. Texas’ elected Board of Regents promised audits of the entire Texas A&M system, the largest university in America. 

Welsh fired McCoul, claiming she had taught material different from what was on the posted course curriculum. He also fired the head of the English department, and demoted the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the dean’s removal was “good”, and then said that Welsh must “also be fired.” 

Just last week, and effective September 25, Welsh announced his own resignation, saying it was “the right moment for change.” 

And now from present, to past.

In the late 1920s, the state of Colorado was run by the Ku Klux Klan. Their control extended from Governor Clarence Morley, a Klansman who banned sacramental wine to undermine Catholic churches, all the way down to the local level. In my hometown of Lafayette, more than one mayor was a Klansman, as were members of the city council. The city of Denver has had to reckon with this Klan past, as the Stapleton neighborhood changed its name to dissociate from its namesake KKK mayor.

Within Colorado, the Pillar of Fire Church, which still operates the radio station KPOF, was the Klan’s most prominent religious ally. Its founder Alma White, a former resident of Erie, helped organize Klan marches and proclaimed the Klan “a liberator of white Protestant women.” Many cross burnings were given a prominent venue at Crown Hill in Westminster, the highest point in Adams County. 

In the mid-1920s, Governor Morley told Norlin that the state legislature would receive its budget for the year if it expelled its Jewish and Catholic students and faculty. 

Writer and philosopher C.S. Lewis wrote that “Courage is… the form of every virtue at the testing point,” and this is where George Norlin and Matt Welsh III differ. The Klan had the power to bring the University of Colorado to its knees. I’m sure Norlin had boosters meet with him, saying it wasn’t worth ruining good ol’ CU for those Jews and Catholics. He had the state legislature, one of the state’s largest Protestant churches, against him.

George Norlin was tested that year, and he told the Governor no. He did not betray his principles, or the Jewish and Catholic members of the university. 

There were consequences. The university’s budget was cut off. Defending the university’s freedom had a very real financial cost. CU had to survive off a property tax written into the state constitution. These lean times would be a foreshadowing of the Great Depression that was to come. Still, for Norlin, a university where a student or teacher could be kicked out because of their religion was against everything a university stood for. The 1926 election saw the Klan lose power in state government, and the university budget was restored.

In 1932, Norlin accepted a position from Columbia University as Professor of American Life at the University of Berlin. In Berlin, he saw the decline of a flawed republic into “Hitlerism”, as he called it. His memoir of those years, Facism and Citizenship, is, as nonfiction, more instructive than Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here. I would encourage people to read it. 

It may not be tomorrow, in a month, or in a year, but everyone in this country will know soon enough how much George Norlin they have within them. We know Matt Welsh III at Texas A&M didn’t have any. As for me, when that time comes, I hope I’ll have enough of Norlin in me to count for something.

The post What Texas A&M Can Learn From CU Boulder’s Darkest Hour appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In April of 2024, I left Broomfield for a job in Summit County. I had spent 33 years living on the Front Range, and I was ready to try life in the mountains. For close to a year, I did my nine-to-five at 9,100 feet, in one of the defining regions of the Colorado Gold Rush. I met some wonderful people, and a few people who would have made the most hardened prospector or card shark curl into a ball.

For those who have wondered what mountain life is like, sit down and let me tell you all about it.

A photo from when I visited the “Gay Basin” event at A-Basin in May. Quite a friendly crowd.

The most enjoyable part of life in Summit was how walkable it was. From my apartment in Silverthorne, I could walk to groceries, the post office, the library, and restaurants. This was a far cry from my life in Broomfield, where nothing was within walking distance. Where I lived on the Front Range was a food desert; the closest food was a gas station out by the interstate. A few towns in Summit have these dense, walkable town centers, and I was happy to leave the urban sprawl behind me. 

Summit has an active and healthy press. There is a quality newspaper, the Summit Daily, which can be found on every street corner. I liked living somewhere with a newspaper big enough to cover local issues, and small enough to print wildlife photos from readers. Unlike Boulder’s Daily Camera, most of the articles are not AP wire stories. When private equity is draining the blood from local newspapers and picking over the bones, the Summit Daily reminded me how things ought to be.

It was hard to beat the views. I didn’t have to pray for rain to be free of the brown haze that hangs over Denver; every day, the peaks appeared clear and close. I loved staring up at the shadowed walls of Tenmile Canyon. The drive past Green Mountain Reservoir, where the hills open up to flatland, has a peaceful, subtle beauty to it. There was an unusually good leaf season last fall, and the hills outside Frisco were bathed in gold. It didn’t compare with the rugged San Juan Mountains near Durango, or the Sand Dunes of Alamosa, but it was pretty darn good.

I saw bighorn sheep and mountain goats almost every week. I saw golden-haired porcupines waddling fearlessly along the road shoulders. At the turnoff for Peru Creek, where the road gets really hairy, I could always count on seeing a family of deer. I saw hawks riding thermals, and a herd of three dozen elk in the moonlight at Beaver Creek Golf Course.

