Steve Goodman blazed a trail in Telluride

Steve Goodman, Cubs fan.

 Fine melodies and clever lyrics

By Rob Carrigan. robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The first time I ever heard anything about Steve Goodman was at the Telluride Bluegrass & Country Festival one summer, in the early 1980s. He performed at least three of the festivals then. About the same time, he often opened musically for comedian and Bluegrass artist Steve Martin. Goodman's friend John Prine often talked about their early days in Chicago, and later performed at Telluride Bluegrass four times following in his first producer's footsteps.

Goodman's fine work in engaging the audiences, and all those nearby, was particularly noteworthy and has lived on in TheFestivalTapes from June 28, 1980, with Mama Don't Allow It - Steve Goodman with Hot Rize and other songs that were captured during the 1980 performance filmed by Boulder public television and two CDs were made available.

https://youtu.be/VgORBCt5wpw

 “Steve was the first solo performer at the festival who could hold the audience like a band would,” Sam Bush said, as the 40th anniversary of festival loomed. This year will be the 50th anniversary.

BERKELEY, CA - 1981: L-R Hoyt Axton, Odetta, Tom Paxton and Steve Goodman backstage at The Greek Theatre in 1981 in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images)

Bush, of the bands New Grass Revival and Strength in Numbers, remembered the early days of festival in an oral history for Outside magazine, by Jared Keller: 

"I first came to Telluride with New Grass Revival in 1975. The original promoters were a band called the Fall Creek Band, back in 1974. All of the original bands were local to Colorado, and most of them lived in Telluride. They’d seen us play at the Walnut Valley picking contest in Winfield, Kansas and by the time the festival rolled around in June 1975, we were hired to come out. I’m not sure if we were the first national act, but we were the first band not from Colorado.  

According to Bush: "The streets weren’t paved. There was the one old hotel, but they put us up in one newish condo called the Manitou Inn. We got there in the middle of the night after a day and a half of driving from Kentucky and stumbled our way into this place, since there’s no neon allowed in mountain communities in Colorado. When we got up the next morning and couldn’t believe the beauty. It was like being in a different country."

Béla Fleck of (also of New Grass Revival, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones) talks about a local side trip in the same oral history:

"The trip to the Dunton Hot Springs after the festival closed on Sunday was always special. That first year I was at the festival with New Grass, back in 1982, Steve Goodman and I sat up all night and played with a bunch of people sitting around and listening in some small cabin. We had some spare parts from a barbecue that Sam Bush and Fred [Shellman] dumped into the hot springs to terrify the other people at the campsite. Nobody was star-tripping, it was just a bunch of people have a great-ass time. "

"Best known as the writer of 'City of New Orleans,' Steve blazed the trail at Telluride for singer-songwriters to come. His 1980 acapella 'Broken String Song' is still remembered as a moment of spontaneous brilliance."

Goodman's obituary in Rolling Stone. Nov. 8, 1984, outlined some of his story:

"Songwriter Steve Goodman died of leukemia on September, 20, 1984, after suffering with the disease for sixteen years. Best known for songs like "City of New Orleans," Goodman had a modest recording career, critical acclaim, and a small but loyal audience. Goodman toured often, performed at Carnegie Hall, and has had his songs covered by Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash, and Joan Baez, among others. He believed in traditional folk music. His songwriting ranged from blues to protest, and was characterized by fine melodies and clever lyrics."

John Prine tells the sideline of Goodman's guitar prowess:

John Prine and Steve Goodman.

 
"Steve was a master with the Guitar. It was almost impossible for him to complete a concert without breaking a guitar string. Of course, Steve also had a tendency to put on one man shows. Now for most singers this would mean an apology was in order while the musician switched guitars, but not Steve. Steve would continue to sing in perfect rhythm while he reached into a pocket, pulled out a new string, replaced the string, re-tuned the guitar, and then pick up playing again, much to the amazement and enjoyment of the crowd. 

John Prine claimed that Goodman did this on purpose, just to embarrass other guitar players. 

In 1974, singer David Allan Coe achieved considerable success on the country charts with Goodman's and John Prine's "You Never Even Called Me by My Name", a song which good-naturedly spoofed stereotypical country music lyrics. Prine refused to take a songwriter's credit for the song, although Goodman bought Prine a jukebox as a gift from his publishing royalties. Goodman's name is mentioned in Coe's recording of the song, in a spoken epilogue in which Goodman and Coe discuss the merits of "the perfect country and western song".

 "I'll never see Wrigley field one more time before I come to my eternal rest. So have your pencils and score-cards ready while I give you my last request. I want a double-header funeral in good old Wrigley Field, some sunny Saturday" From 'A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request' (Steve Goodman, 1981).

In his obit in the Chicago Sun-Times, by Harlan Draeger and Donald M. Schwartz noted:

"Chicago-born folk singer, Steve Goodman who coupled his performing talent with a lifelong passion for the Cubs, didn't live to see his team play in the World Series. The 36-year-old folk artist and song-writer died late yeasterday at University of Washington Hospital in Seattle.

He succumbed to kidney and liver failure after a fifteen year struggle with luekemia that included a bone marrow transplant on Aug. 31.

A nationally-known performer who had moved to Los angeles in 1980, Mr. goodman drew heavily on his Chicago background for his mellow, easygoing music.

In 1981, he recorded a light-hearted peice called "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" It suggested that he be cremated at home plate in Wrigley Field so his ashes could come to "final resting place out on Waveland Avenue"

While he was undergoing treatment in Seattle, his 'Go Cubs Go' theme song for the Chicago National League team was played almost daily on station WGN-AM (720) , for which he wrote the piece.

"Mr Goodman achieved his greatest fame when 'City Of New Orleans,' a 1972 song about the demise of the nation's railroads, was made into a national hit by singer Arlo Guthrie. The song was also a big hit for Willie Nelson this Year.

"Tunes such as 'Lincoln Park Pirates' and 'Daley's Gone' made Mr. Goodman a Chicago Favorite."

