Vol 4 No 45 - June 5, 2008
Features

Those amazing Hales 

Their influence on Gilpin history

Linda Jones - Colorado has honored the Hales by naming several things for them: a mountain peak, a Denver street and an Army WW II ski training camp. Between them the father and son gathered honor after honor. Among other distinctions, a Hale was the first president of CU, a war hero, a Denver tramway system builder and an opera house builder. Their contributions continue to enrich our state.

  Horace Hale, the father, came to the Territory of Colorado, and its low humidity, for his health. (He also had a bit of “gold fever” in his blood, perhaps inherited from his father who had spent two years in California prospecting and mining.) After admission to the Michigan bar, Horace was forced to delay starting a law practice because of his chronic bronchitis. When his brother Albert visited from the new gold fields in the Rockies and suggested the healthful climate here, Horace returned with him to Central City, arriving in October of 1863. He began working in Henry Teller’s law office, which is now located across from the opera house, but he thought outdoor work would help his respiratory problems more so he began working in mining and freighting.
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Who brought Gilpin water?

Forrest Whitman - The snow is melting and it's a great spring runoff!  All the gloomy last fall predictions made by climatologists may not come true. We went into December with snow coverage in the Lake Powell Basin at 70% below average. Today the Powell level is coming back up. Last fall severe drought did cover the west. Now in Gilpin things look good. As I write, snow melt is above average all across Colorado. At the water meetings in Gunnison two weeks ago it was announced that the South Platte main gage at Kersey will register 260 thousand acre feet. A 30 year average for that site is 102! Water in our streams, water in our wells, water in our storage tanks: it's a welcome gift. As we use that gift we could remember our Colorado history. “The Silver Fox of the Rockies”, Delphus Carpenter, spent a lifetime reminding us that no water division in the state is really separate from any other one. The water we shower with in Gilpin is part of a system affecting all seven Water Divisions as well as our own basin, The South Platte. While we do have trouble meeting our interstate water claims right here in our own basin, Carpenter is responsible for many of the decisions that supply us with what we enjoy.
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Sex and the City in the Country

The things we do for love

Drew Schlussel - This past weekend, along with just a handful of other men and what seemed like every woman over 29, I went to see “Sex and the City” with my wife. We had some dinner in Boulder and then caught the show at the Cinemark theater. As my friend Kirk puts it, I took one for “the team.”

  What may have been even funnier (or sadder) than the movie were the previews. Its felt like every chick-flick coming out in the next six to twelve months had a preview showing before the main attraction. There was a preview for “He’s Just Not That Into You,” “The Accidental Husband,” “Mama Mia,” and “Brideshead Revisited.” By the time the actual movie started I felt like I’d be run through the chipper and spit out, only to have two more hours of chick flix action coming at me head on like a freight train. The only thing that would have made it any worse would have been sitting through a few dozen commercials for feminine hygiene products! Where were the previews for “Indiana Jones”? “The Incredible Hulk”? “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”!?
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Why do you run? To keep up with grandma! 

A personal perspective on the Bolder Boulder

Linda Jones - “The Bolder Boulder is a 6.2 mile carnival” someone once said, but it’s even more – a crazy community circus brimming with Pass It On kindness meets Family Fitness. Our family long ago rejected the traditional family barbecue on the deck for the togetherness of getting up before dawn and spending the morning on our feet. Maybe it sounds crazy, but the shared fun and feeling of accomplishment trumps any succulent rib-eye.

  The camaraderie in three generations sharing together the wild costumes, weird lawn acts and favorite bands is a lifetime memory. We ran. We walked. We laughed. “See the slip-n-slide. Check out those freebies on the left! Look at the banana costumes! Great band!”

  My friend Sue and I first began run/walking the Bolder Boulder in 1996.
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