Salida, Colorado: Then and Now

 Another errand run into the town of Salida this morning, while there I decided to see how many "then and now" pics I could get in the Historic Downtown area.

Wikipedia: A post office has been in operation at Salida since 1881. The community was named on account of its location at the upper end of the canyon containing the Royal Gorge, Salida meaning "exit" in Spanish.

It's actually a nice little town, with fewer than 6000 inhabitants apparently.  I power washed the Sammy just to get rid of the copious amount of mud that had caked the underside during previous fun drives with Chris and Lori.  Got more oil for both the Sammy and a planned generator oil change, parts for the Sammy's door rod which I need to adjust for hopefully easier opening.  The theory from Chris is the aftermarket seats are pushing against the door panel, causing opening difficult you see.

Anyways, errands accomplished, I cruised the downtown area and where I found a reference photo from the Denver Public Library's online database, I took a "now" shot for your viewing pleasure.  You should be able to spot the Sammy in most of the shots.

The Manhattan Hotel circa 1994

Constructed 1901

image source: DPL: AUR-991

Palace Hotel circa 1994

constructed 1901

image source: DPL AUR-993

The Twitchell Building circa 1989

constructed in 1880

image source: DPL: AUR-995

Here's a closer view of the mural in the picture above:

Hopefully, when they go to remove the mask someone taped

onto the mural, they'll not damage the mural.

F Street View circa 1920-1929

image source DPL: x-13259

Here's the mural partially shown in the photo above:

As I crisscrossed my way through the downtown area, I happened upon this nice looking Samurai.  I kind of like the soft top it sported, don't you?

As you can see in the pics, it was nice and sunny in Salida.  It was T-Shirt weather really and folks were out enjoying the warm weather with no wind.

It was a different story almost 2200 feet higher where the campsite is located!  Heavily overcast and strong gusty winds with temperatures in the low 50s!  Still, the lack of people at this location makes up for the nice warmth down below by the Arkansas River!

Riding about the Three Rivers Area, NM

December 20, 2019

Lots of history in this small area, to include one of the major residents here being the first Cabinet Level official convicted in the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.

Found all this out via a quick read of a book titled Tres Ritos (Three Rites), the original name of the area where three creeks converge in the valley.  Written by Gary Cozzens, it was a book one can borrow from the campground office.

Link to book

I would end up using captures of some of the pictures in the book to show "then and now" further in this post.

After it got above freezing, I geared up warmly and drove Fiona, the '99 Patrol sidecar rig all the way to the Three Rivers National Forest Campground, about 8 miles away closer in to Sierra Blanca Peak.  The road is well maintained so driving a big RV to the campground is not a big deal, though the campsites didn't seem to be very big as I cruised through.

On the way back towards camp, I explored every side county road I came across:

The above county road would end at the border with the Mescalero Apache Reservation, stopping any further progress:

Getting closer to camp, I took a different county road to check out the Santo Niño de Atocha Chapel

 I didn't go inside the church but I later found another blogger 

who did:  LINK

Circa 1960s

Source is Gary Cozzen's book

 Wooden Cross, I wonder if it used to

be on top of the church steeple?

 Santo Niño de Atocha Cemetery, note the white cross

atop the cliff in the background.

The cliffs are part of what's called the Palisades

 The ruins of a building near the church, with

the two crosses atop the cliffs visible

Just past these above ruins, is the dirt road leading to the Stations of the Cross trail which apparently leads all the way to the top of one of the Palisade Cliffs.  I found another post where someone hiked this rather steep trail which saved me the effort!  LINK to see pics from up top:

There's 13 stations of the cross along the hiking trail, I just took pictures of the first three:

 closeup of the above first station

I then returned to camp and finally got around to putting the Rideon Tire Sealant into Yagi's tires.  This is in expectation of picking up cactus spines while riding my TW200 in Arizona later on this trip.

As part of the installation, you ride the motorcycle 4-6 miles to spread the sealant evenly within the tire's inner tube.  As part of this riding, I rode east towards US54 and took more pics for then and now:

Source is Gary Cozzen's book

 The school is now a private residence

circa 1950

Source is Gary Cozzen's book

A couple of the "animals" on display:

 Anyone want a Barbed Wire Rhino?

I wandered about with Yagi, exploring side trails that I'd skipped while on Fiona.  Didn't get very far on any of them, they either ended up in very bad conditions:

or became very rocky and seemingly miles of the same stuff:

or, I hit the reserve point on Yagi's tiny gas tank (1.8 gallon) and had to ride back towards camp to get more gas as there were no nearby gas stations.