"Steve was someone who touched everybody he came in contact with in a very special way" said his Los Angeles Agent, Dan Einstein. "He taught me quite a bit about what it's like to stand up for yourself. He was a man of uncompromising principles--just the way he conducted himself in business and performing. He was very true to his form in his art.

Mr Goodman's last recording released this week, was a collection of new songs called 'Santa Ana Winds.' Einstein said it is "typical Steve Goodman," combining humor and a bittersweet touch. As in much of his earlier work, Einstein said the songwriter's Chicago experiences "seems to pervade the entire collection.

"Goodman, born on the North side, sometimes scheduled performances around his chemotherapy treatments. During the early '70s as Mr. Goodman was establishing himself as a national recording and performing artist, he would travel to New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer center every two weeks. From his buoyant performances audiences for "Chicago Shorty" never suspected a thing."

"During the third week of July Mr. Goodman traveled to New York to participate in a Harry Chapin benefit concert. He became ill, was hospitalized, and was told that some white blood cells had been found in his spine-- a symptom he had never exhibited before."

"Although Mr. Goodman moved to Los Angeles along with his wife, Nancy, and their three daughter, he remained in close touch with his Chicago Home. He had family here. The Earl of Old Town was here. He had friends here and fans here, although there was n ever a strict distinction between the two."

For Mr. Goodman the big break came in April, 1971 when he was the opening act for Kris Kristofferson at the Quiet Knight. The headliner was so impressed with his opener that he took Mr. Goodman to play a few songs for Paul Anka.  Anka offered him a plane ticket to New York. 'City Of New Orleans,'  Kristofferson once said it was "the best damn' train song I ever heard."

"In addition to his wife, Mr. Goodman is survived by their three daughters, Jessie, Sarah, and Rosanna; a brother David; his mother, Minette, and his Grandmother."

Although he was Jewish, Goodman weighed in on Christmas on Track 9, on 'Unfinished Business,' his last album while he was alive.

Known for his smiling performances.

From 'Colorado Christmas,' by Steve Goodman,

Looking out the window of this Hollywood hotel
You'd never know that this was Christmas Eve
The billboards and the neon took the place of silver bells
And the temperature is 84 degrees

But I remember Christmases when I was just a boy
In the morning I would run to see the tree
And the carolers on the hillside sang their songs of Christmas joy
Well, I always thought they sang them just for me
Now all along the Rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
Now the closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow

I can hear the traffic on the crowded strip below
As the palm trees poke their heads above the scene
But there's not a single reindeer and it hardly ever snows
And Santa drives a Rolls Royce limousine
I see the sun is setting in the California sky
And I can't find the spirit anywhere
So I think it's time for me to tell Los Angeles goodbye
I'm going back home look for Christmas there

Cause all along the Rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
Now the closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow

Things of the past ... May 3, 2023

 

Thing of the past ...
Governor "Billy" Adams poses on a Harley Davidson motorcycle in front of the state Capitol. When he was 17, Adams moved to Alamosa, Colorado. As a Democrat, He was later elected to City Treasurer, then Mayor of Alamosa, and later as Conejos County commissioner. In 1886, he was elected to the Colorado General Assembly as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives. In 1888, he was elected to the Colorado Senate where he served until 1926, when he was elected as Governor of Colorado. He served from January 11, 1927 – January 10, 1933. In 1921, during his term as Colorado Senate Senator, Adams received approval on a bill that formed Alamosa State Normal School in Alamosa, Colorado. The college’s name was later changed to Adams State Teachers College in honor of its founder and finally to its present name Adams State University. Adams died on February 4, 1954, in Alamosa, Colorado, at the age of ninety-two, where he is buried.

Thing of the past ...

Group in front of 2104 Glenarm Place

Creator: McClure, Louis Charles, 1867-1957

Date: [1900]

Donor: Thomas Shrock Lindsay

Group portrait at 2104 Glenarm Place, the Shrock home, Denver, Colorado; Martha and John Shrock sit in chairs; Louis Charles McClure standing at center; Ada May Shrock McClure (Mrs. L. C.) on bike at right. Ada May's sister Mary Rebecca's children, Martha and "Doc" Clearance Conrad sit on lawn with older sister Bina May Conrad (daughter of Mary Rebecca) on a bicycle.

Format of Original Material 1 copy photonegative ; 10 x 13 cm (4 x 5 in.); 1 photoprint ; 13 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in.)

Original Material Found in Collection Louis Charles McClure papers

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

Thing of the past ...

Tobacco shop & 2 men

Interior view of a tobacco store in Denver, Colorado. Men stand near wood and glass cases with displays of cigars and candy. Signs read: "5 & 10 [cents] Candy," "We Sell Gillette, Ever-Ready Durham Duplex Razor Blades," and "London Gold Tip King of Cigarettes."

Date: [between 1910 and 1915]

Notes: Condition: emulsion chipping on edge of glass negative.; Title handwritten on negative envelope.

History Colorado, William W. Cecil Collection

 

Thing of the past ...
Ute Iron Spring, Manitou, Colo.
Credit: Denver Public Library Special Collections
Creator: McClure, Louis Charles, 1867-1957
Date: [1900-1910]
Ute Iron Spring (or Iron Spring), Manitou Springs, Colorado; men & women with umbrellas standing & seated in front of pavilion & curio store entrance; signs advertising "Postcards five cents per dozen", "No soliciting allowed around pavilion" & "Notice: any person breaking or destroying shubbery or trees will be prosecuted, the Town Board"; window displays of postcards & dried flowers.

 

 

Thing of the past ...

Rico from below

Creator: Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942

Rico (Dolores County), Colorado. Shows wood frame structures of Rico Argentine Mining Company, frame residences, commercial buildings, and dirt roads. The Rico Mountains are in the distance.

Date: [between 1880 and 1900?]

History Colorado, William Henry Jackson Collection

 

Thing of the past ...

