139 Years Ago
The June 30, 1886 Colorado Transcript gave kudos to the street commissioner for his work on the streets. Paving was not a well-defined science at that time, and almost anything that improved or leveled the surface counted. In 1886, they were working with lime and coal cinders.
Some good work is being done on Second street by the street commissioner. The gutters are being cleared of dirt and rubbish and the street graded up in low places. We hope they will not stop until the whole street from the coal mines to Washington avenue is paved with lime and coal cinders like the avenue. The vast amount of teaming over this street renders this imperative.
Twelfth Street was originally called “Second Street.” As the map above shows, that street provided the only route to and from both a coal mine and a brick & tile factory. They probably accounted for the “vast amount of teaming” (horses and freight wagons).
The newspaper's owner lived on 12th Street, so he would have had first-hand knowledge of the state of the street.
