Rocky recollections: 150 years of stories, memories

Today marks the one year “anniversary” of the closing of the Rocky Mountain News. The newspaper opened April 23, 1859, and closed Feb. 27, 2009,  two months shy of the 150 year milestone.

This article was originally posted on what would have been the Rocky’s 150th anniversary, April 23, 2009, and it seems appropriate to re-post it today…..

Captivated by the rich history that took place between those dates, retired Rocky editor Michael Madigan has written a book, Heroes, Villains, Dames & Disasters / 150 Years of Front-Page Stories from the Rocky Mountain News. It will be available in June. Madigan shares with INDenverTimes some of the colorful stories and readers’ memories that moved him during his research. To visit his Web site, click here.

Regular readers of the Rocky in its last days might be familiar with the “Rocky @ 150 Years” series, which reprised historic front pages in the back of the paper leading up to the 150th anniversary.

The series was scheduled to run for 150 days. It made it to No. 103 when the newspaper closed.

The “Rocky @ 150″ series seemed to have connected with many readers, judging from the e-mails that I received. Each one, ever since owner E.W. Scripps announced in December that the paper was up for sale — or else — was accompanied by a pledge of support, or a plea for a stay of execution.

It did occur to me that most of those writing lived some of the Rocky’s history. Almost all of them had their own stories to tell.

– Connie Pazen, despite being a longtime Denver resident, wrote that she’d never heard of Grasshopper Hill, one of the sites of Klan cross-burnings in 1923. (Grasshopper Hill is now the site of Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center.)

– Bill Hiner, of Denver, recalled thinking it a little odd in the early 1940s when one of the customers on his Rocky delivery route had two papers delivered to their house on Humboldt Street. We agreed it was either because Rocky editor Jack Foster wanted more than one edition of the paper, or that his wife, columnist Molly Mayfield, wanted her own copy.

– Aaron Deschane rightly corrected me that it was beneath Hallett Peak that the Big Thompson water project flowed in 1947, not Hallett’s Peak.

– Rolland Plamondon wrote that it was an old friend of his, Warren Johnson, who found the body of Emily Griffith’s believed killer in a deep pool near Pinecliffe in 1947.

– Laurinda (Miller) Sturr wrote after No. 84 in the series, and I’ll share her story in her own words, which couldn’t be better told:

“I especially was drawn to the recent (story) regarding the assassination of President Kennedy. The day he was killed was my 16th birthday, and I was at Westminster High School when I heard the news.

“Editor Jack Foster was correct in his article statement when he said ‘It begins with disbelief. The President has been shot, they say. The President of what?’

“As we were changing classes at school and some of the kids had their transistor radios tuned to KIMN radio, we heard the words ‘The President has been shot.’ I was one of the kids whose reaction was ‘I wonder what country’s president they are talking about.’ At that time it never was conceivable that it could have been our country.

“My grandfather took an unopened copy of the Rocky Mountain News and sealed it behind a framed piece of family art where it remains today.”

– Cliff Smith wrote that he was using the 150 series as part of the social studies class he was teaching the fifth Grade in the Strasburg School District.

– Jane Sanders told me the story of how her father had to tell President Dwight D. Eisenhower “no.”

In the ’60s, Jack Manning and his family lived in a home on five acres across from Cherry Hills Country Club, where “Ike” played golf during his frequent visits to Denver. Ike liked Cherry Hills so much that he asked Manning, who had become a friend, if he would consider selling his house for Ike to use as his “western White House.”

Well, Jane explained, “My father’s answer was that he and my mother owned everything equally, and he was willing to sell his half of the home, but my mother would not hear of it!”

– Finally, Dan Barnett wanted my opinion on what was the most significant date in Rocky history. My answer would have been April 13, 1942 — the day the paper printed its first edition as a tabloid, which saved it from collapsing then. But one could make the case now that Feb. 27, 2009, proved to be the ultimate significant date, for after that the Rocky would no longer tell these stories.

Coming in June
Heroes, Villains, Dames & Disasters / 150 Years of Front-Page Stories from the Rocky Mountain News
The first history of the newspaper since its closing, written by Michael Madigan, author of The Rocky @ 150 Years series, in bookstores and gift shops. For information on how to pre-order, watch www.michaelmadiganauthor.com