Salida Record, June 2, 1904: At 11:30 last night Hotel Turret was discovered to be on fire and so much headway had the flames gained that the building and contents were totally destroyed. S

Seven or eight inmates of the hotel were asleep when the alarm was sounded, and although every efforts was made to rescue all of the the accodent was a fatal one. The dead and injured are: RAYMOND ZOOK, suffocated and burned to death; H.J. GREGORY, badly suffocated but now out of danger. The remainder of the inmates escaped only partly clothed and saved little or nothing of their effects. No explanation of the cause of the fire is offered by any one. No wind was blowing at the time, or it is altogether probable that the affair would have been more disastrous than it was. Fridey's hall, about 25 feet west of the burned building was saved only by great effort. Both the hotel and the hall belong to E. R. Fridey of Salida.

Salida Record, Aug. 19, 1904: Sunday witnessed a typical electric storm with more or less damage resulting.On the mesa, where the storm was at its worst, the telephone system was very much disabled. Residents of the locality say that electrical appliances in their homes snapped and cracked until it was deemed hardly safe indoors. Mr. and Mrs. S. W. Sandusky, who watched the storm from the rear veranda of their mesa home, saw the lightning playing upon the foothills adjoining the city and in many instances saw it strike the trees and cause them to burst into flames.

Salida Mail, Aug. 20, 1929: A fire of undetermined origin which broke out in the Browns Canon School house on Friiday night, resulted in the loss of the entire building, a one room frame structure, and all contents. Residents of Browns Canon were notified of the fire of telephone calls from Salida. Many people here saw the reddened sky caused by the blaze. Attempts were made to put out the fire but it was too far underway to be controlled. The building burned to the ground.

The building is to be rebuilt as soon as possible and a temporary school will be established in a rented building for the opening of school. Miss rose Post will teach again this year.

Salida Mail, Aug. 30, 1929: The bodies of deer and cattle floated down the Arkansas River Tuesday night. Chicken coops, sheds and lumber piles hurtled under the bridge as a crowd of watchers stood in the rain to view the river at its worst flood stage in the history of Salida. The river was eight feet above normal. Eleven hundred feet of the Rio Grande railroad washed out between Browns Canon and Nathrop and it looked like a two day job to repair it, but traffic was resumed early Thursday morning. Meanwhile passenger trains were detoured over the narrow gauge between Salida and Grand Junction.

Salida Mail, Feb. 4, 1930: Chaffee Country has a petrified forest, some of the tree trunks of which are several feet long. The curiousity is located near Centerville. L. Z. Foreman brought in a specimen a few days ago and presented it to President Mayes of the Chamber of Commerce.

The trees were impregnated with silica. A considerable area of the forest remains and properly exploited would attract many tourists.

Salida Mail, July 31, 1953: The Hortense Hot Springs, source of water for the famous old Mt. Princeton Hotel and water supply for Silver Cliff Lodge, quit flowing sometime Friday night.

John Bayuk, hard rock miner, and Jim Rayburn, supervisor at Frontier Lodge and a geologist, believe that something moved beneath the surface, blocking the flow of the springs.

Parker Wilmington, a member of the staff at Silver Cliff Lodge, said this morning that the geologic occurrence was discovered when they attempted to turn on the hot water Saturday morning and there just wasn't any. Some steam was coming through cracks in the rocks. Up until ten days ago, the springs were the sole source of water for Silver Cliff Lodge.

The Mountain Mail, Oct. 14, 1978: There are probably very few people in the Salida area who can remember the old stage curtain which used to hang in the old Maysville schoolhouse before it was closed in 1939.Members of the Poncha Springs Boosters Club have been storing the old hand-painted canvas curtain for several years now, but yesterday the people of Poncha Springs presented it to the Maysville chapter of the Salida Museum Association, which is restoring the old schoolhouse as an historic landmark.

Salida Mail, Aug. 25, 1953: A construction company from McMinnville, Ore., has started repair and redecorating job at the Salida post Office. Local labor is being used except for the foreman,, Robert Stotler, postmaster, reports. Exterior woodwork is being repainted and the front doors are being replaced.

The Mountain Mail, Aug, 1979: As Salidans prepare to celebrate the city's centennial next year, they might pause to consider that tomorrow marks the bicentennial of the first visit by Europeans to this area. For on August 28, 1779, a military force led by Don Juan Batista de Anza awoke near today's Poncha springs, and headed off across the valley that would someday hold Salida. His was the first recorded visit to the Upper Arkansas Valley by Europeans..