The snowstorm of December 4th & 5th, 1913 remains the biggest in Golden history. There was also record cold that month, so the snow didn’t melt as rapidly as usual. A month later there were still significant drifts.
The December 11, 1913 Colorado Transcript reported that Golden dairyman John Klaassens had disappeared in the storm. He was last seen near his home, when a neighbor helped him unhitch his team from his wagon, which had overturned with a load full of malt. Klaassan headed home from the accident, riding one horse and leading the other. The horses were found the next morning, but searchers found no trace of the man.
112 Years Ago
The January 15, 1914 Transcript reported that Mr. Klaassens’ body had been found at last. He was lying face down about 200 yards from his house. There was blood beneath his body and a mark the size of a horse’s hoof on his chest. The coroner concluded that Klaassens had “pitched over the horse’s head and that the horse stepped on him.” It was believed that the cold and his injury left him unable to stand, so he died where he fell.
Search parties had been looking for him every Sunday since he disappeared, and on January 10th, two men spotted his coat peeking through the drifts near the spot where his horses were found.
Klaassens had come to Golden from Holland six years earlier. He left a wife and three young children. He is buried in the Golden cemetery.
