Miners' Union Hall somewhat disfigured, but still in the ring

Critical piece of the town’s history

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

This story was written in late 2014. It was the hope of the owner, and many others then, that the building could still be saved.

In July, (2014) after a being struck by lightning, the historic Miners' Union Hall in Victor was nearly destroyed in a fire that started around 2 p.m. July 26. Fire crews from Victor, Cripple Creek, Four Mile, Divide and Northeast Teller County Fire Protection District helped battle the blaze this summer.
Barbara McMillan owns the building and began restoring it once again in October. Built in 1899, after the devastating fire that destroyed much of the town of Victor, the union hall is a critical piece of the town’s history.
On Monday, June 6, 1904, the Union Hall first found it's place in history when two men were killed, three others were gravely wounded, in the lot below the Gold Coin shaft house across from the Union Hall.
A fight broke out that afternoon as Clarence Hamlin, of the Mine Owner's Association called for chasing "these W.F.M scoundrels out of the district," after the bombing of the Independence train platform killing 13 non-union miners that morning, and injuring at least a dozen more. What began as fist fight, escalated into gunfire and some of the fire seemed to have come from the windows of the Union Hall.

"The militiamen surrounded the Union Hall. Sheriff Ed Bell and Postmaster Danny Sullivan entered the club and told the W.F.M. members to come out," wrote Marshall Sprague, in "Money Mountain."

They refused, he reported and "The militiamen aimed their rifles and poured volley after volley into the rooms, wounding four men. The rest surrendered and were led off by the militia. Berserk civilians rushed into Union Hall, wrecked the walls, smashed furniture, ripped curtains, and destroyed membership ledgers. Afterwards, this gang and other gangs roamed the gold camp for W.FM. members and wrecked every union hall and union store. About two hundred men were imprisoned."

Altogether 225 union members were loaded on trains and deported under guard to Kansas and New Mexico locations.

Because of the dynamiting of the Independence, the W.F.M. became extremely unpopular, and mine owners were able to force them out of the district, according to Sprague.

Years later, the Union Hall served a different, yet noteworthy, purpose.

Margaret Whitehill Geddes, in her book Gold Camp Indian Summer, recalls her husband Kenneth being named the new high school principal of Victor in the late1920s. Kenneth and Margaret later became publishers of the Cripple Creek Times-Record, a merger of the Cripple Creek Times and the Victor Record newspapers and an ancestor of the Pikes Peak Courier.

"He was not only the new principal, but we were to have the apartment in Miners' Union building which had been recently remodeled (roughly) to be used as a gymnasium," wrote Geddes.

"Oh that apartment! The second floor of the building was reached by a long staircase with swinging doors halfway up. On the right at the top were tow doors, one leading to the kitchen, one to the dining room. In front of these were the bedroom and living room. Glass partitions divided the dining room and living room, and the kitchen and the bedroom. Each room was square and there were full length windows in the two front rooms. The windows had been replaced but the marks of the bullets of the miners' strike in 1904 were still showing in the bricks and plaster around them," Geddes wrote.

"Outside the apartment a hall led to the big auditorium, sometimes gym, with a stage at one end. The auditorium was heated two stoves at the far end. Two boys came after school to make the fires. Soon after I'd hear the clump clump of feet on those steep stairs as the basketball boys came up for practice. (Not until later was there a football team, and basketball went on for most of the school year)," Geddes said.

"Besides the games, at least twice a year there were plays staged in the auditorium," she noted.

"The plays produced were not the cheap no-royalty shows, but productions that had been successes on the Broadway stage, probably some time before, but legitimate hits, and they were popular and drew good crowds. The Victor Opera house sadly had been torn down about two years before and people said they appreciated having something to take its place, even if it was only a high school play with local young people taking the parts."

After the lightning strike and the fire this year (2014), McMillan expressed dismay and sorrow, citing not only the potential loss but the lack of funds. “I’m out of money,” she said in July.
In October, however, McMillan submitted a plan to the city to start the cleanup and remodel.

The plan includes repairing holes in the wall, removing the flashing as well as the unstable and damaged bricks. “They’re going to monitor that to make sure the walls aren’t moving,” said Deb Downs, Victor’s city manager.

