Things of the past ... May 15, 2023

 

Thing of the past ...

Damon Runyon & Jim Wong

Jim Wong at Denver Press Club

Date: 1910-1920

At the Denver (Colorado) Press Club, author Damon Runyon wears a suit and holds a cigar. Jim Wong, the night porter at the Club, sits beside him. Portraits hang on the interior wall in the background.

Digital Version Created From Denver Press Club.

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

Thing of the past ...

Engine Co. 2

Date: 1899

Firemen pose with equipment by the firehouse in Rico, Dolores County, Colorado. They are identified as: (l to r) "Schoot, Troy, Siebert, Chief Dulmager ?, Scherer, Goodman; (standing) - Ford, Robert Dulmager?, Pemberton, and Reyman.

Digital Version Created From: Capt. Louis Goodman, Engine No. 21.

Related Material Image File: ZZR710013148

Notes: Identification hand-written on back of photoprint. Title hand-written on front of photoprint.

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

Thing of the past ..

Dolores County organized March 14, 1881

Creator: Harber, William G.

Date: [1910-1920?]

Dolores County Court House in Rico, Dolores County, Colorado; shows brick and stone building with arched entry and tower, dormers, and incised letters: "Court House."

Title and: "(Colo. State Session laws 1881, p92)" penciled on back of photoprint. Denver Public Library Special Collections.

Thing of the past ...

With best wishes from Jane

Creator: Duncan, Geoffrey.

Date: 1909 September 4

Studio portrait of Jane Bernoudy, an actress and trick roper born in New Castle, Colorado. She wears cowgirl clothes, spurs, boots, an embroidered pouch, leather gauntlets, and a cowboy hat.

Photographer's byline printed on back of cabinet card with ornate flourishes and studio hours. Title inked on cabinet card.

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

Thing of the past ...

Off for the ruins at Cortez, Colo.

Date: [1890-1900]

Men and women sit in horse drawn covered wagons in Cortez (Montezuma County) Colorado, by the Montezuma County Courthouse, a stone building with a cornice.

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

 

Thing of the past ...

Protesters prepare for nuclear disarmament march

Creator: Groer, Steve

Date: May 10, 1984

Donor: Rocky Mountain News

Eric Wright [left] and Pat Gilmore make final adjustments on the Mother Earth Mobile, a Volkswagen covered by a statue at Governors Park (at the intersection of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Street). The Mother Earth Mobile was used in the Mother's Day Peace March by the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND). Demonstrators marched the mobile to the Colorado State Capitol. The mobile has a sign that reads: "Mother Earth."

Original Material Found in Collection: Rocky Mountain News records.

 

 

Thing of the past ...

Dolores, stages for the San Juan

Creator: Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942

Date: [1892-1893?]

Stagecoaches and passengers on the main street in Dolores (Montezuma County), Colorado. A man on horseback packs a rifle, gold pan, and shovel. Men stand in front of a storefront with a sign that reads: "J.J. Harris & Co."

at Dolores" penciled on photoprint binding. Attribution to Jackson based on inclusion in bound W. H. Jackson sample album. Condition: edges worn, discolored. Hand-lettered title reproduced in print. Mounted on verso of album page: WHJ-1037. Number: "[4]244" hand lettered on negative and reproduced on print. W. H. Jackson sample album. Colorado Book V. no. 94. History Colorado.

 

Thing of the past ...

Donated to the Denver Public Library by the Rocky Mountain News.

Caption: Photo by Harry M. Rhoads President Woodrow Wilson sits surrounded by a group of men at the Denver Press Club, Denver, Colorado. Date September 25, 1919.

MANDATORY CREDIT: Denver Public Library/The Harry M. Rhoads Photograph Collection

President Woodrow Wilson poses with a group at the Denver Press Club in 1919.

Other descriptive information: Photo by Harry M. Rhoads President Woodrow Wilson sits surrounded by a group of men at the Denver Press Club, Denver, Colorado. Date September 25, 1919. MUST CREDIT: Colorado Historical Museum/The Harry M. Rhoads Photograph Collection

 

Thing of the past ...

Dolores, Colo.

Date: [1890-1900]

Dolores (Montezuma County), Colorado; shows a Rio Grande Southern Railroad train, schoolhouse, and wooden buildings on a main street.

Title hand written on album page.

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

Thing of the past ...

RGS narrow gauge motor car number 6

Rio Grande Southern narrow gauge motor car number 6

Creator Richardson, Robert W.

Date: 1951

Head on; stub switch in foreground; Work Goose. (The Work Goose never carried passengers or freight. It was used in maintenance of way service.) Photographed: Dolores, Colorado, 1951.

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

 

Thing of the past ...

Silver Dollar Tabor

Date: 1910, August 29

Rose Mary Silver Dollar Tabor shaking hands with President Roosevelt in Leadville, Lake County, Colorado.

Deterioration on original reproduced in copy photoprint. Formerly F10905. Title and additional information penciled on back of photoprint. Written on the back of the image, "Silver Dollar Tabor, daughter of Senator H. A. W. Tabor being presented to President Roosevelt by Sheriff Alexander Nisbet and Senator Irby, President of the Press Club at the chuck dinner given by the Press Club, August 29, 1910."

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

Thing of the past ...

Victory Theater at night

Creator: Whitworth, John.

Date: 1969 July 27

Night view of the Victory Theater in Denver, Colorado; neon signs and marquee read: "Victory, Girls, Fun For Adults Only, Girlesque, Acapulco Uncensored, Big Sin City, Spicy Films," and "Discount Credit Jewelers."

Format of Original Material: 1 photoprint : black-and-white ; 25 x 14 cm (10 x 6 in.)

Type of Material: Night photographs; Photographic prints; Black & white photographs.

Denver Public Library Special Collections

Rico railroad in railyard, 1950s

Rio Grande Southern Railroad yard at Rico (Colo.): looking south
Date/circa: 1952-05
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)
Notes: Mile Post 066.24. A closer view than photoprint P026119 looking down the rails toward the water tank and (on the right) the engine house.
Photoprint#: P026120

Rio Grande Southern Railroad depot and tank at Rico (Colo.): looking north

Date/circa: 1952-05

Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)

Notes:Mile Post 066.24.
Photoprint#: P026123

Rio Grande Southern Railroad buildings and structures at Rico (Colo.)
Date/circa: 1950/1965
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)
Notes: Mile Post 066.24. A slightly more distant view than photoprint P026121.

