Historical photos provided by the Carnegie Library for Local History, Denver Public Library, and Louisville History Museum

Forged by fire and stone

There is a place where the wind eats the snow. The air is pressurized over the top of a colossal mountain range we call the Rockies before it is released down the other side. Wind gusts violently careen through the pine-forested foothills and crash out onto a land ocean we know as the Great Plains.

It’s the Chinook. This warm winter wind can bring the force of a hurricane down onto the flatlands. It uproots trees, stirs up dust storms, and sends backyard trampolines flying. It can also snap live power lines and breathe life into the dimmest of embers.

On December 30, 2021 the conditions aligned in this environment to create an almost unthinkable catastrophe. An exceptionally dry early winter had turned the grasses of Colorado’s High Plains into brittle tinder. On that late December day, wind gusts were clocked at up to 115 mph at the edge of the Rockies. Multiple ignition points were activated by the winds. Spot fires lit up like blinking Christmas lights and then erupted into wind-driven hell vortexes. Fire crews had no chance to stop the blaze, which seemed to erupt everywhere all at once.

As the winds gusted and shifted, embers darted to new targets, jumping over some homes and businesses only to set others ablaze. Heroic first responders frantically evacuated citizens with only minutes to spare. Some residents took to driving through fields ahead of approaching walls of flame and smoke.

When snow finally blanketed the smoldering neighborhoods the next day, over a thousand homes and seven businesses were burned to the ground. Two people lost their lives. The Marshall Fire was the most destructive in the history of Colorado. Almost all the losses were sustained in the beautiful Colorado towns of Louisville and Superior.

Both Boulder County towns are routinely ranked as among the best places to live in America by various media outlets. In fact, Louisville is a two-time No. 1 best place to live by Money Magazine and has made the top 10 list multiple times.

December 30, 2021. Louisville. Photo: Patrick Kramer of the Longmont Fire Department

But these towns have not always been the serene suburban havens they’ve become. When the aftermath of the Marshall Fire was still smoldering, some residents speculated that coal was to blame. After all, it was known that there was another fire burning in the area at the time — an underground cauldron continuously smoldering for over 100 years. Near Superior, under the Marshall Mesa, ground temperatures have been measured at over 200 degrees Fahrenheit from the simmering coal underneath the surface. The underground fire is a relic of why these towns even exist.

Seventy million years ago the land where Louisville and Superior sit today was not the semi-arid high plain beautifully situated at the base of a big mountain range. Back then dinosaurs waded through the waters of a giant tropical swamp. Over the eons all that plant matter had to go somewhere, and it ended up pressurized into a layer of soft black rock. This formed the Northern Colorado Coal Field.

The first prospectors to arrive in Colorado were seeking gold in the late 1850s. But, as they moved through the area looking for the yellow metal or related business opportunities, some of the keener observers noticed outcroppings of black rock, surface coal, on the plains north of Denver and east of Boulder. In an arc that roughly follows the course of the aptly named Coal Creek, a series of coal mining towns sprang up. Near the edge of the mountains was Superior, and just east of Superior would be Louisville.

Coal mining provided the catalyst for railroad construction in the area, which in turn accelerated the volume of coal extraction as the railroads not only ran on coal but were used to haul massive quantities of the black rock to wherever it was needed. Indeed, these new Boulder County coal towns, like Louisville and Superior, would for a time provide the growing Denver area with most of its power.

Fifteen miners with their lunch buckets. Third from left in second row is Peter Johnson. (Donor: Ralph Johnson, of Louisville)

But the human history of this area does not start with coal. Nor does it start with gold, or even with the first white explorers who traversed these plains and mountains from the east in the early 1800s, or the Spaniards who ventured into the area from the south with their horses two centuries earlier. People had already been here for hundreds of generations, the earliest of which hunted the woolly mammoth and feared the sabre toothed tiger. The area that is Louisville and Superior today was likely inhabited for at least thousands of years during the winter because the proximity to the mountains provided a slightly milder and more sheltered micro-climate compared to places farther east or west.

More recent Indigenous peoples include the Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne. While the Utes and their direct ancestors had been in the area for centuries, the Arapaho and Cheyenne were newcomers in the early 1800s having previously been displaced from their Upper Midwest homelands by the westward expansion of European Americans from the east.

The horde of pioneers and fortune seekers from the east did not just settle a land already occupied, they transformed it as if terraforming a new planet. In 1820 Colorado’s high plain was part of a vast American Serengeti teeming with millions of bison upon which the Plains Indians depended. The landscape was a vast rolling ocean of grasses crisscrossed by precious prairie riverways lined with cottonwoods. The enormous prairie was backdropped in the west by the rampart of a vast mountain range, its glacial valleys, and high peaks known only to its indigenous inhabitants.

1912. Native American (Ute) men and children ride on horseback as part of the marking ceremony for Ute Pass Trail, El Paso County, Colorado.

By 1870, just a half century later, the bison were rapidly disappearing, felled by the hundreds of thousands by pioneers seeking fortune rather than sustenance from the land. Rivers were diverted, damned, and irrigated. Great fields were cultivated. Domesticated herbivores were a poor replacement for the depleted bison — the newcomers mowed down prairie grass like thousand-pound locusts. The mountains and prairies were hollowed out by people obsessed with finding black, yellow, and silver stones. The horse-drawn wagon was replaced by the steel horse belching its black smoke and bringing ever more people from the east. The Native Americans were forced from their suddenly defiled range into reservations to the north and south.

When seen through the eyes of the Plains Indian, the period from 1820 to 1870 was an apocalypse. For the newcomers, the West meant opportunity and not just for Americans. Titans of the Gilded Age industry needed bodies to extract their fortunes for them, and they often looked abroad for their labor. Many of Louisville’s early coal miners came from Italy, eventually forming large prominent immigrant families.

