Mines Museum Reopening, Quarantine Cafe, Arson and the Pandemic, and Request for Sponsors

Golden Eye Candy – Chris Davell – click to enlarge

Monthly Appeal

Many thanks to the people who sponsored this email for the month of February. If you read this newsletter first thing in the morning, if you find it valuable, interesting, or fun, please consider sponsoring us for March–or contributing a small amount on a monthly basis! Click here to find out how.

COVID Updates

21.2% — *% of Jeffco residents (16+) who have received the first shot – source*

Appointments to Get the COVID Vaccine (Eligibility)
State of Colorado’s Find Out Where You Can Get Vaccinated page
Safeway | King Soopers | Lutheran Medical Center | JCPH Clinic in Arvada (70+ only)

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

status dial - level blue — Visit the Jeffco Public Health website for information about Level Blue

Jefferson County Case Summary:
Cases in Jeffco – Weds: 36,988 | Fri: 37,130 (+142)
Deaths in Jeffco – Weds: 754 | Fri: 755 (+1)
Currently Hospitalized in Jeffco – Weds: 33| Fri: 36 (+3)
Known Cases in Golden – Mon: 1488 | Thurs: 1500
Recovered – Weds: 35,351 | Fri: 35,442 (+91)

Virtual Events

Backcountry Film Festival Runs Feb 15-March 1

10AM-1PM Color & Composition with Lea McComas at the Quilt Museum
7:30PM Miners Alley Playhouse Quarantine Cabaret

Live Events

9AM-4PM Re-opening of the Mines Museum! Reservations Required
10AM-3PM Train Rides at the Railroad Museum
10AM Biker Breakfast With Tech Talk
Avalanch Harley-Davidson: Our Master Tech provides a Q&A Talk! Free Pancakes, Sausage, Coffee, & OJ
11AM-2PM Brunch at the Rose
11AM Wild West Walking Tour
12PM Walk With a Geologist at Dinosaur Ridge
7PM Live Music at the Buffalo Rose: Kayla Ruby with Special Guest Lacy Jo

Golden History Moment

*South School (the High School) – Golden History Museum Collection – click to enlarge*

102 Years Ago
The February 27, 1919 Colorado Transcript featured a front page article entitled “Incendiaries Try To Destroy High School Building: Blaze is started in chemical laboratory, but smothers out–threat letters sent to school board.”

Some time over the weekend, someone had started a fire with newspapers and cardboard in the high school chemistry lab. Fortunately, they did a bad job of it. The lab contained kerosene, alcohol, and ether, as well as bottles of sulfur and other combustibles, but the fire died before it reached them.

Some suggested that the fire was set by high school boys, but school administrators dismissed that possibility, saying “there are no boys in Golden High School with such criminal inclinations.”

A leading theory held that the fire was started by “some man or men who are ‘sore’ at the school board because the schools were not closed when influenza became prevalent again. This theory is given greater credence because of the fact that ‘black hand’ letters have been sent to two members of the school board recently making threats because the schools were not closed.”

The previous (February 20th) issue of the Transcript had included the article, “Flu Breaks Out Anew; Many Golden Children Sick.” Several people in this area had died of influenza the previous fall, so the dangers of the disease were foremost in parents’ minds. The seventh and eight grades were particularly hard hit, but the high school and lower grades also had many cases. The article closes by saying that there were “at least sixty cases of influenza in Golden and many in the districts immediately surrounding this city.”

The would-be arsonists were never identified.

*The South School was located on Cheyenne, between 13th and 14th and was demolished in 1965 – click to enlarge*

Many thanks to the Golden History Museum for providing the online cache of historic Transcripts and to the Golden Transcript for documenting our history since 1866!