Grin and bear it.

Big, brown buggers are up there still?

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

There is great pride in Coloradoness — a resiliency that can weather the meanest of storms. Longtime residents in these parts know boom and bust, rise and fall, peaks and valleys. They respond with a legendary Rocky Mountain springiness.
Take for example the story of the last grizzly bear in Colorado. I was senior in high school when word came out of the San Juans of bow hunter Ed Wiseman’s life and death struggle with the last -documented griz.
On Sept. 23, 1979, Wiseman, a Crestone guide was blindsided, knocked down and seriously mauled by a huge bear while hunting in the San Isabel National Forest near Blue Lake. According to reports that I remember reading in the Durango Herald, Wiseman yelled and waived wildly but the old sow continued the attack biting on the right shoulder and legs.
At that point the man reportedly played dead but the bear continued to maul him. Born from desperation, in a last ditch effort, Wiseman grabbed an arrow from his nearby quiver and began stabbing the griz in the throat and neck. The bear let him go and wandered away. The full-grown, four-hundred-pound, golden-haired female grizzly was found dead a short distance from the site of the mauling by Division of Wildlife investigators.
Prior to Wiseman’s encounter, the last recorded grizzly bear, ursus arctos horribilis, was slain by government trapper Lloyd Anderson in 1952 near the headwaters of the Los Pinos River, south of Gunnison.
Suggestions of reintroducing Grizzlies to Colorado have been officially opposed by the Colorado Wildlife Commission (1977 and 1982) and Malcolm Forbes’ offer to reintroduce on his ranch near Alamosa was also rejected.
Author David Petersen, in his book Ghost Grizzlies, says the question of “is that truly the last one?” still hasn’t been answered.
“... The question remains frustratingly unanswered: Are there, or are there not any grizzlies still left in Colorado? If you wish to believe that a few grizzlies still haunt hidden refuges deep and high in the sprawling San Juans, there ‘s plenty of evidence to support you, with more coming in every summer. But evidence is not proof, and should you choose to believe that the Wiseman grizzly was the dead-last of the breed in Colorado — the end of a multi-millenial occupation — there is no way that anyone could prove you absolutely wrong.”
As witness to legendary Colorado survival instincts, I choose to believe. I think big, brown buggers are up there still.

 

Ed Wiseman, in the hospital after the attack.