I spoke with Ron Buffo, a Louisville native and retired high school social studies teacher born in 1953. Buffo spun a fascinating family history for me that begins with his great grandfather Michele — pronounced MeeKAYla — Buffo. A Colorado coal mine offered him and his brother Giacomo jobs and a paid trip across an ocean a continent away from home. After the long journey Michele hopped off the train and looked around at a foreign land that bore little resemblance to his northern Italian homeland. As someone with mining experience, he knew the work would be hard and the pay little, but he also knew it was better than anything he could get in Italy at the time.

Michele Buffo worked in the Louisville mines for five years before he was able to bring his wife to Colorado to join him. They had two sons, Dominic and Baptiste. Dominic dropped out of school at the age of thirteen to work in the mine with his father. In those days the mining companies paid the miner by the ton, not the hour, and an able-bodied son could increase the load and the income for the family. School was of lesser importance than the chance to get ahead financially.

1909. Photo of the Miners Trading Company building which was demolished due to coal mining subsidence, and once stood on the site of 701 Main Street.

Dominic Buffo’s coal mining career ended after 31 years with a gruesome accident in 1944. While working the conveyor belt on the tipple of Erie’s Columbine Mine, his right glove was snagged in the machinery, violently yanking his body forward. Dominic threw his weight back to avoid getting pulled over the top to an almost certain death, but the force of the conveyor belt ripped his right arm off at the shoulder.

Dominic was loaded into a basket and taken on a grueling 45-minute ride to the nearest full-service hospital in Boulder, nearly bleeding to death en route. His life was saved, but a blood clot formed in his head causing him to lose his ability to speak for the rest of his life. He also developed black lung disease from his years of breathing in coal dust almost every day since age thirteen. Dominic lived in Louisville for another 31 years after the accident, passing away in 1975 at age 75.  “I tell you what,” said his grandson Ron, “he was a strong old man.”

Before the accident Dominic was a lifelong member of the United Mine Workers of America fighting, like many coal miners of his day, for better pay and working conditions. He followed in the footsteps of his father Michele, an ardent union man himself. In fact, Michele and his other son Baptiste, Ron’s great uncle, participated in the Hecla Mine conflict of 1914 when gunfire erupted between the union men and state government forces. 

The striking miners, according to Buffo, were fearful of a repeat of the Ludlow Massacre in Southern Colorado — they knew it was the same Third Colorado Cavalry that attacked Ludlow that was headed up to Hecla. The union handed out hundreds of rifles to the striking miners. Hours of gunfire ensued with remarkably few injuries. Ron Buffo still has the rifle that his great uncle used at Hecla.

Dominic Buffo. Photo provided by Ron Buffo

It was during this time that, according to Buffo, the state government placed a trigger-happy machine gunner at Hecla who had a habit of randomly firing into the town of Louisville. One night Buffo’s great grandfather Michele went to use the outhouse when a bullet zipped through and grazed the top of his hand. When I asked if they reported the incident to the police, I knew the answer before it came. What would have been the point? “The government supported that kind of thing back then,” said Buffo.

Just before dawn on January 20th 1936 an underground explosion rocked Monarch Mine #2 just south of Louisville. Something ignited the combustible air and uncovered coal dust, eight coal miners perished. The body of Joe Jaramillo was never recovered and he rests to this day somewhere directly beneath the Flatiron Crossing Mall. The loss of Jaramillo compelled his fourteen-year-old son, Joe Jr., to go to work in the mines at age 14 to support his family. Joe Jr. would live the rest of his life as a coal miner with an interlude as a soldier and prisoner of war in World War II. He was among the final shift of miners to close down Erie’s Eagle Mine for good in 1978. Joe Jr.,  like so many coal miners, suffered from black lung disease. He died of a heart attack just three months after his retirement.

Ron Buffo reflected on the dangerous work and labor violence of those years experienced by his family and others. “Thank goodness I didn’t have to work in a damned coal mine,” said Buffo.

After his grandfather’s accident in 1944, Buffo’s grandmother was forced to find work and became one of the first people hired at Rocky Flats. Coal mining was in decline by that time and many out-of-work miners found jobs there as well. As if the risk of black lung disease weren’t enough, now they would face cancer-causing radiation, unbeknownst to them at the time. “My father and brother both died of cancer as a result of radioactive exposure from Rocky Flats,” said Buffo.

1909. Two barbers with chairs ready for customers. The photographer’s image is reflected in the mirror.

With a strong Italian heritage comes the rumors and stereotypes of organized crime, but there seems to be little evidence of much of this in Louisville. According to Buffo, there was a small Italian Mafia presence operating out of North Denver. Buffo recalls “during the 60s and 70s if you drove down Main Street (Louisville) you’d sometimes see five or six brand new Cadillacs parked out front of a pool hall. Those weren’t people from Louisville,” said Buffo. 

Legends of bootlegging tunnels underneath Old Town Louisville from the Prohibition era have mostly been either debunked or unproven. However, according to Gigi Young at the Louisville Historical Museum, the Prohibition era did produce some interesting bootlegging schemes in Louisville including a giant hidden underground still.

The nature of Louisville and Superior continued to evolve in the post World War era as coal mining was replaced by a more diversified economy in a growing Denver-Boulder metropolitan area. Buffo graduated from Louisville High in 1971. When I asked him about those days, I could feel the sense of excitement and nostalgia come through the phone. This was Louisville’s classic Americana era when homecoming and football games against Lafayette High School were the big thing.

It took the Louisville kids weeks to collect enough scrap wood for the homecoming bonfire, a tradition that would never fly today. Reflecting on this, Buffo said, “They once took Old Man Ferrari’s outhouse and put it on top of the pyre.” During football games, “a couple thousand people would show up,” said Buffo. “It was a lot of fun.”

Superior? It’s a strange name for a town. Located a little to the southwest of Louisville, the town of Superior was originated by a farmer, Charles Hake, who settled on the land around 1860. He knew of the exposed coal seam on his land, but it wasn’t until 1892 that he partnered with Jim Hood to drop the first coal mine shaft. The resulting mine called The Industrial would operate for the next 53 years and extract four million tons of coal from the earth.

1923-1925: Photographs of the Industrial Coal Mine coal camp near Superior, showing among other things the company housing and the company casino; also members of the Morgan and Gibby families.

