Showing 'colour' in Fox Run Regional Park

"The phrase and the day and the scene harmonized in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose?”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Aspen Gold Rush: Colorado Quakies showing great color recently

Rob Carrigan,  rcarrigan61@msn.com

Local leaf peepers experienced some of the best shows — so far to date— this past week in Teller County, but it is still possible, the best is yet to come.
Color changes in Colorado’s Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) start first in the higher altitudes of subalpine zones, between 9,000 and 11,000 feet, usually in early September, and drop progressively to 8,000 to 9,500 feet in three to four weeks.
Variations in temperature, moisture and light cause the chemical changes to begin. Diminished light and fall temperatures trigger the breakdown of chlorophyll.
As green colors fade, yellow, orange and red pigments — carotenoids and xanthophylls — are left and become more obvious.
Cool, dry weather promotes the longest and best color show and wet weather, especially snow, usually shortens the viewing period.

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Varying degrees of verbosity

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Running a newspaper 120 years ago was the kind of business that required varying degrees of verbosity -- depending mostly on how much advertisement the paper was able to sell.

And it was true also, that even the ads could become long-winded.

Consider the following item appearing in the Pikes Peak Journal of Feb. 16. 1895.

 ‘There is one department of industry, which, by the general admission of those engaged in it, is exempt from the stagnation which so largely prevails. Indeed it is in a remarkably flourishing state, and the men and women employed at it are kept busy from morning to night. It is that which deals with the supply of artificial sinews and muscles in order to give to limbs the plumpness and symmetry which nature has denied. The great demand at the present time is for well shaped calves for the legs, and for some time the purveyors of the embellishments could not make out why so many of them were wanted, because the requirements of the ladies of the ballet and burlesque actresses are pretty much the same all the year around, and there was nothing going on to occasion an unusual request for the articles.          

 “But they have now found out the reason. They are required by lady cyclists who wear knickerbockers, and who, naturally enough, desire to exhibit to mankind the limbs which are not covered by these bulky garments in as shapely and attractive a form as possible. The stuffing required for the purpose must be of the best kind, and it is also necessary that the mold should be well fitting; otherwise the lady cyclist would become a kind of scarecrow on wheels instead of a thing of beauty. The articles, therefore, cost more than the ordinary calves, and it may accordingly be said that the latest fashion among women not only encourages cycle making, but also aids the artistic upholstery of the human figure in the highest form.”

Similarly, the Auburn Daily Advertiser of New York in 1895,  noted an important Anniversary.

“This edition de luxe of the Advertiser is to commemorate the anniversary of its birth,” read the text.

“Fifty years of steady, upward growth in a newspaper plant is the certainly not the common lot of the craft embarked with us on the journalistic sea, but the Advertiser feels just as young as it used to be and indulges the hope of blossoming as a century plant fifty years hence in the new Auburn.”

It continues.

“Fifty years old! But stay gentle reader, it is not our purpose to inflict an endless array of dry historical data upon you, detailing each year’s achievements of the oldest and best newspaper in Central New York.”

But then, it goes on for several, large-format, newspaper pages doing just that.

But requirements for space varied wildly. A week later than the first reference in the local Pikes Peak Journal of 1895, the following entry was more straight-forward and to-the-point.

 “Ralph Aldrich, one of the carrier boys for the Journal was attacked Monday night on Ruxton Avenue by a pointer dog belonging to Henry Mueller, and badly bitten in the shoulder and side. The boy is the son Alderman Aldrich, and was delivering papers when attacked. Mr. Mueller took the boy to Dr. Oglibee, who dressed the wounds. The dog was shot.”

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Teller Guide wins first for both Advertising, Editorial special section at CPA

The Pikes Peak Courier's 2014 Teller County and Ute Pass Community Guide won first place in both Best Advertising Special Section and Best Editorial Special Section in the Colorado Press Association's annual Better Newspaper Contest. Winners were announced last night at the 137th Colorado Press Association Convention at Westin Hotel in Downtown Denver.
"Great cover design. The layout with use of photos, stories, and ad placement are really top of the line. Great consistency throughout. Definitely a section to be proud of," according to comments by the judges.
The Courier competes in the Class 3 weekly newspaper division. The annual Teller County and Ute Pass Community Guide publishes every year at the end of February and this year's edition publishes this week in the Courier.

