I remember going to Denver with my family during the early 1950′s before the road was a freeway. We went thru the center of every little town between Pueblo and Denver and then into the heart of Denver where the Museum of Natural History was located. I would be surprised if we averaged more than 40 miles an hour.
In January, 1961 Miller, McNair, Perko and I drove to Boulder in a ground blizzard and still averaged 65 or 70 miles an hour. As I remember the toll road from Denver to Boulder was open and cost a quarter or fifty cents. During spring break in 1963 Perko, Miller and I drove from Pueblo to New Mexico, Arizona and then to San Francisco, California where we spent most of a week. On the way there we spent a night in Las Vegas and another night in Reno on the way back. Without the Interstate Highway system we would probably have spent a week getting there.
Robet Pardun
January 29, 2011 at 6:08 pm |
Before I-25 was completed through Pueblo, my father told me the two-lane highway was called the “ribbon of death” because of the fatality rate. As I understand it, the stretch of I-25 through Pueblo is still one of the most dangerous segments of highway in Colorado.
While he was attending CU, my father was employed as part of the crew that built the Boulder-Denver Turnpike, showing the gravel trucks where to dump their loads. I remember driving on the turnpike after it was completed and stopping at the toll booths under the overpass at Broomfield. After the Turnpike was paid off, the toll booths were removed. Now, probably close to 100% of the students currently attending CU and driving back and forth between Denver don’t know it was once a toll road.
Speaking of an unrelated antiquarian concern, the other day I went out to buy a clothespin bag for my solar dryer (AKA “clothesline”). None were to be found. At Target, the 45+/- year old sales staffperson didn’t know what a clothespin bag was. I thought some of you on this list might find this amusing, as I did.
Jay Jurie
January 30, 2011 at 5:38 pm |
The toll on the turnpike was a quarter if you were going to Boulder, 15 cents for Broomfield. Now Broomfield has grown so much it is a county.
The spring break trip Pardun mentioned was the highlight of my life up until then. Sometime I will write about some of the things that happened. Jay, I’m glad to hear that we aren’t the only people who use a clothesline, although mostly for sheets. We violate the covenants by hanging clothes but no one seems to care. I have noticed that the clothespins are shrinking in size, and are made, naturally, in China. I bet with a lot of products sold here, the Chinese who manufacture them don’t have a clue what the hell they are.
January 30, 2011 at 11:13 pm |
Jay,the “Ribbon of Death” referred to the two-lane, concrete Highway 85-87, especially from Pueblo to Denver. I know Lake Avenue was the highway on the south side of Pueblo, but I’m not sure how it went north out of town. It seems unlikely to me that many people were killed within the city limits of Pueblo before the freeway opened in 1959.
As Robert correctly points out, 85-87 went through many towns, probably including Fountain, Palmer Lake, Greenland and Castle Rock before dividing into two separate highways 85 and 87 in or near Denver. My guess is that 85 was the current Santa Fe in Denver and 87 was Colorado Boulevard.
I remember stopping for gas in Castle Rock in snowy weather on our way to a doctor’s appointment in Denver for my brother. I think we were in the 1941 Oldsmobile coupe. Another time we ran into a sandstorm that pitted the windshield, probably of a 1951 Henry J.
Pueblo is a good place to dry clothes on a line because of the aridity. Most of us will remember “freeze drying” when wet clothes were hung out over night, froze and gradually becamwe soft in still freezing weather. I’d forgotten clothesping bags until you mentioned it, Jay. Shirt pockets work pretty well.