Although the town of Superior was incorporated in 1904 only a few hundred residents called Superior home for almost the next century. Then the 1990s came and Superior exploded like a coal mine blast, booming to over 12,000 residents by the turn of the Millenium.

Chandy Ghosh and her husband were one of the early residents of Superior’s beautiful Rock Creek subdivision. Originally hailing from Calcutta, India, Ghosh came to New Mexico on a full ride scholarship in 1987, got a job in Denver at US West, and moved to Superior for the “superior schools” in the late 1990s.

Ghosh described for me a real life American dream. She became a successful telecommunications executive and found the perfect home with her husband in Superior with an unobstructed view of the mountains and a friendly community. “Twenty-five years later, I still feel blessed that we got this spot,” said Ghosh.

I asked Ghosh what she thinks about Superior’s growth. She remembered in the early years how the city lights would end on her commute home from downtown Denver near Westminster Mall and then it was pitch black. “Now, you can’t tell where Denver ends and Superior starts,” said Ghosh.

Ghosh is more than okay with the growth. “The schools and the views brought us here,” she said. “But, I’m really more of a city girl.” Ghosh believes that Superior is growing into an independent town with its own identity. “I’m loving Superior right now,” she said.

But on December 30, 2021 they nearly lost their dream home. In fact, it’s almost a miracle that they didn’t. “We smelled the smoke before we saw the fire,” she said. “Then I looked up and saw huge flames across the street, and at that moment someone started banging on our front door.” It was the fire marshall and they needed to go immediately.

Harper’s Lake. Photo: Dustin Doskocil

They only had time to grab passports before racing out the door. “We thought there was no way the house would survive,” said Ghosh. “But the next morning some friends snuck into the neighborhood and told us ‘your house is still standing!’” Somehow the flames parted. It burned the houses one block over on both sides of their street, but not theirs. Such was the erratic nature of the Marshall Fire.

The Marshall Fire did not break these communities. Not even close. They are quietly rebuilding. These towns were forged by hardy families. They had men (and often boys) who swung pick axes at black rocks six days a week and paid the price for their toil to build better lives for their descendants. They had women who endured the low income and constant worry about their mining husbands and sons.  

I know from speaking with Ron Buffo that he takes great pride in the example that his forebears set, and in the communities they helped build. Like Buffo said, we all should be glad that we don’t have to work in a damned coal mine.

Despite the Marshall Fire, Louisville and Superior remain among the best places in America to live. It is not just the great views and great schools. There’s something particularly wonderful about this area that we can’t quite put our finger on. Perhaps it’s simply superior.

The post Louisville and Superior: Surviving the Elements appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Has “sustainability” become an eye-rolling buzzword that’s tossed around boardrooms and shoehorned into public policy as an afterthought?

Communities in Boulder County and their leaders are banking against that cynicism — but what do we mean by the term “sustainability”? At its core, when it comes to ecological sustainability, we’re talking about survival. Too dramatic? We mean the ability of communities, organizations, and individuals to behave in a manner that protects and maintains our ecosystems for current and future generations of human beings. No ecosystem means no humans.

Small towns and cities across the country are looking for ways to strengthen and diversify their economies, attract residents, build lasting infrastructure, and ensure resiliency against future climate events. Especially in areas highly dependent on tourism — like Boulder County — they also want to maintain their distinct identities and not lose what makes each place unique to visitors and residents alike.

Colorado is experiencing an alarming increase in climate change-related events — severe and devastating droughts, wildfires, and flooding are becoming more frequent and costly. The oil and gas industry, especially fracking operations, are major contributors to methane pollution. Cutting methane emissions from oil and gas, according to the David Suzuki Foundation, is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to address climate change.

At its core, when it comes to ecological sustainability, we’re talking about survival.

In response to these challenges, the state has set ambitious sustainability goals. In 2019, Governor Polis signed an executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050. The state has also set targets to increase renewable energy production, improve energy efficiency, and reduce waste.

While these goals are commendable, achieving them will require a concerted effort from all communities in the state, including smaller towns and cities. With smaller revenues and tax bases than larger centers, is there any way to balance urgent economic needs with ecological preservation at a municipal scale?

Erie’s challenge

Many communities have developed detailed sustainability strategies to address these increasingly complex challenges. Erie has established a Sustainability Advisory Board to advise the town’s board of trustees on “matters that relate to the planning, development, maintenance, and management of sustainability activities throughout Erie.”

According to Alissa Kuzmich, a member of the Erie Sustainability Advisory Board, the town is experiencing a period of growth yet still has a very strong community feel. “We recently had a Hope & Gratitude Project,” she told Yellow Scene. “It was in the old town called Briggs, the main street that the old town is on. School children filled the streets with luminaries talking about what they were hopeful for.”

Many communities have developed detailed sustainability strategies to address these increasingly complex challenges.

The Sustainability Division partnered with the Erie’s Tree Advisory Board and the Parks and Recreation Department to hold an Arbor Day/Earth Day Celebration event. It brought in exhibitors related to horticulture, tree management, the solar industry, and electric vehicles — the latter hosted by Drive Electric Colorado. “There’s no pressure for purchase,” said Kuzmich. Instead, at this event people have the opportunity to ask questions without a sales pitch. This year the event is planned for April 29th.

“One of the things that’s happening right now that’s pretty cool is called Elevate Erie — it’s a comprehensive plan. It sets the vision for the next five years,” Kuzmich told YS. “With all the growth we’ve had, sustainability was invited to be part of that conversation.” The board gives input on Erie’s development, along with members of many other organizations, to ensure equitable representation across the community.

The town also has a noble goal to become a zero waste community. The concept of zero waste aims to minimize environmental impacts throughout the entire lifecycle of a product — beyond recycling and composting — to include design, use, and material management. Erie plans to increase access to recycling and composting while reducing waste that ends up in its landfill. The town claims that recycling and composting are some of the most effective ways to reduce “consumption emissions.’.

