Peekin' into the Past

Five Years Ago — June 8, 2017

Milton and Leona (Schmidt) Oltjenbruns celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary June 1.

Lizde Lopez recently opened Lopez Party Rentals in Holyoke, offering bounce houses, canopies and other supplies to host a variety of parties.

Holyoke Volunteer Fire Department raced to a first-place finish in the six-man competition at the district fire races June 4 in Akron.

Ten Years Ago — June 7, 2012

Dirt work began this past weekend at the site of a new Family Dollar store one block west of the stoplight in Holyoke. The building will be built where the old Baldwin Chevrolet dealership once stood.

Work has been busy the last few weeks west of Holyoke at the new Seaboard Foods mill site. With the hopes of offering a more centralized mill to their live operations, Seaboard Foods is constructing a $13 million facility 2 miles west of town on a 33-acre site.

Twenty-Five Years Ago — June 12, 1997

Lenny and Robin Helzer recently bought The Bakery from John and Marianne Sullivan, where Lenny has been employed as a baker/pastry chef for three years.

For a one-year trial basis, the Re-1J board gave tentative approval for girls swimming to operate as a club, sanctioned as an HHS program through the Colorado High School Activities Association.

Five Holyoke young people are getting a taste of real-life law enforcement. A newly chartered Explorers program is helping them decide if that’s a career they want to pursue. Holyoke’s mayor and chief of police were granted a charter for Explorer Post 1228 at the city council meeting June 3.

Frogs, bunnies and kangaroos tallied 4,838 hops in the 10-minute hop-a-thon Saturday morning. The event was coordinated by Dragon’s Wagon Preschool as a FUNdraiser for the Peerless project.

Grace Baptist Church of Holyoke recently announced a new meeting location. As of June 15, the church will meet at Sunset View Community Center.

Fifty Years Ago — June 8, 1972

First S & L Shares Inc., Denver, announced that the company has made an offer to acquire ownership of Sterling Savings and Loan Association. Sterling Savings has six savings and loan offices located at Sterling, Greeley, Brush, Wray, Holyoke and Julesburg and agencies at Akron and Yuma. First S & L Shares Inc. owns Majestic Savings and Loan Association, Denver, and Commerce Savings and Loan Association, Shawnee, Kansas.

Crop conditions in Phillips County improved considerably with the additional 1.45 inches of rain received during the past week. Total precipitation received in Holyoke since Jan. 1 is 7 inches.

Seventy-Five Years Ago — June 12, 1947

Lewis Dirks, of 6 miles north of Holyoke, has purchased the vacant lots across the street east of the courthouse for the purpose of erecting a roller skating rink.

A tornado accompanied by heavy rains and hail struck Julesburg last Friday afternoon, doing an estimated $500,000 in damage to residences and business properties. Quick action on the part of the officials at the power plant to throw the main switch, deadening the miles of power lines ripped up by the tornado, saved the town from further possible damage by fire.

Considerable interest is being shown by a large number of town and country people in the possibility of the town helping build a community building for Holyoke. It has been understood that the building could be located on the vacant lots east of the library. These lots are owned by the town and are a part of the library property.