Pastimes: In search of county’s old schools

Searching for more early schools in northern Boulder County takes us west, then south of Longmont. At the corner of North 53rd Street and U.S. Highway 36 stands the former Montgomery schoolhouse.  Now a residence, it was built in 1917 by Finnish stone contractor Ernest Loukenen. Loukenen’s nephews Leonard and Reino rode their [...]

Pastimes: Longmont’s Lady Liberty

W hen Longmont established its Art in Public Places program in 1989, it objective was to fund public art. Today, the city’s Web site displays fifty of these commissioned pieces, many of which are found in parks and along bike trails.
Conspicuously missing, however, is one of Longmont’s earlier monuments, the Miss Liberty statue in Roosevelt [...]

Pastimes: ‘Crank’ calls, circa 1899

Y ou may pride yourself on having learned to tactfully respond to emails, but do you know how to properly use a crank telephone?
When phone service came to Longmont in 1899, early Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph directories provided detailed rules of etiquette and instructions for using this amazing new invention.
“Don’t carry on a conversation [...]

Pastimes: Longmont, a century past

A s Longmont enters the second decade of the 21st century, let’s look back to see how far we’ve come in one hundred years.
At the dawn of the 20th century, Longmont was a small agricultural town with a population of only 2,201. Its mayor, realtor Frank Miller, was just completing his final term in office. [...]

Anne Dyni: Discovering historic schools

The last rural schools in Boulder County closed in 1961, when more than 30 individual school districts were consolidated into the two large districts we have today.
It was on Feb. 4, 1863 when school superintendent Amos Widener established the first 10 districts in Boulder County. In accordance with Colorado Territorial law, each district encompassed an [...]

Pastimes: Winter layaway

To the holiday shopper, winter layaway means preparing for the busy shopping season just ahead.   To our ancestors, however, it meant something entirely different.
During October, farmers along the Front Range began digging sugar beets, the last crop to be harvested before the ground froze.  Those living near Longmont hauled them by wagon to the Great [...]

Pastimes: Sentimental journeys

Getting together with friends for an evening at a local music hall is nothing new. While Big Bands toured the larger cities from the 1930s through the 1950s, small communities swayed to their own music in grange halls, dance halls and even one-room schoolhouses.
What started as square dancing to the beat of a fiddle and [...]

The Ledger rides again!

Pastimes

Anne Dyni
With today’s issue of the new Longmont Ledger, we pay homage to our predecessor, which ceased publication some 40 years ago. From its original owner, Charles W. Boynton, through a series of subsequent owner-editors, the former Longmont Ledger covered the social and political news of the St. Vrain Valley from 1879 until 1969. Clippings [...]