Soon after McMillan submitted the plan, the contractor, Daniel Halbrook Masonry, pulled permits from the city and started work Oct 3. But difficulties continued, and the building is not restored.

Photos: #1 Front, after fire on July 26, 2014. #2 This photo of the Western Federation Miners Union Hall in Victor was taken just a few months before fire nearly destroyed the building in July. #3 Historic photo of the Union Hall early in the 20th Century. #Historic photo taken shortly after it was built. #4 Back of the building after the recent fire. #5 Front window after July fire. Bullet holes are still visible from the 1904 strike violence.

From Victor to the White House

Ross served as press secretary to the president from 1945 until his death

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

For a short time in 1905, Charles G. Ross was editor of the Victor Record. A fact, in itself, is not particularly remarkable. The Victor Record was a happening place for a recently minted journalism graduate of the University of Missouri. More interesting, however, is where the young editor ended up.
On Dec. 5, 1950, Charles G. Ross died of a heart attack at his desk in the White House, moments after concluding the afternoon radio and press conference for Harry S. Truman. Ross served as press secretary to the president from 1945 until his death.
Ross’s long and distinguished journalism career included teaching journalism at the University of Missouri, serving as chief Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and winning the Pulitzer Prize serving as the editorial page editor of the St. Lois Post-Dispatch, among other things.
“My advice to all presidents is not to put a newspaper man to meet the press. Choose a politician … Newspapermen expect a former colleague to deal with them on their own terms. When he doesn’t – and often he can’t – they are resentful.
On the contrary, they expect on the average amount of assistance from a press secretary who has not had newspaper training,” wrote Ross in the Post-Dispatch in 1931, years before his childhood friend Harry Truman countered that advice.
Ross, Truman, and Bess Wallace were members of the class of 1901 at Central High School in Independence. Bess would later marry Harry at the Presbyterian Church across the street.
According to the Jackson County Examiner that reported the commencement exercises, “Charles G. Ross has a wonderful record in 11 years ward and high school. He has in that time never missed a roll call.” He was also mentioned as first in his class in scholarship, according to the article references through materials in the Kansas City Public Library.
A little over a month prior to his death, on Nov. 1, 1950, Ross is credited with pulling the president away from a window during an assassination attempt at the White House, according to historian Jim Caldwell.
A White House guard was killed and two others were wounded when two Puerto Rico nationals tried to storm Blair House on the White House grounds. The president, taking a nap at the time in Blair House, rushed to the window in his underwear to see what was going on. A guard outside yelling at him and Ross, pulling him away from the window, may have saved his life. Of the two attackers, one was killed in front of the house and the other was gravely on the front steps leading to it.
Of Truman, Ross was quoted on the incident, “I never in my life saw a calmer man.”
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Joseph Lesher had faith in silver

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most-monied men of the 'greatest gold camp'

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

In 1873, the nation’s currency was placed on the gold standard. By 1893, the U.S. Government stopped buying silver all together. The price of silver plummeted as a result, and Colorado’s economy fell, head-over-heels down a mineshaft.
With the destruction of the silver market, came the rise of Populist-Democratic politics in Colorado and the advocacy of return to bi-metalism via the free-silver movement.
Joseph Lesher, a veteran miner of the silver camps of Georgetown, Central City, Leadville and the Silver San Juans, had by a stroke of fortune, switched metals at just the right time. But he wasn’t happy about it.
Lesher invested in infrastructure and real estate in Victor and the Cripple Creek area in the early days of the “world’s greatest gold camp.” And he had become, according to the Victor Daily Record, “one of the monied men of the camp.”
But, noted the Record, “Mr. Lesher has faith in silver. He also has a sincere desire for its enlarged use.”
He also still owned a silver mine in Central City.
“Mr. Lesher had believed that it would be possible as well as beneficial for Colorado the coin its depreciated silver and use it to facilitate exchange and promote business,” said the November 13, 1900, Record.
To such ends, Lesher and others in Victor came to the following conclusion.
“Victor has everything any other city has. Denver has a mint, so a Victor man has established a mint also. The Victor mint will coin nothing but silver dollars and the dollars will be worth 25 cents more than the Denver product.”
Thus, the Lesher Referendum Medal was born.
According to research Adna G. Wilde, of the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs, between 3,000 and 3,500 of the Lesher medals of different types were struck. The research involved interviews by Farran Zerbe of Lesher himself in 1914 (when Lesher was 74 years old.)
Once again, as reported in the Record, “He calls them ‘referendum dollars’ because no one is compelled to take them against his will. In other words, they are referred to the people for acceptance or rejection.”
“Although Mr. Lesher is convinced that the intrinsic value of an ounce of silver is $1.29, he does not insist that everyone shall accept his valuation and is prepared to guarantee the parity of his dollars by redeeming each coin in lawful money of the United States. He keeps his cash at the Bank of Victor and expects to arrange with the cashier to cash the ‘referendum’ dollars in the same manner that checks are cashed.”
Today, examples of the first 100 Lesher ‘Referendum’ medals struck that first day in Lesher’s residence in Victor, grace such prestigious collections as the Chase Manhattan Money Museum at the Smithsonian and of course, the American Numismatic Museum in Colorado Springs. Adna Wilde, Jr. of Colorado Springs is the recognized world authority on Lesher dollars and an ANA Hall of Famer.

