Fifty years ago, in 1956, the New York Herald Tribune published a special section headlined “Colorado Set to Expand on Broad Front.” Two days before the 130th anniversary of Colorado statehood, on Aug. 1, it’s interesting to see how much the culture, economy, politics – and journalism – have changed.
Harry Arkin, a Denver lawyer and longtime Republican activist, found the old newspaper while he was cleaning out some files. The tenor of the special section is positively propagandistic, enough to make a chamber of commerce twitter with glee.
There’s nothing negative; nothing about illegal immigration, high gasoline prices or troublesome test scores in schools. There’s very little about the environment or ecology, words that didn’t trouble people until perhaps 20 years later.
Oh, there’s a piece about how the Denver area was having “growing pains,” but it’s only a small demurrer in a flood of positive ink.
Here’s the opening of the main story:
“Colorful Colorado, the state of numerous economies, is expanding and diversifying in so many directions that even the most optimistic residents have been amazed. Equally amazed are the legions of new investors, many of whom are seasoned veterans from other growth areas. Although mining first brought glamour and great wealth to Colorado in the last half of the nineteenth century, agriculture and livestock have ruled as the leading combined industry for at least the last fifty years. Mining again is emerging as a leader, however, and now manufacturing is contending for upper-echelon importance.”
Whew. And that was just the first paragraph.
“Also important to the state’s basic economic structure is tourism, an increasingly significant source of annual revenue as the virtually incomparable attractions of the Rockies beckons greater numbers of vacationing Americans.”
Gee whiz.
It goes on in that vein. Here’s another section-front headline: “10-Year Uranium Boom Shows No Sign of Dying.” Not for a while, anyway. At the time, uranium was considered the new gold rush.
Another headline: “State Hopes for Tunnel Under Continental Divide.” Twelve years later, construction began on what originally was known as the Straight Creek Tunnel on Interstate 70. What’s now the Eisenhower Memorial Bore opened in 1973. The second bore opened in 1979 and was named for Edwin C. Johnson.
“Big Ed” Johnson, a Democrat, had been a state legislator, lieutenant governor and governor, served 18 years as a U.S. senator, and then came home and was elected governor again at age 70. “A tremendously popular man,” the Herald Tribune gushed.
As governor, he had a bylined article on the section’s front page. Neither he nor the Herald Tribune mentioned Colorado’s problems with illegal immigration, unless you count Big Ed’s reference to “the ever-beckoning finger of opportunity.”
More headlines:
“Texans Hold Large Stake in Colorado.” No kidding?
“Pueblo Is Pittsburgh of West.”
“Denver Suffers from Growing Pains,” with this subhead: “Metropolitan Area Spurts to 703,000.” The story said that since 1950, the “urbanized area” of Denver and environs had grown by 153,000 and that city planners were worried about “what they refer to as ‘unregulated fringe sprawl.”‘ Today it’s roughly 2.5 million.
“Air Travel Gains Sharply.” Traffic at Stapleton had topped the 1 million mark in 1955 for the first time in the 27-year history of the airport. Now, at Denver International, passenger traffic is 40 times that.
The Mile High Center had been completed in 1954. The Courthouse Square project, which was to include a new department store and a Hilton hotel, was just underway. Both are radically different now. The Mile High Center has been swallowed by the Wells Fargo Center, which includes the “cash register” building. And Adam’s Mark has left its mark on Courthouse Square – the ice rink, parabola and May D&F store are long gone.
The middle six pages of the 14-page section are missing. Judging from what’s left, the missing pieces were most likely advertising.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