Murphy Mine Cornet Band St. Elmo Colo

Date: [1878-1890?]

Saint Elmo, Chaffee County, Colorado, men pose with trombones, cornets, bugles, a tuba, trumpets and snare drum. The bass drum has letters: "Murphy Mine Silver Cornet Band." Signs on frame businesses read: "True Fissure Billiard Hall," "Restaurant," "American -" and Hardware." Mountains are in the background.

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

Thing of the past ...

Title: Hermosa, Colo

Creator: Krause, John

Date: [1950-1959?]

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company passenger train by the water tank at Hermosa (La Plata County), Colorado. Locomotive 478 has a wedge snowplow. Frame buildings are near the tank. A logo on the tank reads: "Rio Grande, Royal Gorge, Moffat Tunnel, Scenic Line of the World."

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

Thing of the past ...

Hermosa House tourist hotel at Trimble Springs, Colorado, on

Creator: Beam, George L. (George Lytle), 1868-1935

Date: 1910?

Hermosa House, Trimble Springs, La Plata County, Colorado; shows a brick hotel with faceted towers, a balcony, and a lookout. A man, women, and children are on the porch.

Western History and Genealogy Digital Collections.

Denver Public Library Special Collections

 

Thing of the past ...

Revolving car dump Telluride Mining & Milling Co Telluride, Colo

Date: [1900-1930?]

Mining processing mill at the Telluride Mining & Milling Company in Telluride, San Miguel County, Colorado; shows a miner watching a gear-driven ore car dumper.

Denver Public Library Special Collections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Telluride of yore

Horse and mule pack train near Telluride (San Miguel County), Colorado, with coils of wire for the Nellie Mine tramway. Denver Public Library Special Collections. Date: 1895?

Mythic place of youth and yesteryear

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When I was a youngster, up until the early 1970s I guess, the Telluride of yore was this mythic place of ramshackle mining buildings, beat-up shacks, and former row houses mostly, along with ornate Victorians in various stages of decay of former glory. I loved the elements of its checkered past featuring labor unrest, outlaw bank robbers, saloon girls, and epic unruliness and isolation. We always talked about how you might have been able to buy the whole town for less than $100,000.  Now, I assume, that would be quite a stretch. 

Fourth of July was always a celebration, and the beautiful box canyon was always a draw in summer, fall, winter and spring. The zig-zag fencing, sheep herder wagons, jagged rocky surroundings, astounding water falls, and blow over meadows provided visual interest, of course.

The town was founded in 1878. Telluride was originally named "Columbia," but due to confusion with Columbia, California, the name was changed by the post office in 1887.  Some folks today suggest that the post-1970 boom has re-Californiacated the place,  and not necessarily in a good way.  

But from my vantage point,  I have reveled in the development of the ski area over the years, and the music, film and other festivals providing vitality and interest. Besides, after living for decade in California myself, I recognize some advantages. My only regret is that I didn't think of — or was not able to — scrape together $100,000 in the early 1970s.

Telluride Brewery 

Al Bachman, photographer.
View of an abandoned brewery in Telluride (San Miguel County), Colorado. The wood, stone, plaster and tin building has a false front and a smokestack. A corrugated tin buildings is nearby. Photo created 1963. Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

Brick Building
Al Bachman, photographer.
View of an abandoned brick building in Telluride (San Miguel County), Colorado. The buildings has arched windows with radiating voussoirs, and a corbeled parapet. The porch roof on the front of the buildings has a shingled hip roof and wooden pillars. Photo created 1963. Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library

Telluride Opera House
Al Bachman, photographer.
View of a brick theater in Telluride (San Miguel County), Colorado. The building has a stepped parapet, a projecting enclosed balcony with a tile roof and a hip roof tile porch. Lamp posts are near the theater and a sign on the building reads: "Opera House, Picture Shows Every Evening, Admission 10 and 15 Cents." A sign projecting from the building reads: "Show." Photo created 1954. 

Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

The Cosmopolitan
Creator: Byers, Joseph E.
Date: [1905-1915]
The Cosmopolitan, Telluride, Colorado, a saloon and gambling club. Men in suits and hats are seated at gaming tables with stacks of poker chips, a roulette wheel table is in left foreground, and a bartender stands behind long wooden bar. Marshal Kenneth Angus Maclean leans with his back against the bar; a Black man kneels next to brass foot rail and polished brass spittoons. Bar area features a large mirror with deer heads above, decorative spindles and shelves with liquor bottles, glasses and cash register on back counter. Inked on white border of photoprint: Telluride, Colorado. Penciled on back of photoprint: "1910-15?". Stamp on back of photoprint: Homer E. Reid, Telluride Colo. Title and photographer's signature hand-lettered on bottom of original negative. Denver Public Library Special Collections.

Band in Bridal Veil Park, 

Telluride, Creator: Goodman, Charles, 1843-1912. Date: 1886, Sept
T.J. McKee, donor, Men wear suits and hats and hold musical instruments including tubas, cornets, trumpets, trombones, and a bass drum in a meadow below the San Juan Mountains near Telluride (San Miguel County), Colorado. Ingram Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and Ingram Peak are in the distance. Denver Public Library Special Collections.

Telluride Hose Team No.1 

The Champion, 100 yards, wet test, in southwestern Colorado, July 3" 1892
Creator : Carpenter, W. J., photographer.
Date: 1892
Telluride Hose Team Number 1 on July 3, 1892, on Colorado Avenue in front of First National Bank, Telluride, Colorado, in annual race competition against Delta, Ouray, Rico and Grand Junction down one block length, that included unreeling two hundred feet of hose and turning on the water. Fireman in long underwear and trunks include: Billy (Gregory?), Ed Martin, Oscar Lochman, Jake Miller, C. Umstead, Lou (Hampdon?), A Fitzpatrick, Glenn (McKaron?), W. A. Gannon, A. C. Heidloff, Harry Newcomb, J. E. Jennings (trainer), Ely Elder (Spike). Two-story Richardsonian style bank, constructed by L. L. Nunn constructed in 1892-3, features Cornet Creek sandstone, arched entry with stained glass window panels in doors, and a corner tower.
Denver Public Library Special Collections

Hindsight in 2020 and memories of 1970

Missing certain things from 50 years ago

By RobCarrigan1@gmail.com

As we hit 2020 this year, and I started thinking ...
I considered an earlier time, and things I had no earthly use for in 1970 — yet I still miss them now, 50 years later.