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Gottlieb Fluhmann's Ghost

The little man and his mongrel dog’s skeletons were found more than 50 years later by a hunter in the fall of 1944.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Ghosts are particularly restless if left to wander in the shroud of mystery — and when an acutely wicked deed goes without answer, explanation or justice — for years upon years.
Such was the case of the tiny immigrant from Switzerland, Gottlieb Fluhmann, murdered in the Puma Hills above Lake George in 1892.
“Fluhmann was a small stocky man scarcely 5’4” tall and was subjected to much ridicule because of his height and broken English,” writes author Midge Harbour in her 1982 book “The Tarryall Mountains and the Puma Hills: A History.”
“In 1890, on one of his infrequent trips to town, he stopped off at a bar,” according to Harbour. “While sitting at the end of bar, he became the subject of Ben Ratcliff’s attention. Ratcliff had long been suspected of stealing some of Fluhmann’s cattle and now taunted Gottlieb with the prospect that he was eating a juicy steak from one of his missing cows. Since Gottlieb Fluhmann had each of his cattle named, and had made each a special pet, this was indeed a humiliation.”
Later , two of Ratcliff’s sons extended the insulting behavior as they rode near Fluhmann’s home. “Gottlieb’s anger had become an obsession and he awakened at night hating the name Ratcliff. When he saw the two boys, he ordered them off his land. The younger lad taunted him as he had previously seen his father do. ‘You can’t make us do anything!’ Gotlieb waved his pistol, which he always carried with him. ‘You can’t shoot us. We’re only kids.’ … The older boy rode up to the corral rode and spit tobacco juice in the face of Fluhmann’s horse. This triggered Fluhmann’ temper and he began firing over the heads of the boys and they rode rapidly away,” writes Harbour.
“When Ben Ratcliff heard of the incident, he sent his daughter to warn Gottlieb that he would be the target of her father’ bullet when he came hunting in October.”
According to another account of the exchange in Celinda Kaelin’s 1999 book “Pikes Peak Backcountry: The Historic Saga of the Peak’s West Slope,” Ratcliff’s reputation insured the danger of actually carrying out such a threat, so the little Swiss man decided to create and emergency plan.
“He would relocate to a cave he had found in the rocky cliff about a mile above his home. He secretly made a new home within this five- by fifteen foot cavity, installing a strong door at the entrance for added protection and a glass window for surveillance,” says Kaelin’s book.
“When Fluhmann first disappeared, everyone, including the local sheriff assumed he had returned to Switzerland. But not Rattcliff. He knew his prey would never leave his beloved animals unattended. When they still appeared well-cared-for after several months, he began a systematic search for the little foreigner.”
He eventually discovered the cave one evening after months of searching.
“Ratcliff waited on the ledge above the cave until early the next morning. As Fluhmann cautiously opened the heavy door to greet the new day,Ratcliff fired sending a fatal bullet through the stock of Fluhmann’s gun and into his chest. He then climbed down to his victim and dragged him back into the cave,” writes Kaelin.
The little man and his mongrel dog’s skeletons were found more than 50 years later by a hunter in the fall of 1944.
But as noted historian Jan MacKell Collins discovered, there was much more to the story than the various versions circulating.
"Gottlieb Fluhmann, vanished into thin air. Fluhmann had immigrated from Switzerland in 1866. A skilled surveyor and gunsmith, he had taken up ranching by 1876 in the Puma Hills some three miles north of Lake George. But Fluhmann appeared 'peculiar' to his neighbors. For starters, he was only 5 feet, 4 inches and spoke broken English with an odd accent. He also coddled his cattle and even named them. His modest cabin and outbuildings were well kept, but Fluhmann’s ranch was located off the beaten path. Few seemed to visit him, an exception being a young boy named Dan Denny.
The outcast Fluhmann mysteriously disappeared in late 1892, shortly after hinting that he might kill himself or hide where he would never be found. The Fairplay Flume first reported on Fluhmann’s vanishing act in December. Search parties turned up nothing and in February Henry Krebill, who had been looking after Fluhmann’s cattle, was appointed executor of his estate. His 200-acre ranch was auctioned off in May and included around 156 cattle, a horse and saddle, tools and household furnishings. Fluhmann’s nephew in Crested Butte heard about the auction in the papers and traveled to Lake George to join another search. But all searches had been exhausted by March of 1894 and Gottlieb Fluhmann was officially declared dead," wrote MacKell Collins.
"Fluhmann’s name was next brought to the surface in 1895, when fellow rancher Benjamin Ratcliff killed three members of the local school board. Ratcliff and his family first came to the Lake George area in about 1876, settling some 30 miles from Fluhmann. The Ratcliffs had three children, but a fourth child and Ben’s wife, Elizabeth, died during childbirth in 1882. Shortly afterward, Ratcliff’s five-year-old daughter, Lizzie, broke her hip and developed a severe limp.
