BLACK HAWK — Welcome to 2026. It’s going to be an incredible year.
We at The Mountain-Ear are looking forward to wrapping up a few projects that have been ongoing for several years. The largest project will be completing our historic archive, making sure it is all preserved digitally and available to you into perpetuity.
This is no small task, but we are already about 33 years into the process. Well, we have 33 years archived. You can check it out anytime online on the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection site. There are 14,591 search results from 1977 to 2010.
Simply follow this link: https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=q&hs=1&r=1&results=1&txq=the+mountain-ear
The next step is page by page scanning from February 2010. We have some of 2013, more of 2014, even more of 2015. And then we have from 2016 to now stored digitally and ready to transfer.
The process began in 2021 as my personal goal to make sure the entire archive would be available, forever, for all of you.
Thankfully, Elektra Greer at Nederland Community Library helped facilitate the beginning of the process by introducing me to Leigh Jeremias at the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection. Talks began.
We applied for a CHNC grant and received a match from CHNC for the first round of digital archive, in the amount of $3750, in 2022. The Nederland Community Library matched $750. We have now paid $17,809.20 to bring us to 2010.
The total estimated cost to complete the archive at the time was $35,748.96, which included dates through 2021. We have a new estimate on the way to bring us to the end of 2025.
The historical archive has lived in a shed, lived in storage at High Country Excavating, lived in my side barn, in my garage, and now (thankfully) lives in our Morgue, located inside The Vault in Nederland. That will be its permanent home.
As we sort these boxes in preparation for next steps, we will be selling off copies we no longer need. We will always keep two paper copies, archived safely in bags, inside containers. The rest are up for grabs.
If you are interested in going through old copies, purchasing old copies, or just wanting to help with the next steps, feel free to reach out to me at info@themountainear.com.
The Mountain-Ear is your community source for news, covering the entire Peak to Peak region from 1977 to now.
Want to find out more? Subscribe here to get the news delivered to your mailbox or your email inbox every single week: https://mountainear.creativecirclemedia.com/subscribe/.
