Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, Fort Leonard Wood: congestion, construction, school)

[MRG Dallas]

Good pic! You can also see the Skelly Station (where I got my one and only KC A's Blooper Ball) and the entrance to Methodist Church

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Gold Camp Road is a gravel covered narrow road with single lane tunnels and actually goes from Colorado Springs at 7,200 feet elevation westerly to Cripple Creek at 9,500 feet. From there it might go on to Victor, another mining town at 9,700 feet.

Cripple Creek is one of three gambling towns in Colorado, but it is so far off the beaten path that it attracts the smallest number of gamblers of the three. I enjoy it more than the other two but it is rather far away time wise.

I started on Gold Camp Road once and turned back. Did not have enough time. The scenery is nice but you are lucky to make 15 miles in an hour, if that much. The road follows a former narrow gauge roadbed so there are tight squeezes. Downhill traffic always has the right of way.

I did follow Phantom Canyon Road one time from Highway 50 to Cripple Creek. It is another gravel roadway that is an abandoned narrow gauge RR with single lane tunnels. Took four hours to travel 25 miles. Every so often you would see someone panning for gold in the creeks. I have refused to go that way again.

US Highway 24 goes from Colorado Springs northwest to Leadville. I have never been on that route but Delorme Maps says it takes three hours to travel the 127 mile distance.



North of where I am at, Clear Creek is the water source for Coors Beer. It used to be that when driving along this creek, people were everywhere panning for gold. Some had even parked and set up tents along US 6. There is not much room for US 6 let alone tents and parked cars; and some were pretty close to the highway. The state put a stop to pan mining on the creek by either prohibiting panning, prohibiting camping, or prohibiting parking along US 6, or all three, I cannot remember.

We took US 24 to CS back before I-70 was built.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by CaseyMO

In the Army, we did "left, right, left" and did it without any drums. And, if we did not want to bring trouble upon ourselves, we stayed in line and in time with everyone else.

I agree with what you are saying. In small formations there was always a cadence caller to get the troops started in rhythm.

The band and drums were used for large formations such as when battalions or regiments or divisions did "pass in review" marches, etc., when cadence callers were supposed to be quiet and the marchers followed the beat of the drums.

There is the old saying about someone who marches to the beat of a different drummer. That saying came about because there always seemed to be some mess up who would get out of step to the drums. The saying was then applied to most anyone who constantly messes up.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

We took US 24 to CS back before I-70 was built.

Back in 1966, I took US 40 through Colorado. There was one five mile section of I-70 with two small tunnels then built near Idaho Springs. That was it. It seemed like forever to get through Denver and it seemed like eternity before I got out of the mountains.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by CaseyMO

The following was found online at a site that has provided the text from the 1982 Gleam. This may have been after all of our times in high school, but it does provide some insight into teens at that time and clothing.

Alligator

Preppies push designer clothes;
Pac-Man attracts coin droppers

by Natalie Rice

Once it was the poodle skirt but
today no wardrobe is complete without
that Jordache look. No girl will allow
anything to come between her and her
Calvins' and even the poor little rich
girl, Gloria Vanderbilt, is pushing her
version of designer jeans.

Since teenagers are willing to pay
a high price for fashion, a pair of Calvin
Klein, Gloria Vanderbilt, or Jordache
jeans costs $40 to $60 in a retail store.

"The importance of wearing name brand
clothes seems to vary from person-
to-person," said Mrs. Jennifer Mitchell,
psychology teacher. "For some
people it is a means of establishing a
good reputation and becoming accepted,
yet for other students it makes no
difference what they wear. They are
more concerned with being comfortable."

Another small style-war wages in
the halls and classrooms: the preppies
vs. the anti-preppies. Lacoste shirts,
better known as Izods and distinguished
by an alligator on the left side
of the shirt are seen in large quantities.

Yet some students rebel against
this uniform code of dress by wearing
buttons bearing the motto, "Save the
alligator; eat a preppie" or T-shirts picturing
an alligator wearing a shirt with a
human being on the pocket. Despite
these methods to "Stamp out Izod,"
the alligator still rules.

The hottest craze locally is the
Rubik Cube, an innocent looking 2 1 / 4 -
inch cube with six sides, six colors, 26
smaller sub-cubes and more than three
billion possible color combinations. The
goal is to make each side of the cube
one solid color and is accomplished
only after much concentration and hair-
pulling.

