Historically Jeffco Magazine 2002
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HHII SS TTOORRIICCAA LL LLYY JJEE FF FF CCOO Reflections of a Depression Era Teenager Page 11 Golden’s New Fossil Trace Golf Course Page 1 Published by The Jefferson County Historical Commission (JCHC) CONTENTS Volume 14, Issue 23, 2002 ISSN 1532-6047 Fossil Trace: Tracks Make a Big Impression on New Golden links 1 . Glimpses of History: Jefferson County’s Places from the Past 6 Reflections of a Depression-Era Teenager 12 . Jolly Rancher: Sweetness in Flux . .16 . Southwest Jeffco Trails and Toll Roads 20 The National Historic Register The Barnes-Peery House 25 Jefferson County Historic Hall of Fame Robert Williamson Steele Robert W. “Bob” Richardson 26 Pleasant Park: . .In . the. Begi. .nni . .ng . .28 . Ralston Remains 35 Starting from Scratch, .Chi . ck. en. Scratch. 40. JCHC News & Members 46 JCHC Publications Committee Erlene Hulsey-Lutz, Chair, Jerry Grunska, Editor of Historically Jeffco, Lorre Gibson, Lee Heideman, Lawrence Lotito and Milly Roeder Design & Layout FinePrint, Golden, CO Jefferson County Court House Old Golden Rd Hwy 6 (6th Ave) NEW FOSSIL TRACE GOLF COURSE Upright fossil ridges N Golden Residential Proposed hiking/biking trail Tracks Make a Big Impression on New Golden Links By Jerry Grunska It’s possible to stroll up Dinosaur Ridge, a couple of miles north of Morrison and west of C470, and actually move back figuratively through millions of years of geologic time. At the base of the hogback an extension of Alameda Park- way angles sideways up the ridge, passing along dinosaur tracks - right next to the road - mangrove fossils, and “frozen” water ripples, encased in rock. Tropical mangroves? Ocean sands, tilted 40 degrees upwards? That’s not the only irony. These traces of fetid swamp life overlooking the city of Denver stretched out Above: Digital rendering of Fossil Trace Golf Course Right: Triceratops track -1- the tilt, so to speak. The tilted layers of sediment are starkly exposed in the I-70 cut through the hogback. On the west side of Dinosaur Ridge lies the unmis- takable evi- dence that dinosaurs stomped along rivers before the uplift, leav- These are thought to be impressions made by raindrops about 70 million years ago. ing their bones strewn below are from the Cretaceous feet deep) but extending thousands along those streams and their foot- period of geologic history, some of miles from the Arctic to the prints embedded in the silt. Bones 100 million years ago. Moving over Gulf of Mexico, right through the found now - there have been ten the “hump” and down the west middle of the continent. quarries in the Morrison vicinity - side of this ridge takes the visitor The next phase of land building are fossilized remains. This means back 150 million year ago, with fos- is also hard to comprehend. Layers that like petrified wood, minerals silized dinosaur bones sticking right of sediment, silt dropping for mil- have seeped into the bone struc- out of the rock. The nimble walk lions of years, hardening into rock, ture, replacing marrow and calcium over this ridge represents a monu- albeit sand-like rock, not granite or with silicates so that what is stuck mental shift in the earth’s history. marble congealed by ferocious heat. in the embalming sediment are The viewer has a right to be awed. Then, tectonic plates sliding miles mineralized replicas of the original If these samples of early life on below the earth’s surface, forcing bony matter. These bones, some of the planet had been known before up the Rocky Mountains, and in them tons in weight, to be extract- the late 1800s, Jefferson County the course of this uplift, the hog- ed need to be chipped out of the could easily have been called back west of Denver is pried rock that encases them. But they Jurassic Park, the real one, not upward, toward the east, like giant are right there for everybody to the fantasy. slabs of wallboard. Only the beach see at the side of Highway 26, the This is how “a day at the beach” and some near shore deposits in 1937 road that drops down the became nearly vertical beds of sand- the sea rise above ground on the west side of the hogback. This was stone peering out over the range- east side of the Ridge. The bulk the original Highway 40 up into land long before people came on of the sedimentary rock is forced Mt. Vernon Canyon. the scene. Much of this is hard to downward, at a 30-40 degree slant, What kind of dinosaurs? imagine. It’s hard to imagine a mil- and now rests two miles below Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Iguanodon, lion years, let alone 150 million of Denver. The hogback, stretching Apatosaurus (a.k.a. Brontosaurus), them. It’s hard to imagine a stupen- hundreds