Eye Candy/COVID Stats/Golden Events/Golden History
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Many thanks to the people who sponsored this email for the month of April!
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 – Weds: 44,804 | Thurs: 45,004 (+200)
Deaths in Jeffco – Weds: 794 | Thurs: 797 (+3)
Currently Hospitalized in Jeffco – Tues: 41 | Thurs: 38 (-3)
Recovered – Tues: 42,211 | Thurs: 42,387 (+176)
Known Cases in Golden – Mon: 1870 | Thurs: 1908 (+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
6-6:55AM Virtual HIIT
8:30-9:30AM Virtual Power Training
10:30-11:15AM Play and Learn with the Library
10:30-11AM Mental Fitness Fridays
10:30-11:30AM Pet Show and Tell: Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary
11:40AM All Levels Yoga Virtual
4-5PM Friday Crafternoons – Kool-Aid Puffy Paint
4-5PM Día con Canciones e Historias/Día with Songs and Stories
7-9PM Beauty and the Beast @ Golden High School
According to the High School’s home page, “Tickets for the livestream will go on sale no sooner than two hours before the event.”
Real Life Events
3PM Vaccine, License & Microchip Clinic @ Foothills Animal Shelter
2021 TASTE OF GOLDEN
We recognize that 2020 was an extremely difficult year for the retail food and beverage industry. With that in mind and with recovery in progress, Taste of Golden 2021 will encourage foodies to visit participating establishments for fun and trivia for 10 days! Free of charge, participants will enjoy app-based challenges to earn points for prizes. More information and to register
1 Year Anniversary / Grand Opening (finally) Celebration!
Barrels and Bottles Brewery at Camp George West
- Special Anniversary Beer Release on tap and in bottles. Rye Strong Ale aged in Laws Bourbon & Barley Whiskey Barrels.
- Collaboration Beers w/ Cannonball Creek Brewing Company and Joyride Brewing Company and yeast from our https://brewminate.com/the-poorhouse-americas-forgotten-institution/good friends at Inland Island Yeast Laboratories, LLC.
- Live Music.
- Food & Drink Specials.
- Good Times and Good People!
LIVE MUSIC:
5PM Roots & Rhythm at Goosetown Station
7:30PM SOLD OUT – Stone Beat Invasion @ Buffalo Rose
Golden History Moment
POORHOUSE: There’s a term you don’t hear much anymore. I encounter it fairly often in old Transcript articles. City and County financial reports regularly included line items for care of “paupers.”
The July 22, 1874 Colorado Transcript commented on the increasing costs of maintaining paupers:
The great increase in this item again suggests the necessity for a county farm, where the pauper labor may be utilized to some extent, instead of having it whittle sticks in front of our best hotels. There is nothing hard about this measure except its common sense, for the poor and unfortunate, in common with their more fortunate brethren, should be willing to recognize that there is nothing without its price, and that the law of labor is universal as well as honorable.
The first county poorhouse was located somewhere on Garrison Street (now called 9th Street). In 1895, the commissioners leased property on the southern edge of the city and moved “the inmates” there.
The move is a good one, as it is a comfortable place with plenty of pure water, a nice garden tract, and plenty of out-houses, so that the unfortunates can raise chickens, garden truck, etc., when they are able. It might be a good idea to establish a hospital in that same locality for such as might be attacked with contagious diseases, as it is isolated from the more thickly-settled part of town. – Colorado Transcript, May 22, 1895
When necessary, the county provided assistance (generally in the form of food or fuel) to people who still had somewhere else to live. An August 11, 1897 report stated that there were seven inmates living in the poor house and thirty-one people total were receiving county assistance.
There was stigma associated with accepting public assistance, and actually living in the poorhouse was the most stigmatized situation of all, as seen in this article, where the county commissioners objected to paying for creature comforts for the inmates of the poorhouse:
Commissioner Holley desired to go on record as opposed to the county buying tobacco for inmates of the poorhouse, the amount used in June being $4.60. Commissioners Hobbs and Shock also voted not to allow any more tobacco bills. – Colorado Transcript, July 19, 1899
They relented the next month:
It was ordered that hereafter William H. Irwin and William Hill be allowed chewing tobacco and Mrs. Hester smoking tobacco, the above mentioned people being inmates of the poor house…. On motion it was ordered that hereafter the county will not pay rent for anyone. – Colorado Transcript, August 17, 1899
Similar conversations occurred at regular intervals in subsequent years, with commissioners chaffing under the pauper bills and looking for ways to economize.
Rather suddenly in the 1930s, all references to poorhouses ended. Why would this be? Roosevelt’s New Deal provided different forms of relief–notably government work programs and old age pensions. Those programs were designed to allow people to live on their own or with family, rather than being institutionalized.
The word “poorhouse” stayed in our lexicon for at least another generation, most often in the context of, “You’re going to drive us to the poorhouse!” The last reference I found of the word “poorhouse” appeared in a 1964 advertisement for Eaker’s Department Store–probably written by someone old enough to remember when poorhouses still existed!
The Golden Transcript (originally called the Colorado Transcript) has been publishing since 1866. The Golden History Museum has been working on digitizing the historic issues. You’ll find old Transcripts online at coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.