A porcupine spotted along Montezuma Road.

I would tell friends that I lived in a dangerous neighborhood. I wouldn’t want to walk around there at night–because of the moose. After sunset, Summit belongs to the moose. Moose would run ahead of my car on Montezuma Road, go out for family meals in Keystone, or haul themselves dripping wet from a pond after a late-night swim. A moose and its calves once blocked traffic in Breckenridge because even a juvenile moose is over three feet tall and can outrun a human. 

Whatever you do, don’t call the moose “local”; they were imported from Utah and Wyoming in the late 1970s. In Summit, there is a relentless focus on the word “local”, such that even the moose might not qualify. There are Locals in Summit, and “non-locals” who are, at best, tolerated. In the summer of 2024, the Summit Daily ran a front-page story about the sale of a coffee shop in Silverthorne.

The article, in breathless verbiage, related that this was a local coffee shop being purchased by another Local. It was not the new owner’s success in the coffee biz that qualified them, but their localness. I thought this particular shop’s drip coffee was quite good, but I will note that a) I have enjoyed refreshment and a good book in many-a Starbucks, b) Their baristas could be just as aloof as the non-local variety, and c) The locals still treated the shop as an economy workspace, camping with their $3,000 MacBooks for the price of a scone.

I remember the day I started to realize how deep this Local supremacy went. A coworker had asked me for help with log cabin restoration. I immediately suggested Jeremiah Log Homes in Dumont. If anyone knew about log cabin logistics in the Colorado mountains, it’d be them, right? I watched my coworker stare off into space, as if Dumont, west of Idaho Springs, was as far away as Nome or Jakarta. Finally, they replied, “Let’s try to find a place in Summit County.”

The definition of Local is also incredibly narrow. Before moving to Summit, I thought of “mountain people” as a category, whether you lived in Estes Park or Telluride. Boy, was I wrong. In Summit, the “Front Range” means anything east of the Eisenhower Tunnel. If you lived in Georgetown or Idaho Springs, you lived on the Front Range. People from Fairplay were honorary locals because the winters in Park County were harder. Folks from Kremmling in Grand County were also honorary locals, but less so than Fairplayers. I observed that the people who felt strongest about being local were not necessarily people who were born in Summit. Local supremacy was strongest among wealthy people from Texas or Arkansas who had vacationed in Summit for many years before retiring there.

Summit County must account for half of all Cybertruck sales. They were everywhere.

In June of last year, I mentioned to my coworkers that it had been twenty years since the Marvin Heemeyer rampage. In 2004, Heemeyer drove an armored bulldozer through Granby, destroying much of the town. It made the national news, and I can still remember where I was when I heard about it. Granby is one county over, but my boss, a fierce, hardcore Local, had never heard of it. The entire event was news to them. 

On a different day, my boss was talking to me about the Snake River, which runs from A-Basin down into Lake Dillon. I casually mentioned that it wasn’t *the* Snake River, of course.

“What’s that?” asked my boss.

“You know,” I said, “the Snake River in Wyoming and Idaho? It goes through the Teton Range and into the Columbia?” My boss stared back at me. “The river from that Ansel Adams photo?” I continued, “The photo of the Snake River with the Tetons in the background? It’s one of the most famous photographs of all time?” Finally, I brought up the photo on my office computer, the photo that embodies everything remote and wild about the American West. My boss looked at the photo for a moment before giving their assessment: “Huh.”

If Vail was ever mentioned, it was with a sneer of contempt. Vail people were pretenders, stealing attention away from Summit’s superior ski resorts. Beaver Creek was beneath all consideration, and Monarch or Wolf Creek may as well have been on other planets.

In addition to wildlife, Summit is a great place to see income inequality. The inequality is by no means the worst in the world, but I’ve never seen it so pronounced firsthand. There is a very clear distinction between the wealthy who call the shots in Summit and the large underclass who keep things running. In Summit’s public schools, roughly 40% of students identify as Hispanic, and 25% speak Spanish as their first language, but this is not reflected in Summit’s tourism branding. The locals’ sense of identity, divorced from any real demographics, is focused on gold miners, resort builders, and winter sports athletes. 

I remember walking back from a hike in Keystone and finding a makeshift wooden shelter just off the path. These shelters are called “wook nooks”, built up branch-by-branch over the years against the bitter cold. Just across the road from the wook-nook was a string of million-dollar homes, each with its own antler chandelier. 

A “wook nook” shelter spotted near Keystone.

Lastly, Summit can be a lonely place. I had more than one coworker tell me how difficult it was to find friends there. One reason is the high cost of living. It’s so expensive to live in Summit that you spend most of your time working to make rent. In my experience, $1,800 gets you just over 400 square feet of living space. As of this week, gas was $3.33 in Silverthorne, compared to $2.75 in east Boulder County. 