Rio Grande Southern Railroad tank and depot at Rico (Colo.): 

front and south 3/4
Date/circa: 1952-05
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.)
Notes: Mile Post 066.24.
Photoprint#: P026124

 

Rio Grande Southern Railroad Collection

Center for Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

Rich road snakes up the valley by the river

“Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.”― Erol Ozan

Golden Spike ceremony on Rio Grande Southern near Rico.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

First described as forty miles above Big Bend by wagon road, Rico was a destination in the early Silver San Juans boom. 

Rico, of course, means "rich." In 1879, when Col. J.C. Haggerty discovered extremely rich silver ore there, they called the place Carbon City, Carbonville, Lead City, Dolores City and a few other cuss words. A meeting called to settle the issue resulted in William Weston's suggestion of the Spanish word for rich and the name stuck.

"It is 90 miles from Animas City or Durango by Big Bend, the only practical wagon road whereby Rico can be reached. There is a cut off via Bear Creek hill which may be traveled late in the spring, and thus some 20 miles of distance saved. There is a charted toll road from the Animas River to the Rio Dolores, known as Pinkerton or Scotch Creek trail, which when completed, will shorten the distance for wagons," said the Denver Tribune on February 15, 1881.

Rico had been incorporated in 1879 and was a thriving mining town until the Silver Crash in 1893. After the Crash, much of the population moved on — though some mining continued. The Rio Grand Southern railroad was a part of Rico's history from its arrival in 1891 until it was discontinued in 1954.

Friday, November 30, 1951:

In a dispatch from Hart Lee to Dolores Star (best of Hart's Stuff from Rico, 1968)

"Monday morning we went down to the depot to see the last train pull out for Ridgway. Old 461 hooked to the drag flanger and a couple of cabooses made up the train. The crew was J.C. Phillips, H. Walford, Jimmie Cooper and Alvin Talbert. The last train south will be sometime this week to pick up what empties that are in the yard, then after that — well the old girl died a natural death, so far as we know. The first transportation we had back 1869 was foot and horseback, then the bull teams and stage coaches. Then in 1881 we had old Puffen Jennie, not it's cars and trucks. Be a heck of a note if we finally get back to bull teams again, but it could happen."

Friday, December 7, 1951:

In another dispatch from Hart Lee to Dolores Star (best of Hart's Stuff from Rico, 1968).
"We've been talking about the last train going to leave the old burg for the last three weeks, well it happened last Thursday when old No. 20, coupled to thirty-three empties pulled out of the the yards at 12:10 p.m. for Dolores. The crew was Geo. McLean, Lee Lynton, Mike Smith, and Go. Thomas."
Despite difficult terrain, extreme weather conditions, and a trainload of financial difficulties, the Rio Grande Southern (RGS) Railroad operated 162 miles of track between Ridgway and Durango from legendary Otto Mear’s construction efforts, beginning in 1890, until they went into receivership again and started pulling up track in 1953.

The Railroad's headquarters and where the main facilities were in Ridgway, the Railroad traversed Northwest to Dallas Divide, on to the southwest heading down to Placerville. It turned south toward Telluride following the San Miguel River, to what was called Vance Junction (west of Telluride), where one of two coal topples were located. Then continued southeast, curving around up the side of Yellow Mountain to Ophir with the help of numerous, large trestle bridges then looped around to the southwest and continued up the side of Yellow Mountain to Trout lake, curving around it to the Summit of Lizard Head Pass. Then to the southeast, meeting the Dolores River and looping around into the town of Rico.

Rico was considered the center of the Railroad and had some notable engine facilities. From Rico, it followed the Dolores River west into the town of Dolores, where it then curved southeast into Lost Canyon. It followed Lost Creek, and eventually exited the canyon to make its way directly south into Mancos, it traversed east following the East Mancos Creek up Mancos Hill, and then down Cima Hill to Hesperus. Then it curved south, passing by Ute Junction, the second coal topple on the line. It then looped back around the east, near what was then Fort Lewis campus, after which it headed northeast into Wild Cat Canyon. In the canyon, it passed by the townsite of Porter and the site of the Porter Coal mine, making its way north to Franklin Junction. It then curved east and finally ended close to the San Juan Smelter in Durango, where it met up with the D&RGW's San Juan Extension.

The RGS finally threw in the towel and filed with the Interstate Commerce Comission for abandonment on April 24th, 1952, after 60 years of operation. The RGS had lost the contract to ship US mail after failing to clear snow to deliver during the winter of 1951-2. This contract was the very last profitable aspect of the RGS hence why it was the final straw after the railroad's history of financial trouble.

 

Rio Grande Southern Railroad yard at Rico (Colo.): looking south. Date/circa: 1952-05, Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.) Notes: Mile Post 066.24. A closer view than photoprint P026119 looking down the rails toward the water tank and (on the right) the engine house

Rio Grande Southern Railroad depot and tank at Rico (Colo.): looking north, Date/circa: 1952-05

Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.), Notes:Mile Post 066.24.

Rio Grande Southern Railroad buildings and structures at Rico (Colo.), Date/circa: 1950/1965
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.), Notes: Mile Post 066.24. A slightly more distant view than 

Rio Grande Southern Railroad tank and depot at Rico (Colo.): front and south 3/4, Date/circa: 1952-05
Photographer: Chione, Alfred G. (Morton, Ill.), Notes: Mile Post 066.24.