One of those things, of course, is pre-1970 Telluride.
Joe Zoline, a Chicago and Beverly Hills based businessman, taking a tip of a friend from Aspen from years earlier who suggested he check out Telluride, decided to create the ski area.
Zoline bought two ranches - Adam's Ranch and Gorrono Ranch, located on the mountain, and  showed up in Telluride for the first time in 1968.

Zoline employed Emile Allais, a French Olympic skier to help configure runs and lifts and consult on the design and layout of the mountain. He also hired Bill Mahoney and Ed Bowers to cut trails, clear slopes, and obtain land-use rights, mining claims, and water rights for the ski company. Zoline contracted ecologists and environmental planners and encouraged local preservationists to protect the Victorian-era town.

The Ski Area started in 1970-71 with snowcat skiing for $10 a day including a sack lunch. Five lifts were built, and the Telluride Ski School was founded in conjunction with the mountain's opening. Zoline's vision finally became a reality when the Telluride Ski resort officially opened on December 22, 1972.

At that time there was no access from town and skiers took a bus to the day lodge located on the western side of the mountain where Big Billie's is today. Proficient skiers could ride the five lifts it took to get to the top of the mountain, ski to town and catch the bus back to the day lodge three times in one day. While you could ski into Telluride, it was not until 1975 when Coonskin Lift 7 was built that the town and ski area were actually connected.

Another thing I miss from those days 50 years ago, is the role of newspapers in society.
Yes, I know there are still newspapers around out there ... But, it is not really the same.
For example: Just consider my newspaper tools at the time. I had a two-sided pack with a pouch in front and one in back, that I filled with Durango Heralds every day at the Post Office in Dolores. I carried with me a blue "Collection" book with tear-out tabs that I pestered customers to pay (at least for last month), on regular basis. I carried, or picked up,  a pocket full of dimes, nickels, and quarters from honor racks around town.

And the news in those days: In March1970, The United State Army charged 14 officers with suppressing information related to the My Lai incident.
Before that in February of 1969, President Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, discuss plans for bombing the North Vietnamese supply routes that went through Cambodia. In March of 1969, Nixon launches the secretive campaign called "Operation Menu" in which American B-52s carpet bombed the Eastern side of Cambodia. The bombing campaign lasted for over a year and took a great toll on the country as many civilian lives were lost.

In April of 1970, Nixon orders a secret invasion of Cambodia by US and South Vietnamese troops.
News of the invasion reaches the US and further fuels anti-war sentiments. People stage massive protests against the United States' involvement in Cambodia.
Several students are shot and killed by the National Guard at anti-war protests at Kent State University and Jackson State University. Soon after, Nixon withdraws forces from Cambodia. The United States chooses to continue the bombing of the country, which lasts until 1973.

In addition:

• Jimi Hendrix dies of barbiturate overdose in London
• Janis Joplin dies in a cheap motel from a heroin overdose
• Simon and Garfunkel release their final album together, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The Title Track won the Grammy for song of the year.

Also in March of 1970, United States Postal Service workers go on strike.
Then the strike spreads to California and Akron, Ohio, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Denver. A third of U.S. Postal employees walk out. President Nixon assigns military units to New York City post offices. The strike lasts two weeks.

But you have to consider, that in 1970, I am not really that old. I think about things that are probably gone now — but not forgotten.

Things like the Sportsman Center, which was up river from my house, and operated by the Rules at the time, where I could always buy those push-up orange sherbert tubes ... and my dad or mom, could go next door to that tiny liquor store and buy beer.

Or the Pogo-stick that endlessly ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunked on the neighbor's porch across the street at all hours of the day or night. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, Ka-chunk. What the heck is that kid doing on a pogo-stick at 11 p.m.?

And always somewhat-serious for a little kid, I think of the Colorado plane crash of the Wichita State Football team near the Loveland Ski area in October of 1970.
"A twin-engine airliner carrying at least 40 persons, most of them football players and officials of the Wichita State University, crashed and burned high on the east side of Loveland Pass at 1:14 on Friday ... It was believed to be the nation's worst air tragedy involving a sports team," said the Rocky Mountain News then.

But on a positive note, they did remove cigarette commercials from TV that year. And the first Earth Day was announced and celebrated. The "most-trusted man in America" Walter Cronkiet at the time had CBS News Special then, and would celebrate the entire week.   Environmental Protection Agency was established as well.

And On May 17, 1970, Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl and a multinational crew set out from Morocco across the Atlantic Ocean in Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels. Heyerdahl was attempting to prove his theory that Mediterranean civilizations sailed to America in ancient times and exchanged cultures with the people of Central and South America. The Ra II crossed the 4,000 miles of ocean to Barbados in 57 days.

Things I had no earthly use for in 1970 — yet I still miss them now, 50 years later.  I guess really do miss that Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, Ka-chunk of that pogo-stick — and other things from 1970.

###

Widest, richest, deepest part of the vein.