The high cost of living and gas prices are compounded by long commutes. I was fortunate to live close to work, but long drives are taken for granted up there. Here are a few real commutes from people I met in Summit: Acorn Creek to Frisco (19 miles), Georgetown to Dillon (25 miles), Leadville to Dillon (35 miles), Silverthorne to Kremmling (37 miles), Black Hawk to Silverthorne (48 miles). These drives come with whiteout blizzards, black ice, traffic jams, road work, and runaway trucks. Weather, road repairs, and unprepared drivers regularly close the Eisenhower Tunnel, turning I-70 into a parking lot for hours at a time. A 40-hour work week, plus hours of driving every day, leaves very little time for socializing. I found society with a book club in Silver Plume, and late nights playing pool at the Snake River Saloon or the CO Bar in Frisco.

I also lucked out with a co-worker who invited me to join a tabletop roleplaying game. I pretended I was a talking mushroom aboard an insectoid airship, alongside a reincarnated captain, an iron golem, a sentient spider nest, and a demented goblin. I felt blessed for our adventures together. It reaffirmed for me that when relationships are scarce, you value the friendships you do make even more. 

By the end of March, I had moved back to the Front Range, the real Front Range, where you can look west and see fourteeners. You would be amazed how much can fit in a Subaru hatchback. 

The Front Range is my home, and if not for my time in the mountains, I don’t know if I would have learned that. My time as a “local” also taught me: how to clean a shower drain, how to repair a bicycle, how to typeset a book on an IBM Executive, how to take apart and reassemble a bed frame, how to get a box-spring up a narrow staircase, how to apply for a TWIC card, how to play pool, how to think on my feet, how to fill out a DND character sheet, and a smattering of dirty jokes, courtesy of Dee at the Mint Bar & Grill. Most importantly, I learned what Eleanor Roosevelt meant when she said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Another story for another time.

And no, I didn’t learn how to ski, or snowboard, or snowshoe that year. Why do you ask?

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The post My Year in Summit County: Reflections on Life as a Local appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Dark Horse Saloon that I know is probably not the one you know. I cannot tell you about frenzied Saturday nights, or the roaring crowds during a Buffs game.

My Dark Horse is one found on weekday afternoons. No, please, don’t run away just yet. In my Dark Horse, it’s quiet enough to hear the lyrics of the Blondie or Skynrd song on the PA. My companions are a Jiffy Burger, an unholy monster of protein and fats, and whatever Harlan Ellison book I happen to have with me that day. I don’t drink; my potion is a liter of Coke in a semi-opaque red cup. I have no illusions that it isn’t taking just as many years off my lifespan.

The Dark Horse is the bar you find on dead planets at the far edge of star systems. Its cousins are Mos Eisley on Tatooine, and Hangman’s Hollow, last stop of the Galaxy Express. The dark-stained wood beams are covered with the posters, street signs, and placards of generations past. There is a stone fireplace in the back. If one were to look up, their eyeline to the ceiling would be blocked by dozens of carriages, sleighs, carts, and wagons suspended by wires. It’s as if some mad race across the cosmos had ended with a crash through the roof.

My Dark Horse is a place to be alone amongst people. Now pay attention: there is a difference between being lonely and being alone. Sitting alone in the Dark Horse, scribbling on my legal pad, hearing order names called out through the fuzzy PA, I can feel my spiritual batteries recharging.

There is a weight in the walls of the Dark Horse. The names etched into the wood beams, the bizarre spinning gears of the north bar, the random remnants of report cards, rallies, and rock concerts, it all says “The world did not begin with you. There were people here before.” There were people in this shadowy saloon who told tales and cheered touchdowns and fell in love long before me. A piece of them lives on in the walls, in the scarred and worn hardwood floor, in a glint off the chrome finish of the payphone.

I sit in the Dark Horse, perhaps not so alone after all.

But not for long. The land has been bought up, and the saloon will be razed for apartments. One day this will all be gone. Like Jones Drug on The Hill, where I bought my first movie camera and learned enough about cinematography for it to count as its own class. Now…a Starbucks and a tanning salon. Like the second floor of Illegal Pete’s where I leaned back in my booth, listening to Paradise City blaring, and felt like life couldn’t get any better than this. Now…nothing. Like the Landmark Theater, where I had some of my happiest memories with a good friend who died ten years ago. Now…a Barnes & Noble.

Like the Tattered Cover across from Union Station, where I —

“You know, the Tattered Cover…”

I stop at this interruption from my shrink and look up.

“I remember the Tattered Cover,” they say, “back when it was on Cherry Creek. I had a very nice anniversay dinner with my spouse across the street from there, and afterward we crossed over and browsed the books. That was a good memory. Gosh, that location closed years ago.”

I sit back on the couch, thinking about their memory of a place I never knew. And my memories of a place others will never know.

You see, the shrink wants you to think through these things yourself. That’s what they call a “breakthrough moment.”