Hanging flume photos

Water flowing in the hanging flume, early summer 1891.

Walking bridge across the Dolores River made from salvaged materials from the hanging flume.

Wooden trestle flume on a side canyon with man pointing on top.

The many faces of Hesperus

In Colorado:

Title: Rio Grande Southern Railroad depot at Hesperus (Colo.)
Date/circa: 1949
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)
Notes: Mile Post 145.51. "The coach on the left is the replacement depot as the Hesperus depot. The rest of the buildings are section house, bunk houses, tool sheds, and the water tower." [Source of quote: Robert Herrone, email 3/27/07.]
Photoprint#: P026161
Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College



In British U-Boats:

In English Locomotives:

In Simon Newcomb Science Fiction about 1900:

In 19th Century poetry:

The Wreck of the Hesperus

IT was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,	5
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,	10
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.
Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
‘I pray thee, put into yonder port,	15
For I fear a hurricane.
‘Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!’
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.	20
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain	25
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable’s length.
‘Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,
And do not tremble so;	30
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow.’
He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,	35
And bound her to the mast.
‘O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘’Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!’—
And he steered for the open sea.	40
‘O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!’
‘O father. I see a gleaming light,	45
Oh say, what may it be?’
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,	50
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,	55
On the Lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.	60
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,	65
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,	70
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,	75
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.	80
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,	85
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!
___ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

In Greek Mythology as imagined by an Italian artist:

McPhee and Colorado

Montezuma Lumber Co. narrow gauge locomotive, engine number 271, engine type 2-8-0
Creator(s) Perry, Otto, 1894-1970.
Summary: Three-quarter view of left side of engine, from front end. Photographed: McPhee, Colo., June 18, 1942.
Date 1942
Notes: Title from catalog prepared by Western History Department, Denver Public Library.; R7000132572
Physical Description 1 photonegative ; 9 x 14 cm.; 1 photoprint : silver gelatin, b&w ; 9 x 14 cm.
Is Part Of Otto C. Perry memorial collection of railroad photographs.
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

McPhee-McGinnity employees
Summary: Employees of the McPhee-McGinnity Manufacturing Company pose on horse-drawn wagons near the company's warehouse at 23rd (Twenty-third) and Blake Streets in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. Lettering on the one-story corrugated metal building reads: "Paint Warehouse McPhee and McGinnity Company."
Date [between 1880 and 1900?]
Notes Formerly F14424.; Title supplied.; R7100244639
Physical Description 1 photoprint ; 13 x 18 cm. (5 x 7 in.)
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

McPhee Bldg., Denver
Other title: McPhee Building, Denver. L. C. McClure collection 1890-1935, album I, 128
Creator(s) McClure, Louis Charles, 1867-1957.
Summary: Exterior view of McPhee Building, 17th (Seventeenth) and Glenarm, Denver, Colorado; constructed in 1890 and demolished in 1975 for highrise building; J. George Leyner Engineering Company (1707 Glenarm Place) manufacturers of air compressors and rock drills located on first floor; horse-drawn carriages, bicycles and early automobile parked at curb.
Date [between 1906 and 1912]
Notes:Copy negative made from vintage photographic print.; Title and signature hand-lettered on glass plate.; R7000708276
Physical Description 1 copy photonegative ; 9 x 11 cm. (3 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.); 1 photonegative : glass ; 21 x 26 cm. (8 x 10 in.); 1 photoprint ; 19 x 24 cm. (7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.)
Is Part Of L. C. McClure collection 1890-1935.
L. C. McClure collection 1890-1935, album I.
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

McPhee residence
Creator(s) Rocky Mountain Photo Company.
Summary: View of the McPhee home at 637 East 8th (Eighth) Avenue and Washington Street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver, Colorado; features quoins, a portico, classical entablature, covered porches, and a detached garage.
Date [between 1910 and 1920?]
Notes Formerly F16075 and RMP4444.; Inked on negative sleeve: "Phipps, Lawrence Cowle" [sic].; Title penciled on back of photoprint.; R7100267865
Physical Description 1 photonegative : nitrate ; 20 x 25 cm. ( 8 x 10 in.); 1 photoprint ; 20 x 25 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.