50 YEARS AGO
December 31, 1970 – Many adults saw for the first time Monday night what the young people of Ouray County have achieved in building and maintaining their Youth Center at Ouray. The center held its annual open house Monday night, with an open invitation to the public to attend, besides special invitations to city officials and business people in the community. A good cross-section of the Ouray community attended, though light attendance was disappointing to the young hosts. The ...
50 YEARS AGO
December 31, 1970 – Many adults saw for the first time Monday night what the young people of Ouray County have achieved in building and maintaining their Youth Center at Ouray. The center held its annual open house Monday night, with an open invitation to the public to attend, besides special invitations to city officials and business people in the community. A good cross-section of the Ouray community attended, though light attendance was disappointing to the young hosts. The young people and their adult sponsors can be very proud of the continuity and purpose of the Center which was much cussed and discussed in its beginnings two years ago.
40 YEARS AGO
January 1, 1981- The Sunset Service Station in Ridgway was broken into for the second time in two weeks, sometime during the night of Dec. 28 or the morning of Dec. 29. According to Ouray County Sheriff Deputy Dave Hammon, entry was gained by prying open the front door of the station office. An undetermined amount of money was taken. There was a rash of break-ins and attempted break-ins in Ouray Sunday, Dec. 28. According to Ouray County Deputy Sheriff Jerry Wakefield, Rice Lumber Co. was broken into with a wrecking bar that had been left on the porch of the building. Someone also attempted to break into the Outlaw that same night. The door to the Timber Ridge Service Station was damaged the same night. Deputy Wakefield said that it is believed that the wrecking bar used in the lumberyard burglary was used on the door to the Timber Ridge.
30 YEARS AGO
January 3, 1991 – Three dog nights and dry, cold days dominated the area during the month of December. According to Ed Thompson, Ouray’s official weatherman, last month was the driest December in the last 10 years, with only one-half of the normal snowfall. In thirty-nine years of record-keeping, this December goes down in history as the coldest. The cold front which gripped the nation over Christmas week enveloped Ouray in below zero temperatures, with two days recording a teeth-chattering 17 degrees below zero and 19 degrees below zero. According to Thompson, average daily temperatures were 6 degrees colder than typical. No record lows have been reported this year on Red Mountain, where temperatures zo degrees below zero are not considered unusual. Chris George, U.S. weather recorder for Red Mountain, remembers November 1977 when it “didn’t get warmer than 29 below for a whole week”
20 YEARS AGO
January 5, 2001 – After 4-year-old Malori Trujillo slammed into a bench at the bottom of the Lee’s Ski Hill two weeks ago, her mother decided that she would no longer bring her child sledding on that hill. “She will definitely never sled there again,” said Lori Trujillo, whose daughter fractured her nasal and left orbital bone in the accident. “I personally don’t understand why they had to close Vinegar Hill.” The City of Ouray, meanwhile, is continuing its efforts to make sledding work at the Ski Hill. “Everyone is disappointed that sledding on Vinegar Hill is going away,” said Lee Merkel, city administrator. “But we are trying to figure out the best way to separate the two uses on the slope at Lee’s Hill for everyone’s enjoyment. It’s going to take the cooperation and courtesy by all users.” “It’s not even going to be worth it [sledding or skiing on the Lee’s hill],” said 12-year-old Tom Fedel. “There isn’t room to do anything.” In November, R.W. Eberhardt told the Ouray City Council that dosing a half-block of Fifth Street in the area of Vinegar Hill blocked the access to his home. The council responded by reopening the streets to traffic, thereby dosing the hill to sledders.
10 YEARS AGO
December 31, 2010 – Local Colorado Department of Transportation worker Mike Erdle got an early Christmas present last week the gift of life. A potentially lethal air blast generated by a bomb-triggered avalanche at the East Riverside Slide picked him up and blew him 100 feet down the highway while he and his crew mates were conducting avalanche mitigation in the area on Christmas Eve. But miraculously, Erdle escaped with nothing worse than a thick powdering of snow and a sense of wonderment about it all. “When it hit me, I felt it knock me down, and then it all went white,” said Erdle, who is only in his second winter season as a CDOT worker. “I hit the pickup — that hurt — and after that I remember I was thinking, wondering, what I would hit next? Once I finally quite sliding, I tried to stand up. But the wind was blowing so hard, I couldn’t” “He looked like Frosty the Snowman,” senior foreman Greg Stacy joked.