The closest school was several miles away. Ratcliff wrote a letter to the school board requesting that either the school be moved closer to his ranch or that he receive a tutor or schoolbooks on loan to teach his children at home. When the board denied these requests, a frustrated Ratcliff sent Lizzie and his other daughter, Lavina, to be schooled by Elizabeth’s relatives in Missouri. His son, Howell, remained at the ranch," she said.
"Lizzie and Lavina returned home in 1893. The following year, one Lincoln F. McCurdy was appointed to the school board at nearby Bordenville. Soon afterward, Ratcliff received a letter from his neighbor, Susan Crocket. The note claimed that McCurdy was spreading a ghastly rumor that Lizzie, now a teenager, walked funny because she was pregnant by her own father.
Ratcliff waited until the annual school board meeting on May 6, 1895 to unleash his fury. As board members McCurdy, Samuel Taylor and George Wyatt met at the school, a heavily armed Ratcliff stormed the building and shot each man. McCurdy and Taylor died instantly, but Wyatt lived long enough to describe what happened. Meanwhile, Ratcliff turned himself in at Como," wrote Collins.
Ratcliff’s attitude during his trial only furthered his reputation for having “a very quarrelsome disposition.” He stubbornly told the Silver Cliff Rustler that “he did just right, and if he was younger he would get some more of the people that had helped to ruin his name … He does not seem to fear the results of his deeds.” The Colorado Democrat next reported that Gottlieb Fluhmann had argued with Ratcliff over a cattle deal a short time before he disappeared. “It is now suspected that Benjamin Ratcliffe [sic], the Park County murderer, is responsible for the disappearance of a well-to-do ranchman named Fluman [sic] some three years ago,” the Democrat confirmed, adding that since Fluhmann’s disappearance Ratcliff “has appeared to be uneasy and has always been heavily armed.” The Rocky Mountain News followed the Democrat’s lead, claiming that Ratcliff “was the last man seen with Fluhmann and the last man who saw Fluhmann.”
“Master Sargent Francis Brahler of Peterson Field discovered the old cave while he was hunting,” reported the Nov. 1, 1944 Gazette Telegraph. “He spotted the old window frame on the ledge and upon investigating, found the cave entrance. The big dishpan was still suspended with the letters, pipes, and other items including two gold inlaid flintlocks. He took many of the items back with him to his campsite and returned the next day. This time he found a human skull and the bones of what appeared to be the skull of a dog.”
Kaelin notes that Ratcliff never did pay for this particular diabolical transgression but was called to account for other misdeeds.
“…Fate did collect him from killing three school board members on May, 6, 1895. His children were again the catalyst for his dangerous temper, and he unleashed his fury when he learned they were having a special meeting to discuss them. He rode up to school house, dismounted, and walked in, shooting Samuel Taylor, Lincoln McCurdy, and George Wyatt… He later turned himself in to the sheriff at Como, was tried, convicted, and later hanged at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City,” wrote Kaelin.
In regard to previous posts of mine regarding the Ghost of Gottleib Fluhmann, I was sent the following communication from a descendant of Benjamin Ratcliff.
"Several Colorado residing descendants of Benjamin Ratcliff report that they have never heard the tale of Gottleib Fluhmann. The references cited seem to be based on exaggerated local commentary and contain inaccurate facts. So without proof, they feel that Benjamin has been unfairly accused of the serious charge of being Gottleib's killer."
"However, in the matter of the Bordenville school board, this is the account from Benjamin's oldest child - and Only son - as told to his grandson: Some time around 1875 Benjamin and his wife moved from Missouri to Park County, Colorado, and established a farm about seven miles from Bordenville. Their son and two daughters were born there. His wife died there in 1882 while the children were still very young. Benjamin raised the kids there until 1895. He had a running battle with the local school board in 1894. He wanted them to provide a summer school program, allow the school books to be loaned out, or set up a school closer to his ranch. He taught his children at home, and wanted some help with that. Winter weather was too bad to make the trip to school. Late in 1894 unsupported gossip spread that incest involving Benjamin and his older daughter spread around the local area. He became enraged. The man most responsible for spreading the gossip was on the school board. Benjamin's temper escalated and he ended up shooting all three members of the board as they met together at the school May 6, 1895. He turned himself in the same day as the shooting. Eight months later, on the evening of February 7, 1896, he became the ninth execution by hanging (out of 45 in the history of the state) at the prison in Canon City. "
The descendant, a Colorado native now living in Westminster, also provided this prison photo of Benjamin Ratcliff.

