100 years ago: “Turning when within two feet of the engine, just in time to avoid a collision, John Perrung threw a very effective scare into the engine men on the Silverton train as it came into town. Perrung was driving his auto bread wagon down the hill on Main Avenue going north toward the railroad track and failed, evidently, to see the approaching train. Perrung made a sharp turn to avoid the train and missed the train by the breadth of a pretzel.”

75 years ago: “A heavy rain amounting almost to a cloudburst on the upper reaches of the Florida River was responsible for the muddy condition of Durango’s city water the past two days.”

50 years ago: “There is a picture of Jane Mahan in The Denver Post. She and another college student who is working at Yellowstone National Park, are shown at the view point of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The girls are employed at Canyon village.”

25 years ago: “Contaminated rock used to build Camino del Rio from Sixth to 14th Street is being dug up and put back into the road as part of the U.S. Highway 550 paving project. When Camino del Rio was built in the early ’60s uranium tailings from Smelter Mountain were used as material for the road bed. ... The U.S. Department of Energy identified 130 building sites in Durango as having uranium mill tailings, and most of those sites have been cleaned up as part of a federally mandated program. Some streets in Durango still have tailings buried underneath. ... It’s not actually tailings that are being dug up as part of the paving project but rock that was spread over the tailings. The tailings are found deeper in the roadbed and will not be disturbed.”

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