Turning up our noses at 'packinghouse perfume.'

 

For decades, "the river ran red" with packinghouse waste 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When you live most of your days out in the middle of nowhere, (otherwise known as a remote ranch out on Morapos Creek, between Craig and Meeker) you appreciate the chance to ‘go to town’ once in a while. My Granddad liked to ride the train into the stockyards at Denver with the product when he sold cattle. By most accounts, he looked forward to it all year.

“For most of a century, Denver's stockyards teemed with cows and other critters all year long - not just when the annual stock show rolled into town.

From the 1880s through the 1960s, Denver was the region's go-to bazaar for buying and selling livestock,” wrote Joanne Kelley in a 2006 article in the Rocky Mountain News.

For decades, "the river ran red" with packinghouse waste until rendering plants began processing it, according to Colorado historian Tom Noel's book, “Riding High.”
"Though they cleaned up the river, rendering plants fouled the air with pungent odors that downwind Denverites sniffed about," according to Noel.

But with better roads and the growth of the trucking industry, the stockyards and the packing plants dispersed into local ‘sale barns’ and the big plants moved away from the city. By 1980, the big yards in Denver were all but shut down as a year-round concern and only memories remained of its former prominence.

“I was born in Chicago about the time of the Spanish-American War. My father, Ralph C. Edwards, had been employed by Stafford Brothers in the Chicago Stockyards. He got a position at $40 a month with Clay, Robinson & Co, at the Denver Union Stockyards,” wrote Mrs. Avery Edwards Abbott in an article titled “I Remember Denver,” in the September, 1962 edition of the Denver Westerners Monthly Roundup. “Our first home in Denver was at 36th and Williams, near old Chutes Park (which terrified the daylights out of me).”

“I recall the old Denver Carnivals, held in the fall, I think. These were a kind of Mardi Gras, with parades and so on, to which my mother took me. Carfare was a nickel, and so was a loaf of bread. We could buy enough beef for supper for a dime, and the butcher gave you a piece of liverwurst free and threw in enough liver for the cat,” wrote Abbott.

She and her family later moved to Elyria, which was a village in Denver County with a population of 1384 in 1900. It was also called Pullman by the railroad and boasted 26 saloons.

“I remember the torchlight parades, to which Father took me when McKinley was assassinated,” she said. “Father took me for a walk every afternoon and often the walk ended at the Stockyards. I was terrified beyond voice when we took the catwalks above the waving heads of the longhorns in the corrals. The hogs fascinated me, as did the sheep. (Such smelly tastes!”

Abbott tells of Mr. Fine and Mr. Gill at the Stockyards Bank and walking back and forth from home and there for her mother when she was only 6 years old.

“It never occurred to anyone that there was any danger or my purse being snatched or my being molested. The stockmen, many of them knew who I was and stopped to inquire about Mother and my baby brother. They had been faithful in coming to see Father during his last illness.”

She describes taking the Stout Street cars, one which was marked “Stockyards,” when going down town to Hurlbut’s Grocery, in the Loop, where bananas were ten cents a dozen.

“In the winter, Hurlbut’s smelled of hot coffee, buttered popcorn, cupcakes, overshoes and wet clothing. In summer, large glass jars of lemonade were on display, and cookies, candies, magazines and other penny-catchers.”

Butter was 15 cents a pound. Lion and Arbuckle were the popular brands for coffee.
“I remember the day when three Polish workmen at the Omaha and Grant Smelter (the shadow of whose smokestack almost fell across our house, and whose smoke was said to kill all our germs) were sitting on kegs of dynamite while eating their lunch. They had the bad judgment to strike matches on the kegs to light their pipes. Parts of the men were picked up all over town and windows were shattered for several blocks around. It was quite an occasion!”

Of course the perfume of the packinghouses blended with the smelter smoke, she said.

“Some of Mother’s friends turned their noses pretty high when they came to see us. But this was not so they could sniff the perfume to greater advantage.”

With all the different sights, and sounds, and smells and events, it is no wonder that my own grandfather looked forward to ‘going to town’ every year on his trips to the stockyards in Denver.

###

Photo Information: Photos by Marion Post Walcott and Arthur Rothstein from Farm Security Administration, taken at Denver Stockyards, andin Craig, Colorado, stockyard, in 1939 and 1941.

El Paso County journalism linage and origins

 

Crusher, Gold Rush, Palmer Lake News, Ute Pass Courier, Pikes Peak Journal and more

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Having worked at a number of El Paso County newspapers in Colorado over the years, I find their linage interesting. My own experience, with papers in Monument, and Teller County (which, until 1899, originally was mostly in El Paso County,) and Colorado Springs general interest, business and military papers, makes their stories part of my own narrative. 

The first edition of the Ute Pass Courier, for example, hit the streets on July 23, 1964.
"A morally bankrupt publisher, who was printing the short-lived Woodland Park paper called the Eagle, skipped town with the subscription money from local residents after 10 issues," according to later articles in the Courier.

"Manfred (Monte ) and Agnes (Ag) Schupp saved the paper from scandal and early demise," reported the Courier at the 25th anniversary of the publication. "About one month after he stole out of town, the Schupps put out their inaugural edition of 500 copies. Staff included Tom Bonifield, then owner of Woodland Pharmacy, and M.E. "Pete" Brown, who owned the Browncraft Steakhouse. He was later instrumental in establishing Langstaff-Brown Medical Center."

The paper was first printed in La Junta and was taken there by bus and returned Thursday mornings for distribution.

"The driving force behind the Courier, Agnes (also a mother and free-lance writer) often used her kitchen table as the production room for the paper," the paper reported later. "She suffered from a heart condition which was aggravated by the area's high elevation, and during her failing health she sold half interest to Maureen Jones in the fall of 1965."