Nederland: Small but mighty

Nederland, aka “Ned,” is just west of Boulder with a population less than 1,500. The town attracts tourists with its picturesque scenery, fishing, skiing, cycling, camping, shops, boutiques, and even a vibrant music scene. YS spoke with Sustainability Coordinator Leah Haney who is relatively new to the role. Haney executes the Sustainability Advisory Board’s goals for renewable energy and zero waste by 2025. The board acts as a partner with Boulder County, the state of Colorado, and the local business community to determine resource availability and align these with the needs and wants of residents. The partners “make collective decisions,” said Haney, “coming from and guided by Boulder County’s requirements and what we’ve set for ourselves locally.”

The town attracts tourists with its picturesque scenery, fishing, skiing, cycling, camping, shops, boutiques, and even a vibrant music scene.

One of the initiatives Haney is particularly proud of is Nederland’s Construction & Demolition Debris Recycling Deposit Program “where a credit goes to renovators or builders or demolition companies if they can divert and save some of those materials to reuse. They get a credit back. This was a big program implemented by the town, but it hasn’t been used a whole lot yet, we’re working on the outreach part,” explained Haney.

The town is also working on a community solar garden that Haney hopes will lead to more businesses installing solar panels. Nederland is also transitioning to electric vehicles and is on a waitlist to get an all-electric Ford Lightning truck, which Haney doesn’t believe many mountain towns have. The town will also be adding more EV chargers to accommodate tourists from neighboring Denver as well as locals who wish to make the switch.

Haney was pleasantly surprised that sustainability initiatives were not a hard sell. Local food production is a high priority for many, and building up a community greenhouse and farmers market are a common goal.

What’s challenging in a town of this size, according to Haney, is making sustainability a priority in a community with limited human resources, all while maintaining a small town feel — which is the reason people come to visit. “This was a different town 20 years ago,” said Haney. “It will continue to change over time, and we get to help decide what that looks like. One of the benefits of being a small town is that we get to instigate change — probably pretty well — with just having a small community, maybe quicker than a larger municipality.”

Lafayette: Greening community engagement

Lafayette is a small but eclectic and engaged city full of character, and according to its Sustainability Manager Elizabeth Szorad, this willingness of residents to get involved with sustainability is one of its greatest assets. The downtown is culturally vibrant and art focused. Many popular community events are centered around artists and their creativity. Szorad capitalized on this and held a call for artists to create digital art to place on waste containers throughout downtown.

The downtown Lafayette is culturally vibrant and art focused. Many popular community events are centered around artists and their creativity. ? City of Lafayette

“Overall, we have a very great community, very involved,” Szorad said. “They care about our downtown, our neighborhood aspects, and building that community. We’re in a really nice spot in terms of growth.”

Lafayette is subject to a heat island effect, especially in the downtown corridor. A “cool roof” solution of shade provided by trees to mitigate this effect is one effort that will be proposed at a Lafayette City Council soon. Szorad said they’re at the beginning stages of analysis to determine how to make the city more resilient against the effects of extreme heat. “Can we find trees to provide shade in our downtown?” Szorad asked. “That comes into the conversation about water conservation — how much water would that need? Do we have enough water to grow the trees necessary to produce shade?”

The heat island effect

Szorad has been encouraged by the level of engagement of residents in Lafayette and their willingness to learn how to live more sustainably. She believes the key to implementing sustainability within a community is not a “zero to one hundred” approach but, rather, incremental behavior changes where everyone does their part.

One of Lafayette’s key priorities in “greening” the city has been focused on water conservation. In 2013, Lafayette instituted a permanent water conservation ordinance to protect its resources. The city partnered with local nonprofit Resource Central, offering three programs for residents to conserve water: Lawn Removal Service, Garden in a Box, and Slow the Flow programs are designed to reduce the amount of lawn residents have, replace them with waterwise yards which may include permeable green landscaping or other water-efficient plant material, and evaluate existing outdoor sprinkler systems.

Water conservation projects are top of mind to Szorad: “Due to climate change and earlier snowmelt in general, there’s a greater emphasis on what we’re going to do with our water conservation initiatives. Not only on the policy side — we are looking at different building codes.” The community has xeriscaped facilities that do not require water, such as roadways and medians, and will also be converting a facility in 2023 to be one of the largest demonstration xeriscape gardens in Colorado.

The gardens will be a community gathering space where residents and students can come learn about conservation and wildfire prevention. Lafayette also holds an annual Gas-Powered Mower and Leaf Blower Take Back Event, where residents receive an electric lawn equipment voucher in exchange for the return of their existing gas-powered equipment. This year’s event is taking place on April 22.

“Due to climate change and earlier snowmelt in general, there’s a greater emphasis on what we’re going to do with our water conservation initiatives. Not only on the policy side — we are looking at different building codes.”

“Part of our philosophy is to practice what we preach in sustainability as an organization,” Szorad told YS. “So if we do get calls like, ‘What are you doing about water conservation or recycling?’ We can tell our story to residents, so they understand that this is a priority — and they can look into what resources are available to make those incremental changes,” she explained.

The town is enhancing its sustainability plan by turning it towards a climate action plan. Lafayette will also be introducing a multi-modal transportation plan to include an e-bike rebate program which Szorad says has already been successful in Boulder and Denver. The goal is to change commuters’ transportation mode. In a city of nine square miles with an average trip of three miles, Szorad said that commuting translates very well to e-bike use, even with the addition of cargo. For this initiative, Lafayette is partnering with nearby Louisville. Creating regional partnerships increases the size of sustainability teams, which are usually limited in smaller localities.

Boulder County: A multi-pronged approach

The county refers to itself as a “global leader in climate action,” and the county’s Office of Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience believes that radical transformation is required to meet the challenges faced by residents impacted by the climate crisis.

YS spoke with Christian Herrmann, the office’s Climate Communications Director. Herrmann said they’re “lucky in terms of being a local government that has a really passionate population that wants governmental action on the climate crisis and sustainability.”

