Back in the 1960’s, the Livingston Hotel was no longer an operating business, however there was an old woman who lived there. What was remarkable about her is that she would sit out on front porch on a summer evening with her pet raccoon. My sister and I would stop by and, if we were gentle, she would let us pet it.
Doyle Hornbaker still owned the Niwot Tribune, even though it had been closed since 1958. He was a friendly old man and enjoyed talking with everyone in town. One time he invited several of us kids to go into the old building. Inside was a huge printing press (huge in comparison to an 8-year-old kid) and trays of lead resettable type. He showed us how the type was set and how the press operated.
Walt Atkinson, the blacksmith, was a unique individual, in a positive way. He was mild-mannered and easily tolerated us kids, who hung around his shop in the summer. I personally became close to him.
The shop was grimy and black through and through. Not so much as lack of maintenance, but because of the periodic refiring of the forge. As the clinkers/ slag inside the forge would eventually bond together, he would break them up and remove them, leaving a small portion of the hot slag to rebuild the fire. As I recall, he would cover the hot slag completely with fresh coal and turn on the blower. Black smoke would fill the inside of the shop and then boil out either end, looking a lot like “a house afire”. Of course, the other merchants didn’t pay any mind as they knew what was happening. However, to a bunch of kids, this was just so cool!
While digging through one of the piles of ash and slag by the forge, I discovered a rectangular shaped piece of slag. After chipping away at it, it turned out to be a metal box about 2” to 3” square and about 6” long, with what looked like a coin slot on top. The box would slide apart into two separate parts. Walt looked at the box and told me it was a Boulder County tax collection box. Back in the day, he added the required tax to the box for each sale he transacted. He pointed out a couple of holes in the box where the tax collector would place a lock. The tax collector would come by periodically and remove the money from the box.
As Walt was preparing the forge to “sharpen” plow shares (basically heat the plow share cherry red and beat it with a hammer on the anvil) he related a vision to me. He realized that as industry and housing moved into Boulder County, farming was going to give way. He enjoyed his blacksmith work and was going to focus on making ornamental iron for the homes being built. The last time I saw him (early 1980’s) he had realized his dream.
Inside the Firehouse Museum is a bank of Post Office boxes from the old Post Office, On the lower right-hand side, as I recall, is P.O. Box 31, which was the Hicks family mailbox.
The park that was located at the Northwest corner of 2nd Avenue and Murray was located on Railroad property. During the summer of 1965, the Railroad removed the park and erected a steel building, next to the old spur track. It was leased to Pabst Blue Ribbon and a warehouse.