Bill Allen was an opinion columnist for The Mountain-Ear from 1987 to 1991. Allen’s columns were a popular addition to the paper each week, sometimes causing controversy and always raising debate.

It’s 1988 in Nederland, Colorado, and barely three weeks into the new year. So far, people have endured back-to-back blizzards and The Mountain-Ear is facing a boycott by a growing number of advertisers. Some of the merchants in Nederland have stopped selling the paper. Letter after letter from angry readers have been flooding the mailbox as crank calls flood the answering machine.

So, how does the staff at the paper choose to deal with such a dilemma? Exactly as they should: report the news of the uprising to the community and run it on the front page.

During this period, The Mountain-Ear carried a weekly opinion column written by Nederland resident Bill Allen. In a column printed the week before the boycott, Allen raised the question of why mountain prices were so high. He titled it with, “Why pay high altitude prices?” with the first sentence being, “Can anyone tell me why everything costs more here in the mountains?”

Allen believed price hikes for mountain living to be unfair to locals, especially for everyday items and necessary services, and he had no trouble talking about things that “bugged” him. Yes, his opinions were direct and unapologetic, but even he refers to his words that week as a “rant.” Readers were warned.

At one point he stated, “Sometimes it seems like local prices are set for tourists, who are used to being gouged wherever they go. I’ll continue to shop locally, but that doesn’t mean I have to like being treated like a Texan.”

From the cost of sewer lines to the price of a six pack, in less than 300 words, Allen pointed out there was an average 30% or more increase for the same goods and services in Nederland as in Boulder. That week, he also managed to call out everyone in town he believed to be price gouging. Still, the column is very clearly presented as an opinion piece and understandably, in such a piece, opinions are given. However, no one, not even Allen, could have predicted the enormous fallout that would follow.

One of the loudest voices in opposition to Allen came from Drew Marschhausen. Maybe he felt there was some underlying, double-whammy insult directed solely at him. Either way, he was rather extreme when responding to the column.

At that time, Marschhausen owned the Dam Liquor Store, was president of the Nederland Area Chamber of Commerce, and was also seemingly very proud to be a Texan.

In a letter to The Mountain-Ear that week he wrote, “If Mr. Allen would like to come into my store I would be happy to educate him on purchasing and pricing. If he would like to repeat his ‘Texan’ comment to my face, I will be happy to introduce my fist to his mouth.”

In addition to threatening Allen with violence, Marschhausen announced that he would be spearheading all efforts to remove The Mountain-Ear from every establishment in Nederland.

For weeks the letters kept coming as more and more people joined the debate. On behalf of the paper that week, George Blevins wrote, “This week’s Mountain-Ear is a little short on news. It’s not that news didn’t happen, but that our mail persons worked overtime stuffing letters into our box. We received so much opinion that we dropped some of the news from our pages to make room for it. We hope our readers will enjoy reading the varied and lively letters as much as we did. Our readers write some of the most creative, thoughtful, provocative and interesting letters we’ve ever read, and we are pleased to be able to share them with you.”

This also comes as the original question of “Why the high prices in the mountains?” morphed into “What about freedom of the press?”

Walter B. Smith, a veteran living in Rollinsville, wrote to say, “Such an uproar over one man exercising his rights under the Constitution! Whatever happened to ‘I disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it’”?

He continued by reminding people, “The constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and a free press are vital to the very life of our nation, and are at risk whenever a special interest group seeks to stifle the voice of a citizen.”

Another response came in from Randy Lee of Nederland. In his letter he stated, “Well, here we go again. Yet another individual has had the temerity to voice sentiments critical of the holy community of Nederland, and our local knee-jerk brigade has surged forth to defend her slighted honor, spouting the usual twattle.”

Offering further perspective on the subject, Lee wrote, “Many of us don’t mind paying a bit more in order to support our local businesses, but we do object to trading with blustering censors. Lighten up, Marschhausen. No harm was done to your honor either as a local store owner or as a Texan that you didn’t engender yourself with your disproportionate reaction to a petty columnist’s musings.”