Perhaps I could count my blessings. Right now, there is a student at CU who never knew Jones Drug, or found a plastic knife blade in their bagel at Buchanan’s, or caught a flick at the Landmark. Ten years from now, that student will come back to The Hill, and find their old haunts gone. They never knew my Hill, and I never knew theirs. They will stand on the corner of College & 13th in 2034, and think to themselves, “It’s just not the same anymore,” because it never was.

Neil Peart passed away four years ago (I can tell you we’ll never see his likes around here again). Come to think of it, he was in that movie I saw at the Landmark with my late friend, and played the “Drum Solo of Life.” For the song “New World Man,” Peart wrote:

“He’s not concerned with yesterday,
He knows constant change is here today.”

I’m still working on the first part.

The post From My Corner Of Hangman’s Hollow: Memories Of The Dark Horse And Other Haunts appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The latest violence from Kansas City reminded me of the words from Wayne LaPierre, former CEO of the NRA, that the solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The bloodied sidewalks of Kansas City’s Union Station stand as a rebuttal to LaPierre’s argument. In Kansas City, a permit is required for open-carry, but no permit is required for concealed carry.  If the Responsible Gun Owner was present at the parade, their presence did not deter the shooters, and apparently did not stop it before two dozen or more had been shot.

This Valentine’s Day massacre is not to be confused with the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High six years ago, or the mass shooting at Northern Illinois University sixteen years ago that killed five people. The murders of seven mob members in Chicago in 1929, the original Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, seems quaint now, and few remember it. Mass shootings are so common that days of the year are not specific enough to commemorate them.

The suggestion that more guns is the answer to gun violence prompts another question: is this the best we can do, as Americans? We are the only country that experiences mass shootings on a daily basis (over 600 last year!)  To suggest more guns as the answer is to say that we must go to work, to church, to public celebrations, expecting carnage. The horror of realizing those pops are not fireworks, the screams, the stampeding crowds blind panicked sprint for cover, this is all to be taken for granted. The only hope is to become a gun owner yourself, and go out into the world ready to use it.

As I’ve written before, in the name of freedom, we have all become conscripts in a war. Is this the free society I have heard so much about?

The post So Much For Good Guys With Guns appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

They say eating at a Waffle House is trench warfare. I told a friend that, to the contrary, every time I’ve gone to Waffle House at 2 AM I’ve been treated with nothing but respect.

My friend smirked. “That’s because you’re the most polite person to ever visit a Waffle House at 2 AM.”

It was a hot night in June. I remember the sound of crunching metal from the parking lot, as I turned I could see headlights bouncing. A couple entered the Waffle House and sat in the booth behind me. Unable to see their faces, I was granted a private night of radio theater. The woman’s voice carried the weight of hundreds of miles traveled through the formless night.

“That’s because it was YOUR fault with the ******* car,” the woman seethed. “So you can call insurance…” her voice broke, “and then we’ll have to call the cops.”

The man mumbled something back.

“I’m sorry” said the woman, and added with a snap, “I wish I had your temperament.”

A waitress came by. The woman ordered a patty melt. A few minutes later, their food was delivered.

“What is this–” said the woman, “–never mind, it’s fine.”

“Is that not what you ordered?” asked the waitress. Through a reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows I could see a breakfast bowl in front of her.

“No, it’s fine, I’ll eat it.”

“I can send it back–”

“No, this is here, I’m going to eat it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s fine” the woman proclaimed. Other customers had turned their eyes to the booth, but the struggle was over. The couple finished, paid, and left.

It wasn’t coq-au-vin and linen tablecloth, but I know they’ll remember that meal as long as they live. That kind of dinner that will make or break lovers. My guess was a busted suspension that had left them in the trucker’s exit of an unknown town. Assuming the truck was roadworthy, how many more miles of interstate lay ahead of them?

I want to believe they made it. I like to think that after that dinner, they kept going, found their final exit, and made plans for the next journey.

I once dated a woman who helped jump my car at 1:30 AM during the first snowfall of December. I knew then she was a keeper. Five years later she had broken my heart, and I know I broke hers, and so I find my way back to the Waffle House. At two in the morning, I can get a booth all to myself. I think of the radio theater that couple performed for me, and I keep the faith. I want to believe there’s a way home, wherever that may be.

Waffle House
I-25 & CO SH 119
1:22 AM, Xmas Eve 2023

The post Wishful Thinking at the Waffle House appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It was 2002, and I was the youngest person at the book signing. That’s probably why, out of the large crowd gathered at the Tattered Cover that day, Scott Adams picked the eleven-year-old with his hand raised.

“What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen in the office?” I asked.

Adams thought about it for a moment. “I didn’t see it,” he said, “but someone told me about an office where people were walking down the center of the hallway, and it was wearing out the carpet in the middle. The management circulated a memo through the office, asking the employees to ‘distribute their walking.’ “

We all laughed. It was the kind of story that has drawn us to the Tattered Cover, where Adams signed copies of his latest book, Dilbert And The Way of the Weasel.