Rio Grande Southern Railroad Collection, Center for Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

Swinging lanterns, headless baggage, other wrecks

On the Rio Grand Southern between Rico and Dolores,  several similar yarns appear

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The Maco Light is a relatively famous story about an 1867 Wilmington-Manchester train wreck in North Carolina and of one Charles “Joe” Baldwin, whose Ghost, it is said, haunted that stretch of track until it was pulled up in 1977.
According to the story, Joe, on shift as conductor for the railroad in the caboose, noticed a slowing of his car, only to discover that the caboose had become uncoupled with the rest of the train. Realizing that the slow moving car posed a grave danger to the fast-moving train following directly behind, Joe grabbed his signal light, headed to the back rail of the platform and frantically tried to warn the engineer in the following locomotive.
Witnesses to the accident reported that Joe stayed where he was, waving the lantern, to the bitter end. According to some versions of the story, just before the engine collided with the car, Joe’s lantern was hurled away and rolled over and over again, finally coming to rest in a perfectly upright position.
Some versions of the tale say the coach was completely demolished and Joe was killed, his head severed from his body, however, newspaper accounts have him dying days later in the hospital.
Shortly after this horrible accident, the Maco light began to appear along the train tracks and continued to appear for hundreds of viewers over the years until the tracks were pulled up in 1977 (although accounts say the light can still be seen on the abandoned rail bed with the most recently recorded sightings in 2009).
Here in Colorado, on the Rio Grand Southern between Rico and Dolores, I have encountered several similar yarns.
Mary Joy Martin, in her book “Something in the Wind: Spirits, Spooks & Sprites of the San Juan,” offers the following account.
“The freighter, hauling a heavy load of timber and ore was flying down the track below Rico, heading to Durango. A brief stop was scheduled for Rio Lado, where a few section men were to disembark for their bunks at the section house. The train had just passed Milepost 70 and the Montelores passing track. Staring into the engulfing gloom of night, made all the blacker by the deep narrow valleys and canyons of the Dolores River, engineer Tom Quine concentrated on the track where the headlight beam reached. The sky was moonless, and the black-robed seemed to close in tighter, their summits higher.”
It was then, according to Martin’s account, that Quine first saw the light.
“Far ahead a signal light appeared, like a pinpoint hovering from side to side above the track. Quine strained to see it. It was gone. He shrugged, gave it over to ‘tricks of the night.’ The sound of the train throbbed against the silent forests, the only sound beneath the moonless sky, a rhythmic, soothing tune to the engineer. He took a long draw on his pipe and relaxed, although keeping a vigilant eye on the track ahead.”
The light appeared again and Quine, to assure himself that he wasn’t seeing things, asked fireman Ed Slick to take a look. The fireman saw nothing, Martin wrote.
The signal light appeared and Quine whistled to get the brakeman to slow the train.
“… And suddenly the swinging lantern seemed to be only a short distance away. Yelling for Slick to come and see for himself, Quine and the crew brought the train to a steaming, squealing stop within yards of the signaler. The crew jumped out, running ahead of the engine to see who was signaling and why.”
Nobody, with signal or otherwise, was discovered anywhere near, but a dangerous mound of rock, gravel and earth that had washed down from the steep canyons, covered the tracks just in front of them. The phantom signaler, it is said, probably saved the crew’s lives.
“At the original, higher speed of the train, Tom Quine would have been unable see the muck in time, causing a wreck,” says Martin.
Another RGS railroad story bearing some of the marks of the Maco Light incident was related by Dan Asfar in “Ghost Stories of Colorado.”
Asfar describes a mysterious, heavily tattooed man who put his neck on the tracks in the Telluride Depot.
“Nothing is known about the man’s motivation, but he had long been considered one of the town’s more idiosyncratic citizens. After the incident, his apparition was encountered several times by clerks watching over baggage cars out of Telluride. Low miserable moans coming from one of the baggage compartments alerted these clerks that something was amiss. It was just a matter of swinging open a single door, and a baggage clerk would be traumatized for life. For there, standing on the other side of the door, was the headless man, his arms and torso bedecked in tattoos of women and religious icons from myriad faiths, holding his own bleeding head aloft with an outstretched arm.”
And one fairly recent account of a documented accident sounds eerily similar to the Maco Light yarn, without of course, the disastrous effects and resultant hauntings.
In the Dolores Star dated September 29, 1950, Hartley Lee writes about it in his Hart’s Stuff from Rico column.
“Friday sure was a bad day for old Puffen Jennie when 445 and caboose was rocking along a half mile this side of the high bridge, when the tender jumped the track and went over the hill, was a darn good thing that the coupling unhooked from the outfit or the caboose would have gone with it. Talk about a mess, they really had one, but the most disastrous part of the whole event was when conductor Phillips who was cooking his supper lost his spuds, says they were scattered all over the floor and under the bunks, while the coffee pot went rolling out the door. Due to the fact that the tender was so far over the hill, it was decided to push it on over and let it land on the highway below. Then they had Roy with the county cat to pull it back to the crossing where it was put on the rails again. Now if that wasn’t honey of a deal seeing that tender down on the road behind a cat. You know if a guy was smart, he could write a book about the old RGS and it would be the best seller in the country.”
Maybe so, I reckon. And it might be as famous, well known, and imitated as the Maco Light yarn.
###

Lessons learned, and same as it ever was

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When the first editions of USA Today hit the streets in the fall of 1982, I was taking my first college journalism classes. Many of my professors in J-school made fun of it — initially.
Al Neuharth, chairman of Gannett at the time, and the father of "Nations's paper," recalled a less-than-warm reception.
"Most media critics brushed us off quickly. Linda Ellerbee, then a popular late-night news commentator on NBC, paraphrased our "non-smudge" ink promotion with this sarcastic comment: "USA TODAY doesn't rub off on your hands or your mind." Many critics compared us to McDonald's, as the "fast food of journalism."
Neuharth, however was vindicated and the paper, by its 30th birthday, had the largest print circulation in the country and second largest total circulation at 1,817,446 (1,701,777 print and 115,669 digital). It trailed "The Wall Street Journal's"  2,118,315 (1,566,027 print and 552,288 digital) at the time.

As Neuharth noted in 2012, "The fact is more people across the USA and around the world want more news and information today than ever before. They also want it in different ways — in print, on the air, on the Web. As long as news providers give it to them when they want it, where they want it and how they want it, they not only will survive but also thrive. That includes newspapers, if they also adapt to new ways of distributing the news, which they generally gather more professionally than any other media."

Always, there is the struggle for relevance. In the San Juans of Colorado (where I grew up) the arrival of a newspaper meant the town had also arrived. Creede, for example, in the 1890s started out with four newspapers. Telluride had as many six papers operating in the heyday. And locally, there was as many as seven different papers practicing the craft in Cripple Creek District, at least two of them as daily publications. But, just as today, nothing is guaranteed. 

"Rico, for instance, during the first twenty years of its life had ten different newspapers, only one lasting longer than six years, " notes John L. Ninneman and Duane Smith in their recent book "San Juan Bonanza."

