10 years ago
• The community was invited to tour the recently expanded and remodeled Fire Station No. 6 at 4325 McWhinney Blvd., showcasing a 2,600-square-foot expansion that included increased bunker storage, a community/training room, equipment repair room and expanded dorms and bathroom facilities, accommodating additional firefighters housed at the station. Loveland Fire Rescue Authority Chief Randy Mirowski said it had been a smooth and welcomed transition that ensured minimum staffing levels for the department and fulfilled the longtime goal of having engine and truck companies staffed with three people. The expansion came in under budget at less than $900,000.
• The Novo Restoration Odyssey of the Mind team, consisting of six students from Bill Reed Middle School and sponsored by Novo Restoration in Loveland, was preparing for the Odyssey of the Mind 2013 World Finals after placing first in the state competition earlier in April. It was their sixth year in a row to land a spot at the international competition.
• The Thompson School District was showcasing its new electronic library, allowing students and staff to access 325 digital books in the district’s e-book lending library, anytime and anywhere with their tablet, smartphone or computer. “With all the mobile devices in schools, we wanted kids to have a way to access books easily,” said Val Downing, technology integration coordinator for the district. “We know that the more kids read, the better they do in school.”
• The man who bought Jensen Arms in November 2012 held a delayed “grand reopening,” which drew more than 1,000 people to the gun shop at 285 E. 29th St. in Orchards Shopping Center. John Burrud bought the 19-year-old business from founder Bob Jensen. His changes included a new computer system and a room that focused on survival-preparedness merchandise, including high-end first aid kits, food for storage, emergency cooking equipment and water-purification systems.
• Walt Clark Middle School became the first in the Thompson School District to install solar panels to provide some of the power needed for the school building and to serve as a teaching tool. The overhang in front of the school boasted 10 solar panels connected together, providing energy as well as data for students to study weather patterns. Middle school students traditionally learned about solar energy by looking in a textbook or watching a movie, but at Walt Clark, they could see first-hand how it worked, tying into both math and science lessons.
• Anthology Book Co., which had previously announced it would be closing in May, received a last-minute revival through a partnership with the owner of 3 Coffee in Milliken. The coffee business was moving its roaster to Anthology, located at 422 E. Fourth St., and would supply the store with 3 Coffee’s products. The plans were to restart breakfast and lunch in the café at the store, continue serving beer and wine and “kick-start” the music scene at Anthology.
25 years ago
• Colorado Gov. Roy Romer signed Samson’s law, increasing the potential fines by thousands of dollars for people convicted of poaching a big game trophy animal. The new rules stemmed from public outrage over the 1995 slaying of Samson, a 1,000-pound bull elk near Estes Park. The added fines ranged from $4,000 to $25,000, depending upon the game animal.
• A group of Cub Scouts and their families began transforming property owned by the city of Loveland on the east side of U.S. 287, south of the Big Thompson River, by planting trees. People had previously treated the land like a junkyard, tossing bottles and other garbage into the field. As part of the city’s clean-up efforts, the Scouts brought shovels and other equipment to plant 150 trees sponsored by the Loveland Tree Trust, building a buffer against the noise from the highway and providing environment for wildlife.
• The city of Loveland was kicking off a three-month process of repaving and replacing 26 miles of city streets and sidewalks, resurfacing 12% of the city’s streets for a total of $196,000. The project also included replacing 60 concrete curbs and gutters and constructing 100 wheelchair-accessible ramps.
• After 34 years of strikes, spares and sometimes gutter balls, Ram Lanes closed its doors at 808 14th St. SW when the owners decided it was too much work for them to run the lanes single-handedly. They said they wanted to retire to spend more time with family. Their competitor, Sweetheart Lanes, 2320 N. Lincoln Ave., which had nearly doubled in size five years earlier, remained open.
• Members of the Greeley school board voted to name their new high school North Ridge, leaving the possibility of Millennium High open for the new school being built in east Loveland. One of the top three names chosen by a committee, Millennium was to be off the table if Greeley named its school first because the Thompson School District said it would not choose a duplicate name.