In one of my favorite Dilbert comics, the boss tells the engineers “We used to say our employees were our most valuable asset; that is wrong. Money is our most valuable asset. Employees are ninth.” And what came in eighth, an engineer asks? “Carbon paper.”

I was reading Scott Adams’ comic strip Dilbert years before I ever commuted to an office. Dilbert was my introduction to the ways language can be used and misused. Dilbert taught me about buzzwords, words that once inspired, but whose luster had faded like an old vacation photo. I learned how two people can hold a conversation that contained no meaning whatsoever. I learned how bad or unpopular ideas could be revived on Frankenstein’s slab through the dark science of “rebranding.”

Permit an anecdote. Many years ago at CU Boulder, a president decided he needed to leave his mark on the university. His big idea? CU would be rebranded as a “TLE”, a “Total Learning Environment.” Never mind that this has been the definition of a university since the Middle Ages, no CU was a TLE, and fortunes were spent branding it onto banners, beer coasters, sweatshirts, and stationery. Meanwhile, actual learning continued unabated, and amongst the staff, TLE stood for “Total Lack of Enthusiasm.” 

In 2016, Adams appeared on my radar again. He has a lot to say about the rise of Donald Trump, how his ranting showed calculation where most saw dementia. Adams is a trained hypnotist, and he noted how Trump’s repeated insults, “Crooked Hillary”, “Lyin’ Ted”, and later “Sleepy Joe’, were the work of a master crowd manipulator, embedding phrases in the popular psyche. At first, I thought Adams was well-suited to warn people of the dangers Trump poses, but I soon realized his goal was to help hold open the door for him.

Adams has claimed that men are being displaced from modern society, that the election of Joe Biden would result in Republicans being “hunted down”, and characterized the January 6th Insurrection as “more patriotic than criminal.” He claimed the TV series based on Dilbert was canceled in 2000 because he was a white man. In 2023, speaking on his podcast, he said that black Americans were a hate group, which led his publisher Andrew McMeel Syndicate to cut ties with him.

There were some fore-shadowings. Adams was always a contrarian, someone who liked to question the official story. He once described himself as a “smart-ass vegetarian”, the guy who would show up to a cookout and remind people that they didn’t throw out the cow’s rear end when making ground beef. Sometimes, a contrarian can turn that critical eye inward when receiving criticism, and use their instincts toward self-improvement. Other times, criticism is met with a snarling “Don’t tell me what to do,” and they dig in deeper toward more extreme views. Each friend lost, each business partnership ended, becomes a point of pride — further validation that they alone stand against a world gone mad. 

Perhaps that’s what happened, perhaps not. Mostly I feel sad. We’re always warned to not meet our heroes. I did, a long time ago, but there aren’t any heroes, not really, only people who change. Think of who you were years ago: a completely different person would be my guess. In another twenty years, we’ll be different all over again, different, or… well, let’s leave that alone. As Geddy Lee sang, “Changes aren’t permanent, but change is.” 

Over on my bookshelf, I can see my copy of “Shave the Whales” that Scott Adams signed for me over two decades ago. I think of slumber parties spent watching the Dilbert cartoon series with my similarly-oddball schoolmates. I can’t tell you why Scott Adams changed, but I know I miss the man I once met.

The post When Heroes Fade appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field: The Snowstorm of 1913 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In Lafayette’s coal mining days, diseases rushed through towns like a flash flood. Extended families lived in small cottages, using chamber pots and outhouses instead of indoor sewer systems. Vaccinations were uncommon, and while the existence of germs was well-known, proper sanitation was not. It was then, in the autumn of 1918, that one of the deadliest epidemics in human history, the Spanish Influenza, came to Lafayette.

On October 11^th, the Lafayette Leader newspaper announced a town quarantine. All churches, schools, fraternal lodges, theaters, and pools halls were closed until further notice. Parents were ordered to keep their children indoors. The Lafayette Leader seemed optimistic, noting that only the Metz family in town had been diagnosed with Spanish Flu, although the local section mentioned four other people coming down with “illness”.

On October 18^th, the Leader reported nine more people as sick, with several businesses closing. By October 25^th, another twenty people were sick. The Congregational Church (now the Mary Miller Theater) was transformed into a makeshift hospital. The Leader began printing an ongoing list of death notices until even the newspaper shut down: the editor was too sick.

The Parks family lost three members in one week, the Moon family, early town pioneers, lost two. Seth Woods, Lafayette’s nine-term mayor, also died. In December, the Spanish Flu claimed a coal miner named Fodor Glava, buried in the “potter’s field”, a communal grave in the Lafayette Cemetery. Fodor Glava was born in Transylvania, and the rumors that he had been a vampire grew into one of Boulder County’s most enduring urban legends.

In the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic, life went on. Boulder County held its election in November. When a man named Carvel Spichard burned his hands while frying eggs, the story was front-page news. Excavation began on the Columbine Mine, which would become the region’s second-most productive mine. On Christmas, Lafayette families honored the 40 local men fighting overseas in the Great War.