Mining areas, though desperate for service provided by a newspaper, often struggled for the technology to catch up. Boomtown Fairbanks in Alaska, with about 1,000 people, and only 387 houses either finished or in the process of construction, six saloons, and no churches in 1903, had one of the most expensive newspapers in the world at the time, at $5 per copy for "The Fairbanks Miner."

The editorial policy of The Fairbanks Miner was straightforward, wrote Terrance Cole in his book "E.T. Barnnette" about the founder of Fairbanks.

"Published occasionally at Fairbanks, Alaska, by a stampeder who is waiting for the snow to melt and the ice to go out in the rivers... If you don't like our style, fly your kite and produce your 30-30,"  wrote Judge James Wickersham, who started the "Miner" to raise cash to finance a trip to climb Mt. McKinley. Wickersham and a public stenographer named G. Carlton Woodward, who had brought a small Empire green-ribboned typewriter with him from Dawson in Yukon territory, typed the entire issue. They made seven copies, and three were put in the saloons and one was mailed to Senator Charles Fairbanks. Only one issue of "The Fairbanks Miner" was published because the ice went out, just as they were going to press. 

The landscape for newspaper survival outside the mining districts was not much better.

The first newspaper in Monument was established by A.T. Blachly in 1878, and called the "Mentor." It only lasted until 1880, but the Monument Journal picked up the torch  briefly. By 1885, another paper, called the El Paso County Register was going and survived until 1889. In 1890, another publication, the "Monument Recorder" lasted less than a year, but about the same time, the "Monument Messenger" arrived and lasted until 1911.  A replacement didn't hit the scene again until "Preacher Sam," who lived near Monument Lake created the "Lake View Press" in the 1950s. The "Columbine Herald" appeared on the scene about the same time. Then in the 1960s, the Tribune's forerunner, the Monument Palmer Lake News, which later included the Woodmoor News, was first published by George Kobolt of Castle Rock. In 2014, the Tribune celebrated its 50th year.

Critics of print in general, and our paper specifically, brush us off as relic of some not-to-distant past. They talk of a bygone era where the country editor might lead varied life, with useful knowledge in every subject,  good debater, good listener, and instructive talker; generous to the limit of his ability.

"He had been from devil up to pressman in a printing office," wrote M.V. Atwood in "The Country Newspaper" describing this individual. 

"He could sweep floors; clean cuspidors, set type; make up forms; run job press, cylinder, stitcher, binder, or engine; could repair them all if they got out of order; could write news, or editorial; correct proof; and sell papers on the street. He learned all he knew in the office. The modern efficiency and 'specializing' methods have eliminated this relic of olden times, but there is just as much to be learned in the printing office, as there was then," wrote Atwood in 1923.

Don't count us out in the innovation arena, and be careful of, and perhaps show respect for, the idea that there is just as much to be learned in the local paper today— as there ever has been.
###

W. H. Jackson and Dolores go way back

The iconic "Stage to the San Juan" Jackson photo must have been taken between 1891, and the fall of 1893

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

For me, it is almost a personal relationship with William Henry Jackson photos.
Starting the day after Thanksgiving in 1978,  I worked for Taylor Hardware in Dolores, Colo. for more than seven years with Merton Taylor and his family. Merton's father, George, had owned the store and had been around almost as long as the building, I think.
The old J.J. Harris & Co. building was built with the first structures in town when the little village was relocated upriver about two miles from Big Bend, on the Dolores River, when the Rio Grande Southern arrived in 1891. The hardware store still had elements of a bank, and beautiful hardwood floors that we mopped every day as long as it stood.
I speculate the iconic "Stage to the San Juan" Jackson photo must have been taken between 1891, and the fall of 1893, when the Silver Panic that year slowed activity of  the second San Juan rush and boosterism of that period. Merton had several copies of the photo (some displayed in the store) and Jackson must have spent the greater part of a day or two in Dolores, as he had had multiple frames. I have never been able to precisely date it but other photos appearing in Jackson albums indicate that he was likely shooting for a railroad company, and created at least several week's worth of work in the area.
The day after Christmas, in 1984, a terrible fire, that began in the T. H. Akin Merc. building next door (old building, but had not yet built at the time of Jackson's photo) destroyed the building.
I would guess the other photos included here, one from Rico by Jackson, and Cowboys of the Dolores were produced about the same time, perhaps in the same trip. But that is just speculation, as Jackson easily could have visited my hometown, Dolores, on several occasions.

Frame 1: Stages from Dolores
Creator: William Henry Jackson
Sumary: Stages load with men are in the street in front of the J.J. Harris & Co. mercantile store in Dolores (Montezuma County) Colorado. men stand on the sidewalks, and in the street, some with mining equipment and guns. A burro packtrain is in the street.
Date: Photo created between 1882 and 1900?
Attribution to Jackson based on the photo negatives inclusion in the History Colorado William Henry Jackson Collection. Hand-lettered twice on the negative, "3861." Phot negative, glass, 5" x 8."

Frame 2: Rico, Colo. , W.H. Jackson Sample Album, Colorado Book III, No. 169
Creator: William Henry Jackson
Summary: View of the town of Rico with frame buildings and dirt streets.
Date: Photo created between 1882 and 1900?
Attribution to Jackson based on in bound W.H. sample album. "3219" hand-lettered on negative and reproduced in print. Photoprint, 4"x 7" mounted on album page.

Frame 3: Cowboys of the Dolores, E.H. Allen
Creator: William Henry Jackson.
Summary: Cowboys on horseback in front of a sod-roofed log building in Colorado. A dog sits on the ground near probably E.H. Allen. Photographer's stamp printed on verso of card mount. Title, "3631" and "50" inked on original and reproduced in photographic print. Photographic print on card mount: 4 1/2" x 7".
Source: Pueblo Public Library
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

Forgotten group working on the rail road

 Struggles and perseverance, discrimination and tolerance

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com 

 I looked at the 1910 Census for Rico, in Dolores County, the other day. All the regulars were there. Of course, there was Charles Engle on Garfield Street, and Peter Lofquist over on Commercial, and Charlie Johnson, Axel Carlson, C.L. Berry, Minnie Hill, and Annie Hoxie when they counted. But down at the bottom of a list names I noticed something interesting — to me at least.