As for Gottlieb Fluhmann, however, perhaps, the ghost of a sawed-off Swiss immigrant, befriended by his own livestock and his loyal mongrel dog, still wanders in the hills and hides in the caves in the Puma Hills above Lake George.
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Top photo appeared in Colorado Central Magazine with a 2014 story by Jan MacKell Collins. According to the report, it was taken at Gottlieb Fluhmann’s cabin near Lake George soon after his remains were found in a hidden cave. Left to right are Fairplay Flume writer Everett Bair holding Fluhmann’s skull, Dan Denny with Fluhmann’s flintlock rifles, and Sheriff Law holding the bullet-damaged rifle. Collins was provided the photo by Randy and Brenda Myers of Mule Creek Outfitters, Lake George, Co.

Lost cities on Pikes Peak?

High time to start talking about water supply

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Real estate people will always tell you it is location, location and location. And they are right, to a degree. But when speculating, luck also seems to play a strong hand as well.
Consider the communities of Jones Park, Lake Moraine and Seven Lakes.
“It was rather difficult to climb to the summit of Pikes Peak until the observatory of the U.S. Army Signal Service was established there 1873 and a trail built up the southeast slope of Pikes Peak,” notes Ivan W. Brunk in his 1989 book “Shattered Dreams on Pikes Peak.”
“It was a long journey, but hotels at Lake Moraine and Seven Lakes enabled travelers to make the adventure a less arduous two-day trip to the peak,” writes Brunk.
“However, these hotels survived only a few years because of the opening of a much shorter route to the summit in 1880. The settlement at Jones Park lasted for a number of years, and there were many plans for rather grandiose developments, including railroads, resorts and a dam. But for one reason or another, none of these projects materialized.”
Partly because travel, to them, was primarily by burro or horseback, and partly because most things had to be hauled in by those means because very little agricultural produce was possible at that altitude, the populations remained small.
In 1890, the city of Colorado Springs purchased 784 acres in the Bear Creek drainage, including Lake Moraine, to improve the city’s water supply. Shortly afterward the city enlarged the natural dam there.
In the Seven Lakes area prior to 1902, various major players in the area’s history vied for the water rights, (and then the property itself) until the city was ready to complete its storage project there. Among those involved in such acquisitions were historic figures like Irving Hobart, The Woods Investment Co., and Dr. Mayo G. Smith.
By the authority of an act of Congress on May 1, 1902, the city was authorized to purchase 7,000 acres from the U.S. government for $1.25 per acre. Shortly after, they began a storage project that the city staff completed in 1905.
During that effort, the city’s contractors took 17 feet of water out the first lake and the bottom could not be found. At that time, the chairman of the water committee, a man by the name of St. John, said: “When the dam is built, the lakes of apparently no bottom will be covered by a large body of water, and one of the prettiest to be found in the state.”
A tunnel 2,330 long through the divide of Seven Lakes transports water to Lake Moraine and is called the St. John tunnel.
In 1948, Colorado Springs bought some of the land that had included Jones Park and then purchased the remainder in 1952.
Lake Moraine and the Seven Lakes area, and to a lesser extent Jones Park, continue to provide water for Colorado Springs though the area is not open to the public, being a primary drinking water source for the city.
The city recently began allowing access to the South Slope on a limited basis. No access to the area will be allowed without pre-registering, permits are not available on-site. There are a limited number of vehicles and users allowed each day to this secluded, high altitude recreation area.
Location and luck certainly has had a lot to do with development (or lack of) for these communities. But maybe it was something in the water.

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Photo 1: Seven Lakes Lodge

Photo 2: Early photo of Seven Lakes.

