100 years ago: “Mrs. Margaret E. Dobbs has returned to Durango from Ogden, Utah where she went last fall expecting to locate. The climate there did not suit her so she returned here with the idea strengthened that there is no place like Durango.”

75 years ago: “Good news to people of this vicinity as well as the early tourists, is the fact that informal accommodations may now be obtained at Mesa Verde Park and visits to the cliff dwellings may be made, although the official opening date is not until May 15.”

50 years ago: “An art collection worth several million dollars has gathered dust, forgotten, in a Brooklyn warehouse for more than 20 years. Composed of reproductions of paintings by Renoir, Picasso, Van Gough and scores of other world renowned artists, the collection was gathered in 1937 by a voluntary national committee for art appreciation. Durango art students are now benefiting. ... Prints were distributed to Stanton Englehart, Fort Lewis College; Mary Lou Tipotsch, Durango High School; Alice Bay, Miller Junior High School; and Mrs. Don Schlitchting, Riverview school, for Durango students to enjoy.”

25 years ago: “Work resumed April 1 on the federal clean-up of Smelter Mountain, and some 97 people are employed this spring. Starting May 8 the crew will expand and work 12-hour days to finish digging up and moving low-level radioactive dirt and tailings to a containment cell in Bodo Canyon. Project officials say 1.6 million cubic yards of radioactive material have been removed and the remaining 700,000 cubic yards of tailings will be gone by the first part of September. The project began in November 1986. The tailings were the by-product of uranium milling at the dawn of the Atomic Age.”

Most items in this column are taken from Herald archives, Center of Southwest Studies and Animas Museum. Their accuracy may not be verified.