Cannabis Time Capsule, 1937-1949: The Ballad of Steamboat's Frank Valdez

We haven't come upon continuing local coverage of old pot events while going through our stash of musty, vintage Colorado news. At least, none as intriguing as the tale of Frank Valdez as told through the local news briefs section from the Steamboat Pilot from 1937 through 1949. Basically, what...

By William Breathes

January 31, 2014

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We haven't come upon continuing local coverage of old pot events while going through our stash of musty, vintage Colorado news. At least, none as intriguing as the tale of Frank Valdez as told through the local news briefs section from the Steamboat Pilot from 1937 through 1949.

Basically, what started as a $50 state fine moved on to federal charges (and presumably jail time, if the state went to all that trouble).

That clearly didn't bode well for the rest of Valdez's life.

We'll let the clips do the talking. Here's the first one, from November 4, 1937:

Next is an update from November 11 of that same year.... ...and one more, from December 2, 1937. More than a decade later, the news was worse for Valdez. From April 1949: And that's it. You could write a folk ballad filling in the holes here and probably have a hit in some indie circles.

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