Zach Hedstrom of Boulder Mushroom – ? Boulder County. Office of Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience

Boulder was one of the first counties in the United States to establish a designated climate action fund to kickstart innovative projects and technologies that fight the climate crisis through carbon dioxide removal. “Instead of just reducing emissions by cutting fossil fuels and reducing pollution, we also believe that’s not enough,” said Herrmann. “We need to start innovating and actively sucking the legacy emissions and carbon dioxide that’s in the atmosphere out of the atmosphere.”

Herrmann points to the Marshall Fire — which was Colorado’s most expensive to date — as an example of the extreme wildfires the Boulder County area is experiencing. The Boulder Watershed Collective, Grama Grass & Livestock, and Boulder Mushroom — a local mycology center — have partnered with assistance from the county’s Climate Innovation Fund to decompose wood chips and inoculate them with mycelium in an effort to help the soil retain moisture and carbon dioxide, thereby making land more resilient and less prone to wildfire.

Herrmann sees the need for communities to partner. Local governments in the western U.S. are pooling resources to remove CO? out of the atmosphere. Four Corners Carbon Coalition, a partnership between Boulder County, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, and Flagstaff just launched a first round of grants for projects that use removed CO? to produce concrete. Concrete production represents over 7% of all global emissions.

“We need to start innovating and actively sucking the legacy emissions and carbon dioxide that’s in the atmosphere out of the atmosphere.”

“We’ve focused a lot as an organization on agricultural climate solutions,” said Herrmann. “That’s a huge puzzle piece — that local soils and local populations have access to food that’s produced nearby. In addition, farmland, when managed well, can function as carbon sinks.” Carbon sinks are anything natural, such as vegetation, the ocean, or otherwise, that accumulate and store carbon compounds.

BOCO also partnered with Mad Agriculture and the James Beard Award-winning Zero Foodprint to launch Restore Colorado. Restaurants and food businesses can sign up and use 1% of customers’ bills to fund local farms and ranches to support local regenerative and carbon farming practices such as composting and tree planting. Over thirty-two Colorado restaurants and businesses, like Annette, Dry Storage, River and Woods, Somebody People, and all Boulder Subway sandwich locations, are taking part in the program.

The county is also tackling climate change in a more systematic way in the courtroom. The county, along with San Miguel County, filed a lawsuit in 2018 against oil companies Suncor and ExxonMobil demanding that they contribute to the costs associated with climate change, estimated to top $150 million dollars by 2050. The communities are supported by EarthRights International, Hannon Law Firm, and Niskanen Center. The case has been remanded to Colorado state court as of 2020.

The end — and a collectively renewable beginning

Climate activists and organizations have long been sounding the alarm. The Colorado Sierra Club has been advocating for climate change solutions with recommendations from air and water quality to public health, wildlife preservation, and fuel consumption. The social justice and equity component of environmentalism can’t be overstated. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences indicates climate change and extreme weather events have a disproportionate burden on vulnerable populations.

“I think that’s what we need to tackle the climate crisis — we need local action.”

“In general, children and pregnant women, older adults, certain occupational groups, persons with disabilities, and persons with chronic medical conditions are more vulnerable to health stressors, such as extreme heat, floods, poor air quality, and other climate-related events,” the report states. The unfortunate reality is that those with less access to resources have less of a way to impact governmental policies despite being the most affected by a changing climate.

Despite this, there’s an appetite in BOCO and North Metro to fight back. Initiatives are often fueled by passion and a willingness to turn the tide and protect the fragile local ecosystems.

“I think that’s what we need to tackle the climate crisis — we need local action,” Herrmann told YS. “We need people to be thinking about their gardens, improving the health of their gardens, and growing their own food … and you also need to be tackling more systemic action to help shift the system where possible.”

We need to be realistic. Oil and gas companies as well as the military — the world’s single largest consumer of oil according to studies by Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs — are the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s clear that community initiatives, while laudable, practical, and helpful, will never be enough to stop dangerous emissions from leaking into the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report on the impacts of global warming in 2018 with clear conclusions: “Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” The IPCC’s report indicated that we have 12 years to act decisively. That was five years ago already. Proponents of fracking would like us to believe the economic effects of halting fossil fuel extraction would be dire. This ignores the extreme costs of disaster event-related losses — $2.97 trillion over the past two decades according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: “While better recording and reporting may partly explain some of the increase in events, much of it is due to a significant rise in the number of climate-related disasters. Between 2000 and 2019, there were 510,837 deaths and 3.9 billion people affected by 6,681 climate-related disasters. This compares with 3,656 climate-related events which accounted for 995,330 deaths (47% due to drought/ famine) and 3.2 billion affected in the period 1980-1999.”

“We need people to be thinking about their gardens, improving the health of their gardens, and growing their own food … and you also need to be tackling more systemic action to help shift the system where possible.”

Focusing on economic impacts of slowing oil and gas also ignores the growth in the clean technology and energy sectors. Clean energy boosts employment levels. Jobs are expected to expand to 43 million worldwide by 2050. It also reduces consumer costs, is commercially viable, and allows universal access to energy. The industry’s “math” simply does not compute.

Coloradoans want to see change, and as a region disproportionately and disastrously affected by the climate crisis, they’re taking initiative and holding their representatives to task. No one is naive here. Residents know that systemic global change is needed to truly halt the effects of the climate crisis.

Even faced with these sobering facts, small changes do make an impact, and local communities are bringing awareness to the severe and devastating effects of climate change to our environment. Our ecosystem depends on it, and thereby so do we.

The post The Power of Local Action: How Municipalities Are Making a Difference in Sustainability Efforts appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Erie has long been defined by its rural past and as the town grows, will need to draw from its history to maintain its authenticity.

Two Trappers

Charlie Liley had a dangerous job in 1897. He was a trapper in an Erie, Colorado coal mine. For hours on end, day after day, he sat alone in the blackness of an earthen underworld. His job was simple — to open and close big wooden trap doors to let fresh air through the mine when the mules came through with their loads. It was dangerous work. Runaway coal carts were death machines, and cave-ins were a constant threat. But the trapper’s boredom and loneliness were the worst part. Solitary confinement in the pitch black could play cruel games on a man’s mind. Except Charlie was no man. He was just a 10-year-old boy.

