Cobweb Express

Old Friends
by Mel McFarland

It is fun meeting people up on Pike’s Peak and finding out that they are from all over the world, but the most fun is finding people from the Fountain Valley. I usually ask if they read this paper, and some say no, but most say yes. For those I ask if they read my column. Since my picture was put up there, now some go “Yeaaaa, that’s You!” Once in a while I even get story ideas from them!

So, I sometimes get interesting comments about our town from people who have just moved here, and there are lots of them. This column lets them learn about our past, and even those who have been here a long time pick up a new story or two! In this time of the year we look back on, and wonder what the future has to bring. I enjoy reading back through old newspapers, I often chuckle at what was front page news. Some of the news is just as we see today, but some is quite different. Politics, like today, regularly shows up, as one would expect.

It seems hard to believe that anything could be as disastrous, bold or tragic as things in today’s papers, but a hundred years ago there were things that seemed even worse. Read through an old newspaper and it seems like nothing is new. The front page the days after the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 could have been written about something this year. People all over the country, even here, donated money, food and clothes for the residents in the Bay area. Special trains with help even stopped in Fountain on their way west.

Not all news was grim.  The sports page’s articles and results indicate that Fountain has produced many generations of Champions, from all sports. In addition our non-sports champions have done well, from Music, Agriculture, Art, Literary and Elocution and Speech. Who would ever think reading the want ads would be fun? You might shake your head at the prices, but you might also wonder about some of the jobs too. The display adds often capture things just as well as news items. I found a picture of the Fountain feed mill, that sat right about where City Hall is today. Some of the ads show stores and houses, but some things are pretty surely not from around here! Like today you can clip out a picture from piles of artwork and use it in an advertisement, but occasionally these ads actually feature a local store front or scene.

It is even fun when I am at the library and see school children doing research on an assignment they are working on. It often causes me to laugh out loud at their reactions to old newspapers.

CONTACT THE WRITER • MCMIDLAND@YAHOO.COM

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