By the end of 1918, the Spanish Flu had killed at least twenty Lafayette residents. Over 1% of the town’s population had died, and 5% had been infected. Worldwide, the Spanish Flu killed at least fifty million people, far more than had died in the Great War.

Epidemics continued to persist, but with vaccinations and better sanitation, they grew rarer and less deadly. Like city-consuming fires, and the long-gone coal mines themselves, epidemics like the Spanish Flu were a part of life in east Boulder County that seem ever-more distant and foreign to us today.

Sources: Once a Coal Miner by Phyllis T. Smith, Elizabeth Hutchison, Jim Hutchison, Lafayette Leader.

To learn more about this and other stories from local history, come visit the Miners Museum: 108 E. Simpson Street, Lafayette, CO. Open Tuesdays, 7 – 9 PM, Thursdays and Saturdays 2 – 4 PM. Open by appointment, (303) 665-7030

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The post This Month in Coalfield History: The Spanish Flu Epidemic appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The sun sets over the Rockies, the Lafayette Power Plant comes to life. Men shovel coal from the Simpson Mine into a raging fire. The endless mine tunnels have swallowed up most of the city’s well water, but there is enough to pump into the plant boiler.

A man climbs to the plant roof and looks west. Beneath him, the boilers turn well water to steam, and steam, by way of turbine, into a Direct Current. He does not wait long before he sees a light in the distance, sitting atop the Distel Farm windmill. He heads back inside. Light on the windmill means the connection to Louisville is working. The location is between Emma and Chester streets, the time is 1893.

Lafayette was the first city in the region to have electric lights, provided by the abundant coal from the Simpson Mine. Houses with electricity had a single light bulb in the ceiling. The lightbulb operated from 5 AM to sunrise, and from dusk to 10 PM. The plant replaced bulbs for free.

The Lafayette Power Company struggled to operate. Extensive mining absorbed all the surface wells in town, and hauling water in for the boilers proved too costly. The company even considered using the Simpson Mine’s own generators for power.

In 1902, the company was bought out by Western Light and Power. Their ambitions called for a far bigger plant than the Emma Street station. For eight long years, amidst construction delays and financing gaps, they built a new power plant east of Lafayette. It sat along the southern shore of what is now Waneka Lake.

The new plant was a technological marvel, the most advanced plant between Chicago and Ogden. Its cooling fans were showcased at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. The plant produced 11,000 volts, powering cities as far-off as Greeley, and serving as the backup plant for Denver. Coal was supplied by two mines along the lake.

The Lafayette Power Plant supplied power to another entity: the Interurban Railroad. This electric, passenger rail line ran from Denver to Boulder, with a spur to Eldorado Springs in the summer.

The Interurban was a boon to local coal miners. No longer was a miner limited to mines within walking distance.

If the Interurban brought success to the plant, it was also the plant’s undoing. The Interurban came to an end with the Labor Day rail disaster of 1920. Over a dozen passengers were killed when two trains collided along the line. Years of lawsuits and settlements followed, the Interurban was finished.

By the end of the 1920s, the Lafayette Power Plant was obsolete. A new plant on Valmont was opened, and is still operating today. The Lafayette plant was kept on standby up until 1948, and was demolished four years later.

If you look south from Waneka Lake’s boat house, you can still see the giant clinkers from the coal plant’s furnace. Next to the basketball court, the soil turns black, remnants of the plant’s coal mines.

Sources: Treeless Plain to Thriving City.

For more stories of the Northern Coal Fields, visit the Miners Museum at 108 E. Simpson St., Lafayette, CO 80026. They are open on Thursdays and Saturdays, 2 PM to 4 PM. For appointments, call (303) 665-7030

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Coal mining was the foundation of Lafayette, but settlement of the area began with the homesteaders. While the Civil War raged in the east, thousands came west to homestead. By an act of Congress, anyone who went west, built a house on some land, and farmed the land, could own that land. Homesteading carried the risks of starvation, disease, and financial ruin, but the opportunity for a new start, in a new land, drove many onward.

The earliest homesteaders in what is now Lafayette included Adolph Waneka (1860) and Manning and Julia Harmon (1861). The Miners Museum in Lafayette features several artifacts from their families, a window into our heritage. The museum’s farming artifacts never fail to fascinate visitors. They speak to a world, and a values system, that has long since disappeared. It was a world where things were made to last, even when they seemed broken beyond repair.

In the middle of our farm exhibit, there is a wrench that belonged to the Harmons. After years of use, the handle wore out. A new handle was furnished, made from a used corn cob. Next to the wrench, there is a one-legged stool, perfect for milking cows. It was made from the spoke of a broken wagon wheel.

Last, and most unusual, is a chair from the Harmon farm. It is made with the hide of an ox that died on their journey from Illinois to Golden, Colorado, almost 160 years ago. While the top of the leather seat is black and brittle, on the underside of the seat, you can still see the hair from the ox’s hide.