This was America’s Gilded Age when barons of heavy industry steamrolled the dignity of the less fortunate. By the time Charlie became a coal mine trapper, Erie was already one of Colorado’s most important coal mining towns. It was a rough place then. If one were to venture up the hill east of town for a birds-eye view in 1897, they would have seen a small dusty town surrounded by coal mine tipples in every direction.

The first coal miner in Erie is said to be fur trapper and mountain man Jim Baker. He was a friend of Kit Carson, John C. “Pathfinder” Frémont, and Jim Bridger, legendary names of the pre-gold rush fur trapping era. Baker once had part of his face chewed off by a grizzly bear he killed.

Coal Miner Memorial: Photo: Doug Geiling

Relations between the mountain men and Native Americans were complicated, and Baker’s life was certainly an example of that. Baker was a part of the vanguard of white explorers from the East who represented unwanted encroachment upon native lands in the West. But he also adopted native ways, learning several Native American languages. Like the tribes he interacted with, he fought both against and with Native Americans depending on his alliances and interests. He once rescued a Shoshone chief’s daughter, named Marina, from Blackfoot captivity and then married her. In marriage he adopted the Shoshone lifestyle and was given the name “Red-Haired Shoshone” by his allied tribe.

As the fur trade withered Baker briefly tried his hand at coal mining. In 1858 Baker’s Bank was a small slope mine on the west bank of Coal Creek near present-day Old Town Erie. The effort proved unprofitable within a year, and Baker moved on to other ventures.

Baker’s Bank notwithstanding, the discovery of coal in Erie was officially documented in 1866. By this time the growing settlement was unofficially known as Coal Park. More settlers arrived near the end of the decade just to the northwest in an area called Canfield. The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were known to have camped along Coal Creek in what is now Erie at times. But by 1870 the crushing wave of white settlers and the repressive government policies that supported them had largely forced the Native Americans onto less desirable lands farther south.

In 1874 the town of Erie was founded by a group of men including Richard van Valkenburg. Van Valkenburg named the town after Erie, Pennsylvania, his former home. By 1874 the new town was already well entrenched as an up-and-coming coal mining epicenter in the massive Northern Colorado Coal Field.

Photo courtesy of Erie Historical Society

By this time Erie had already scored a railroad connection. A rail spur from Brighton to Erie called the Boulder Valley Railway greatly accelerated the capacity of coal transportation. With this rail link in place, new coal mines began to sprout like weeds. More rail connections followed quickly including a narrow-gauge line carrying coal and passengers along today’s 119th Street from Canfield to Longmont. This train was nicknamed Longmont’s “Baby Railroad.”

By 1890 the Baby Railroad was replaced with the standard-gauge Burlington and re-routed along Erie’s High Street as part of a line from Denver to Lyons. The Burlington intersected with the Union Pacific near the south end of High Street. A train depot was built near the intersection still known today by some locals as either “the thirteen trees” or “the witching trees.” The depot is no longer in its original location, but it still stands today, having been saved and moved a couple hundred yards to the southwest by a local homeowner. You can see the small white structure directly east and across the road from County Line Lumber.

If you’ve ever wondered why Old Town Erie has that wonderful linear open space along High Street, it’s because that was the old Burlington rail line. The train ran well into the 1980s, and the tracks were finally pulled in 1990, a run of almost a full century.

Trains ran through Erie for nearly a century beginning in the early coal mining days. Photo courtesy of Erie Community Library

Machine Gun on the Tower

Northern Colorado coal mining was dangerous, back-breaking work. In Erie’s early coal mining days mine managers and their wealthy owners and financiers, like the Rockefellers, treated miners and their families like cordwood. Their practices were sometimes called industrial slavery. The coal miner was routinely cheated, brutalized, and dehumanized. Pay was barely a living wage at best, and often they were paid in company-issued currency called scrip that could only be used to buy overpriced goods at the company store. The average coal miner worked 12-14 hours a day and yet could never get ahead. As in the lyrics of the song “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, the coal miner was stuck in a life where each day he loaded sixteen tons only to get “another day older and deeper in debt.”

Company towns sprang up at the larger mines to offer miners and their families affordable housing but in effect turned them into de facto labor camp prisoners. At Erie’s Columbine Mine near today’s landfill, the company town was named Serene. James B. Stull wrote in “A Brief History of Erie Colorado,” “It was a collection of dirty company houses surrounded by a barricade of barbed wire. It was illuminated at night by a large searchlight that was installed on the mine tipple.”

The result of these conditions was predictable. Frequent labor strikes broke out as miners organized to demand a modicum of dignity and fair treatment. Often this resulted in violence. Strikes were put down with brutal force and indifference by an alliance between mining interests and government authorities. State militias and troopers full of men eager to draw blood were often called up to intimidate striking miners and their families.

Company towns sprang up at the larger mines to offer miners and their families affordable housing but in effect turned them into de facto labor camp prisoners.

In November of 1927 the searchlight on the Columbine Mine’s tipple was accompanied by a machine gun. Miners were on strike again throughout the Northern Colorado Coal Field, and tensions were rising daily as a coal shortage loomed at the start of winter. Striking miners had children who attended the company school at Serene inside the gates. They would protest and agitate while taking their kids to and from school. These daily marches were often led by Elizabeth Baranek, the 5-foot-two-inch, 44-year-old wife of miner Joe Baranek, and mother of 16 kids with a 17th on the way.

The powder keg finally exploded at dawn on November 21, 1927. On that morning plain-clothed militia men, armed to the teeth, refused to let striking miners inside the gates of Serene. Strike leader Adam Bell, a “wobbly” from the International Workers of the World (IWW), was pulled over the top of the fence and beaten. Mrs. Baranek, carrying her unborn 17th child, broke through the gate and tried to shield Bell with an American flag only to be beaten herself.

When the protesters then surged, gunfire erupted into the crowd of several hundred. The massacre left six dead and 60 wounded. Erie’s doctor, James Bixler, is credited with saving the lives of many of the injured.

