Hippies clashed with Boulder residents in the late 1960s

Hippies clashed with Boulder residents in the late 1960s

http://www.dailycamera.com/features/ci_15245717

Silvia Pettem
06/13/2010

On June 13, 1968, a nationally syndicated newspaper article stated
that "hundreds of hippies" were pouring into Boulder. The long-haired
drug users claimed that two days later, an asteroid would hit the
planet and the world would end----but Boulder was one of the few
places where people would be safe.

According to a reporter, Boulder-area residents were "more disturbed
by the hippies themselves than the possible end of the world."

The Camera picked up the story the next day with the headline,
"Hippies waiting for collision with Icarus." A man who gave his name
as "John the Freak" said that he and his friends were praying that
California would not slide into the sea.

"Flower children" had convened in San Francisco the previous year in
what was known as the "summer of love," and the Vietnam War fueled a
societal unrest. Mixed in with peace and love were drugs----both
marijuana and hard-core hallucinogens----which transient hippies
brought to Boulder County in 1968.

The youths hitchhiked to the foothills west of Boulder and camped in
makeshift shelters and plastic lean-tos on U.S. Forest Service land.
According to the Camera, Sheriff officials conducted
"search-and-scatter missions" and made numerous arrests.

The Boulder Police Department faced a similar situation in the city,
as merchants complained of drug use, loitering, pan-handling, and
vagrancy. By this time, heroin had become readily available, dogs and
barefooted transients slept in the doorways of business
establishments, and members of the so-called "STP family" openly
sniffed glue on the street.

By August 1969, fed-up Boulder residents also had to deal with loud
music and a lack of sanitation in Central Park, so City Manager Ted
Tedesco banned outdoor "concerts" in an attempt to get rid of the
hippie element.

Boulder Police Chief Donald Vendel then received a threat from the
hippies stating that they intended to openly defy the ban. The chief
stationed a dozen uniformed officers in the park, with thirty more
waiting across the street in the Municipal Building.

The demonstration never materialized, but Boulder's drug problem grew
so rapidly that a 1969 newspaper article stated that police were
"losing the battle." Boulder became known as "a home for displaced
hippies" and a crossroads of the nation's drug traffic.

The culture-clash came to a head when the American Civil Liberties
Union represented what the Camera called "anti-police, pro-hippie
sentiments" and hurled charges of hippie harassment, claiming that
cops ran hippies out of Central Park for no reason, and they jailed
bearded men because their dogs were unlicensed.

Long-time locals were outraged. In a letter to the police chief, a
Boulder businessman wrote, "The problem isn't hippie civil rights, it
is civil rights for people whose senses are offended by objectionable
dress, behavior, in most cases aroma. If visitors to this city don't
wish to comply with standards that are obvious in their manifestation
by the local citizens, then they can get the hell out."

The culture clash continued for years, even after the
end-of-the-world threat was over.
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Silvia Pettem writes on history for the Daily Camera. Write her at
the Daily Camera, P. O. Box 591, Boulder 80306, or email pettem@earthlink.net.

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