"It took me about 30 minutes to
work the cube. It can be very challeng-
ing, but my advice is to just stick with it
and don't give up trying," said junior
Jeff Bennett.

Other challenges taking up students'
spare time are computer games.
Pac-Man and Space Invaders are part
of normal week-end entertainment,
partly because of their low price, a
quarter a game.

I thought the Rubik's Cube was a 70s thing and I never did master it but the kids could work one not many hours after Christmas and it soon became boring to them.

You can still buy one at Amazon, including many variations with one having what appears to be a 12 sided version.

[WCHS'59]

In 1922, the largest swimming pool in the KC area was the 65 by 150 foot The Natatorium in Independence per Pearl Wilcox.

The previous largest in the area was the 50 by 117 foot pool in Electric Park.

I was in the Natatorium only one time so I don't remember anything about the size. I do seem to remember rough concrete on the pool sides that I did not like. The facility seemed old then but it would have been only about 34 years since it was built when I visited.

I don't remember any wading pools for youngsters either.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

In 1922, the largest swimming pool in the KC area was the 65 by 150 foot The Natatorium in Independence per Pearl Wilcox.

The previous largest in the area was the 50 by 117 foot pool in Electric Park.

I was in the Natatorium only one time so I don't remember anything about the size. I do seem to remember rough concrete on the pool sides that I did not like. The facility seemed old then but it would have been only about 34 years since it was built when I visited.

I don't remember any wading pools for youngsters either.

I guess by the time I started swimming there pools of that size were standard. In fact, it seemed that Sugar Creek had a larger pool, but what do I remember? I believe one entered The Nat on the side street side and it had a sloped entrance into the shallow side from the locker rooms/concessions et al

The diving boards were on the end nearest the RR tracks. You could easily hear the trains as they passed underneath even with all the yelling and screaming that went on poolside. It was pretty cool to swim and see the world go by on Lexington (chain link fence to that side?) and hear the trains on their way to KC and other parts unknown

I got my Worst Sunburn Ever @ The Nat

[WCHS'59]

Someone please fell free to fill in the holes of my reminiscing.


Remember when Truman Road was a very busy major artery to downtown Kansas City?

It was bumper to bumper driving from the western part of Independence all the way. Part of the bumper to bumper problem was due to the extreme congestion just west of the Blue River at the Centropolis railway passenger station where eight tracks crossed Truman Road at grade level.

Traffic here was a b**** as there were two sets of traffic lights along with crossing gates on Truman which controlled the automobile flow across the tracks. One would have to wait at the first light for the first set of six tracks and once that cleared one would have to many, many times wait at the next traffic light at the two or so main line tracks. Due to both the Centropolis passenger and freight stations at this location there was much rail traffic.

(That problem has since been corrected by a bridge erected over and past those RR tracks west from I-435. A number of tracks have also disappeared.)

Truman Road dead ended at Grand in Kansas City where there was a huge bluff that was several stories high. Near the top of that bluff was a huge billboard which could be seen from quite a ways away and that bill board always advertised a tire dealer, I think.

This area is totally unrecognizable to me now but when one of the Interstate highways came through, several blocks of Truman became that Interstate highway. They not only tackled the removal of that huge bluff but they also lowered the former Truman Road to below grade ripping out more rock.

The cost was huge and I seem to remember $32m for three fourths of a mile. I think this was the most expensive Interstate construction up to that time.

This was at a time when the average cost for a new Interstate was $1m per mile. That was 1960s money. And, it took a long time for construction maybe being the last segment of the original Interstate system to be constructed in the KC area.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

Good pic! You can also see the Skelly Station (where I got my one and only KC A's Blooper Ball) and the entrance to Methodist Church

I think I might have mentioned once before that it cost 50 or 75 cents to have a tube type leak fixed at that station in '57 or '58. At that point in time I had only heard about tubeless tires.

I took off from WCHS Div II headed for the square on Maple. All of a sudden, my car was hard to control as the driver side tire had gone flat. This was my first experience with a flat while driving but I did not know that was the problem. The tire must have been leaking for a while and I did not notice it being low.

That Skelly was convenient so I turned in there. It was a big place and they got a chuckle from me driving in with a flat. They fixed it while I waited. The kid doing the repair was probably making 50 cents an hour.

An automotive place is still there today and has six bays but does not sell gasoline.

[Mad Anthonie]

Y'all are out nostalgiaizing me! Both the Nat and the Truman Road through Centropolis are well before my time.