This opinion piece reflects the views of John Hazlehurst only and are not endorsed by the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
Decades ago, the Gazette prominently featured the Society Column, a weekly tribute to the parties and gatherings of our city’s leading citizens. If you aspired to become one of the chosen few, there were lots of avenues to follow, create or scam your way to fame, fortune or genteel notoriety.
It’s interesting to compare today’s growth-obsessed, exorbitantly wealthy middle-aged white guys with their 19th and early 20th century counterparts. Amateur historians and ancient Colorado Springs residents (I qualify in both categories) tend to believe that the latter era was graced by dignity, taste and consensual creation of a remarkable little city. I remember it well – but history, as revealed in by letters from prominent and not-so-prominent residents sealed in the Century Chest of 1901, reveals a city much like ours, if much smaller…