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Ralph Carr sharpened his wits in the district

It is interesting to me that great talent seems to collect like iron filings around a magnet, even before anyone recognizes it as such. History is full of such examples: Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and Cleopatra were of course contemporaries; Mark Twain and Nikoli Tesla palled around together and complained about Thomas Edison; and Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Horton, and Roy Orbison all shared the same studios at Sun Records back when their weekly royalty checks were less than $10 combined.
It seemed to also be true in the case of green young reporters in the early part of the last century, as illustrated by the friendship of Ralph L. Carr and Lowell Thomas.
Carr and Thomas, in fact, became lifelong buddies after first meeting when working for rival papers in Cripple Creek Gold District. Ralph Carr edited The Times of Cripple Creek, at the same time Thomas was at the Victor Record and News. The two were steadfast friends up until Carr’s Death in 1950.
Carr, himself, actually became more famous as a politician, after his career as a newsman.
“Between 1939-1943 Colorado had one of the most courageous and independent governors ever to be elected,” notes a biography by Jason Brockman in the Colorado State Archive.
“Ralph Lawrence Carr was born in Rosita, Colorado and educated in the Cripple Creek school system. After receiving his LLB from the University of Colorado, Carr moved to Victor, Trinidad, and then Antonito where he practiced law and became a publisher. Carr served as a county attorney of Conejos County, and then as Colorado Assistant Attorney General. The apex of his legal career occurred when he became a United States District Attorney. As a Republican, Carr lost this influential post when the Democratic "New Dealers" began to dominate national politics. Despite this loss he was able to stay in the public eye by becoming a powerful and prominent water/irrigation lawyer.”
In 1939 a struggling Republican Party supported Carr as their gubernatorial candidate, and won. Within the first half-hour of his term, Carr proposed a plan for a balanced budget by transferring state income taxes from public schools to the state's general fund. These immediate fiscal measures helped to save our state from imminent bankruptcy. Also due to Carr's leadership, the Legislature passed the State Reorganization Act, which greatly increased the efficiency of state government. As a result, Carr is one of the few governors known for making the Colorado bureaucracy more operative, according to the Archive.
While Carr's policies were aimed at dismantling the expensive bureaucracy of the New Deal, Carr still supported Roosevelt's foreign policy and favored American entrance into World War II after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The war with Japan initiated a chain of events that bred discrimination and intolerance toward Japanese-Americans. In 1942 an estimated 120,000 Japanese-Americans were stripped of their property and possessions. These displaced citizens were resettled in land-locked states by the War Relocation Authority so that the supposed "yellow peril" could be contained. The question on many Coloradans' minds was not whether American citizens of Japanese decent should be stripped of their rights and put in internment camps, but where the camps should be. The overwhelming opinion of the populace was typified by a series of highway billboards proclaiming, "Japs keep going."
In other states, the Governors took aggressive stances against allowing relocation camps in their States.
The Governor of Wyoming went as far as saying:
“There will be Japs hanging from every pine tree.” If the Federal Government tried to relocate West Coast Japanese Americans there.
One of the few voices of reason during wartime was Governor Carr, who continued to treat the Japanese-Americans with respect and sought to help them keep their American citizenship. He sacrificed his political career to bravely confront the often dark side of human nature.
At one time, the New York Times consider him as being on the path to become president of the United States.
"If you harm them, you must harm me. I was brought up in a small town where I knew the shame and dishonor of race hatred. I grew to despise it because it threatened the happiness of you and you and you." Carr's selfless devotion to all Americans, while destroying his hopes for a senate seat, did in the end become extolled as, "a small voice but a strong voice."
A new book: The principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story by 9News reporter Adam Schrager, has brought new attention to the forgotten hero and as recently as last year they renamed U.S Hwy 285 from Denver to the New Mexico state line the “Ralph Carr Memorial Highway.”
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Hoist mishap kills 15

