SALIDA — Dan Johnson, a WWII Veteran from Salida, who brought light to Chaffee County’s fallen service men and women, has passed away at the age of 91.
Johnson died Friday morning at Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center in Salida.
We first met Johnson in 2016 when the WWII Veteran spearheaded a project to restore the World War II Chaffee County Honor Roll Board.
The board had been hidden behind a stuccoed wall along F Street in Salida at the local Five & Dime shop.
“In 1964 it was stuccoed over for whatever reason,” Johnson said in a 2016 interview with reporter Kevin Torres. “1942 is when it [the Honor Roll Board] was originally put in”.
Johnson made it his personal mission to restore the wall to showcase the names of the fallen men and women from Chaffee County who served in WWII.
“My reward is getting this wall done,” Johnson told us in 2016.
Johnson raised more than $25,000 for the project and got to see it come to fruition.
“I’m very proud of this wall. It’s all right here,” Johnson added when we met him.
In 2017, Johnson was named ‘Man of the Year’ by the Heart of the Rockies Chamber of Commerce.
Thank you for your service, Dan. To our country and our state.
If you’d like to watch Kevin Torres’ initial report on Dan Johnson and the World War II Chaffee County Honor Roll Board, click here.