These artifacts recall another way of life. Back then, a quill pen (and later a fountain pen) would last your whole life. Now, pens come in bags of a hundred, each one intended to last a week at most. A mass-produced wrench costs ten dollars at the hardware store down the highway. For a homesteader, working just to survive on the plains, a new wrench meant more than just money, it meant a day’s journey by horse to the mining camps of Boulder. A wagon, or an ox, were huge investments, bought with months of work. Even if they broke, or died, to just throw them out was unthinkable. The life of a homesteader did not merely reward hard work and resourcefulness, it demanded it.

Sources: Chuck Waneka, Treeless Plain to Thriving City, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field: Tools of the Trade appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Tales of the Northern Coal Field: When Mrs. Nixon Came To Town

On March 4, 1970, at 2:20 PM, secret service agents swarmed around Lafayette Elementary. The front parking lot was packed with two hundred onlookers, news reporters, and law enforcement. The Lafayette VFW honor guard stood ready, flying the colors. The Secret Service agents hadn’t slept much–on top of the bombings around the county, there had been a break-in at the Elementary the night before. A car pulled up, and the woman of the hour stepped out. Longmont had been visited by President Teddy Roosevelt, and Boulder by Eisenhower and Obama, but now First Lady Pat Nixon had come to Lafayette.

The First Lady was touring the country to perform social outreach via college students. In Lafayette, students from CU worked for the Follow Through Project, which offered social services and aid to disadvantaged elementary students. Volunteerism was a passion for Mrs. Nixon. Our success as a nation, she said, depends on our willingness to give generously of ourself for the welfare and enrichment of the life of others. There was a political element to the visit as well: in the midst of the deep divisions over the Vietnam War, stories of college students volunteering in their communities could be a source of unity.

In 1970, the national nightmare of Watergate was two years away, but the coal field had experienced no shortage of crises. Lafayette was still reeling from an embezzlement scandal, as the former city manager had stolen over $40,000 from the civil defense fund, of which only $20,000 were recovered. The Lafayette Leader ran a spread, lamenting the blight and boarded-up storefronts of now-thriving Simpson Street. There was also a plutonium leak at Rocky Flats that seeped into the Broomfield water supply, though residents were assured that they were safe. In addition, in the single week before Mrs. Nixon’s visit, there were five bombings in the Boulder area. 

When Mrs. Nixon arrived at Lafayette Elementary, she played jump rope with children, and joined them in making arts and crafts. CU students told her of their work on Follow Through. Before she left, she presented the elementary school with a set of ViewMaster slides, showing the moon landing. Nixon left for her next stop on the tour at 3 PM, her visit to Lafayette lasting forty minutes.

For more stories like this one, visit the Lafayette Miners Museum, 108 E. Simpson Street, Lafayette, CO. The museum is open Tuesdays, 7 PM-9 PM, and Thursdays and Saturdays, 2 PM-4 PM. For questions and appointments, call (303) 665-7030.

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field: When Mrs. Nixon Came To Town appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The area we now call Waneka Lake was first purchased in February, 1895 by Henry Waneka. Henry was the second son of Adolph Waneka, one of the very first men to homestead in this region. The land contained a spring, which was dammed in order to create a reservoir. Lafayette’s founder Mary Miller later purchased a large interest in the new reservoir, which became the source of water for the city.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the lake was given a new purpose when it became the site of the Interurban Power Plant. This coal-fired plant made Lafayette the first city in east Boulder County to have electric street lights. The plant was closed by the late 1920s, and torn down in 1952, but giant mounds of “clinkers” (waste from coal-burning) still mark the ninth hole of the lake’s frisbee-golf course.

Waneka Lake was also home to two coal mines, the Big Lake, and the Electric. To this day, the ground near Waneka Lake’s basketball court on its southern shore is black with coal dust from the Electric Mine.

In fact, the lake was closed to the public until the 1980s. With its beautiful views of the Indian Peaks Wilderness, one former councilman at the time called it a “hidden jewel.” Jogging uninterrupted around the lake was thwarted because “fences [had to be] hopped and weeds and bushes negotiated.” But in 1984, the trail around the lake was completed, and the following three years saw the construction of parking lots, the boathouse, and the playground and picnic area.

On the lake’s Emma Street parking lot, visitors can find another relic from the city’s earliest days. Lafayette’s oldest standing structure, the wooden Granary, lies in the shadows of the lake’s dyke wall. It was built by Adolph Waneka in the 1880s, and moved to the lake in 2001.

All across the Front Range, the presence of artificial lakes has forever changed the ecosystem. This area was a treeless plain for most of its history, with few natural bodies of water. Now, Waneka Lake, and the Greenlee Wildlife Preserve just north of it, play host to birds like the blue heron, which previously would never have been found in a semi-arid desert.

The story of Waneka Lake is as old as Lafayette itself. From its utilitarian beginnings in Lafayette’s water and electric works to a present-day destination for outdoor recreation, Waneka Lake is a testament to the great changes this area has witnessed.

