by Pam North

Colorado has its share of off-the-wall stories and weird events.  Bet you haven't heard these.

F.E. Atitstill is hardly a familiar name, but at the turn of the century this man had an ambitious and daring dream for Denver -
he planned to make it a seaport with thirty-seven ocean-going steamers.  At least that's what the Denver Republican newspaper reported on October 22, 1904.  The publication had a reputation for delivering straight news, so their acceptance and subsequent reporting of this bizarre proposal is surprising in itself.  Attitstill planned to dredge the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and then the Platte and South Platte rivers all the way to Denver.  He claimed that he had already purchased five blocks along Cherry Creek where the freighters could be docked, bringing fruit to Colorado and shipping hay to England, both at lower cost.  He also declared that he had bought the ownership of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads, with the purpose of connecting with the West Coast.  Despite the extravagant and dubious nature of Atitstill's claims, the newpaper published the outlandish story, causing quite a sensation among the readers.  No subsequent news of Atitstill and his dream followed afterward, and Denver did not become a seaport.

One dark night in the fall of 1977, a Colorado state trooper, driving up the western approach to the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70,  was startled to see something fluttering in the road ahead of him.  Stopping his car to investigate, he found a duck that had been killed when it struck the road surface.  Other ducks began to fall around him, and upon examination, the trooper found that their wings were coated with ice.  Some of the ducks had the good fortune of landing in snow at the edge of the highway, and the trooper found that they were still alive.  One that he had placed in the patrol car revived and started quacking.  After he had radioed to the Denver central control center with the news, saying,"You've heard of it raining cats and dogs?  Well, up here it's snowing ducks!" he continued through the tunnel to the east approach and found the same situation there.   Using some large cardboard cartons supplied by the tunnel night engineer, the trooper loaded up thirty-two ducks, twenty-six of which ultimately survived and were released the next morning to continue on their southward migration.

In 1933, Colorado had an Official State Liar.  The Great Depression gripped the nation at that time, and as an attempt to bring some much-needed levity to a trying time, Governor Edwin C. Johnson held a contest to decide the recipient of the honor of being the state's official liar.  The winner was Phil McCarty, president of a Denver heating company.  His story was about a cat with a wooden leg that killed mice by hitting them over the head with the leg.  As the cat became cross-eyed from watching the mice,
he lost his ability to aim accurately, but it didn't matter - the mice died from fright when they beheld the cross-eyed cat.   McCarty was presented with an official rubber medal during a broadcast from a Denver radio station, and informed that his yearly salary would be one dollar per year.  McCarty told his first official lie when he stated that he would not accept the payment.

Who needs fiction when facts like this exist?
 
 

Resources:  I Never Knew That About Colorado, by Abbott Fay
                      More That I Never Knew About Colorado, by Abbott Fay