An almost forgotten group of 10 men, with Japanese surnames, 25- to 60-years old, and only an initial for first name, most of them described as living in “Railroad Yard.” For the “Race” column it listed “Japanese Male.”

“T. Taneguchi, S. Herano, T. Watanabe,T. Tado, J. Fukae, K. Hamazi, R. Ota, B. Kutsunai, M. Sai, and G. Fukumara.

According Daryl J. Maeda, in an essay for Enduring Communities, “Japanese Americans have a long and complex history in Colorado, and their story features struggles and perseverance, discrimination and tolerance.”

I wondered about that group and their stories.

“The earliest Japanese to arrive in Colorado probably did so between 1886 an 1888 and were mainly visitors and students,” wrote Maeda.

“They were followed shortly, however by the first large wave Japanese immigrants moving eastward from the Pacific Coast. The largest number of Japanese came to Colorado between 1903 and 1908 and worked as common laborers, railroad workers, miners farmhands, factory workers, and domestics. The influx boosted the Japanese population of the state from 48 in 1900 to 2,300 in 1910.”

Maeda says many Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) initially worked in Colorado on the railroad and in the coal mines.

“These early settlers entered an environment already structured by anti-Asian sentiments, evidenced when a mob ransacked and burned the Chinese section of Denver in 1880. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred the immigration of Chinese laborers to the U.S., and as the Chinese population of Colorado subsequently waned, the Japanese population grew. Like the Chinese before them, the Japanese who came to Colorado were scorned as the “yellow peril,” subjected to violence, and excluded from union membership. The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post ran anti-Japanese stories and editorials beginning in 1901, and by 1908 the Colorado State Federation of Labor had formed a Japanese and Korean Exclusion League,” writes Maeda.

According to historian Arthur A. Hansen, “Fortuitously, the Issei arrived in the U.S. as the Interior West region was experiencing what historian Eric Walz has described as “an economic boom fueled by railroad construction, coal and hard-rock mining, and agricultural development.” Recruited by labor contractors, the Issei were a mobile workforce. As both individuals and gang laborers, they moved not only between different work opportunities on the Pacific Coast and the western interior sections of the U.S., but also between America and Japan and many other parts of the world in which Japanese workers filled a variety of employment needs.”

Hansen said “Many Issei who came to America first found employment with the steam railroad companies in two of the five primary Interior West states, Colorado and Utah, but many more also worked for the railroad industry in such secondary states as Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada. This largely accounts for why the 1900 census counted so many more Nikkei in the secondary states rather than the primary states. However, as Iwata notes, even though they achieved remarkable success—supplanting Chinese railroad workers; gaining wage parity with (and then employer preference over) other immigrant laborers from such countries as Italy, Greece, and Austria; improving their status within the industry by becoming section workers (occasionally even foremen) and office secretaries and interpreters; and accumulating some surplus capital—the majority of Issei “began to look about for work other than that in the railroads.”

###

Five Japanese rail workers pose around a rail handcart. Photo taken between 1900 and 1910. Western History/Geneology Dept. Denver Public Library.

Dolores' seat: Mining and Rico, Ag and Dove Creek

Miners, agriculture interests frequently fought over seat

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

 It was Rico, of course, that first got the nod on February 10, 1881, to become the county seat when Dolores County was carved out of a part of Ouray County. The new county was bordered by San Miguel on the north, San Juan county on the east, and La Plata County on the south (Montezuma County had not been created until 1885), and Utah Territory on the west, according to Dolores County Historical Society.

"By an act of the general assembly which has just concluded its labors, the county of Ouray was divided and the new county of Dolores, with Rico as its county seat, created," read the Denver Tribune on February 15, 1881.

"It is 23 miles wide and forty miles long from east to west... Rico, the county seat, is located about 35 miles from the northern line of New Mexico, and about the same distance from the eastern line of Utah . Its altitude is 8,700 feet. It is 45 miles from Durango by trail, and the same distance from Silverton by trail. The actual distance from the latter place is 20 miles, and from the former about 30. It is situated on the east bank of the Rio Dolores, 20 miles from its source and forty miles above Big Bend by wagon road. It is 90 miles from Animas City or Durango by Big Bend, the only practical wagon road whereby Rico can be reached. There is a cut off via Bear Creek hill which may be traveled late in the spring, and thus some 20 miles of distance saved. There is a charted toll road from the Animas River to the Rio Dolores, known as Pinkerton or Scotch Creek trail, which when completed, will shorten the distance for wagons," said the Tribune.
Rico had been incorporated in 1879 and was a thriving mining town until the Silver Crash in 1893. After the Crash, much of the population moved on — though some mining continued. The Rio Grand Southern railroad was a part of Rico's history from its arrival in 1891 until it was discontinued in 1954. As Rico's mining future diminished, people moving into the western part of the county forced the issue of relocation of country seat to Dove Creek in 1945.

Miners and agricultural interests frequently have fought over placement of the seats of power in the counties of Colorado. The change from Rico to Dove Creek is only one of the most recent.
According to the Dolores County Historical Society, the Dove Creek area had started being settled around 1912 with ranchers and farmers moving into the area. "The western part of the country was one of the last areas in the United States to be homesteaded. The Stokes Brothers built a store around 1914-1916 (which was used as the courthouse from 1945-1953. There was a post office and many businesses in the early 1920’s, but the Town of Dove Creek was not incorporated until 1939," says the society's information.
Rico and Dove Creek are still the only incorporated towns in the county. However, there were other settlements and post offices in various locations over the years. Included are Dunton - near Rico; Cahone – southeast of Dove Creek, Squaw Point and Bug Point southwest of Dove Creek, Northdale, west of Dove Creek; Disappointment Valley, Lavender and Cedar; Burns, Egnar and Slick Rock in San Miguel County, Cedar Point, and Summit Point in San Miguel County Utah.

According to an economic profile produced in 2005 for Dolores County, "Western Dolores County was originally lush native grass that attracted livestock settlers beginning in the 1870s. By 1910 open range overgrazing had caused sagebrush to overtake native grasses in most of the area. In 1914 the Federal Government opened the area to homesteaders and dry land farming began in earnest. Most farming is high altitude dry land, with a strong emphasis on pinto beans and winter wheat. Dove Creek is known as the "Pinto Bean Capital of the World" for its long - standing production of high quality pinto beans noted for their nutritional content and extended shelf life."

