100 years ago: W. Miner arrived in Durango from his sheep camp to attend a funeral “of a roll of coin he was packing along, the obsequies being in supplies and provisions.”
75 years ago: Scrap and junk were in high demand for the war effort. Defense councils and salvage committees throughout the western Rocky Mountains opened the final salvage program for the national scrap harvest to collect “junk from farms.”
50 years ago: Mrs. Herman Booth and her daughter Glenda opened a new business, Sunshine Ceramics, in Durango, and offered to give free pottery lessons for a short time before asking the community for money.
25 years ago: Bears were active in the area earlier than the usual late-August hibernation-foraging spree, with reports of bear-human encounters statewide. One of the reports described an attack in Trinidad on camper John Garcia, who woke up during the night to a black bear ripping into his tent. The bear dragged him from the tent by his arm, and he punched it in the head trying to get away, which caused the bear to toss him “at least 20 or 25 feet in the air.” His screams eventually deterred the bear from continuing its attack, and he was treated for deep puncture wounds in hospital.
Most items in this column are taken from The Durango Herald archives, Center of Southwest Studies and Animas Museum. Their accuracy may not be verified.
