100 Years Ago Today: Murderer Ends His Life in Prison

Moffat County Courier, March 13, 1919 The tragedy of Celina Haberl reached its conclusion when her murderer, Richard H. Baugh, ended his own life by hanging himself in his jail cell in the Canon City State Penitentiary. Miss Haberl was just 21-years-old when Baugh shot her to death on June 7, 1918. She and her …

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100 Years Ago Today: Airedales Are Kings Among Dogs

Herald Democrat, March 12, 1919 Today, dogs perform dozens of specialized services for people, such as the work of Autism Assistance Dogs, Veteran Service Dogs, Brace/Mobility Support Dogs, Avalanche Rescue Dogs, Psychiatric Service Dog, and many more. But back in 1919, the idea that dogs could be trained to perform such highly skillful tasks, beyond …

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100 Years Ago Today: Women Vying for Fire Lookout Jobs

Fort Collins Courier, March 11, 1919 The first woman ever hired as a Fire Lookout by the U.S. Forest Service was Hallie Morse Daggett, who was the Lookout at Eddy's Gulch Lookout Station atop Klamath Peak in Klamath National Forest in Northern California, starting in 1913, when the Lookout log cabin seen below was first …

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100 Years Ago Today: When Skiing Meant Ski Jumping

Creede Candle, March 8, 1919 Before the advent of the Telemark turn or the Stem Christie turn, the Nordic-imported term, skiing, meant either ski jumping or cross country ski travel, rather than the shussing down steep slopes that we think of skiing today. The earliest ski areas in Colorado were all originally built for ski …

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100 Years Ago Today: Murder-Suicide at Tolland Station

Oak Creek Times, March 7, 1919 More tragedy on the old Moffat Road this week. On January 29th it was a boiler explosion on the hoodoo Engine No. 100 near Dixie Lake that killed two coworkers. Today it's a murder suicide at the Tolland railroad station of the Denver Northwest & Pacific that left two …

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100 Years Ago Today: Golden Buys Its First Fire Truck

Colorado Transcript, March 6, 1919 A better picture of Golden Fire Department's Engine No.1 from 1919Photo Courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Department In 1880, the Golden Fire Department rose from the proverbial ashes of three different, independent fire fighting companies: Excelsior Hose, Everett Hook and Ladder Company, and Loveland Hose Company. Coming together …

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100 Years Ago Today: Blizzards and Lizards

Montrose Daily Press, March 4, 1919 M. H. Loeffler was a tailor and prominent Grand Junction Elk member who was known not only for his custom suits, but also for promoting and selling the Hynes Level Measure, which was the first instrument of its kind that could measure the angle of a person's shoulders. Hynes …

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100 Years Ago Today: Syphilis, Gonorrhea, and VDs, Oh My!

Herald Democrat, February 26, 1919 Dr. Alice L. Goetz (née Littlejohn) was a lecturer on the subject of sexually transmitted infections, then known as venereal diseases, from the late 1910s into the 1920s. She joined the Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1920, which operated under the State Board of Health as a part of the …

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100 Years Ago Today: Rugged and Raw, Rocky Mountain National Park

San Juan Prospector, February 21, 1919 What a wild experience it must have been to explore Rocky Mountain National Park in 1919. The park was practically brand new, having been established on January 26, 1915 as the ninth National Park in the United States. The National Park Service was not established until August 25, 1916, …

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100 Years Ago Today: Magic Rope Wards Off Rattlesnakes

Herald Democrat, February 20, 1919 Two campers, who look like they rode a bike attached to boat, think this horsehair rope will protect them from rattlesnakes.Popular Mechanics Magazine, Jan 1919 Myth alert! It doesn't matter what kind of rope you put around your campsite, bedroll, naptime knoll, or burrow, if a rattlesnake is headed toward …

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