The profile says the mountainous (eastern) part of Dolores County supplied a number of small sawmills with timber, and was the site of gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc and molybdenum mining in the Rico area, beginning around 1869. In 1876 the Pioneer Mining District was formed and mining became the main industry for the upper Dolores Valley and the Rico area. In 1879 the discovery of rich, oxidized silver ore was discovered on Niggerbaby Hill, Blackhawk Mountain, and the west slope of Telescope Mountain. This led to the incorporation of the Town of Rico and a 320-acre town site was platted out into streets and alleys. In 1880 the first wagon road was completed up Scotch Creek and Hermosa Park where it eventually led to Animas City and Durango. In 1891 the Rio Grand Southern Railroad (the Galloping Goose) pulled into Rico, and eventually connected the communities of Durango, Dolores, Rico, Ophir, Telluride and Ridgway. The railroad ran for 63 years until it was abandoned in 1954, according to the Economic Profile.

"In 1892 Rico had a population of 5,000 people, 23 saloons, 3 blocks of red light district, 2 churches, 2 newspapers, a theater, the Rico State Bank and many other stores and hotels. That same year the Dolores County Courthouse was built and Rico became the county seat, remaining so until 1946, when it was moved to the Town of Dove Creek. In 1893 Rico suffered a Silver Panic and many businesses were closed. By the turn of the century the population had declined to 811 people. The mining district had its ups and downs until 1926 when the Rico Company started to rebuild the mining industry. In 1937 the Rico Argentine Mining Company constructed a mill and eventually became the only surviving mining company of size. A sulphuric acid plant was constructed in 1953 and operated until 1965. At this time there were only about 300 people left in the town. From 1965 to 1971 the industry concentrated on lead and zinc mining and the population dropped to approximately 45," says the Profile.

According to "Colorado Place Names," by George R. Eichler, the name Rico developed after Col. J.C Haggerty's discovery of silver in 1879 and the rush of prospectors then. "Variously called Carbon City, Carbonville, Lead City and Dolores City, a meeting was finally called to choose a name. William Weston, then of Ouray, suggested the Spanish word Rico ("Rich") which was adopted." Dove Creek, is is said, was named for a nearby stream that, in turn, was labeled by an early freighter for the flocks of wild doves in the area.

Photo information:
1. Dolores County Courthouse in Dove Creek.
3. Dolores County Courthouse in Rico.

###

Walls of white with power and might

Clinging to the wreck of a guitar 

which he had been playing 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When I was much younger, I worked for a guy that had cabins up in Horse Gulch above Rico, and on certain winters, the spring snow had to be cleared from the roofs or they would collapse. We would ski in on a moonlit night to avoid ending up in a avalanche and shovel for days, as well try to get the cabins warm enough that the snow would slide off the tin roof.
I always had a lot of respect for slides after seeing a little one in Burns Canyon (also near Rico) run one time, and witnessing the damage that a slide was capable in several locations on the Upper Dolores.
But avalanche caution was sort of institutionalized in San Juans.
Take for example this Feb. 20 report in the Fairplay Flume in 1897
“There was a reign of terror in the mountains yesterday. Reports from Leadville, Aspen, Ouray, Red Cliff, Telluride and other towns tell of snow slides by the dozens. Huge volumes of snow tumbled down from every peak and crag, and those who had to travel on the mountain trails were in fear of their lives. J. E. BELL, a mail carrier of Ouray, was caught and killed in a big slide at Riverside”
It went on to tell of railroad travel being blocked on all of the lines centering at Leadville, and down in the southern part of the state the Rio Grande Southern was tied up at different points by snow.
Earlier reports from papers in the East such as this account in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan 27, 1886 had initiated talk of such dangers.
“Another snow-slide horror is reported from the extreme southwestern part of the State. Leonard Sutton, who has been at work in the Silver Lake basin in the La Plata Mountains, reached Durango last night with a frightful account of a slide which wrecked the cabin at the Daylight Mine on Tuesday last. While he was sitting in the cabin with Henry Thomas, his partner, and a fierce storm was raging outside, a slide from the mountain side suddenly struck the cabin and demolished it.
“Sutton says he was hurled some distance and buried fifteen feet under the snow. He managed to drag himself out, and set about to find Thomas, who was buried about ten feet deep. But the man’s leg was broken, and he was otherwise so badly injured that he could not sit up. Thomas begged Sutton to kill him and thus put him out of his misery. Sutton refused to kill him, and then Thomas begged him to leave at once and save himself. Believing Thomas would not live more than a few minutes he finally consented to leave him to his fate. Before his departure Thomas requested him to return in the spring and bury his body and send his money and other property to his sister, Miss Hannah Thomas, who resides in New York.”
And more recently Caroline Arlen quotes Silverton miner and former county commissioner David Calhoon, on the perils of the area in her book Colorado Mining Stories: Hazards, Heroics & Humor.
“We dug people out of avalanches. Most of them dead. Just digging out bodies. It’s unbelievable the force those avalanches have. It’s terrific.”
Calhoon tells of a state highway dozer operator from Durango lost to the snows near Silverton.
“ … An old D-7. It had just come up from the Durango shop and was freshly painted. He had finished plowing out the slide, and the road was open. Some people came by and said they noticed that he was sitting in the tractor eating lunch. Anyway, there was another slide come down, and it took that Cat clear across the canyon.”
Calhoon told Arlen that, “When we got down there, we got two tractors to get hold of the Cat and pull it up. Those arms on the side were bent, but there were no abrasion marks on the new paint. No stuff went by it, no rocks or anything. I think it’s because of a force that’s in front of those slides. Those slides come so fast, they’re pushing air in front of them. All his blood vessels were filled up. I think you’re dead before the snow ever hits.”
The April 15, 1906 edition of the New York Times tells of the freakish work of snow slide in the San Juan District.
“… For the avalanche is even more erratic than a cyclone. Some slides follow a certain path every year, and then, for no apparent reason, they will take a sudden shoot to one side or the other and make an entirely new path, probably killing a few men in blazing a new trail. If the big slide at Silverton this year had come down its usual path there would have been no damage. But its course was changed, in some unexplained manner, and it tore through mine buildings and ended by leaping into the Animas River, which it dammed to such an extent that some miners living along the river bottom were forced to vacate their cabins.”
The same account talked about another massive slide in the Ouray area.
“Last year a big slide carried away the Banker’s National Mine boarding house and killed eight men. A big force from the Camp Bird Mine was soon on the spot. Electric wires were stretched and systematic work of rescue was carried on. One man expired of suffocation just as he was drawn from the slide. Another was taken out alive, clinging to the wreck of a guitar which he had been playing when he was carried away by the slide. The cook was missing and ‘soundings’ were taken with long-handled shovels. A cheer went up when one of these shovels was wrenched from the hand of a rescuer. At the same time a curious rattling sound was heard, which puzzled the rescuers until thy dug down and found the cook rattling the stove damper, the noise being carried up the stovepipe through the great mass of snow. At the time the slide struck, the cook was standing by his range. He dropped down beside the stove, and the iron protected him from the weight of the timbers above him. He was able to move a little and had plenty of fresh air, hence was none the worse for his experience when he was released.”
In February of 1897, a slide took out the railroad station at Ophir.
“A monster snow slide came down this after noon and demolished Ophir Station, on the Rio Grande Southern railroad between Rico and Vance Junction, with four loaded freight cars and four empty ones standing on the side track,” reported the Boise Idaho Statesman on Feb. 21, 1897.
“Agent E.L. Gamble had his ankle severely sprained and Mrs. Gamble was badly bruised. She was knocked under a table over which timbers fell, which probably saved her life. The depot is a complete wreck. Snow and debris is piled up on the main and the side tracks near the site of the depot 50 feet in depth by 500 feet in width.”
###