Recalling hot type

Talking with someone that lived this history

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

In talking with Ken Geddes about hot type newspapers and history years ago, I suddenly felt twinge of familiarity, a sense that I had been here before —“déjà vu all over again,” to paraphrase Yogi Berra.
I also realized at the same time that I was talking with someone that lived this history.
Maybe he was seeing if my story held up as well.
When I told him that I grew up in the “hot type environment” of the old Dolores Star, he asked a question about the form that held the type together for a page.
“What’s that called?
I mumbled something about a “turtle” or several pages being on a form, and switched gears to the linotype. It has been 30 years at least since my “printer’s furniture” and “hell box” days, and many of those years confused and immersed in a “cold type” soup. Mentioning that an old linotype from the forerunner of Gold Rush newspaper still resides in the town hall, I think, effectively deflected suspicion.
Geddes knew the Gold Rush newspaper— before it was the Gold Rush. His mother and father owned and ran the Cripple Creek Times-Record (which later became the Gold Rush) for about ten years starting on April 1, 1941. They purchased the paper from Bill Kyner and it was still a daily at that time.
“We went to the office the morning after we had settled the deal and realized we had to fill up eight pages in time to distribute by 5 p.m.,” wrote his mother Margaret Whitehill Geddes in her book “Gold Camp Indian Summer.”
“We discovered how our lives would be changed on the first day,” noted Margaret Geddes. Ken’s dad (also Kenneth) had been superintendent of schools for the Cripple Creek and Victor school district for a number of years prior to buying the paper.
“We met with the force, which included a foreman, two linotype operators, two men for general shop work — and then there was Freddie. The years go by we still fondly remember and quote Freddie, who admitted he had a difficult time with second grade.
“Freddie had a little boy, Eugene, who also had trouble with second grade. Eugene was bound to be musical, his daddy said, since he was ‘brought up around a piano,’” wrote Margaret Geddes.
When they shifted from a daily to a weekly, in the early part of World War II, they naturally faced complaints about the change.
“I remember Charley Searles, an old friend who had been an early mayor of Cripple Creek saying, ‘Well, a fellow has to die by Wednesday to make the news!’ Soon, however, people got used to having things ‘rationed’ for the war effort, accepted this as just another ‘sacrifice.’”
Ken himself, who for a time between his freshman and sophomore year at Colorado College, helped in the back shop. So chances are that he knew the answer to the question I mentioned earlier.
After reading his mother’s account of running the paper, I was tempted to give him a quick call with the answer.
“I believe it was a CHASE,” I would say identifying the steel frame in which a hot type printer form is made up. It is all coming back to me.
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Coward who shot Mr. Howard

Let him have it with both barrels

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

I guess it is a fact that those that live by the sword, die by the sword. The same apparently holds true for those that live by the six-shooter and other firearms. Bob Ford lived that kind of life.
Mostly recognized as the killer of Jesse James, Ford met his own end and both barrels of a shotgun blast in a saloon he owned in Creede, Colo., on June 5, 1892.
Ten years earlier, Bob and Charlie Ford, who had become new members in the waning days of the James gang, had just finished breakfast in Jesse’s home in St. Joseph, Mo., where he was living under the assumed name of Tom Howard.
“On a warm spring day, Jesse opened the front door of his home to air it out. He thought it best to remove the revolvers lest the neighbors become suspicious. He stepped up on a chair to dust off a picture. This was the kind of opportunity the Ford brothers had been waiting for. They drew their revolvers and as Jesse turned his head, Bob fired the Smith & Wesson .44 caliber revolver directly at Jesse, killing him instantly. Ironically the revolver had been given to him by Jesse,” wrote Ken Jessen in the 1986 book Colorado Gunsmoke.
A popular song of the day noted many folk's opinion of the deed.
“Oh! The dirty little coward
who shot Mister Howard
And laid Jesse in his grave.”
The Fords tried to collect the $10,000 reward money for Jesse James ‘dead or alive’ but instead were charged with murder. They were convicted, sentenced to hang, but granted a full pardon by the Governor of Missouri, Thomas Crittenden.
Charlie Ford committed suicide two years later and Bob Ford wandered aimlessly, drinking and posing for photographs in the dime museums of the west, first in New Mexico and then in Colorado.
He spent considerable time in the saloons and gaming establishments in Pueblo, owned and operated a saloon and gambling house in Walsenberg, and then moved on to Creede when the boom began there.
Ford and his wife Dot purchased a lot on Main Street and built and ran the Creede Exchange, a combination dance hall and gambling joint. But sale of school land next to the exchange forced its closure. Shortly afterward, he became enraged about losing a great deal of money betting on a prizefight. So, fortified with liquid muscle and courage, Ford and Soapy Smith gang member Joe Palmer proceeded to shoot out many of the streetlights and windows along Main Street. The citizens were not impressed and Ford was forced to relocate to Colorado Springs. But after an apology in the local Creede paper, Ford was allowed to return. He once again began a dance hall and gambling house but it burned down with much of the rest of the business district in Creede.
Undaunted, he put up a tent and continued doing business. Three days after the fire, Edward O. Kelly, an acquaintance of Bob from his days in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and perhaps elsewhere, entered the tent and after being passed a loaded shotgun from a rider on a horse in the street, said “Hello Bob” or “Oh Bob,’ and let him have it with both barrels. Kelly, also from Missouri, was married to a relative of the Younger brothers and his wife knew the James family. Kelly, who was also the former marshal of nearby Bachelor City and a deputy of Hinsdale County, was tried, convicted and sent to Canon City to the state penitentiary. He was pardoned in 1902 and then killed by an Oklahoma City law officer two years later.
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Working like an army mule