From left to right, the Erie “old timers” are Linette Ballew, Shavonne Blades, Dan Wendzel, Lois Joyce, Barry “Wildman” Snyder, Sherri Bond, Dan Hoback

Time Vortex

After the Columbine Mine massacre, progress was made in the labor movement under the leadership of Josephine Roche, a mining company insider who was sympathetic to the plight of the miner. By this time, however, Erie was reaching its coal mining peak. 

As the Great Depression settled over the land, Erie coal mining began its long decline, gradually replaced by oil and gas drilling. During the Depression some down-and-out families took to residing in caves and dugouts on the banks of Coal Creek. But coal mining work continued through the industry’s long decline, and for those fortunate enough to maintain employment, labor conditions improved.

Ralph Castro, a coal miner’s son, was born in Erie in 1938 and still lives in his childhood Old Town home on Holbrook Street. “My dad worked at several different mines and wound up at the Eagle.” Castro’s father, Mike, was active in the United Mine Workers Union. In those later years “wages got better and better.” According to Castro, his father was able to make a respectable living as a miner during and after the Second World War.

Castro graduated high school in 1957 in a class of eight kids. He remembers childhood in Erie as an easy going time. “We never thought about getting into trouble,” he said. “We all kept our noses clean.”

“We never thought about getting into trouble. We all kept our noses clean.”

Castro and long-time Erie resident Dan Wendzel are neighbors. Wendzel’s father, Joe, was also a coal miner. For thirty years Joe worked the mines in and around town, developing black lung disease later in life. Wendzel graduated from high school in Erie in a class of just 14 kids in 1964. As surrounding towns like Longmont began to attract new industries that spawned growth and new housing developments, Erie became a lost town in the middle of nothing on the way to nowhere. Groceries and supplies required trips north to Longmont. Water was trucked in from Lyons because Erie’s water was so terrible, nobody would drink it.

Many people still heated their homes with coal in those years. As a teenager Wendzel would drive a pickup truck to the still-operating Eagle Mine and purchase coal by weight. Pollution from coal burning was terrible at times. Wendzel told me that, on some winter days, the coal smoke would settle over town so thickly that he couldn’t see the houses through the smoke while driving into town from the hills to the east.

While Erie offered bad water, bad air, and not much for kids to do, life back then, as Wendzel described it, was authentic and simple. There was little league baseball and bike rides on dirt roads with fishing poles in hand to Erie Lake for bluegills and the occasional bass. There was also the pastime of watching the trains come and go right through town.

As a kid Wendzel lived right on the Burlington line on High Street. “You could feel the house shake when the train passed,” he said. In those days the train was still powered by steam engine. Because the Burlington and the Union Pacific crossed tracks just south of town, the train conductor was required to stop the entire train right in town on each passing to avoid collisions. “The train would head north early in the morning and come back about dusk, hauling coal one way and sugar beets the other,” said Wendzel.

“You could feel the house shake when the train passed. The train would head north early in the morning and come back about dusk, hauling coal one way and sugar beets the other.”

Lois Joyce moved to Erie in 1978, the same year the last coal load came out of the Eagle Mine ending Erie’s remarkable 120-year coal mining run starting with Baker’s Bank. She, too, remembers her house on High Street shaking when that train rolled by. “If I stood in my kitchen when that train came, it looked like it would slice the house down,” she said.

Joyce had many great stories about Erie’s small town cops. She recalled being neighbors with one of the officers whose cruiser frequently broke down. She would often hear him banging around under the hood to get it running again before his shift started. Joyce also remembers the neighborhood kids roaming free at age 6 or 7. If they didn’t come home on time, all the neighbors knew they would be down by the creek getting muddy and catching crawdads.

Both Joyce and long-time Erie resident Eva Kalemenis told me that Erie still had an operator-assisted telephone system until almost 1990, and they both reminisced about how bad the mud and dust could get in Old Town before the streets were finally paved in 1999. Kalemenis first moved to Old Town Erie in 1986, purchasing one of Erie’s oldest historic homes built in 1884. “The place was really a wreck,” she said, “but we loved it.”

Shavonne Blades, owner of Yellow Scene Magazine, moved to town in 1992 and worked as a bartender at the divey Erie Inn, now award-winning 24 Carrot Bistro, for several years. Over coffees at Fox Dog on Briggs, Blades described a 1990s Erie as a town caught in a time vortex. Except for Briggs and Cheeseman, all the streets were still dirt, and Briggs Street bars served professional drunks and locals with nicknames like “Crazy Glenn,” “Kentucky Bob,” and still current Erie resident Barry “Wildman” Snyder. Then there was “Old Grumpy Floyd” who used to ride his horse, not just to the bar, but into it. Floyd’s horse would hang out on the dance floor until Floyd was ready to leave and ride back home.

Barry “Wildman” Snyder is known as “Big Wheel Barry”. He used to lead the homecoming parade on an old-time penny farthing bicycle.

Barry “Wildman” Snyder still lives in Erie. He is also known as “Big Wheel Barry” because he used to lead the homecoming parade on an old-time penny farthing bicycle. “Barry was always the hit of the parade on that penny farthing,” said Blades.

From Fox Dog I walked with Blades the block-and-a-half to go visit with Snyder at his home. We walked through a yard decorated with old Studebakers that he likes to work on. Stepping inside the door, a man with a ZZ Top beard greeted us, and I was transported into a fascinating home full of model cars and fruit sticker art. Besides the big wheel bicycle, Snyder is also known for his works of art made from the little stickers they put on fruit. After the tour of his house and artwork, as we were leaving, Snyder remarked that he “tends to like stuff that isn’t normal.” But the twinkle in his eye said so much more as he showed me the rare British motorcycle he’s working on.

Linette Ballew was five years old in 1976 when her family moved to a piece of land over an old coal mine just northeast of Erie. She graduated high school in a class of 54 kids in 1989, moved away, and then came back home in 1997.

Through her words, Ballew painted a beautiful picture of the Erie of her youth — one where all the main roads to and from Erie were still dirt and the tall blinking weather tower always pointed the way back home. Times were certainly different then. “I had friends who would jump the train to Longmont and hitchhike back to Erie,” said Ballew. Erie residents today often identify where they live by the name of their neighborhood. When Ballew was growing up in Erie there were no neighborhood names. Instead, there was Beer Can Hill, Chicken City, and Dead Man’s Curve. Everyone in town knew where these places were.

