The box edition: the same zine with no dates inside, for little free libraries and anywhere a stack sits for weeks. Download the PDF. Same printing: Letter, landscape, two-sided, flip on the short edge, fold once, no staples. Put the dated one-sheet in the box beside it.
Get it Thursday morning
One email a week, free. Call, text or email and we'll sign you up; no email, we'll hand you the next one.
westsidewherewithal.com
hello@westsidewherewithal.com
call or text 719-201-5462
The Westside Wherewithal · Jeff Adkins, editor · hello@westsidewherewithal.com · call or text 719-201-5462 · 2320 W Colorado Ave Ste 122, Colorado Springs, CO 80904 · Thursday mornings, free · See you Thursday.
Take one, it is free. No dates inside, so it keeps. Fold only, no staples, so it composts. If the stack runs out, call and we bring more.
Sanborn fire insurance map, Colorado City, November 1902. Library of Congress.
Thursday mornings · Free
The Westside Wherewithal
Because living west of I-25 takes a little wherewithal.
A free paper for the Westside of Colorado Springs, written by the people who live here. Thursday mornings, starting January.
A sample. The weekly starts Thursday, Jan 7, 2027. Take this one home; the dated calendar is the one-page sheet in the box beside it.
Westside word find
Ten words hide across, down and on the slant. Circle them.
W E S T S I D E W E S T A R T A C R E E K M F T O R R V E A L I N A J U P A N E U A R Y S N I N G I N N U P B A T I W N M E K U S T A S I T D E I E W E H E N G R O E L D W I T S H C A A U L D L O T C O M R R O R C A A L L U S S O D E E Y O N U T H U R F E L K S D D A Y M O R T N N I N G
ELK · CREEK · AVENUE · MIDLAND · TUNNEL · BANCROFT · MANITOU · GARDEN · WESTSIDE · PIKES
Found all ten? The letters you did not circle, read left to right and top to bottom, say something. Check it at westsidewherewithal.com/check.
Done? Page 5 has an elk to draw.
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Send it in
The shop that closed, the thing the city's about to do on your street, the neighbor everybody should know. Photos and drawings count, with your name on them.
Send it however you like: email, text or mail, hello@westsidewherewithal.com, a call or a text to 719-201-5462, or mail it to 2320 W Colorado Ave Ste 122, Colorado Springs 80904. (Mail only; nobody is at the door.) We write back.
Rather talk than type? Call or text 719-201-5462 and tell me out loud; I'll write it down and you hear it read back before it runs.
Under 18? Send it anyway; we'll check with you or a parent before it runs. Teachers, send the whole class.
En español: mándenos un texto al 719-201-5462 o escríbanos a hello@westsidewherewithal.com, en español: su cena, su misa, su aviso. No lo hablo de nacimiento; lo traducimos con un vecino y se lo leemos antes de publicar.
Want a desk? The pages signed by a desk are open; here's how to take one.
Got a counter, or a box on your fence? Say so and we'll bring a stack, free, and swap the stale ones.
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Sanborn fire insurance map, Colorado City, November 1902, index sheet. Library of Congress, public domain. Draw on it.
Three stories from this avenue
- Two tame elk, Thunder and Buttons, pulled a tourist carriage down this avenue in 1888.
- Tunnels ran from the saloons on the north side to the houses on Cucharras. Some of them, the historians admit, may be something else.
- The town voted itself dry in 1913 and had to join Colorado Springs four years later.
Circle three things: the word INDEX, a street you have walked on, and the biggest block. One question, one answer: the map company printed the town's population inside the round seal. What was it? 4,000 Got a photo of one building here still standing? Send one; the best run with your name on them.
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Every week
Mon Boom Box Bingo, 7 to 11 p.m. (Mother Muff's)Tue Math tutoring, 4 to 5:30 p.m. (OCC Library)Wed Toddler Time, 10:30 a.m. (OCC Library)Wed Open mic, 6 to 9 p.m. (Jives Coffee Lounge, 16 Colbrunn Ct)Thu Trivia, 7 to 9 p.m. (OCC Brewing)Fri Storytime, 10:30 a.m. (OCC Library)Sat Paws to Read, 10:30 a.m. (OCC Library)Sun Brunch Jam Band, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Mother Muff's)The Bulletin Board
- Food, rent and utility help: Westside CARES, 2808 W Colorado Ave, 719-389-0759. Open Monday to Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. They prefer you walk in. Closed when the schools close for weather. Serves everyone west of I-25.
- Westside Community Center, 1628 W Bijou St, 719-385-7920. Open Monday and Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Church suppers, pantry hours, services, weddings, and the ones we lost: free, in your words. Send it by Tuesday.
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Westside five
Circle one answer each. The key is at the bottom, upside down.
- The easy one: what pulled John O'Byrne's tourist carriage down this avenue in 1888? Two camels, two elk, or two goats?
- In 1903 the Teller County sheriff chained a Pullman sleeping car to a siding in Cripple Creek over unpaid taxes of: $66.32, $663.21, or $6,632.10?
- Just after midnight on September 9, the top of the Colorado City Glass Works furnace collapsed and fiery glass poured out. 1872, 1892, or 1912?
- The Golden Flake potato chip factory on the avenue is now part of: the Goodwill, the library, or a brewery?
- Before it was a park, Bancroft Park held a: fire station, a school, or a jail?
All five come from Mel McFarland's Cobweb Corners columns in the Westside Pioneer, 2004 to 2019, indexed at westsidewherewithal.com/cobweb. Text your score, or five questions of your own, to 719-201-5462.
1. Two elk · 2. $663.21 · 3. 1892 · 4. Goodwill · 5. School
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Thunder and Buttons
A true story, short, from 1888.
John O'Byrne ran carriages for tourists out of Colorado City. In 1888 he got two tame elk from a judge over in Aspen, and he trained them to pull his carriage the way other men used horses. He named them Thunder and Buttons.
Picture the avenue then: dirt, boardwalks, saloons on the north side, and a carriage coming down the middle of it pulled by two elk with full racks. People came from the hotels in Manitou just to see them. For a few years Thunder and Buttons were the most famous animals in the county.
Eventually a movie company bought them and took them to Alaska to film advertisements, and that is where the trail goes cold. If anybody in your family has a photograph of an elk in harness, we would very much like to see it.
Mel McFarland's column of Feb 3, 2005, Westside Pioneer; indexed at westsidewherewithal.com/cobweb.
Draw the elk and the carriage.
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