Took pound of spit and sweat and a ton of cussing to turn him into a first-rate mule

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Used to pack artillery and other supplies up Ute Pass from Fort Carson to Camp Hale, the army’s mules initially arrived at the Colorado military installations in 1942. In December of 1956, the U.S. Army deactivated the final two mule units at a ceremony at Fort Carson. Honored and present at that ceremony were the service’s two most famous mules — Hambone and Trotter.
“The presentation of this certificate on the occasion of the deactivation of the Army mules is accompanied by the firm hope that your retirement will not be plagued with those horrors which, in times past, have caused you to unburden yourself rather hurriedly of riders and other equipment — a glimpse of either of those hideous devices, the umbrella or the bicycle,” noted Major General Harry P. Storke as he presented Trotter his citation for outstanding service.
Trotter later became the mascot for West Point, a position he held from 1957 to 1972.
Hamilton T. Bone, on the other hand, had already made a name for himself as jumper by besting thoroughbred horses at local, state and national jumping events. He hit the big time in 1949 finally, when a Life magazine article and photo spread about his exploits appeared following his banishment from participating in the Camp Carson Hunt Club jumper classic— after winning the event the previous year.
“Hamilton T. Bone — Hambone for short — had been foaled in May 1932 on a farm in Missouri,” writes Gayle C. Shirley in Four Legged Legends of Colorado. “Like every mule, he had a perfectly respectable mare for a mother. But his father — let’s face it — was a jackass.”
According to Shirley, “An oldtimer was once quoted as saying he remembers the mule ‘driving his handlers nutty.’ He said it ‘took pound of spit and sweat and a ton of cussing to turn him into a first-rate mule.’”
Hambone was known for his silvery white coat and other crowd-pleasing actions during his military career and later in front of audiences at rodeos and equestrian shows.
The Denver Post says Hambone served two combat missions overseas during World War II and also made three movies in Hollywood.
The Fourth Forward Support Battalion records him as being born in Tennessee, however, and lists the following locations for his service, Oklahoma, Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort Carson.
“After his retirement from the army in 1956, he was purchased by the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo and was used as a rodeo headliner. He also made many trips on the annual 100-mile Pikes Peak Range Ride through the Rockies. When not busy he lived in semi-retirement on the Jasper D. Ackerman Turkey Track Ranch,” according to the Battalion web site.
“He made one visit back to Fort Carson in 1967 when his long-time keeper, MSGT ‘Pop’ Cnossen died. Hambone took part in the funeral parade,” according to the battalion’s site.
In 1970, a few months before Hambone himself passed, he was returned to the Fort Carson to live out his last days at the post. He died March 29, 1971 at the age of 39. He was buried with appropriate military ceremonies in front of the Division Artillery Headquarters.
The mule barns at Fort Carson were destroyed in 1970 and regardless of attempts made to reintroduce mules to the military in the 1980s, the Army has made little use of the animals since 1956.

