Gunnison County Past

145 years ago

From the May 14, 1881, edition of the Gunnison News 

• “People daily flock into town on foot, with burros, and in every conceivable way. Business grows more and more active as the population increases. There are fully a thousand people now in the two camps [at the Ruby Mine], and the number is constantly increasing.” 
• “The News behaves in two things, viz: that two and two make four, and that the Gunnison country is to-day the richest mineral field in the world. The News is not more certain of one fact than it is of the other.” 
• “A meeting of the Gunnison Fire company No. 1, will be held at the Gunnison hall (Riley’s) next Tuesday evening, at half past seven. Important business will be transacted and every citizen is urgently requested to be present.”
• “Though the spring is a month earlier this year than the last there can’t be any prospecting until June. The snow in the mountains is too deep for any successful work in that direction.” 
• “Miss Eva Fisher has been declared (by ballot at the M.E. Church fair) to be the “handsomest young lady in town”.”

125 years ago

From the May 11, 1900, edition of the Gunnison Tribune

• “Gunnison has been nursed very pleasantly for the past week. Freshets may be expected soon.” Freshets are a rapid rise in river levels often due to heavy rain fall, or in Gunnison’s case, rapid snow melt. 
• “The local baseball team has signified its willingness to meet the Lake City boys on the diamond either at that place or here.” 
• “The Denver ministerial association has petitioned the governor to parole Packer, the cannibal. These well-meaning gentlemen are doubtless stepping beyond the bounds of propriety in seeking to release a red-handed murderer on the plea that he has already suffered enough.” Alfred Packer was known as the “Colorado Cannibal.”

100 years ago

From a May 1926, edition of the Top O' The World - WCU, The Pitkin Miner 

• “Work will start very shortly on the new $61,000 toll line that the Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph company is to build between Montrose and Gunnison. The line will likely be completed towards the end of summer. There is at present no telephone communication between Iola and Montrose, except by way of Salida, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction. This has left a large part of Gunnison county without service, in addition to causing a great deal of trouble thru calls to the west.” 
• “May 15 - Gunnison’s sky line drive, reaching to the top of College Heights and commanding a magnificent view of the Gunnison valley, will be put in first class shape and extended for 500 yards next Tuesday by the public spirited Gunnisonites.” 
• “Nearly two hundred loyal students of Western turned out in force yesterday and made the three-mile trip across the Tomichi valley and up the precipitous sides of Mount Tenderfoot, in order that they might give the world’s largest college insignia a new coat of paint and make necessary changes in the formation of the huge “W.” Also these men and women were keeping alive one of Western’s most precious traditions.”