Up and over the pass with an extra passenger

A young man, looking as real and alive as anyone else

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Dangerous, isolated, difficult to build and even to keep open, the Rio Grande Southern had its share of strange occurrences, especially in the stretches along the Dolores River and up over Lizard Head Pass from Rico to Telluride.
Frequently beset by blinding blizzards and threatened at any time of year by rock slides, snow slides, and mud slides or any combination of the three, the steep grades and high lonesome stretches also had the ability to inspire spirits, it seems.
Or at least to encourage them to appear.
One such spirit was Isidor Henschel, or ‘Jimmy the Jew’ as he was known in the camp of Rico.
In route to Ophir, Henschel died in a train wreck in 1901 when, hopping a freighter from Rico to save time, he turned out to be in the wrong place at exactly the wrong moment.
“At Rice’s Spur, just over the Sunny Side of Lizard Head Pass, the freighter had stopped to pick up a lumber load,” writes Mary Joy Martin in her 2001 book “Something in the Wind: Spirits, Spooks & Sprites of the San Juan.” “ In the process, the freighter escaped back down the hill toward Rico, piling up at Snow Spur, the flat cars helter-skelter, the caboose wrecked, the body of Jimmy crushed by the timbers.”
For years afterward, as long as the RGS ran, folks claimed Jimmy periodically appeared in trains, including the Galloping Geese, traveling on that same lonesome stretch of tracks.
But according to Dan Asfar, in his book “Ghost Stories of Colorado,” Henschel never did anything to call attention to himself.
“He simply appeared on the train from Rico to Ophir just when the locomotive began chugging up the ascent to Lizard Head Pass. His manifestation was always the same; a young man, looking as real and alive as anyone else, sitting at the window seat, wearing the crisp Navy uniform he had been buried in. Most times, he appeared so gradually that people did not even notice he was there. Then, just as quietly, he would fade out of sight when the train approached Rice Spur.”
###

I just can't wait to get on the road to Rico again

Rio Grande Southern narrow gauge locomotive, engine number 20, engine type 4-6-0 CreatorRichardson, Robert W. Date1951. Three-quarter view of right side of engine, from front end, close view, with caboose 0404; smoke, snow. Photographed: between Dolores and Rico, Colorado, November 16, 1951.

“People on horses look better than they are. People in a cars look worse than they are.” __ Marya Mannes, 1958

Arrival of cars did not end hazards of traveling to Rico

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Back when I didn’t know any better, we would fly down the highway from Rico to Dolores. I think the record was about 45 minutes -- and the road has been improved since then. Such ‘flights’ and speed was not always possible. Transportation on that stretch of the upper Dolores River has always been a challenge – one that travelers of various eras have risen to accept. Improvements have come in fits and starts.
“After the current contract on the Sullivan-Gould grade on the river road is completed and about 3 miles from the West Fork bridge down is constructed, our road won’t be half bad to travel,” wrote longtime Rico columnist Hart Lee, in the Dolores Star on Jan. 21, 1949. “One will be able to pass a car or truck most any place along the line without being sideswiped or being rammed into a head-on.”
Lee was always a booster of the route and noted that, “even under present conditions, the out-of-state traffic almost doubled last year over 1947.”
If not the road itself, weather could also be factor. A week later Lee reported, “Due to the blizzard that got off to a darn good start early this morning, I don’t know of a single person trying to leave town or entering, even the mail truck hasn’t shown up.”
But at that time, they still had the train in a pinch.
“Due to the heavy snow and drifts, the mail truck Monday was forced to turn around at the Gould grade and return to Dolores, however the following day two engines with a couple of box cars managed to get thru bringing in mail, express and freight. Thanks again to the old rusty rails. We’re always mighty grateful when we see the smoke drifting up the canyon.”
The following week, Feb. 4, 1949, Lee relayed the bad news.
“The latest report out is that the famous Galloping Goose will discontinue to gallop for an indefinite period, however we are still enjoying daily mail service by truck, while freights are still taking care of the concentrates.”
It hadn’t been that long since the days of horses and wagons.
“I was born in 1923, and we moved to Rico so my dad could mine, Trouble was his life. They didn’t have cars or trucks. They only used horses and wagons. The dirt road to two had two big ruts that your wheels went in,” according longtime Rico miner Myron Jones in Colorado Mining Stories: Hazards, Heroics and Humor ( by Caroline Arlen, 2002).
“One time my dad met some other guy coming the other way in the ruts. The other guy said ‘Pull over.’ My dad said, ‘You pull over.’ So they got out the whips and started whipping each other’s teams. It was such a mess of whips and horses, it wasn’t really clear who gave in.”
Jones described to Arlen the method of transportation in Rico in his early years there.
“In Rico we got around on donkeys, horses, snowshoes and skis. Skis were different in those days. They were just a couple of boards with the ends turned up. Probably weighed about three times what skis weigh now. However you got up the hill to the mine, you packed your skis up with you and went down on them. You had to enjoy skiing a lot then.”
With the arrival of cars, that did not end hazards of traveling to Rico however.
“While enroute to home from an extended trip to California Thursday night, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Calloway encountered the most unusual experience,” wrote Hart Lee in February of 1949. “Driving up the river road near the Ross Thomas ranch they noticed the lights of an oncoming car. Figuring the road might be a little narrow, decided to stop. Well just about that time a big bull elk came galloping down the road and instead of keeping to the right as the law provides for, landed right on the hood of their car and while scrambling over the top, poked both hind hooves through the windshield. For an instant they thought sure that the fool animal would be occupying the back seat, but their steel top stood the racket. Joe decided it wouldn’t be any use to call the Courtesy Patrol so came on home and called it a day.”
Perhaps talking about the same (or at least similar) incident in Colorado Mining Stories, Aubrey “Blizzard” Lillard, who also mined in Rico in the late ‘40s, had the following account.
“She was going down the road to Cortez, one time, and a bunch of elk run near over the top of that brand new Buick she had. That was really sickening to her, but it tickled a lot of other guys,” he said according to Arlen’s book.
“Hardly anybody else had a car. Every time you would buy a new car, the dang mine would shut down, and you couldn’t make your payments. So people would drive their cars over that steep place and call it an accident. I thought about it, but I loved my car. And they’d have caught me just as sure as thunder.”
###