"Your stakes are a little far apart"

 By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

It was not the first time that the way a law was written — made someone a fortune.
"The Union and Sherman mines were good producers of silver and other metals in 1876 and in July of that year, prospector J.B. Ingram grew curious about them. They seemed farther apart on the mountainside than they should be, and sure enough, by measurement he found several hundred feet not legally included in either. So shortly he had a claim, a mine, a fortune," wrote Lambert Florin in his 1970 expansive roundup of "Ghost Towns of the West."
"During August 1875, John Fallon and a partner were the first prospectors to find what would be called the Smuggler Vein in Marshall Basin. They staked their adjoining Sheridan and Union claims on the rich upper section of the vein just below the 12,000 ft. elevation line. At the time, the only way into Marshall Basin was a bushwhack trail that crossed through the “Keyhole” to the Ouray side of the mountains," according to the Mining History Association, in a paper presented at Annual Conference June 9-12, 2016, Telluride, Colorado on Mining History of Telluride, Colorado.
"This remote setting, however, did not hinder a three man party led by J. B. Ingram from reaching Marshall Basin the following summer. Apparently, these men entered the basin ahead of Fallon and his partner, and were canny enough to recognize that their predecessors had staked more ground than was allowed by current mining law. As a result, the interlopers staked a new claim called the “Smuggler” that incorporated a lower parcel from the Sheridan claim with an upper parcel from the Union claim. As luck would have it, the Smuggler proved to be located on the widest, richest, and deepest part of the vein."
Altogether, these three discoveries and the rush that followed led to the establishment of the Upper San Miguel Mining District. Hundreds of mining claims covered the rugged topography.  A camp called Newport was established at the east end of the Telluride Valley. This end of the valley was also where a succession of mills was erected over time, says the Mining History Association.
"In 1877, the town of San Miguel was platted further west in the Telluride Valley, but a year later, a new community named Columbia was incorporated a mile closer to the mines. Due to this superior location, it became the dominant town. Eight years later though, the US Post Office asked Columbia to change its name. The reason given was that there was a Columbia, California, and too much mail was being misdirected between the two communities because poor penmanship used to write the initials CALA for California or COLO for Colorado was often too hard to decipher."
Since Columbia, Colorado, was a newer town, it had to choose a new name. By chance, a large hunk of gold ore misidentified as a telluride form of sylvanite had recently been found at the Sheridan Mine. This led to renaming the town “Telluride” because telluride gold ore was considered to be very rich and the catchy name might attract mining investors. Ironically, the element tellurium is practically non-existent in the entire San Juan Mountains, says the Mining History Association.

"Between the years 1887-1889, consolidation of the mines along the great Smuggler Vein in Marshall Basin led to the formation of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company. Seven years later in 1896, the wealthy Rothschild family from Europe organized the Tomboy Gold Mines Company in neighboring Savage Basin. Altogether, these two mining companies were the best producers in the Upper San Miguel Mining District until they closed in the late 1920s."
The Smuggler-Union mine used to be located along Tomboy Road high above Pandora (east of Telluride). It was an startling complex consisting of a multistory boarding complex housing hundreds of miners and was perched precariously close to the edge.
A forerunner to the ski tram towers that would later dot the nearby mountains, an elaborate tram system carried ore down to Pandora, and remnants of steam boilers, chain, tram cable, and rusted piping are still scattered in the area. The "Bullion" Tunnel was drilled as a crosscut underneath the mine in an effort to reduce operating costs.
In November of 1901, 22 men were killed as a result of a fire in the mine. A hay fire broken out near the mine portal. The draft sucked the smoke in and many miners died of smoke inhalation. But it could have been much worse, as nearly 200 men were working there that day according to a dispatch in the Salida Mountain Mail, at the time.

Impressive Hydroelectric Powerplant

The Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Powerplant was built to power the Smuggler-Union Mine 2,000 feet  below the mine in 1907, providing alternating current for industrial purposes. The plant was proposed by Smuggler-Union Mine manager Buckley Wells who live in the residence as a summer home until the 1920s. It was originally accessed in winter by an aerial tramway but that was eventually destroyed. It operated in its original configuration until its decommissioning in 1953, serving the Idarado Mining Company.
The living quarters and especially the power house/generator fell into disrepair and were heavily vandalized by the time of the historic registry survey in 1979. A local resident, Eric Jacobson, acquired a 99-year lease from the Idarado Mining Company for the property in 1988 and proceeded to restore the facility and eventually moved his family into the residence. The AC plant was restored to operation in 1991 with power being generated by its original 2300 volt Westinghouse Electric AC generator, one of the oldest AC generators still in operation. In 2010 Jacobson gave up the lease to the Idarado Mining Company citing continual regulation and legal problems associated with the site. Idarado has kept the plant in operation and the power generated now provides about 25 percent of Telluride's demand for electricity. As of 2012, the plant generated approximately 2,000 megawatt hours a year – enough electricity to power about 2,000 average American homes, which is purchased from Idarado by the local San Miguel Power Association. The Smuggler-Union Powerplant was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 27, 1979.

Photo Information:

1. Smuggler-Union Mine about 1910. Photo Joseph E. Byers.

2. Smuggler-Union mine, mill, and boarding house in Savage Basin. Walker Art Studios. About 1935.

3. Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Powerplant, at Bridal Veil Falls, southeast of Telluride.

Uniquely tied to Colorado and Fourth of July

Celebrate Independence: 

We have a long history of doing it right

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrign1@gmail.com

I know the rest of the country is entitled to celebrate Independence Day but there seems to be something uniquely tied to Colorado and Fourth of July, in my mind.

Maybe it is just fond recollections from July Fourths of the past, in places like Telluride, and Monument, and Dolores, and up in Teller County.

Legendary celebrations have been held here and after all, we are the Centennial State.

Congress had approved Colorado admission to statehood in March of 1875 and laid out provisions and conditions of statehood but it wasn’t until August 1, 1876, when President Ulysses Grant ratified admission. Communities all over the state had already begun celebrating, and really, have never slowed down.

In Denver in 1890, in celebration of the Fourth and the completion of the Capitol building, reportedly five miles of tables were set up for the barbecue attended by over 60,000.

“There were no greedy gluttonous displays, but every man, woman, and child clamored for food until they had their fill. Just think of it! Three hundred and fifty sheep, 75 calves, 237 fat steers, 13,000 loaves of bread, 3,000 pounds of cheese, 10 barrels of pickles, not to mention a 1,000 gallons of lemonade,” itemized the Rocky Mountain News at the time. “The run on the beer saloons was unprecedented.”