Dismembered bodies were tangled with the wrecked machinery

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

In one of the most tragic accidents in the Cripple Creek mining district, 15 miners lost their lives just going home from work at the Independence Mine. Or was it an accident?
The January 28, 1904 edition of the Victor Daily Record noted that "The 15 bodies of the Independence accident were brought from the shaft house early yesterday morning to the two undertaking parlors in this city."
"Incidentally, the hoist itself is now at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry north of Colorado Springs, " said noted mining historian Ed Hunter in 2004. "We hope to finish up the brake installation before too long so that the hoist can be available for museum visitors to inspect. It sits in a simulated hoist house behind the old Elkton Mine Headframe erected on the ridge to the south of the museum's main building."
Hunter, at the time, also graciously turned me on to several accounts, each from a different perspective, on what happened with that accident.
John Hays Hammon's autobiography is one of the sources identified.
"We took all possible precautions to protect our miners. One night after an inspection of the underground operations, I ascended the shaft and returned to the manager's house where I was staying at the time. I had just gone to bed when word came of a bad accident at the mine," wrote Hammon.
"Dressing as we ran, the manager and I hurried back to the shaft house I had just left. It was a shambles. Dismembered bodies were tangled with the wrecked machinery. In an attempt at sabotage, some (union) member had greased the brakes of the hoisting engine. As the cage filled with men, rose to the surface, the brakes refused to grip and the cage shot up into the gallows frame. The engineer, helpless in the face of this horror, ran screaming from the spot. I was overcome by this brutal deed," Hammon wrote.
Hunter also tabbed "Hard Rock Epic, Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910" by Mark Wyman as an interesting read. In it, there is a first-hand account by James Bullock, the sole survivor, as told to the coroner's jury.
" ... We kept going right along but it kept slipping; we would go a little ways and then we would slip again; then he took us about six feet above the collar of the shaft, then he lowered us back down."
When asked if the engineer stopped six feet above the shaft, Bullock replied.
"He stopped for just a second or two; then he lowered us and it must have gotten beyond his control, for we dropped about sixty or seventy feet, we were going pretty fast. We said to each other we are all gone. Then he raised us up about ten feet; then he stopped us and it slipped back again about two feet; then he tried and started us again, and we went to the sheave wheel as fast as we could go."
Also in Mark Wyman's book had an account from the hoisting engineer, when said he discovered the brakes were not working when he tried to connect them as the cage reached the 200-foot level. The engineer is not identified by name but his account follows.
"I tried them several times but that time the cage was at the collar of the shaft. I immediately reversed the engine and sent the cage back 100 feet. I again tried the brakes, reversed the engine and brought the cage to the surface. The brake still stuck; I could not move it. I again reversed the engine and sent the cage back about the same distance and stepped to the other side and took hold of the other brake, it was in the same condition. The second time the cage came to the surface, I called three times for the shift boss, for God's sake come and help me put on the brakes. In the meantime, I was reversing the engine backwards and forwards. Mr. MacDonald came and two other men with him. I said come up and help me put on the brakes, and then I discovered the hood of the cage above the collar of the shaft. I immediately reversed the engine but it was too late."
Hunter points out that John Hays Hammond book was published 31 years after the event and there is no way to prove or disprove his allegation of greased guides.
"The years seemed to have dimmed his memory on a couple of discrepancies in other details but in all fairness, greasing could have been the culprit. In no way does this excuse the omission of shaft safety devices noted by the mine inspector," said Hunter.

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