Full Moon
The moon will be full at 4:45 tomorrow morning–so I think you could count either tonight or tomorrow night as the Full Moon. Brought to you by Buglet Solar.
If you like to join in the 8PM Howling, tonight will be an especially appropriate night for it!
Coronavirus Update
Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden
Jefferson County’s case count page says that as of 3PM yesterday, there were 1,493 cases in Jefferson County (up from 1,473). There have been 84 deaths (up from 82) and 287 are hospitalized (up from 285). There are 113 known cases in Golden (unchanged).
Jefferson County has extended our Stay-at-Home order through May 8th. Everyone is asked to wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth when leaving the house. City and County fire restrictions are in place. Clear Creek is closed to all recreational activities.
Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday
Because the COVID-19 epidemic has caused hardship to so many non-profit organizations, tomorrow has been declared as Giving Tuesday. Foothills Art Center is asking that you include them in your giving plans.
Virtual Golden
Colorado Railroad Museum has been doing a wonderful job of producing interesting blogs, photos, and videos about their collection.
Golden History Museum‘s Mark Dodge asks for suggestions for Golden’s Timeline. He also suggests that you go through your old photos, in the hope that you might have important glimpses of Golden history (and of course, share them with the museum if you do).
The History Museum’s Megan Murphy has also been profiling some of their volunteers, including Kasey Snow, Pat Donahue, Arlene Munyon, Martha Gould, and Dennis Potter.
Happening Today:
10:15AM Virtual Story Time with the Golden Library: Spanish Story Time
A Golden History Moment
For those of you who don’t check email over the weekend, I wrote about moonshining on Saturday, the history of Golden Liquors on Sunday. Any theme to my research was unintentional.
Over the years, I have heard a few times that Golden used to have an airport, up at the northwest corner of the city. It seemed rather amazing to think of an airport being that close to Golden (and that close to the mountains). Yesterday, I decided to track down this elusive airport.
In early 1946, there was a group of Denver metro area private citizens who were interested in aviation. They wanted an airfield for private planes. The Jefferson County Commissioners indicated that they would support having a County airport, and encouraged the citizens group to look for a good site.
Some very eager Golden boosters seized on this faint encouragement to lease some property northwest of the City from the Parfet family. They drew up a rough plan for an airport and announced an opening date for the “Golden Memorial Airfield” (in honor of those who had died during WWII). They persuaded the Chamber to sell raffle tickets to help build the airport, and the winner of the raffle would win a brand new Piper Cub airplane.
Opening Day came and 1000 people attended. Chamber President Everett Barnhardt and Mayor Joe Kellogg spoke, a bronze plaque dedicating the airport was unveiled, and Earl Armstrong of 512 16th Street (map) won the Piper Cub. The prize plane was flown into the site for the future airport, but returned to a hanger in Lakewood afterwards, as the the Golden site still required grading, marking, and more. People were urged to donate more money to make the airport possible.
Apparently the Golden Memorial Airfield was more dream than plan. When the new board took control of the Chamber the following January, they announced that the airfield was not a Chamber project, that no Chamber funds would be spent on construction of such a project, and that any “indebtedness now due” was not the Chamber’s responsibility.
That piece of land seems to have received some use as an unofficial landing strip, but as far as I have been able to discover, the Golden Memorial Airport never really took off (so to speak). It may be just as well. If the drawing published in the Transcript used an accurate scale, many of our north neighborhoods would be either under the runway or in the landing pattern.
