Dear Members,
As I write today, we are having an unseasonably warm and early spring—day after day of blue skies and rising water—an extremely early run-off. Wants to make you get outside and do things in this uncertain time. I wish I could show you our new exhibits which are ably described in these pages, but I don’t know if we can even open the museum this summer.
Here in San Juan County, we have been earnestly practicing social distancing and careful etiquette. We even have a sign at the end of town that says “Local Traffic Only”. For the first time in our lives, we are not asking people to come and see us, we are telling them to stay away. And we have reason to—elsewhere in these pages you find my story about the Spanish Flu of 1918, when Silverton suffered a ten percent loss of population in just a couple of weeks. We are serious about this virus because we have been there before. I must say that I am very impressed with our Town / County/ EMS response to this virus. We may fight amongst ourselves up here in paradise, but when things gets tough, we all take care of each other. For that, I am devoutly grateful.
Last year was a good one at the Mill. Fred and Vickie did a bang-up job in hosting our visitors and Fred has ideas on how to increase visitation. We are finishing a grant that will get the inside of the assay office rehabilitated into rental and museum space. We have been in touch with members of the Bonavida family, who are anxious to help—yes, the family of long-time mill manager Aldo Bonavida. It will be space for interns, rental space and space for a museum exhibit about assaying. Bill Jones is helping to design it and has donated various assaying tools.
The museum had a good year also, and has the cleanest closet that we have ever had—thank you, Karla Safranski! And thank Claudia also. As I have told you many times, I love working there. People come in expecting a nice little small-town museum. What they get instead is a world-class museum and they are just bowled over. It is so fun to see their faces. As I said, we do not know if we will get to open, in fact, all of us here are bracing for a lost season. This year, we can use your support, dear members.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the passing of our dear friend Dave Thayer, who donated so much research to our Society. He and his brother Doug climbed all over these mountains to record trams from every mine in the high country. They also wrote exhaustive histories of the Gold King Mine and the Mears/Wilfley Mill which was built to re-process tailings from the Silver Lake Mine. Thanks for the good humor and friendship over the years, Dave.
Well, I don’t know, I just don’t know. And I guess none of you do either. We will see what happens and thank our lucky stars that we live up here—semiisolated. Cemetery work day will go on as scheduled—the last Saturday in June. Hillside is bigger than it looks, so there should be plenty of ways to help without getting too close to anyone. It is a day that I love—you spend two hours working and it means so much. It makes you feel like you have accomplished something, and you have. Hope to see you there.
I also must mention a new book just out: Historic Treasures of the San Juan Mountains. This is a beautiful book. And, as Tom Livingstone, the author/artist says: it is an ART book, not a history book, not a guide book. It is an ART book. But, as you read through the text, it is a history book of sorts. And by documenting the treasures within, this will be a history book for all the ages. You need it in your library.
I also must put the alert out—the Society needs a new used truck—a 4-wheel drive workhorse truck. We have a saying at the Society: “If it is heavy, give it to the Historical Society—they will move it”! And it is true—museums don’t just happen, they take work; sometimes a lot of work.
Do you know that we are 56 years old as a Historical Society? So, while the museum, mill and archive may be closed for a while, we are not going away—work continues every day. Zeke Zanoni is in charge of getting a washout fixed up at our intake box for the water to the mill and powerhouse grounds. Today. Casey Carroll is feeding me photos for four interpretive signs that we are helping design for the Colorado Department of Health as part of the overall Superfund clean-up. Today. Steve Rich is redoing labels for exhibits at the museum. Today. John Richardson is hanging a gutter at the museum—pretty pedestrian work, but all work that needs to be done. And the Silverton Standard & the Miner gets published every week. In fact, dear members, the work never stops because we believe in our mission: to preserve the history of this place that we all love. Thank you, dear members, for your support.
Bev
