A "Blast" From the Past: The Football Season of 1919 In early November 1919, the football season was not going well for Mines. The team had not yet won a game and if its athletic fortunes did not improve, it could end up in last place in the Rocky Mountain Conference. On Nov. 8, a game was scheduled against the University of Denver (DU). In past years, both schools had raided each other’s campuses to do pre-game pranks and random acts of vandalism. The administrations of both schools had agreed to make efforts to prevent such occurrences in the future, but this year was different: neither team had won a game. In this atmosphere, tensions were rising and with rising tensions, the question became, "Who would strike at the other’s campus first?" The answer came when dynamite exploded on the DU campus. Newspapers reported that during the night and early morning hours, explosions rocked the DU campus breaking windows and cracking the wall of a building. In all, five charges of dynamite, each with five sticks of dynamite, had been planted. Four of the charges went off, the fifth failed. Young men, seen driving away from the scene of the explosions, were suspected of being Mines students. The Nov. 6, 1919 Denver Post headlines read: "Denver University Rocked by Explosion of Dynamite. Huge bombs touched off by students from Golden." Retaliation was swift. A group of DU students hired a taxi and headed up Lookout Mountain to paint their school colors on the Mines’ M. However, they were quickly discovered, and at 11 a.m., the alarm was sounded on the Mines campus. Students immediately responded and caught the group from DU in the act of painting the M gold and crimson. DU students attempted to flee, but their taxi was stopped at a barricade on the Lookout Mountain road. It was reported in the papers that gunfire was exchanged, although no one was hit. The DU students were taken prisoner, their clothes exchanged for workman’s coveralls, and their heads were shaved. The letter M was painted with silver nitrate on their foreheads, giving them what amounted to a temporary branding. (Silver nitrate takes about six months to wear off.) Although the DU students were essentially prisoners of war, they were treated as guests, shown around the Mines campus and paraded through Golden. That afternoon, a meeting was held and it was decided to send them back to DU. One of the captives was the center for the DU team and needed to get back to football practice. Denver newspapers condemned these acts of vandalism. The DU administration was indignant, as much over the brandings as the dynamite. They threatened to call the game off and to cancel all future athletic contests between the two schools. The Mines administration under President Victor Alderson was a bit more sanguine. Alderson told students to form armed patrols to guard the M against further attempts to repaint it. Indeed, armed patrols of students set up a barricade on the Lookout Mountain road and searched vehicles going up it. The Denver Post headlines on Nov. 7 blared: "Armed Students Patrol Roads. Mines–DU War Flares Higher." As a result of the sensational headlines, Mines students invited a Denver Post reporter out to get a "good story." The reporter, Bill Bliss, upon his arrival, was taken into custody by the students and dressed in coveralls with an M painted on them. Fortunately for Bliss, he was already bald and thus spared a head shaving and branding. He was made a guest at a student rally in the gym. With President Alderson in attendance, Bliss was made an honorary member of the Mines community. Bliss had the time of his life and wrote a laudatory article calling the students a great bunch of guys "notwithstanding the pranks they play once in awhile." He even went so far as to say he would root for Mines at the game. After all the hoopla and threats to cancel, the game was played Saturday, Nov. 8, 1919. It was a cold, windy day with snow flurries that made it hard to play a fast, decisive game. Fumbles on both sides were the order of the day, and at the end of the fourth quarter, neither team had scored a point. That season, Mines and DU tied for last place in the Rocky Mountain League. Robert Sorgenfrei is librarian/archivist of the Russell L. & Lyn Wood Mining History Archive, Arthur Lakes Library. From the November/December Issue of Mines Magazine.