Lake City Rumor Mill Shut Down

(Capitol City) One of the last vestiges of the San Juan mining era was closed today, dislodging a chunk of the population and leaving others cemented in their overshoes, shocked and clueless.

The termination of activities at the mill, located up Henson Creek adjacent to the Yellow Snow Mine, is reportedly due to erratic production, general neglect, bad whiskey and ground pollution. According to people in ties, clipboards and white shirts from the Euphemistic Procrastination Agency the mill presented a danger to the health and harmony of the town.

“The EPA has confirmed the forced closure of the celebrated Lake City Rumor Mill,” said a source within the agency. “Tomorrow we bring in the bulldozers and dynamite. Soon all traces of that wicked pimple on the landscape will be gone.”

The former rumor mill, thought to be haunted, will become a destination spot for extreme ninja RVers, due to high landslide potential on the funny side of the mountain.

For decades the rumor mill churned out juicy stories involving everyone from the mayor to the town drunk. Attempts to pump life into the facility have been futile due to its remote status and distance from civilization. National historic distinction has done little to generate operating funds and potential for an obscure structural wilderness status is still up in the air.

“I remember kissing Margaret Hatch in front of the mill in my ’54 Chevy back in 1953,” said Old Man Pritchard of the Hinsdale Pritchards. “When her daddy got wind of my intentions he chased me all the way to Spar City with a chainsaw. Boy, those were the days!”

The rumor mill’s popularity as a make-out spot soon came to the attention of local law enforcement agencies who carried out countless SWAT team excursions into the area in the Sixties and Seventies.

“We were convinced there were guerrillas hiding in the tunnels out there,” said one deputy, “but all we found were a bunch of nubian hippies and their skinny goats.”

Despite a sadness lingering over the town most people have accepted the closure and have gotten back to the business of talking about each other.

“Plowing over a few acres of rock will never stop the gossip from flowing,” said one resident credited with starting tattle on such hot topics as lake polygamy to naughty knife swapping parties to UFO landings on the Cannibal Plateau. “After one particularly creative session we had hundreds of tourists out looking for Slumgullion’s Treasure as far south as the Weminuche when everyone here knows that the peg-legged, murdering pirate’s stash was deposited in the local bank back in 2009.”

According to gov’ment agencies jockeying for fetal position above town, mounds of tailings, the residue of the mill, will be hauled to the Ronald Reagan Re-Education Camp at Powderhorn. Rumor has it that it will then be spun into gold by political prisoners currently incarcerated there. – Fred Zeppelin