During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain in 1776 actually occurred on July 2, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from British rule. After voting for independence, Congress turned its efforts to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its main scribe. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it two days later on July 4.

A day earlier, John Adams, brewer and maltster whose product would have come in handy in modern celebrations, had written to his wife Abigail:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

Adams's prediction was, of course, off slightly. Americans celebrated independence on July 4 right from the beginning, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.

Historians have long disputed whether members of Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly perceived.

Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Monroe, another Founding Father who was elected as President, also died on July 4, 1831. He was the third President in a row who died on the anniversary of independence. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872; so far he is the only U.S. President to have been born on Independence Day.

When Colorado was gearing up for statehood, the editor of the Del Norte Prospector had this to say about 38th state’s admission to the union.

“And when the Centennial shall come again. Colorado will be among the fairest of the sisters; her hillsides will have become beautiful under the joint ministry of nature and art: her mountaintops glorified by the sunlight of freedom: and all the bright blessings of civilization and religious liberty will shimmer around her pathway in a golden shower,”

On July 4, 1891, W.S. Stratton was prospecting on the side of Battle Mountain in what was to become Teller County. Based on geology, he reasoned rich ore could be found there. As he searched for gold, Stratton could hear shots fired into the air as miners began their celebration of the Fourth of July. That day, Stratton found and staked out the Washington and the Independence claims.

That claim, and other subsequent moves, made him tremendously wealthy. “He would eventually own one-fifth of the mining land in Cripple Creek and Victor,” writes historian Tom Stockman.

When I was a youngster, growing up in the little town of Dolores, in southwestern Colorado, we stretched back at least 200 years for things to celebrate in the summer of 1976, and every year after, because of our own discovery by Franciscan monks dispatched out of Santa Fe, about the same time as the Declaration of Independence.

"Father Fray Francisco Atanasio awoke somewhat improved, and in order to change terrain and climate rather than to make progress, we set out from the camp and Rio de San Lázaro toward the northwest. We traveled a little more than a league, swung west by west-northwest, and went five leagues through leafy forests and good pastures. Then we turned west, traveled two and a half leagues through a chamise thicket with little pasturage, went a quarter of a league to the north, crossed Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, and camped on its north bank. This river rises on the north slope of the Sierra de la Plata, and runs southwest to this place, where it makes a sharp turn. It is a little smaller than the Rio del Norte in this season. - Today a little more than eight and a half leagues," wrote Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, on August 12, 1776.

"We remained in camp, partly so that the Father might improve a little and be able to go forward, and partly to observe the latitude of this site and meadow of the Rio de los Dolores where we were. An observation was made by the sun and we found we were in 38° and 13 1/2' north latitude. Here there is everything needed for the establishment and maintenance of a good settlement in the way of irrigable lands, pastures, timber and firewood. On an elevation on the south bank of the river in ancient times there was a small settlement of the same form as those of the Indians of New Mexico, as is shown by the ruins which we purposely examined. Father Fray Francisco Atanasio felt better, and we decided to continue our journey next day," Escalante writes August 13, 1776.

As noted, Colorado has a unique relationship with Independence, and we have a long history of doing it right.

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.
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Duke's impact and connections to the homeland

Rooster Cogburn (played by John Wayne) confronts the four outlaws across the field.
Ned Pepper (played by Robert Duvall): What's your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?
Rooster Cogburn: I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?
Ned Pepper: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.
Rooster Cogburn: Fill your hand, you son of a ...! 

__ From the 1969 version of True Grit, Directed by Henry Hathaway, Written by Margueritte Roberts, based on the novel by Charles Portis.

The big star was connected to area in other ways.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

I just finished Scott Eyman's 2014 bestseller "John Wayne: The Life and Legend" and I am struck by how much impact a figure from the silver screen can have on a person— namely me.
Having grown up in southwestern Colorado, where the actor was almost woven into the fabric of the area, I feel connected, like he was a not-too-distant relative, (maybe  great-granddad or something).
Part of it, has to do with location.
Monument Valley, location for multiple John Ford westerns that molded Duke Morrison from a "B"movie crew member into the larger-than-life John Wayne, and sets him up as an American icon, straddled the Utah and Arizona border. Other films were created near Mexican Hat and it all, was not so terribly far from my boyhood home in Dolores, Colorado. If you followed the streamflows back uphill, to locations of the "Sons of Katie Elder," "True Grit" and other films, it meandered its way up the Dolores River, over Lizard Head Pass and high into the San Juan Mountains of Ridgway, Ouray, over Dallas Divide and into Montrose, where I was born.
Deb's Meadow, near the summit of Owl Creek Pass, with Chimney Peak and Courthouse Mountain featured in background, is where the film scene above took place. Duke used a trick similar to the one he learned for opening scenes of "The Searchers" of Monument Valley fame, in which a customized, sawed-off Winchester Model 1892, could be twirled to cock under his arm with just one hand.
"For his close-up, with reins between his teeth, twirling and cocking one-handed as he bore down on the outlaws, Wayne was not sitting on a horse, but on a saddle mounted on a camera car," wrote Eyman, in his recent book.
The hanging scene early in the movie was filmed in the Ridgway Town Park and Chin Lee's Place was on Clinton Street there. A little bit further up in Ouray, at the Court House, some of the court scenes were in the real thing there. The Ross Ranch, where the aging Wayne did his own horse jump for the freeze frame at the end of the movie, is out, off Highway 62, on the Last Dollar Road.
The truth of the mater was, that the big star was connected to area in other ways.
Today, thanks to the Pauls Family Work, large areas of the forest are accessible, and even that has ties back to Wayne.
Glen Pauls said he first came to the area with his family in the 1970s. After decades of planning, purchasing land, and dreaming, Glenn Pauls, his wife Dianne, and the Pauls family have transferred the first phase of the Ophir Mining Roads Public Access Preservation Project to the United States Forest Service. This transfer includes 109 acres and three building sites in the Water Fall Canyon area. These lands can never be developed and can never be closed to public motorized access.
"From there we came back nearly every year to motorcycle and jeep the trails, and we began to buy land. I now have approximately 1200 acres, almost all, of the mining claims in and around the Ophir Valley my parents and I have purchased since the mid 80s," Glen Pauls described how their efforts took shape.
"It started when I was told of a deal by realtor Bob Forsberg, where I could buy the entire holdings of John Wayne (the actor) and Donald Koll, who had planned to build a silver mine or ski area. The Hunt brothers and Telski dashed their dreams, and we bought them out. The path to preservation was conceived," he said.
Self professed "cowboy hippie" lawyer Dick Unruh, who still calls Telluride home, represented John Wayne and Ed Smart in a land transaction related to East Ophir when he came to the area in 1972.
In 1972, according to Unruh, pre-ski area, only about 400 people lived in Telluride.
And and though I have not been able to verify or prove it, I believe I ran into the Duke up there one year at the annual Fourth of July celebration, as military jets from Pete Field preformed a flyover worthy of the star's enthusiastic military support, and a better-than-average parade snaked down the main street. I think I probably have seen all of his movies, most before his death on June 11, in 1979.
Eyeman says John Wayne became not only Hollywood's most famous and successful actors, but in the process became a symbol of America itself — for better and worse.
It has made me wonder about a great number of possible ties of my home ground over the years and speculate about connections to the early film industry. For example, the most-storied bar there being known as the Hollywood, and the three-storied Del Rio Hotel finished in the early 1930s reportedly being frequented by Clara Bow and perhaps others, but I am also intrigued by the name itself, as Dolores Del Rio was one of the top starlets of the 1920s. With director John Ford (and his biggest star John Wayne) doing a lot of work in Monument Valley in the 1930s it doesn't seem to be out of the realm of possibility. 
At Pacific View Memorial Park, in Newport Beach, California, a stone was placed years after Duke's death in 1979, on his grave and carrying a quote by the legend himself.
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes to us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Top: John Wayne in 'True Grit' from 1969.

