Historical insights and discoveries for Lafayette, Colorado.
Lost Lafayette, Colorado is available now and is an update to Doug Conarroe’s “80026” coffee table book and contains new chapters on Lafayette’s dark decade dominated by the Ku Klux Klan. There’s also new details about Lafayette’s irrigation and water history. The well-researched book is Lafayette’s complete history from the 1820s through the 1930s. Find it at Arcadia Press.
Local vendors for Arcadia Books include Walgreen’s and Jax Farm and Ranch.
History can sometimes be very messy, with dark chapters that take decades to sort out. Lafayette’s history is no exception.
Recent discoveries related to the Ku Klux Klan activities of town founder Mary Miller’s descendants have so sullied her legacy — and the Miller name — to the point that it should not be used to recognize anything — a street, a neighborhood or a housing development.
What has been declared by old-timers as the worst hail storm which has ever visited the district struck Lafayette last Monday night at 6:30 o’clock and for about 20 minutes it literally poured sheets of ice.
Many hailstones as large as baseballs were picked up and at times the hail was so thick that one could scarcely see across the street.
Petitions recently were circulated in the city of Lafayette requesting the board of county commissioners to refuse to grant licenses for the sale of liquors in unincorporated towns of the county. A copy the petition was presented to the publisher of the (Lafayette) Leader, and his signature was requested. The publisher of this paper was compelled to withhold his signature from the paper. This action was the result of honest convictions, and for various reasons, one of which is that it is no affair of the citizens of this town if gallons are located in other places. A man is master only of his own household. If his neighbor wishes to attend church, or if he prefers to spend his time at the saloon, it is, generally speaking, none of his concern.
But the fight is to be brought closer to home, and petitions now are being presented to the voters of Lafayette, praying that the question of license or no license — saloons or no saloons — be submitted to the voters of this city at the spring election.
Continue reading “Reprints: 1908 – The Leader and the Liquor Question”
