Microbes living on or in the human body are critical for health. Outnumbering our own cells, we literally couldn’t survive without them. The same can be said for microbial life in our natural environment, where clean water and oxygen are just two essentials that come largely courtesy of microorganisms. Yet, while microbes are such heavy lifters in our natural environment, their role in our built environment is limited. But that’s changing, and various members of the Colorado School of Mines community are contributing to the transformation as they explore new ways to put microbes to work.

Division of Engineering students returned to campus this August to some big architectural changes—not only to the bricks and mortar, but also to the division itself. As expected, the 78,000-square-foot addition to Brown Hall had been completed; but along with the new configuration of the building, their division had been reorganized into Colorado School of Mines’ first college.

In the days following the fiery April 20 blowout of BP’s Macondo well off the coast of Louisiana, TV viewers across the world watched dismayed at the images of crude oil spewing unabated into the Gulf of Mexico.

To mark Mines magazine’s 100th anniversary, we offer an abbreviated history in two parts. With about 40,000 pages published to date, this history is gleaned from samplings taken at 10-year intervals: 1910, 1920, 1930 and so on. Part I, included in this issue, covers the years 1910 – 1960, while Part II, slated for the spring issue, will cover the years since 1960. To augment this retrospective, and to enable readers to take their own journey through the last century of Mines magazine, more than 100 issues have been scanned and made available as searchable PDF documents. To access these, simply click on 100-Year Archives menu option above.