of miles from Wyoming and Diplodocus, to name a few. dous sea, shallow (several hundred to New Mexico, is just the tip of Stegosaurus is the giant with -2- triangular plates on its back, in the north- while Brontosaurus is the west corner 40 foot monster lizard that is of the state the “mascot” frequently seen (1909), little at Sinclair service stations. work was done to A new discovery uncover fur- of old phenomena ther evidence For a perspective on the Jefferson of Cretaceous County site, it can be pointed out life until the that the very notion of dinosaurs 1930s. High- is only 150 years old. Carcasses of way construc- hairy bison and wooly mammoths tion uncov- had been found intact in some ered more places, in America, Europe, and evidence: the Asia (along Federal Boulevard mangrove locally!), but those specimens imprints, sand were only 10 or 15 thousand ripples from years old. That is like yesterday wave action, in dinosaur time. and huge foot- The Dinosaur Ridge prints and prints them- fossilized dinosaur bones north selves. of Morrison constitute the first The ready major discovery of dinosaur bones accessibility in western North America, in of pre-historic 1877. A School of Mines college evidence, how- professor, Arthur Lakes, happened ever, is what across them and alerted paleontol- makes this ogists out East, in Philadelphia exposure pre- and at Yale University. Lakes carious. The extracted some bones and shipped entire array them by rail to a Yale scientist is subject to named Othniel C. Marsh. Before damage by long other paleontologists came people who to Colorado to inspect the finds, have been in and the Ridge became “a kind of Colorado less Mother Lode for people from all than 200 over the world,” according to Joe years. Such is Palm frond impression approximately 13 feet long. Tempel, Director of Friends of also the case Dinosaur Ridge. It still is a power- with fossil ful magnet attracting hundreds of dinosaur footprints and plant fos- surface, right next to Highway 6, scientists regularly. sils a few miles north of Dinosaur narrow buttes that are packed with Surprisingly, though, after the Ridge, where fossiliferous beds palm frond impressions in stone, initial flurry of excavating in the have dived under U.S. Highways leaf molds, and dinosaur tracks, late 1800s, plus an almost simulta- 40 and 6 and where clay mining from the Cretaceous period, just neous discovery north of Canon has gradually uncovered them near before whatever cataclysm blew the City (also in 1877) and a 1900 the Jefferson County Courthouse animals away forever. Because these find near Grand Junction, in in Golden. fossils are younger than those at addition to the huge site at A series of parallel and vertical Dinosaur Ridge, they consist of Dinosaur National Monument sandstone beds stick out of the entirely different species. -3- The “wall” in the foreground contains palm fronds and Triceratops tracks (see previous page).All of the golf course is on the opposite side of the wall, plus a little to the left of the end of the wall.Thus, there will be no interference between golfers and people viewing the fossils. W.T. Caneer, an affable retired Fairway dangers sions and dinosaur footprints. geologist who acts as unofficial But a pall hangs over the possibili- “Golfers won’t disturb them, guardian of this treasure (he has ties of preservation too. The city of but the elements might,” Caneer had an emu-like dinosaur named Golden is turning this tract north says. The rock formations are ver- for him, Magnoavipes caneeri), of the county courthouse and east tical, clay having been extracted believes it was a meteor hitting of Highway 6 into an 18-hole golf between them. Thus the sandstone near the Yucatan Peninsula in course called Fossil Trace. Much of traces, exposed to dripping mois- Mexico that darkened the skies the land was previously mined for ture and frost, and possible van- and destroyed vegetation. The brick-making clay by the Parfet dalism, remain truly vulnerable. resultant pall over the earth for family, three generations of them. “Besides,” he says, “We have to several years, while blotting the T. Caneer – he prefers T – although figure a way for the public to sun and killing the plants, also light-spirited and charming, is also appreciate them.” To that end the killed those animals who were feisty and persuasive. He has con- 380 member organization, called herbivores and therefore deprived vinced the Golden City Council Friends of Dinosaur Ridge, that the meat eaters of sustenance also. and the construction company to oversees the museum at the cor- “Only a few shrews and gnats sur- spare the wedges looming up two ner of Alameda and Rooney Road vived,” Caneer said, “Maybe some stories or so.