What's your name, little town?

When you are a kid, you don't always think about where a names come from. As you grow older, you begin to wonder.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Art Modell was the longtime owner of the Cleveland Browns who later moved them to Baltimore where they became the Ravens. The Browns name resurfaced later in Cleveland. Modell, I think, had a healthy attitude about history, and names, and understatement.
"I have a great legacy, tarnished somewhat by the move."
Folks in Cleveland hated him for the moving the team, especially considering that he said on several occasions he would never do such a thing. As a result, he will forever be considered "persona non grata" in that town. So far, it has probably kept him out of the NFL Hall of Fame.
In news this week (February 2015), an Ohio man who urinated on the grave of Art Modell won’t be going to jail, after all.
According to Alison Knezevich of the Baltimore Sun, charges have been dropped against 62-year-old Paul Serbu, who videotaped himself appearing to empty a catheter from the bottom of his pants leg with a tube onto Modell’s grave. When you are a kid, you don't always think about where a names come from. As you grow older, you begin to wonder.
When I was growing up in southwestern Colorado, I might have heard once or twice that Egnar was really RANGE spelled backwards. I do remember they weren't that strong in basketball. The story is that they were named that way to avoid conflict with a post office somewhere that was already designated "Range." But of course, I didn't remember.
According to George R. Eicher's 1977 book, "Colorado Place Names," Montezuma County, which served as my old stomping grounds, was named when it was established in 1889 for the famous chief of the Aztecs whom Cortez conquered.
"The prehistoric dwellings in Montezuma County were thought to have been built by the Aztecs," then according to Eicher. And the county was carved out of a portion of La Plata County. Cortez, with its similar naming theme, is the county seat established about 1886, and was named by homesteader James W. Hanna, who sold the the site to the Montezuma Land & Development Company.
La Plata County, by contrast is Spanish for "silver." and it was carved out of portions of Conejos and Lake Counties. The Spaniards who arrived there in the 1700's and pulled a fair amount of said material out the mountains, labeled those mountains and the river La Plata and the county later reflected that legacy.
Other Spanish names pop up here and there in that country, but they are not always linked to the early Spanish visitors. Cahone, for example, is derivative of the Spanish word cajon and means 'little box.' Bert Ballenger, the first postmaster, allegedly came up with that one in reference to a nearby box canyon. And Arriola is said to have been named for an early Spanish military man, but the details of that have been difficult to trace.
Mancos, in Spanish means roughly "one-handed," "faulty" or "crippled" and we used to have a lot of fun with that back in high school when we played football against those yahoos. To add insult to injury, their mascot was the "bluejays."
Dove Creek, another local rival, apparently got its label from an early freighter in the area that noticed an uncommon amount of the wild birds in the area. They had enough awareness to choose a more robust mascot in the form of 'bulldogs,' but we often argued that was descriptive of their cheerleaders. They said the same, or worse, about us, I am sure.
Bayfield, of the other hand, was little larger town, and picked up its name from founder W.A. Bay. It was established in 1886, and it was originally called Los Pinos. Too bad that didn't survive. We could have had some fun with a name such as that. Instead, we were stuck wondering about the wolverines, that, as far as I know, have never been documented as being in Colorado.
Pagosa Springs, is Ute derived, and means "healing waters." How they came up with "pirates" for a mascot, beats the heck out of me.
Rico, of course, means "rich." In 1879, when Col. J.C. Haggerty discovered extremely rich silver ore there, they called the place Carbon City, Carbonville, Lead City, Dolores City and a few other cuss words. A meeting called to settle the issue resulted in William Weston's suggestion of the Spanish word for rich and the name stuck.
Other names, not of Spanish origin, cropped up here in there in that area. Lewis, for example, was named for the original owner, W.R. Lewis, who bought the property in 1909. And Lebanon, which was built in dense grove of cedar trees, as was the Biblical Lebanon, got its moniker from the Railway Building and Loan Co. of Pueblo when it was established in 1908. Stoner, named for the creek that dumps into Dolores River there, had much to do with the rocks up stream, but has been called that at least since 1888.
Which brings me to the town of Dolores, home of the bears. Originally down river about a mile and half, and called "Big Bend" for the river's turn to the north -- the town was relocated, and renamed, when the Rio Grande Southern Railroad arrived in 1890s.
Dolores seemed to be a natural choice for a river town. The town, the county upriver, and several other local landmarks owe their names to group of Franciscan Padres. In 1776, the same year of the founding of the United States, Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante, on his way from Santa Fe to Monterey, came upon the river close to where the town is now. He named the stream Rio de Nuestra Senora de las Dolores or "River of Our Lady of Sorrows." Poetic, I think.
###