Dolores 80 years ago

Taken from the Friday, Jan. 18, 1938, Dolores Star

Plans for the president's ball, to be given this year in Mancos, are well under way, so Mrs. Grace Speck, county chairman of the movement, reports. The dance tickets will be on sale all over the county within a very short time.

On the first of January, the Rio Grande Southern railway company severed all connections with the D & RGW, and at that time moved their terminal from the Durango depot to a point on their track on the Harry Grace place a short distance up Lightner Creek. There was already a bus house located there, and since it was known they were to move, a large construction program has been carried on. New building to date included a 2-stall engine house and tracks into it; the remodeling of a car into a comfortable office; a freight house and a freight house track. They have also laid a "Y" for turning, and put down a storage track capable of accommodating approximately 30 cars. A well has been dug, and a steam pumping system installed which eliminates the necessity of a stand pump for filling engines. In the future, all Southern line freight will be handled from this terminal.

The Star has just received a copy of a publication called the Kiva Krier, published by CCC camp NP-6-C, and edited by Platt Cline. The sheet is filled with interesting items about camp activities on Mesa Verde.

Richard Odenbaugh, of Dolores, who is a member of the crack recruit company, 34-33, at the U.S. naval training station here, will have his picture in more than 1,000 newspapers in the far corners of the world. In a novel news picture, the crack company of 120 bluejackets was filmed with the largest calendar in the world, 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, which they devised to call spectacular attention to the fact that 1935 is "exposition year" in San Diego, with the opening on May 29 of the California Pacific international exposition.

A big general snow storm, just what the folks of southwest Colorado have been hoping, and some of them praying, for arrived last week and continued until Wednesday of this week, so that there is no doubt as to an adequate supply of moisture for next season. The snow in the hills is from three to five feet deep and it is well loaded with moisture. Railroad men say it is the heaviest snow they have ever had to buck. On Lizard Head pass the snow is three to four feet deep and in the La Platas more than five feet deep. As one man remarked this week, folks can now find something else than the drought to worry about, for the great dry spell is at an end, temporarily at least.

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Giorgetta, Mrs. Maria Giorgetta and O. L. Pritchett left Sunday for Phoenix, Arizona where Mr. Giorgetta and his mother will remain for some time for the benefit of Mr. Giorgett's health. Mrs. Giorgetta and Mr. Pritchett are expected back home Sunday.

Miss Margie Hutchins, student in the Dolores High School, left last Friday morning for Pueblo, where she will finish the school year. She has been making her home with Mr. and Mrs. R. K. Tucker.