One Hundred Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Prohibition, known as “the dry law,” had gone into effect the week before, and members of the Brewery Workers’ Union and other trades allied with the “late liquor industry” marched to the state Capitol to call upon the governor to convene a special session of the Legislature to provide employment for those thrown out of work when liquor was outlawed. The governor suggested there was opportunity for employment in the sugar beet fields. Several state employees engaged in the licensing and taxation of alcoholic beverages were also out of jobs. The Adolph Coors Brewing Company would have to give 30 days notice to the State Industrial Commission before it could reduce wages to workers who were manufacturing “near-beer in place of the old-time brew now barred by the dry law.” Workers at the Zang Brewing Company would be paid less immediately because they had earlier agreed to the changes if the state went dry. …

… Entries at the Denver Stock Show had surpassed all records and 40,000 stockmen and farmers from throughout the country were on their way to Denver for the weeklong convention. In the breeding-cattle division alone, 82 of the largest cattle herds in the country would be competing, and as many as 12,000 feeder cattle and 4,000 registered bulls were scheduled to be on exhibit. “No such number of pure-bred animals was ever gotten together anywhere, as far as known, in the world,” The Statesman noted. As it would be the first big livestock show to be held since the outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease, there would be even more than the usual interest in the event, and Hereford breeders were promising the greatest national show of Hereford cattle ever before seen anywhere in the world. In addition, the Horse Show, held in conjunction with the Stock Show, would be the largest ever held in the West, including Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, with the leading stables from Ohio to the West Coast represented. The cattle were arriving daily in carloads, with $5 million in livestock sales expected at the show. The “usual fine weather that has been had at the Stock Show for the past 10 years” was expected, as Denver was having an “open winter” and temperatures were mild. …

… In news around the state, Clarence Darrow had delivered a lecture in Denver on the “single-tax question,” delegates from all parts of the state attended the Good Roads Association meeting in Denver, two Russians were arrested in Pueblo on suspicion of belonging to a large gang of counterfeiters, and the residents of Durango voted $175,000 in bonds to build a new high school. David Stewart, 67, at one time one of the best known mining men in the state, died at his home in Empire. Col. James Bulger, a soldier of fortune, was sentenced to hang in a month for the slaying of Lloyd Nicodemus after the West Side Court jury in Denver ruled he was sane. William H. Lawrence, a Denver pioneer and one of the founders of the Saturday and Sunday Hospital Association, 67, was in perfect health until he suffered a stroke of apoplexy and died at his home on Bannock Street. Denver was destined to become the center of metal mining research work for the United States and the chief headquarters of the United States Bureau of Mines. A full quarter of the gold mined in the United States, worth some $24 million, was pulled from the ground in Colorado, ranking the state just behind California for production of the precious metal. The plant of the Western Sugar & Land Company in Grand Junction was destined for purchase by a new concern headed by Cripple Creek banker A.E. Carlton, who intended to build a factory at Delta. A honeymoon trip on foot in New York City, with pedometers to record the number of miles covered, was the novel scheme planned by Mr. and Mrs. Frederick J. Anderson, who were married in Golden on Christmas Day. Black men and white men would be able to stage boxing bouts after the athletic commission planned to rescind the old rule against mixed bouts because the attorney general had ruled it unconstitutional.

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com