Others in the community found the exchange of commentary amusing. Nederland resident Eric Monde wrote, “I’ve really enjoyed the past couple of issues of The Mountain-Ear. The verbal snowball fight Allen and Marschhausen are having is fun reading, and something you only get in a small local paper.”

He also mentioned, “Yes, prices are higher up here, but it’s just one of the prices we all willingly pay to live up here. No big deal. I buy The Mountain-Ear because it is a forum for local opinion, and as such, I’ll keep buying it. Just don’t raise the price.”

Letters continued to arrive in support of both Allen’s right to freedom of speech and the need to defend the freedom of press.

One letter sent in by David and Barbara Farwell said it best: “A newspaper should not only inform, but also raise questions. It should present a variety of opinions to stimulate discussion. It should provide a forum for more than one viewpoint. And it should ‘belong’ to no one individual or to no one group in town. We don’t always agree with Bill Allen, but we trust The Mountain-Ear will refuse to buckle under pressure and threats of boycotts from those who disagree.”

In Allen’s only printed response to the community’s reaction to that now infamous column he wrote, “Well, last week’s column sure caused an uproar, which doesn’t surprise me at all. I thought I’d jump-start the dialogue, stir the stew a little. Nice to know that somebody reads this thing, at least.”

He also said, “Whether people are getting together to agree with my opinions or to sit around and talk about what a jerk this guy Bill Allen is, dialogue is my goal. By that criteria, last week’s column was a huge success. I think people need to talk to each other, and I don’t mind becoming a persona non grata in some corners to promote this. Anyway, the stage is now set for a lively debate on the way business works in the mountain area. People can step forward and defend local businesses and their prices, merchants can explain why many things must cost significantly more here, the whole topic can be widely discussed and hopefully better understood by everyone, myself included.”

In all, Bill Allen contributed some 250 columns to The Mountain-Ear during his time with the paper. He wrote his first column on August 6, 1987; his last was printed on May 31, 1991. During those years he continued to ruffle feathers time and again but never again to that degree.

Allen never claimed to be some great reporter. He reminded readers time and again they were reading only one man’s opinion. That opinion, however, was often very easy to relate to.

Bill Allen passed away on December 2, 2016. During his life in Nederland he was a school bus driver, worked in transportation, ran his own business, volunteered countless hours around the community, and left a legacy of hard work, honesty and determination to the town and his five sons.

Recently, in an interview with Allen’s youngest son, Bob Allen, he had this to say about his dad: “He was very opinionated, obviously, and he was very firm in his own beliefs, but he loved this town.”

In Allen’s last column in The Mountain-Ear, he signed off with the following call to action for his replacement: “I want to take the opportunity to encourage any takers to step forward, give it a shot. It isn’t easy; as a friend of mine said, ‘It must be tough having an opinion a week.’ It is, but it has been my experience that it can also be a whole lot of fun. Little, local newspapers such as the one in your hands, fill one of the nicer niches in journalism. In them a writer’s contact with his readership is very close. If the people buying your stuff like it, you’ll hear about it everywhere you go.”

“The opposite, of course, is also true, but in any case being a small town columnist assures one of many opportunities for debate and conversation. If you’re into that sort of thing, it can be a great little avocation. I know you’re out there, people more skilled and qualified for the job than I’ve ever been. Try it for a while, really, it can be gas.”

You can find Bill’s full obituary by going to https://www.themtnear.com/ articles/bill-allen-102255-12216/.

Information for this article has been taken directly from The Mountain-Ear historical archives. To read more on this story and take a deep dive into Bill’s other works full of wise words, visit https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/ and search, The Mountain-Ear between the years of 1987 and 1991.

You will also have a chance to see what else was going on that week in the headlines.

SPOILER ALERT: Ice fishermen finally admit they’re crazy, and someone accidentally loses a bag of cocaine at the bank.

But that’s another story.