COVID Updates
Everyone 16 OR OLDER is eligible to get the vaccine.
Appointments to Get the COVID Vaccine
State of Colorado’s Find Out Where You Can Get Vaccinated page | Lutheran Medical Center | JCPH Clinic in Arvada (70+ only) | www.vaccinespotter.org/CO/
Jefferson County Public Health’s COVID-19 Vaccine Call Center: 303-239-7000 | State Hotline to answer questions, including location of vaccine providers: 1-877-268-2926. It is staffed 24 hours a day
Golden Testing Sites
Mines COVID Testing | Jeffco Fairgrounds COVID Testing
Jefferson County Case Summary:
Cases in Jeffco – Fri: 43,934 | Mon: 44,491 (+557)
Deaths in Jeffco – Fri: 792 | Mon: 794 (+2)
Currently Hospitalized in Jeffco – Fri: 41 | Mon: 48 (+7)
Recovered – Fri: 41,404 | Mon: 41,815 (+411)
Known Cases in Golden – Thurs: 1832 | Thurs: 1870 (+38)
More Public Health References
School of Mines COVID-19 case page. | Sign up for exposure notifications | CDC | Colorado | Jefferson County | City of Golden
Virtual Events
8-9AM Coffee Connections with the Chamber
8:45AM Silver Sneakers Classic
9-11:30AM Accelerate Your Career – Resume Concepts: How to Get an Interview
10:15AM Toddler Time with the Library
1:30PM Mental Wellness in the Times of COVID and Beyond
6-7PM Recursos Digitales
6:30PM City Council
City Council will discuss and presumably approve the purchase of more property in Goosetown. This time, it’s a house at 230 Depot Street, which has a purchase price off $545,000. In May, they plan to consider another house for purchase–this one at 1020 Archer Street. The current long-time City Attorney is retiring. See the meeting packet for more information…. After the business meeting, they will go into executive session (no public, no cameras) to interview candidates for the position of City Attorney.
Real Life Events
Tuesdays at the Buffalo Rose:
Prime rib dinner for $25.
Dogs are welcome to sit on the patio on Tuesday nights.
79 cent Coors Banquet or Coors Light for Golden locals, students, and service industry workers.
This Week, Monday-Friday
If you’re on the City’s trash collection program, be aware that they’ll be doing yard waste collection this week, on your regular trash day. Learn more….
Golden History Moment
Colorado’s history community is atwitter. Last week, History Colorado posted two ledgers listing the Colorado members of the Ku Klux Klan. As you probably know, the Klan experienced a surge of nationwide popularity in the mid-1920s. They flamed out almost as fast as they rose in power under the weight of their own corruption. Many of their leaders spent time in jail for embezzlement.
Since membership in the Klan was a closely guarded secret, people have been speculating for the past century who was and who was not a member. The ledgers that History Colorado has now digitized and posted provides those long-sought answers.
This is of particular interest to Golden, because the Klan held rallies on Castle Rock, right above our town. Golden’s reputation has long been tarnished through that association. I’ve always wondered if Golden hasn’t borne more than its share of blame…after all, the newspaper articles of the time describe the long train of cars coming along “the cement highway” (Colfax) from Denver to reach South Table Mountain.
However, I have assumed that Golden had a fair number of Klansmen. I was looking forward to seeing the Klan ledgers.
To my surprise, I’ve only found 15 names that listed Golden as either their personal or business address…that’s out of nearly 30,000 members in the state. Several of those were rural addresses, at some distance from Golden itself. The rural entries were on Lookout Mountain or in the Wide Acres area (near Colorado Mills Mall).
I didn’t recognize most of the names, nor could I find anything about them in newspaper searches, but here’s what I have discovered:
The Ledgers say that Harry Brouse worked at the Industrial School, but I couldn’t find references to him–he wasn’t the superintendent, and I don’t think he was a teacher.
Dr. L. C. Cook lived and practiced in Golden for a few years, then moved away.
Chas C Welch was the son of town founder Charles Welch. The son married a Denver girl and kept a law office in Denver, lived in the Welchester area, and doesn’t seem to have been involved in the Golden community.
O Looper lists Lookout Mountain as his home address and “Johny Baker” as his business address. Johnny Baker was Buffalo Bill’s foster son. He spent his life–after Bill’s death in 1917–collecting the artifacts to build the museum and running a curio shop near the grave. So O. Looper was probably working at the nascent Buffalo Bill museum.
C F Quaintance operated the funicular railway to Castle Rock. He had two brothers who were lawyers in Denver (one a Klan member, one not), but Charles was “a businessman.” After graduating from Golden High School, he opened a photography business on Washington Avenue. Then he built and operated the funicular for a few years, until it went bankrupt. He did some sales work for Coors. He did quite a bit of land speculation in the Golden area. After his death in 1940, much of his property was sold at a sheriff’s sale. He never married and left no descendants. The current owners of Castle Rock descend from the non-Klan member brother–a Denver attorney.
Charles Quaintance may have had the idea–or given the permission–for the Klan meetings on Castle Rock. In either case, it was the single worst public relations event Golden has ever experienced.
Walter F. Johnson was the Sheriff of Jefferson County. He was first elected in 1925 and served three terms. I haven’t done a detailed study of him, but most newspaper articles involve him arresting bootleggers.
So–after nearly a century–the long-held secret identities of Golden’s Klan members are revealed.