To learn more about this and other stories from local history, come visit the Lafayette Miners Museum: 108 E. Simpson Street, Lafayette, CO. Open Tuesdays, 7 – 9 PM, Thursdays and Saturdays 2 – 4 PM. Open by appointment. (303) 665-7030.

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field: Lafayette’s “Hidden Jewel” appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Courtesy the Lafayette History Museum

January marks the anniversary of the Monarch Mine explosion, the worst accident in local mining history. The Monarch Mine was located two miles south of Louisville, and was one of the longest-running mines in the region.

The Northern Coal Field was no stranger to accidents. Lafayette’s first mayor, Thomas J. Miller, died at the Strathmore, a mine where he was superintendent. The founder of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company was killed at his company’s Vulcan Mine. In the 1900s, Lafayette’s Simpson Mine had a cave-in, damaging Simpson Street. Mine owner John Simpson appeared before Lafayette City Council, and asked who was going to fix the roads.

In the early 20^th century, coal mining had a mortality rate of nearly 300 per 100,000 workers. The most dangerous job in America today, logging, has less than half the number of deaths. Coal miners could be killed by falling rock, electrocution, runaway mine carts, a kick from a mule, getting a rope caught around their neck, or suffocation.

The flammable gas produced by coal made fires and explosions were a constant threat. The earliest coal miners worked by candlelight, and later oil lamps, with flames six inches long. These flames could contact pockets of gas near the ceiling of a coal room. Even when safety lamps, and electric headlamps were adopted, the spark of a mule’s horseshoe against the mine cart’s track could ignite a deadly conflagration.

The Monarch Mine was rocked by such an explosion on January 20^th, 1936, at 6:20 AM. Two men escaped through the air shaft, and eight were trapped underground. The blast could be heard for miles, and caused massive damage to the mine’s surface buildings.

It took hours to reach the trapped miners. The Monarch’s shaft was 375 feet deep, and the rescuers had to use an entrance nearly a mile away. By the time rescuers reached the miners, they were dead. Seven bodies were found, with the body of Joe Jaramillo still missing. When recovery of Jaramillo’s body looked hopeless, with no chance he had survived, the National Fuel Company paid his widow a large sum of money to end the search, and resume mining.

Today, the Monarch Mine is all but forgotten. A memorial to the miners who died can be found in Broomfield’s Frank Varra Park, along the US 36 Bikeway. Louisville’s Monarch High School gets its name from the mines. The body of Joe Jaramillo was never recovered, and lies buried in the Monarch’s tunnels, far below the Flatiron Crossing Mall, to this day.

Monarch Mine Disaster Plaque

Sources: Jim Hutchison, Treeless Plain to Thriving City, US Government Data, In the Carbide Light: Tools of the Northern Coal Field, Lafayette City Council Minutes, Once a Coal Miner by Phyllis Smith.

The post Tales of the Northern Coal Field: Mornings at the Monarch appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo of Adolph Waneka courtesy of Lafayette Historical Society.

On March 23, 1860, a 33-year-old German man stood in a courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, and swore an oath of citizenship to the United States of America. Soon after, Adolph Waneka would make a journey of over 1,800 miles to the land just east of the Rockies.

In the mid-19th Century, over five million people emigrated from Germany to America. Many working class Germans had fought in the failed Revolutions of 1848. They saw in America the opportunities for democracy and human rights that they did not have back home.

Back then, citizenship was a two-step process. First, an immigrant had to go to a district court and declare their intention of becoming a citizen. Five years later, they would come back, declare they had shown good moral character, and would uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The valleys of Boulder that greeted Waneka, almost 160 years ago, would be unrecognizable to us today. Many early settlers commented on how the area was almost entirely devoid of trees. Denver was a small mining camp of less than five thousand people. Standing on the hills east of town, at night, Boulder would have appeared as a handful of flickering campfires beneath the Rockies. The land was desert, very difficult to cultivate. Waneka spent his first winter here living in a cave along Coal Creek.

In 1863, Waneka was joined by his wife, Anna. They had three children with them: Annie, age seven; Henry, age three; and a newborn, William. Their son Henry would later buy land that had a small spring on it. That land now bears his family’s name: Waneka Lake.

The history of immigration in the Northern Coal Field, including Lafayette, Erie and Louisville, is as old as the cities themselves. According to research by Eric Margolis, in 1890, almost 20 percent of Boulder County’s population was foreign-born. The farmers and miners who first settled this area came from Britain, Wales, Mexico, Russia, Germany, Italy and Belgium. They helped turn dry desert into arable farmland, dug for coal amidst rockfall and explosions, and shoveled that coal into a power plant furnace.

To learn more about this and other stories from local history, come visit the Miners Museum:
108 E. Simpson Street, Lafayette, CO.
Tuesdays 7-9 p.m.; Thursday & Saturdays 2-4 p.m.
Open by Appointment (303) 665-7030

The post Northern Coal Field History: Adolph Waneka appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.