Bottom: John Wayne, Dolores Del Rio, and John Ford, at dinner meeting in Monument Valley.

Deep snow, steep slopes, wringing the Liberty Bell

Stepping to the door, he found outside totally dark, air filled with flying snow

 “The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
__ e.e. cummings


By Rob Carrigan
robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Deep snow in winter is an obvious reality in Colorado, and particularly in the San Juans. Where there is deep snow and steep slopes, it is only a matter of time before something or someone is lost in a slide.
“The Colorado Mountain railroads are endeavoring to keep their trains moving, but it is with considerable difficulty,” read the Feb. 23, 1897 edition of the New York Times. “They no sooner clear a dozen snow slides from some canyon road before a half dozen more come down the side of the mountain, and pile up debris higher than ever.”
The same edition called attention to Aspen’s isolation caused by the slides.
“The first train arrived in Aspen today since Friday, and for three days it has been bucking snow in the Grand Canyon, near Glenwood Springs. The storm shifted its course tonight and the snow is falling faster than ever. Since Friday, eleven feet on the level has fallen. A slide came down Aspen Mountain this evening and swept away John Kauble, an ore hauler, and his team. He escaped but his horses were killed.”
In San Juan Range, that same storm struck with even greater vengeance.
“In the Ouray district the snow is deeper than at Aspen, and avalanches occur three and four times a day. One carried away Henry Jones and a pack train of eleven Jacks, every one of the latter being killed. On Cumbres Hill, between Durango and Alamosa, the snow is fifteen feet deep, which breaks the record for twelve years.”
Five years later the snow caused real trouble in the Telluride area. “Devastating Snow Slides Kill Scores,” barked the heads in the Feb. 28, 1902 edition of the Telluride Daily Journal.
“At 7:30 this morning a tremendous snow slide swept away the boarding and bunk house and the tramway station and ore loading house at the Liberty Bell Mine.”
Early reports placed the dead at 50 to 75 because it was thought all mining buildings were wiped off the slope, but the slide was selective.
“The buildings destroyed and swept away are the boarding house, tram house, and one corner of the new bunk house. The old bunk house, in which the night shift was sleeping — some sixty men — escaped,” according to the report in the Telluride paper.
The same paper relates an account of L.M. Umsted who was in a nearby stable, preparing his horse to go to work on the Tram.
“The stable grew suddenly dark as night, and stepping to the door he opened it and found the outside totally dark and air filled with flying snow. Thinking it was a terrific gust of wind, he slammed the stable door shut and waiting for a few seconds, he peered through a crack and as it grew light again he opened the door and saw the tram cable swinging about and the buckets rolling down the hill. As the snow in the air settled, he stepped out a few feet and looking up towards the boarding house, he could see no signs of these buildings. Then looking down the hill he saw boards and timbers sticking out of the snow and scattered about.”
Umsted, at that point tried to help.
“He then went up to the ore and tram house, or where it had stood, and saw what he thought was a piece of overalls. Grasping it and attempting to pull it out he found he had hold of a man’s body; tearing away the snow and boards he pulled out the body of Gus Kraul. His body was terribly mangled and his head crushed till is was no thicker than two hands laid flatly together.”
Those who rushed to help the first slide victims, became victims themselves.
“At 1:30 word came to town from the Liberty Bell office asking that bulletins be posted asking for all the help possible, as a second slide had come down covering the rescue party… At 2:15 word came to town to send no more men up: that the storm was so severe that the work of rescue could only be carried on under the most extreme danger to the living, and that men buried in the snow were all dead beyond question.”
An account about Colorado avalanches in the April 15, 1906 edition of the New York Times labeled the Liberty Bell disaster the worst to date.
“The worst snowslide in the history of Colorado was that which overwhelmed the Liberty Bell Mine, in the Telluride district, in 1902.”
It noted that the second slide killed nearly a score of rescuers.
“Then came one slide after another, the first having loosened great masses of snow at the top of the mountain. Six slides came in rapid succession, burying victims in a mass of wreckage eighty feet deep. For many days no work of rescue could be carried on. The place was fenced off and guards were put about the mine property to keep people away from the scene of horror. It was not until summer, when the snow had melted, that the bodies of the victims could be recovered."
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Three things to be done with a woman