Sherry Bond shared similar sentiments from her short time in Erie’s Airpark subdivision in the mid-1980s. Like Ballew, she too moved away only to come back many years later. She remembers the drive into Erie on a gravel Highway 7 from I-25. With the mountains as backdrop, she said you could see only three things down that westbound gravel road: Old Town Lafayette, Old Town Erie, and the Erie Airport in between. In recalling life in the Erie Airpark neighborhood, Bond remembered the airplane that was converted into the beloved Strawberries restaurant, now gone.

Perhaps the most fitting story from 1980s and 1990s Erie is the one about Jake: Jake was a grumpy Yellow Lab who ran for mayor in 1994. He enjoyed a shot or two of butterscotch schnapps from the bar.

That town that was caught in a time vortex in the 1990s with its dirt streets, horses in bars, and dogs running for mayor suddenly exploded on the scene.

From Podunk to Little Big Town

If you live in Erie today, you likely know the basics of the rest of the story. That town that was caught in a time vortex in the 1990s with its dirt streets, horses in bars, and dogs running for mayor suddenly exploded on the scene. A location that was once a Front Range void, a forgotten backwater from the heyday of coal mining, became prime real estate as the Denver metropolitan area grew north.

In the 2000s growth hit Erie like a bomb and hasn’t slowed since. After taking more than 100 years for Erie’s population to go from 600 to 1,200 around 1990, it rocketed to 6,600 by 2000; 18,000 in 2010; and over 30,000 in 2020.

This growth is not slowing down anytime soon. Erie Trustee Dan Hoback told me that Erie’s population will double again to more than 60,000 residents in the next 10 to 15 years. Open land in Erie from I-25 to Highway 287 and from Highway 52 down to Highway 7 is filling up with row upon row of suburban houses and supporting retail and business development. Erie High School’s student population of about 1,800 seems almost absurd considering Linette Ballew’s 1989 graduating class of just 54 kids was not that long ago.

Mount Pleasant cemetery with vistas of the mountains is the oldest existing historic place in Erie. Photo by Doug Geiling

According to Hoback the availability of large amounts of land with easy access to Boulder and Denver has made Erie the bullseye for North Metro housing development. Prior to about 2000 Erie was perhaps a bit too far away and off the beaten path to attract much development. But, as the Denver metropolitan area expanded northward and expensive housing in and near Boulder priced the average home buyer out of that market, Erie transitioned from small town to boomtown.

And yet, Erie remains a great place to live by most accounts. As does Longmont, which experienced similar expansion forty years ago and has grown into an admirable small Front Range city. We do lose the innocence of our small old towns when they grow into small cities, but we can also gain much through the process.

I asked each of the Erie “old timers” I interviewed how Erie can maintain its core appeal through its explosive growth. The answers were basically all the same: Old Town. Keep the historic character of Erie’s Old Town, and the town will maintain its tether to its historic roots.

Kalemenis hopes that Erie doesn’t try to change too much of the quirkiness and character of Old Town. “I don’t want everything to look like eye candy,” she said. When I asked Ballew how Erie can maintain its character she quickly said, “I hope they never take the Erie Town Fair from Old Town.” Blades is advocating for the new Town Center to be developed with the look and feel of Old Town in mind. “I really hope it looks like this,” she said gesturing out the window of Fox Dog Coffee out to Briggs Street.

For a town that, until the 2000s was a tiny, dirt-street, coal mining relic that even many Denver area natives like me never even knew existed, Erie has a remarkably rich and interesting history. There is so much more that could not fit into this brief journey through time: the Erie Raceway, the junkyard with all the VW Beetles, the hot air balloons, Biscuit Days, the history of the Airpark, the Wise Homestead, the fracking controversy, the multiple Coal Creek floods, and so much more.

Can it be done? Can Erie continue to grow like this and simultaneously maintain its historical character? Can it be the little big town we all want it to be? We think so. But it hinges on one thing: Old Town.

History of Erie

The post Erie – Little Big Town appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo courtesy of Vecteezy

By Eric Galatas | Public News Service Colorado News Connection (via AP Storyshare)

A federal court’s decision to require the Department of Interior to consider the potential health and climate impacts of coal mining on public lands could finally give sovereign tribes a seat at the table.

Connie Wilbert, director of the Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter, said until now, federal agencies just paid lip service to concerns raised by tribes about impacts to drinking water, air quality and their way of life.

“This is a big step towards requiring much more serious consideration and full disclosure of all of the impacts that coal leasing on federal land will have on tribes,” Wilbert contended.

Coal industry groups warned the decision would put a question mark on future plans. The ruling reinstates a moratorium on federal coal leasing established under the Obama administration, a pause intended to give agencies time to investigate the cumulative impacts of coal mining. The moratorium has been opposed by industry groups and state officials concerned about possible lost jobs and tax revenues.

Wilbert argued getting off coal will be far less expensive than the financial and human costs brought on by more frequent and intense wildfires, floods and prolonged drought. She believes the way to help workers and communities dependent on the fossil-fuel industry is not to pretend climate change is not happening.

“It’s to find ways to change our economy, our economic activity in this state and other states, in ways that aren’t so harmful to us all,” Wilbert asserted.

Coal operators hold enough leases to continue mining through the next decade, but according to a 2021 analysis, 90% of coal must remain in the ground in order to avert the worst-case projections of leading scientists.

Wilbert emphasized recent court rulings, along with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in Congress to boost clean energy production, makes it obvious the age of coal is coming to an end.

“We have to stop using fossil fuels as an energy source as quickly as we can to avert the worst of climate change,” Wilbert stressed. “We don’t need to start 10 years from now, we need to start today.”

Ruling: https://bit.ly/3CbUmoa

2021 study: https://go.nature.com/3PsEOiK

The post Court Ruling Adds to Challenges Facing Coal Industry 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.

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.

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