40 Years Ago

Taken from the pages of the Dolores Star, Friday, July 27, 1973, Larry and Marilyn Pleasant, Editors

A Sunday fire destroyed a shed on the Norman Darland property two miles east of Milers Corner. The Dolores firemen were called but the shed was a total loss, including the contents, which belonged to Bill Oakes.

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From 200 to 300 visiting firemen are expected in Dolores next week for the 35th annual Tri-State Firemen Convention, with 14 departments from the Four Corners being represented.

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Puzzler Mines, Inc., has resumed core drilling in exploration of their Rico property. Mineralization was encountered at 26 feet and was said to be improving with depth. Water was not available at the site and was hauled in a tank truck from the river for drilling.

At several other locations, drilling was stopped by caving ground and the inability to penetrate massive bodies of iron pyrite.

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A workday will be held at the Rico Catholic Church this Sunday. General repairs include a new roof, new foundation on the rear of the building, work on the floors, etc. Lumber and cement have already been taken to the cite and much of the cement work was done Thursday. The work crews will be coming from all over the Four Corners area.

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A big fish was taken from Totten Lake at daybreak Wednesday, weighing 12 pounds and measuring 30 inches. The German brown trout was caught by Jim Costello.

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A construction training program is to be initiated at the San Juan Basin Area Vocational-Technical School. Officials have announced that applications for students and instructors are being taken for a training program to cover construction, carpentry, blueprint reading, concrete work, and to include a basic introduction to electrical and plumbing. Tuition for the nine-month program will be $227. A student is expected to furnish his own basic send of hand tools, plus transportation and housing.

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Lawrence Bruce Borde was dead on arrival at Southwest Memorial Hospital last Thursday after a logging accident in the Roaring Fork area.

His body was returned to Lake Orion, Michigan, for funeral services. Burde had apparently been working in the area for only a few days before the accident.

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The Dolores River in the west end of San Miguel County will be featured on an ABC television production of the American Sportsman Show. The film will be used as part of a show on rafting and kayaking. The production crew, based in Cortez, used four rafts and four kayaks. Most of the shooting was done from a helicopter.

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Plez Sez: First, the gasoline shortage, or is it? One thing for sure we can verify is that all those "out of gas" signs are not for real. One station in Denver we stopped in had such signs up so we said what the heck and went to use their sanitary facilities and then made a couple phone calls. Before we finished, they were sneaking some gas into the tank of a car which obviously belonged to one of their better customers..

Then in Lincoln Nebraska (we went thataway to miss the shortage that was acute in western parts of Kansas), we drove into a station busy pumping gasoline and in fact had found no shortage up that way. The operator took one look at our Colorado license plates and said, "I can give you only $3 worth." I told him he couldn't do such a thing legally, but what the heck go ahead and put in the three bucks worth and why argue. But how about that for discrimination. The Nebraska cars were getting all they could hold.

We paid for gasoline anywhere from about 43 cents down to 33 cents per gallon.

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The Dolores Shell service station was sold recently with Mr. and Mrs. Thurl Boyd taking over as owner and managers from Wayne Fredricksen. The station now has a mechanic on duty at all times, remaining open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Thus far, the new owners report, they have had no problems at all with the gas shortage and have run out of diesel fuel only occasionally with their suppliers saying they foresee no problems.