• While the races were still on at Cloverleaf Kennel Club in Loveland, track officials said that the rise in legal gambling in the state had taken its toll on dog racing. Total betting pools were down by more than a third at Cloverleaf compared to the height of the racing industry in the mid-1980s.
• Loveland fire officials announced a partnership with the Civil Air Patrol whereby pilots would fly reconnaissance missions with firefighters and provide real-time photographs, describing it as a first. “We’re the first in the country to have an agreement like this,” said Willy Geyer, an assistant fire chief. The firefighters began training with the volunteer pilots. The plan was for the pilots to fly over areas during searches with a camera that would then transmit pictures to a monitor in a fire vehicle, offering ground crews an eye in the sky.
• Construction was underway on the Lucile Erwin Middle School, while the Thompson School District was working to get the school annexed into the city limits.
• The Larimer County commissioners delayed making a decision on a development request by Resthaven Memory Gardens to build a mortuary with a chapel, three staterooms, offices and other rooms on a site just north of Loveland. The elected board wanted more time to consider the traffic implications.
50 years ago
• The Loveland Planning Commission took its first official look at a proposed development at 29th Street and U.S. 287, on the northern edge of the city. A developer proposed a 60-acre shopping center, to cost $30 million to $40 million. Included would be a 60,000-square-foot department store, a 37,000-square-foot market, 62,000 square feet of specialty shops, as well as a bank and a restaurant, each at 6,000 square feet. The shopping center would have around 1,000 parking spaces. Plans also called for a motel and convention center, as well as office building complexes, and other restaurants and commercial spaces.
• The Cosmopolitan Easter egg hunt boasted one of the largest crowds in history as families gathered at the fields north of the Samsonite plant for children to search for 7,600 eggs hidden by members of the service club. The children found all the eggs within 20 minutes.
• Lynn Hammond Sr. 74, a retired insurance executive, died after being hospitalized for 10 days at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. The World War I veteran had been an insurance executive in Loveland and Denver before his retirement. He had moved back to Loveland just months before his death.
• Commissioners from Larimer and Weld counties agreed to a two-county Council of Governments to develop public transportation systems in the area. Weld County Attorney Sam Telep was asked to draw up a charter for the council. The new group was not going to replace the existing two-county planning commission but was formed to operate solely in the area of transportation.
• By 43 votes, Berthoud residents turned down a 5.7 mill levy increase that would have raised $125,000 for a new swimming pool. A total of 399 people voted in the special election with 221 against the tax issue and 178 in favor of it. Berthoud officials said the town had little control over the State Health Department’s closure of the town’s old pool and that with the tax failure there was no way the recreation committee could continue its efforts to finance and build a new pool.
• Rain and snow hampered efforts of a film crew from Kansas City as they filmed sequences in Loveland for a John Deere safety film. One of the locations the crew was filming during their 10 days on location was at the Flatirons Paving gravel pile on West First Street, and another was at Horsetooth Marina near Fort Collins.
• Two editors from MS. Magazine, Gloria Steinem and Margaret Sloan, visited Colorado State University to talk about the myths of feminism. “To begin with, no bra ever got burned,” Steinem said. “I don’t know how it got started. Maybe because of the alliteration.” Sloan also emphasized that they only bra burned was by its manufacturer looking for advertising. “This is a revolution and not just a reform,” Steinem said. “We want to eliminate the caste system … the leaders and the led, the rules and the ruled, the bosses and us secretaries, the doctors and the nurses.” They spoke about history and how women were controlled and given the kinds of work men did not want to do and about how women were pushing for equal pay and equal treatment. “All around us are forces which condition us either consciously or unconsciously that we are inferior,” Steinem said, later adding, “We are not crazy as women, it is the system that’s crazy.”
120 years ago
• The editor of the Loveland Reporter observed in the April 23, 1903 issue: “Twenty-three years ago the first copy of this paper was issued in the house now known as the Cottage Home. It was gotten out by an old drunkard who ran it six months and ‘nearly starved to death’ because he put his money into booze. … From that time up to December 1890, there were more than a dozen changes in the ownership.” He said that he had been operating the paper for 12 ½ years, but would not be with it for very many years more, adding he intended while he had the paper to keep up its standards.
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