From the archives of the Roaring Fork Valley Journal, compiled by Will Grandbois
May 3, 1979
El Jebel resident Bonnie Williams stopped two men from making off with a phone in an era when such an endeavor took a lot more muscle. According to the Journal’s report, she spotted the pair, who turned out to be father and son, prying a pay phone off the post office building and parked her car in front of theirs as they tried to escape. They dropped the phone, pulled onto the sidewalk and made their escape only to be picked up by Eagle County deputies and charged with theft and drunk driving.
In other news… Pat Noel marked the fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Saigon with a story on the adoption of formerly South Vietnamese Van Nguyen Fischer, then 5.
May 7, 1987
Mid-Continent Coal and Coke was considering building a power plant to make use of 7 million tons of low grade waste coal outside their Coal Basin mine. Using fluidized bed combustion boilers, it would have produced 50 to 80 megawatts, 10 percent of which would have been used in Mother Mid’s own facilities. Estimates indicated it could have run for 10 years on the refuse piles already in place.
In other news… “There’s nothing like an epidemic to get people excited,” an anonymous Journal reporter observed as an outbreak of hepatitis in Glenwood Springs worried folks in Carbondale.
May 8, 1997
A proposal for a tavern in the former Mountain View Inn in Marble (now Slow Groovin’ BBQ) faced stiff opposition for the same reasons that may have encouraged the town council not to renew the Inn’s license in the first place. “Marble folks don’t much cotton to the rowdiness and what not,” Lynn Burton wrote. A petition opposing the application already had around 35 signatures at the time.
In other news… The Sanders Ranch Development on 270 acres between Glenwood and Carbondale on Highway 82 seemed imminent.