100 years ago: “Three hours and a half is good time from Pagosa to Durango but that is the pace the Pagosa autos are setting for Colorado-New Mexico Fair visitors. By Rio Grande you fool away the entire day, take changes on being shipwrecked and pay for your dinner as a bonus. And the dollar given the auto men remains in our midst.”
75 years ago: “Registration at Fort Lewis closed with at total enrollment of 126 students as against 97 for the first semester of the past academic year. The number of women students is 55 while the men students number 71.”
50 years ago: “Fort Lewis College’s student population of nearly a 1,000 turned out for an outdoor assembly and heard words of inspiration and praise from guest speakers which included Dave McGraw, member of the State Board of Agriculture and former chairman; and Mayor R.E. (Pat) O’Brien of Durango.”
25 years ago: “They don’t make elementary schools like they used to, at least not in Bayfield. The town’s new 39,141-square foot elementary school is a testament to modern design, with turquoise-colored staircases, carpeted floors, a gymnasium planned with acoustics in mind, a music room with a Yamaha synthesizer keyboard (in addition to the traditional upright piano) and a cafeteria that sports round fold-up tables instead of the long, lunchroom tables of yesteryear.”
Most items in this column are taken from Herald archives, Center of Southwest Studies and Animas Museum. Their accuracy may not have been verified.