“There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.” — Lawrence Durrell, 1957

Painting’s origin, identity, and ownership all were the subjects of Telluride discussions for years

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Though it is only a painting of a woman, the reverent sentiment survives just the same.
In Telluride in the early 1960s, the legal fight and war of words over a life-sized nude called attention to the painting “The Lady Known as Who?”
“As for the painting itself, it probably wouldn’t make the grade at the Metropolitan Museum. Female it is, the proportions of shoulders and arms leave much to be desired though her hips have never been found wanting by generations of hard rock miners. They are wide and spacious, having the same sweeping curves which characterize the rump of another important and cherished inhabitant of Colorado mining towns, the durable mine mule,” wrote Barron Beshoar in the Denver Westerner’s Monthly Roundup in August of 1961.
The painting’s origin, identity, and ownership all were the subjects of Telluride discussions for years, according to Beshoar.
“The most popular story of the her origin revolves around an impecunious young artist and a girl who worked “On the Line” on Pacific Avenue just a block off Colorado Avenue. According to this oft-repeated tale, the artist, suffering from a severe case of gold fever, drifted into Telluride when the camp was at the height of its boom. Such mines as the Alta, the Black Bear, the Tomboy, the Liberty Bell and the Smuggler, were pouring out millions in gold, copper, lead, and zinc. Hundreds of men crawled over the mountains looking for new properties. But the poor artist couldn’t get together enough money for a grubstake because of a fatal flaw in his physical make-up — his hands were callous free and lily white so naturally no one would trust him.
When he ran completely out of funds, according to the story, he wound up “On the Line’ where one of the girls took pity on him.
“She was a beautiful and good-hearted Erskine Caldwell sort of girl. She provided the artist with meals and various comforts of life, and finally posed for the painting, which he sold for enough money to provide the needed grubstake, and he removed her, via the bonds of holy matrimony, from her life of degradation and shame.”
According to the stories, the couple lived happily ever after when his grubstake was transformed by luck into paying claims. Also, it was rumored that grateful miners continued to bring the now faithful wife rich samples of high-grade ore which the couple processed in their house.
The picture never hung in the bawdy houses on Pacific Avenue of the likes of The Pick and Gad, The Idle Hour, The Gold Belt, The Silver Bell, The White House and the Cozy Corner, but instead made it over to the more respectable climes of Colorado Avenue where it hung on the wall of the National Saloon and the Cosmopolitan.
“Certainly it was traveling between the two saloons fifty years ago as it is clearly remembered by a number of local citizens who were also traveling between the two saloons at that time,” noted Beshoar in 1961.
During prohibition, it ended up over at The Diamond, a gambling and drinking joint run by Harry Counterman.
“After Counterman and his girl, Bessie Young, who ran The Idle hour, went out of business and went off somewhere and committed suicide, Thurston “Slim” Parsons came into possession of the gambling equipment and the painting by paying $300 back taxes to the San Miguel County Treasurer,” said Beshoar.
Parsons kept the painting in several of his businesses over the years including (only briefly) The Roma Bar and Café. But his wife wouldn’t stand for it there, and it was banished to a beer garden up the street, next door to Frank Wilson’s Busy Corner Drug Store. The beer garden closed it doors in the ‘30s and it traveled from there to a private gambling club called The Telluride Club in rooms rented to Parsons by Wilson, above the Drug Store, where it watched over poker games until that club closed in 1948. Parsons left it the rooms when he closed the business.
“From that point on, the stories about the gal in painting begin to differ,” wrote Beshoer.
“Slim Parsons says he asked Druggist Wilson for the picture after the latter had it taken downstairs and put in back on the wall in the beer garden room and is using the one-time beer garden as a gift shop in the summer and storage space for some of his excess from the drugstore.”
According to Parsons quoted by Beshoar, “ I told him I wanted the picture, but he could have some of the chairs and tables and stuff upstairs if he wanted them. I don’t have any sentimental attachment to that picture, but it is my property and I want it. In fact, I don’t really care for it very much, but want to hang it in the Elk’s Club.”
Parsons attributes the paintings origin to a dance hall girl in Telluride of times past but doesn’t think Wilson’s correct in the specific identity.
“There were two such paintings, if the woman Wilson talks about was painted, I think she was the model for the other one,” Parsons told Beshoar back in 1961. “Last I heard, that one was hanging in the Stockman’s Café in Montrose.”
Druggist Wilson had a much different view. He insisted it was not just another nude.
“Why, one day an old miner came in here and squinted up at that picture and said, ‘Why Frank, I see you got a picture of Audrey,’ I said. ‘How do you know that’s Audrey?’ The old fellow said, ‘Why, I would recognize her anywhere.’”
Wilson said he told Parsons that he might want to rent the upstairs rooms and he needed to get his stuff out there. Parsons came by and took some stuff, but left the painting.
“People had drawn all over it. I was going to send out to the dump in the trash, but my son Bob worked on it for about four days cleaning it. He is a history major and he said he would like to have it.”
The cleaned-up painting was hung on the wall downstairs in the former beer garden again, in 1949, but Parsons returned to claim it more than decade later.
“He got right up on the player piano and was going to take it right off the wall,” said Wilson.
Wilson, who according Beshoar had holsters nailed to the underside of his counters in his drugstore and kept several pistols in readiness for possible trouble, cried, “I would not let anyone take this painting and I wouldn’t sell it to anyone.”
Wilson who had a reputation for caution in money matters, added however, “... Course I wouldn’t give a nickel for it, either.”
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