Time Machine: 80 years ago, Bob Dole of the 10th Mountain Division severly injured in action

70 years ago

April 12, 1955

Sweetwater Lodge was destroyed by fire.

The Eagle Valley Enterprise reported on the incident while also detailing the lodge’s origins in the paper’s April 14 and April 21 editions in 1955.

Nearby resident Ed Godat was wakened by his dog barking at 9:30 p.m.; when he saw the glow in the sky, he telephoned for help, the Enterprise reported.

When owner Phil King arrived to the lodge a short time later, “the roof was gone and the walls ablaze,” the Enterprise reported. “A four-room cottage at the rear of the lodge was also destroyed.”

Support Local Journalism

Donate

Godat was a former operator of the property, which dated back roughly 50 years with “a two-room log cabin built atop the knoll overlooking beautiful Sweetwater Lake,” the Enterprise reported. “The first lodge at the lake was built at the lower end of the lake by … the Baer Brothers from Leadville, who later sold to Sawyer and Buck, St. Louis bankers, who decided to build on top of the knoll.”

King had purchased the property from John Collins of Glenwood Springs two years earlier. Among the property’s most famous owners were former Denver Post artist Paul Gregg and Chicago gangster Diamond Jack Alterie, the Enterprise reported.

80 years ago

April 14, 1945

Second Lieutenant Robert Dole of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division was seriously wounded on Hill 913 during the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot.

Dole was fighting in the Apennine mountains southwest of Bologna, Italy.

“As the mortar round, exploding shell, or machine gun blast — whatever it was, I’ll never know — ripped into my body, I recoiled, lifted off the ground a bit, twisted in the air, and fell face down in the dirt,” Dole recalled in his memoir “One Soldier’s Story.”

Dole said he couldn’t move after being hit.

“I lay facedown in the dirt, unable to feel my arms,” Dole wrote. “Then the horror hit me — I can’t feel anything below my neck! I didn’t known it at the time, but whatever it was that hit me had ripped apart my shoulder, breaking my collarbone and my right arm, smashing down into my vertebrae, and damaging my spinal cord.”

Dole’s life was saved by Ollie Manninen, Dole said. Manninen was a 10th Mountain Division solider who would go on to finish 19th in the Olympic marathon in 1948.

“Sergeant Manninen saw that I had been hit and was stretched out facedown on the ground with blood all over me,” Dole wrote. “He crouched down to see if I was still alive, then pulled me behind a section of the wall, out of the direct line of fire.”

90 years ago

April 19, 1935

Charles W. Chambers died in Colorado Springs Sunday morning after a short illness with pneumonia, the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported.

“The deceased was one of the most highly respected ranchmen on Brush Creek,” the Enterprise reported. “He bought the old Frank Long ranch in that neighborhood some four or five years ago, and during the short time he had lived there had made friends of all his neighbors, by his genial, kindly way, and neighborliness.”

100 years ago

April 3, 1925

Eagle County inmates W. H. Black and “Mack” McConnel broke out of jail in Glenwood, where they were being held on the charge of robbery, the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported, citing the Rifle Telegram.

The sheriff said saws and guns had been given to the men through a chute connected to an outside window, aiding their escape. Two other men, W. J. Cash and R. K. Collett, escaped as well.

“Collett stated that he barely missed westbound No. 1 the night of the break and then walked to near Rifle where he hid out until the following night,” the Enterprise reported. “He says he did not see any of the others after he got out, as they were gone when he left the jail. Collett made his way to Phoenix, Ariz., where he was taken into custody as he called for his mail. He denied he was the man wanted, but, when he saw Sheriff Winters, he knew the jig was up and signed waiver, thus the sheriff did not have to secure the order of the Arizona governor to take the man out of the state.”