As Durango and America entered the 1930s, hard times had arrived in some places and were just over the horizon for the whole country. An editorial in the Durango Herald Democrat (Oct. 31, 1930) warned its readers that the “economists and business men have come to the almost unanimous opinion that what was depressing business today is a buyers’ strike in which the element of panic shows itself.”

The solution seemed simple to the editor: join a “buy campaign,” which were already being organized in cities. “If all harbor a desire to buy something, which they can afford to buy,” store counters “would be emptied, and factories would resume operation. Extravagance may be partly responsible for the depression, but frugality has greatly aggravated it.”

A further encouraging opinion came from M. E. Berkhimer who had just arrived to manage the Fox-Kiva and Fox Gem theatres. He said he was surprised to find so lively a city as Durango (Nov. 13 paper). “This section is as good today as most sections of the state are when business is considered good.” The city, he pronounced, “presents a picture of thrift rather than one of business depression.”

The optimism was not just in town. The newspaper, of the 13th, boldly proclaimed that the “great wealth of the San Juan Empire set it apart from the rest of the state.” The article further proclaimed that Durango is the center of a basin “richer in natural resources than any other area of the same size in the world. It would “become the industrial Center of the West.”

Hope – always hope – apparently seemed the best way to ward off the hard times. To paraphrase Ben Franklin – those who live on hope, often die starving.

What lay ahead for Durangoans, and many other Americans, would not be the American dream of prosperity and good times. Those Durangoans of the era, however, would never forget the decade.

Duane Smith is a Fort Lewis College history professor. Reach him at 247-2589.