When people ask how my wife, Sandy, and I met, I tell them the following story: I was afoot in Ridgway one night, and while taking a shortcut through an alley in the dark, I stumbled over something. I...

What were Ouray town folk chatting about in the winter of 1922? The Spanish Flu finally had finally waned. The new hot springs pool was filling up. World War I veterans had returned home and were rece...

A Chalkbeat Colorado story that published in the Feb. 3-9 print edition of the Plaindealer incorrectly said the Ouray School District was one of 26 districts in the state flagged by the Colorado Depar...

50 YEARS AGO February 3, 1972 - Dear Editor: One letter to the editor deserves another. I found myself becoming impatient as I read the letters of two local citizens in your paper last week, and I’d l...

50 YEARS AGO January 27, 1972 - There is encouraging increase in use of the Ouray Public Library, according to figures released by Librarian Jonny Jindra. Circulation figures have been steadily increa...

Dear Editor: As the New Year dawns, residents in Louisville and Superior are still shocked at the loss of over 1,000 structures, one confirmed death and damage to more than 100 more homes. Few people ...

50 YEARS AGO January 20, 1972 - The only way the Ouray School can keep its present 18 teachers and current programs is by taking emergency measures. Following defeat in the December election of the re...

I’m trying to decide which New Year's resolutions I’ll be breaking this year. 1. Quit chewing tobacco. Yeah right! Like that’s gonna happen! I’ll quit chewing when it snows 3 feet in Phoenix on the 4t...

50 YEARS AGO January 13, 1972 - Ouray can have smog, too. A temperature inversion headed Ouray into a very smoggy Sunday this week. Smoke collected over town so heavy that buildings and mountains were...

50 YEARS AGO January 6, 1972 - Hopes of beginning construction on a sewer system for the town of Ridgway by April or May seemed dashed Monday night, but the Town Council isn’t giving up the idea. For ...

50 YEARS AGO December 30, 1971 - Marvin Gregory had a painful accident last Wednesday while working with a power saw, and has now joined the club of butchers, carpenters, etc., who are minus fingers o...

Growing up here, I despised the cold and snow. At 6 a.m., 58 years ago, my stepdad Roger and I were driving the team toward the silage pit. The temperature was 15 degrees below zero and it was snowing...

50 YEARS AGO December 23, 1971 - EDITORIAL - Instead of the joyful affair it should have been, the special Christmas music program at Ouray School last Friday had all the overtones of a wake for many ...

As you read this, it’s only two short days to Christmas and nine to New Year’s Day, but the length of our winter days is subtly increasing. Two days ago, at the winter solstice, Earth’s star began its...

Dear Editor: In January of 2020, John Warren of Ouray, owner of Red Mountain Brewery, appeared before Ouray County Court Judge Zachary Martin on a rape charge. According to that charge, in December of...

50 YEARS AGO December 16, 1971 - Loads of trees and boughs moving on the highways remind us that Christmas will soon be here. All persons — even the family who plans to cut only one tree for their own...

Dear Editor: Last week, Judge Cory Jackson postponed – yet again – at the request of the defense, the trial in the case of defendant John Warren charged with three counts of sexual assault. Disturbing...

50 YEARS AGO December 9, 1971 - With the advent of excellent sledding conditions, kids have been observed all over Ouray, sledding in areas not particularly conducive to coming home alive. The Ouray C...

Thanksgiving is here – and we do need a respite from pressing issues. Given this latest COVID outbreak, the recent international agreement on climate change, our lingering drought and a second La Niña...

50 YEARS AGO November 18, 1971 - It was anything but relaxing and certainly a very different kind of “wilderness experience” for those who attended the lengthy hearings, Monday through Thursday this w...