Fountain Valley News - Your Hometown Community Newspaper

Today let me look back to my job on the mountain for the inspiration for this column. In the old days a passenger train had several conductors. The one that was in the Pullman Sleeping Cars served onl...

I get this question often, but what is the right answer? Pike thought it was 18,000 feet tall. Well not really, but the measurements given over the years have gotten lower. So let us take some time...

Many of those who came to Colorado after the 1859 Gold Rush came for a very different reason. Even up into the 1930's and 40's many of the people arriving in the area around here were hoping to see...

I ended this column a few weeks ago, "I have read in the Colorado Springs papers of the time where tourists coming west from Limon found themselves halfway to Pueblo (near Fountain) before they...

I was recently talking to a waitress at one of my favorite dining spots about coffee cups. The cups used in restaurants and on trains are different from your average tea cup. The china services used...

I have done a few stories about the changes to Colorado with the use of automobiles. There have been tales about how the roads changed, along with the advent of driving rules, but today I want to...

As you turn on that radio you may not think about how long radios have been listened to by the public. In the early 1920's radio stations were rare, and many had private receivers where they could lis...

Now what was that? As I read an old Cripple Creek newspaper, the headline really caught my attention. George Brewer, alias George Brown, about 70 years old, said at the time of the Civil War to have...

As we are almost Mid Summer and still are getting snow on Pikes Peak I thought this April, 1927 story of opening the railroad up Pikes Peak would be interesting. I started working on the railway just...

As we are almost Mid Summer and still are getting snow on Pikes Peak I thought this April, 1927 story of opening the railroad up Pikes Peak would be interesting. I started working on the railway just...

We think nothing of jumping in the car, starting up and driving away. Some of you have no idea how to drive a car with a stick shift. A hundred years ago is my typical time of this column, so how...

Now this could be an interesting story in many ways, but, it is actually a story of a change in times. A hundred years ago there were many more independent newspapers to be found. As a train traveled...

I have done several stories over the years, including how Peterson Field got going, but to me this one was a real surprise. Did you know there once was a Manitou Airport? As I have looked into our...

I mentioned last week about the change in the highway from Colorado Springs to Pueblo. Today I want to go deeper into the story. It was January, 1928 while the highway department was looking to build...

When we travel around, we see new work on the roads quite often, but how often do we think about where our roads have been changed? For example north of Colorado Springs the Interstate is now being...

Chief Ouray was almost the most well known chiefs of the Uncompahgre Utes at the start of the 20th century. When Ouray was striving to settle some of the Ute tribe's difficulties, Chipeta, his wife...

I mentioned a few of our crops last week, but I have long known that potatoes were a big crop up in the upper Ute Pass area in the 1920s into the 1940s. This story goes back to that area in the 1890s...

Here we are, maybe we can plant gardens now, but then again maybe it will snow again! When it comes to gardens, it seems fewer and fewer family gardens are seen in our yards. You might be surprised...

We do not often think that our major product might be wood. The first building material for Denver was from the Pike's Peak Region's forests. Not only that but it came from Black Forest. Early rancher...

I was recently reminded of this story and thought I would repeat it for you. One of the most exhilarating sports known in the west a hundred years ago was hunting Jack Rabbits! Such was the tale told...

It being Springtime, and a bit of rain has been in the area, I thought I would talk a bit about conditions that were fairly common a hundred years ago. This is one of those that bothered many a wife,...

I recently found a farming story that was not really new to me. I knew that potatoes were a big crop up in the upper Ute Pass area in the 1920s and 1930s. This story goes back to that area in the...