Cobweb Express

Quiz Time
by Mel McFarland

As an Art teacher I rarely gave tests. Now and then I would give a quiz, but it was mainly to see if the students were looking and actually seeing what was around them. I would ask about things around the school that they walked by all the time. What color is this or that? What does this or that sign say? You know, usually no one got more than half right. Kids are more interested in the other kids than their surroundings at that age, but I think I did get a few to take a better look around.

As I do these columns I discover there are things around us that some of you never noticed. My main interest is sharing with you stories about some of those things. Today I have a short quiz for you, good news is no grades for it! I did this a couple years ago and received some interesting comments.

See if you know these five questions. Do you know which church in Fountain has not always been a church? Do you know which building on Main Street that looks like a house, was not built to be a house? Do you know which building on Main Street used to run on tracks? Do you know the two city parks by the railroad tracks? Do you know where the old newspaper office is? Now if you read this column regularly you should know all of these.

For the answers, The Catholic church on Main was built as a bank. Up the street a block is a nice little house that was built to house the telephone company, when you actually talked to a real person to call someone and they did the switching. Across the street and a short distance away is an apartment that was originally a Denver street car. There is Metcalfe Park over by the UP tracks and Aga Park over by the BNSF tracks. The old newspaper office, the Fountain Herald is almost across the street from the News. How did you do?

Here is something to ponder, we have a cafe that was a gas station, an Auto repair shop that was a drive in restaurant, a dentist’s office that was a drive in restaurant, and a building that has been a convenience store and a church. There are two railroad cars on Santa Fe in plain sight. Can you pick out these places?

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