Photo Insets - Denver's 16th Street

While nowhere near as cool or well done as the photos shown in this previous posting: LINK; or even as well done as the pictures show on dearphotograph.com; I give you my rendition of vintage photos of Denver's 16th Street.

Back in the day, it was apparently a main parade route for events and celebrations.  I found several photos in the Denver Public Library's archive; and using photoshop, merged them into photos I took just the other day of the same location (mostly).

I will show the original photo first, then the merged version.  I hope you enjoy them, I found them actually pretty easy to make.  The call number is listed below each pic as sourcing information.  Just use the archive link above or try the call number link below each photo.

16th Street and Tremont Place, 1979, 

before it was made into a mall.

z-10803

16th Street looking north towards the Daniels and Fisher Tower

1938

X-23375

Armistice Parade, November 1918 

X-18728

Decorated for Christmas 

Circa 1930-1940

16th and Arapahoe Street

rh-19

Denver Police and Firemen's Parade

May 21, 1921

x-23761

Policeman standing in Tramway Loading Zone, 1928

16th and California Street

rh-171

16th street looking south from Stout Street 

Circa 1935-39

x-23351

I know, not a single view of my motorcycles.....private vehicles are not permitted on the 16th Street Mall these days, just official vehicles and the buses.

Do you have a street similar to Denver's 16th Street in your town?  

For my fellow moto-bloggers: a useful website

Hope you had a great Christmas Day!

Most of you readers know my penchant for the ocassional posting featuring "then and now" photos.  They show a landmark/place usually as it once was and as it is now, preferably with one of my motorcycles somewhere in the "now" picture.

Martha, my loving wife, discovered by accident (through googling) a website that provides a source of "then" pictures, superimposed onto Google's StreetView feature of Google Maps.  Very cool.

I'd been lucky to have access to a huge repository of archival photos of yesterday, courtesy of the Denver Public Library.  Now perhaps, you can access photos from near you, to see what was there before and what is there now.

Here's a link to the site:  LINK

It's name is whatwasthere.com and its superimposing feature of old onto new allows you to adjust the opacity of the "then" shot so you can see where it fits on the Google StreetView photo that is "now".  For the most part, the photos are aligned pretty well.

 Near the Brown Palace Hotel in Downtown Denver

The Trinity Methodist Church near where I work in 

Downtown Denver.

Not a bad little tool for the quick creation of "then and now" shots I believe.  It also gives me the idea of figuring out how to do the same in photoshop, with future "then and now" shots of mine, so they'll include a shot of my motorcycle choice of the day as well.

Hope you like this site, and that it inspires some "then and now" postings of your own.  The site is North-American-centric for now, but perhaps as folks upload their own shots and the coverage of Google Maps Streetview spreads further.....

Fairmount Cemetery - Then and Now

It's Labor Day today, so as most of the folks in the USA, I had the day off.

The morning started in the cool mid-60s and I figured it was a good day to visit a local cemetery with a rather imposing gatehouse.  A gatehouse which catches one's eye as one rides on busy Alameda Avenue near the intersection of Quebec Street.

Fairmount Cemetery Gatehouse

2013

Fairmount Cemetery Gatehouse

circa 1890-1910

source: DPL: c-123

Being a cemetery, which are places not known to change a lot, it's not surprising that the gatehouse is pretty much the way it was over a hundred years ago.  The steeple tower missing is a shame, in my opinion.  

The gatehouse no longer serves as the main entry point to the cemetery, there's now a driveway to the east of the gatehouse for that purpose.  I rode in with Valencia, my 2011 URAL Patrol Sidecar and parked in the back of the gatehouse to soak in the historic atmosphere.

Driving a little further into the cemetery, one comes upon the Little Ivy Chapel, a very picturesque structure overlooking the older section of the cemetery.

Little Ivy Chapel 

2013

Little Ivy Chapel

circa 1893-1900

source: DPL: z2830

A closeup view of the chapel's towering adornments.

The Chapel stands as proudly as it did over 100 years ago, a testament to its builders, wouldn't you say?

I motored about the older sections of the cemetery, rolling slowing past large and small mausoleum sites engraved with common names and also famous names.  There was even a section designated as the Military Graves section where Colorado's military members rest in peace.

The World War II Section

The early morning sunlight precluded much shooting of the other interesting points in the cemetery, another day at another hour perhaps.  I left the cemetery to the few bicyclists I saw slowly meandering the lanes between the cemetery's sections.

Here's some more information about the Fairmount Cemetery, along with a list of notables buried there: LINK

Here's a link to a series of pictures of the gravestones found in the Fairmount Cemetery: LINK

Update:  Added then and now pics of the Fairmount Mausoleum Building on the southern end of the cemetery:

Fairmount Mausoleum

2013

circa 1920-1930

source: DPL RH-370