Photos stirred memories for former Georgetown resident

Comments from Betty Carman, of San Francisco, former resident and HGI member. (Ed. Note: If you would like to review the photos described below, please refer to the Fall 1999 newsletter online [volume XXIX, No.2].

... Mostly though I like the three "Depression" photos. That's the Georgetown I grew up in -- and it looked exactly like that for a good many years both before and after the official Depression ...

In the front page picture (the south side of 6th Street, east of Rose), the Fish Building (where Sophie Galley now is) was the Bank of Georgetown until it failed -- about 1932 I think. Then it was the Post Office for quite a long time. Upstairs, immediately over the Bank, was the Telephone Office. The rooms by the office were where the manager of that office and her three daughters lived -- Mrs. Jellison, Celia, Eleanore and Alva. They came to Georgetown in 1929 when Alva and I were both in second grade. (I have no idea who managed it before that.) They moved to Denver in about 1934 and Edna Rydlund became the mnager, but I do not think she lived in the building. She had that job until the telephone system was automated, and about that time the upstairs was remodeled into apratments -- which were floored with the hardwood flooring from the old rink (which you did not show a picture of). ... The other buildings in that picture were vacant as far back as I can remember until Orion Shockley bought one of them and made an office and an apartment there in about 1945.

The Argentine Street picture really takes me back. Starting with the Court House the houses were occupied by Mrs. Cleaves, Mrs. O'Connell, a vacant house (?), and almost out of the picture -- the Jim Jones family. (Mrs. Jones was a sister of Emil Anderson, therefore a great-aunt of Coralue.) I'm sure I helped wear the patrh across the vacant lot (where the present telephone building is).

The Taos Street picture shows the Silver Plume road wandering up Republican Mt. -- what the mountain looked like before it was raped by I-70. All of those buildings were vacant in all my growing-up years except the one closest to the Alpine Hose House. Q. Barlow Wilmarth had a office there. I think he as a "mining promotor" but I don't really know that.

I'd like to see more of the series and hope you'll be printing others.

Sincerely,

     BETTY CARMAN

Ed. Note: Betty Carman is a Georgetown native and daughter of Judge George Criley and Elizabeth (Bess) Parker Criley. This issue of the SQPN contains two more photos of the Depression Series. HGI does not have a picture of the skating rink referred to in Betty's letter. We would appreciate receiving copies if anyone would care to share.