Time Machine: 50 years ago, Vail Police try out new SAAB vehicles
Vail Trail/Vail Daily archive
30 years ago
March 11, 1994
The Ski Industries America Ski and Outdoor Sports Show in Las Vegas showcased the difference between skiing and snowboarding, the Vail Trail reported.
“It was quite a contrast to see the same buyers who sat down at a desk with suit and tie clad middle-aged Rossignol reps sign just as lucrative a contract with a 22-year-old dredlocked kid sitting in the back of a truck in the ghetto,” the Trail reported. “While the skiseller spoke with a French accent, the board-rep was beginning to slur his words after sipping 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor all afternoon.”
40 years ago
March 16, 1984
Several celebrities visited Vail for the American Ski Classic, the Vail Trail reported.
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“Clint Eastwood, Dan Fogelberg, Tanya Tucker, Cliff Robertson, Jimmy and Patti Connors, Tab Hunter, Tom Jarriel, Howard Head, Steve Ford, and Jack Ford were a few of the racers competing in the Jerry Ford Celebrity Cup races,” the Trail reported. “Former President Gerald Ford said the ski classic began as ‘a little community get together,’ but today it attracts national and international attention.”
Eastwood “joked about being stopped by a ‘lady cop’ in Vail,” the Trail reported. “Eastwood said he told her to ‘Make My Day.'”
50 years ago
March 15, 1974
Vail received its first SAAB police vehicle as part of “an unusual police vehicle testing program” in which police test SAAB vehicles in exchange for advertising rights, the Vail Trail reported.
The program was masterminded by Vail Police Officer Joel Meriwether, a former Mazda dealer in Florida, the Trail reported.
In Florida, Meriwether was involved with a program of supplying the Orlando Police Department with vehicles for testing purposes in exchange for advertising rights, the Trail reported.
With the Vail Police Department “greatly in need of new vehicles,” the Trail reported, “Meriwether took the initiative of investigating a local police vehicle program similar to the one with which he was involved in Florida. SAAB Denver, Inc. was the first to express an interest in such a program.”
70 years ago
March 11, 1954
The regional water outlook was discouraging, the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported.
“Since February readings were taken, the whole of Western Colorado water content in snow is 7 percent less than on Feb. 1,” the Enterprise reported. “Then there showed only 73 percent of normal of the 18 year average.”
Local areas, which included the Eagle River, were averaging about 6 percent less water than the previous month, the Enterprise reported.
“There is practically no snow anywhere below 8,000 feet altitude,” the Enterprise reported.
It was likely that 1954 would be the 25th year, and one of the worst, in a continuing drought which started with water year 1930, the Enterprise reported.
“With such an outlook, there is only one thing for Western Colorado water users to do: prepare in every way they can to catch in their reservoirs, so far as they have reservoirs, all the annual flood possible,” the Enterprise reported. “They will need this stored water in late summer as badly as they have ever needed it. The long succession of dry years should encourage them to build reservoirs, where suitable sites can be found.”
80 years ago
March 17, 1944
State Highway Engineer Charley Vail, in an interview with the Eagle Valley Enterprise, said one of the greatest channels for idle labor after World War II will be highway building.
“Since the outbreak of war no new projects have been built and our present highways are deteriorating badly from lack of funds and labor to keep them up under the hardest use they have ever been put to,” the Enterprise reported.
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Vail had been the head of the highway department for more than 13 years and had directed the expenditures of more money than any other man in the history of the state, the Enterprise reported.
“Looking back over the thirteen years, we believe the people of the state, as a whole, are satisfied with the use of the highway money as it has been directed under the supervision of Mr. Vail,” the Enterprise reported. “He has plans for the future of the state highways which he believes will be of great benefit and which he is certain will not entail a burden greater than the increased traffic over the highways will justify.”
