An artifact

In the spot where the King's Chef's second location is now, at the corner of Bijou and Nevada, there used to be a business called Norton Office Supplies. It was there well into the 1990s or even the early '00s -- I can't remember exactly when it closed. When I worked at the camera store downtown, I used to volunteer to be the one who walked over to Norton's whenever office supplies were needed. In turn, the Norton folks shopped at our store too, whenever they needed film or photofinishing. The Norton family were well known and loved, old school Colorado Springs. I remember that they had an adult daughter with Down's syndrome. I'd estimate that she was in her forties. She'd occasionally come to the camera store, which never failed to brighten our day. Eventually, after many, many years in business, the Nortons retired and closed up shop. I'm sure the prevalence of big box office supply stores didn't help.

Downtown is very different now from the way it was then. I do miss Norton Office Supply and the other small businesses that have closed down in the last 15 or 20 odd years. I was pleased to notice last weekend that in the alley behind their old building, an artifact of their tenure lives on.