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Colorado workhorse Shoup

While working Colorado Springs capitalists, he became interested in the oil industry, later making his fortune by opening a number of Wyoming oil fields

 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Threads that connect Governor Oliver Henry Shoup to this area are woven into to the very fabric of Pikes Peak area history. Shoup, a rancher and businessman of Colorado Springs, served two terms from 1919 to 1923.
Something as basic as a Colorado workhorse, bred for cow savvy and performance capabilities, reflects those ties. The linage of the legendary “Colorado Ranger Horse” breed for example, can be traced to one of two sires: Patches #1Z and/or Max #2Z. Patches was a descendant of horse given to Ulysses S. Grant by the Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey. Max came from Shoup’s ranch north of Colorado Springs.
Oliver’s son, Merrill E. Shoup, was president of the Golden Cycle and the Holly Sugar Corporations, as well as numerous other companies originally controlled by Cripple Creek empire builder, A.E. Carlton.
The younger Shoup is credited (through his congressional testimony) with helping to get the government to raise the price of gold over the pegged rate of $35 per ounce and lobbied to keep limited production going after the government declared gold mining non-essential to the war effort.
The elder Shoup, Oliver, began his business career in 1888 with a job at General William J. Palmer’s Colorado Springs Company, according to James Chipman and Erin McDanal, staff archivists at the Colorado State Archives.
“Eight years later he was offered the position of private secretary to Verner Z. Reed, a wealthy mining man, who at that time was conducting an investment and real estate business. After a few years, he became general manager of Reed’s extensive enterprises. While working with Reed and other Colorado Springs capitalists, he became interested in the oil industry, later making his fortune by opening a number of Wyoming oil fields. He was the first president of the Midwest Oil Company; and in 1914, he became the first president of the Midwest Refining Company. Two years later, he retired from active participation in the oil business and devoted his time to stock raising and agricultural development throughout the state,” says the state archive.
Oliver Shoup was also a primary management influence and owner of the Edgar Box and Lumber Company that leased and cut timber for a sawmill located on land in the Black
Forest area owned by Cort Burgess.
“Perhaps what Shoup is best known for his efforts to develop the Moffat Railroad Tunnel project which was one of the world’s greatest engineering feats. He labored persistently to have the six-mile tunnel bored through the Continental Divide,” says archivists for the state.
“On June 3, 1921, after three days of torrential rain, the Arkansas River swelled over its banks, driving into and through the city of Pueblo and down the valley, killing more than 100 people. The deluge also carried with it 600 houses and estimated $19,000,000 worth of property was destroyed.
“Governor Shoup responded by summoning the legislature into a special session. Legislation was passed allowing for the construction of flood control installations at Pueblo. Piggy-backed onto this legislation was a bill allowing for the construction of the Moffat Tunnel. Both concepts were passed at the same time in order to get support from the southern counties for construction of the railroad tunnel. There had been opposition to the Moffat Tunnel in the past, because the more southern Arkansas Canyon had been the main railroad route through the mountains. Now, the northern tunnel would be the main railroad gateway through the Rockies. Finally, and largely through Shoup’s efforts, the Moffat Tunnel was begun in 1923.”
That action caused a tremendous amount of hard feelings in southern Colorado aimed at the northern portion of the state, and leadership from the Colorado Springs area.
“Some believe the resentment in Pueblo, caused by what is essentially political blackmail, lingers to this day,” notes David Iler of Cyberwest magazine in a 1995 article.
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