Agnes Schupp died of heart attack June 19, 1966, and Manfred and Jones sold full interest to Roy and Carol Lee Robinson Sept. 1, 1966. Publisher, editor and reporter for 12 years, Roy Robinson received many honors and awards from Colorado Press Association for the paper's overall progress. During his tenure, the Courier was published in Cripple Creek along with Cripple Creek Times, then owned by his father, B.G. Robinson.

Another example is found in the business and journalism exploits of Ernest Chapin Gard. Gard seemed determined to make his mark on the world, even as young man. Evidence of his talents became manifested in a talent for stringing words together.
Perhaps he was thinking along those lines when in 1880 as a 23-year-old newspaperman, he scratched out his moniker above those of members of the gold-seeking Lawrence Party on Signature Rock in Garden of the Gods.

Gold’s discovery in the Cripple Creek District precipitated Gard and his partner’s race to become the first newspaper in Cripple Creek. He pulled out all the stops to beat William McRea by four days, publishing the first edition of the Cripple Creek Crusher on Dec. 4, 1891. Descendant of the Crusher and other consolidations, The Cripple Creek Gold Rush still published until 2007 when it became incorporated into Pikes Peak Courier View, of Woodland Park. 

Gard, and partner W.S. Neal, celebrated the feat by printing in gilded ink — a layer of gold over the regular ink — for the inaugural edition. McRea, four days late and perhaps more than a dollar short, sported vermilion headlines that said “New Gold Field.”

In general, Gard was noted for not trying to hold anything back. 

For example, consider his description in a booklet published by the Town of Palmer Lake in 1894 of one local landmark shortly after it was built.

“Estemere House commands one of the most magnificent views in the Rocky Mountains. The lake and both railroad depots lie beyond it, is plainly visible. To the southeast stretch the plains, on which can be seen the village of Monument, and the bewildering scene is lost in the dim distance where the meeting sky and plain unfolds the siren mirage to the vision on the desert waste; to the east are the fertile farms and pine groves of the rich Divide. To the northeast can be seen the pretty pyramidal buttes of Greenland and Larkspur. To the west are the ‘rock-ribbed’ mountains, lofty and sublime. It is a scene which, when once beheld, can never forgotten.”

When legendary scoundrel, Joseph H. Wolfe, crossed his path in Cripple Creek in his administration and management of the Clarendon Hotel, Gard let loose because he felt Wolfe was attracting too much attention by throwing money around the gaming tables and consorting with shady characters.
“This curious hostelry is run by a red-faced, cock-eyed boob who ought to be back in Missouri flats pulling cockle-burrs out of a cornfield,” wrote Gard in the Crusher in the early 1890s. He proved to be on target when later Wolfe’s efforts to organize one of the only bullfights ever held in the United States at the racetrack at Gillette Flats landed him in jail and fleeing from creditors.

Prior to his founding of the Crusher, Gard was already wielding his wit and pen in the Palmer Lake area, founding the Palmer Lake Herald with his brother J.M. Gard, just before incorporation to the town in 1889. On April 2,1889, he was also elected to a two-year term as trustee on Palmer Lake’s first board.

"The USGenWeb Project was established in 1996 by a group of genealogists who shared a desire to create free online resources for genealogical research. Originally beginning with online directories of text-based resources, their vision has grown into a network of over 3000 linked websites, all individually created and maintained by a community of volunteers. Today you may find a variety of unique county and state resources including photos, maps, transcriptions, historical documents, helpful links, and much more." according to its current site.

In July and August of 1996, the work progressed with many volunteers coming forward to assist. The USGenWeb domain was established, and many new state mailing lists were generated. Through collaboration with RootsWeb, server space was found for the files produced as a result of the project. Also, a standardized Query and Surname entry form was established there. A number of state and county pages were put on-line there. Other servers and key personalities involved in the project include Gene Stark at Gendex and the folks at Gensource.

"As more volunteers came forward, some of the original cadre were able to pass the reins of some of their responsibilities on to new enthusiastic helpers, freeing time for them to more fully concentrate on their other GenWeb states and counties. The leadership of the US GenWeb project also changed hands, but the original goal of the project remains unchanged. A USGenWeb Bulletin Board was established, and many new county pages came on-line, especially the hard work of the state coordinators."

On the USGenWeb Project you'll find a well organized effort to place genealogy materials on the Internet. This project is supported by hundreds of volunteers all across the county. The system is organized by states, and counties with each county having a coordinator responsible for maintaining a site of resources which are available for that county. You'll also find archives of genealogy records, also organized by state and county.

The Colorado version, COGenWeb Project is an outgrowth of this effort.

Several papers following, (many of which I have worked with, or descendants, for a time) are described by 2019 El Paso County COGenWeb.

Journalism in El Paso County, Colorado. — This county, being one of the earliest settled in Colorado, has a respectable newspaper record. Even in 1872, "Out West," published by J. E. Liller, had for correspondents men widely known in church, literature and politics, as Rev. Charles Kingsley and Hon. Wm. D. Kelley. "Out West" was a model of style, editorially and typographically; it was devoted to Western interests. In December, 1872, it announced that a local paper had become necessary, and that it would also publish "The Gazette and El Paso County News," beginning early in 1873, in order that "Out West's" pages might entirely be given to Territorial information. It thereafter soon died, but the "Gazette" grew to be a respected force throughout the country. 

In 1874 Judge Price became celebrated all over Colorado for his humorous hoaxes upon Eastern residents in the columns of his "Mountaineer," also issued at Colorado Springs, and an able paper popularly circulated among the people of the county. The pioneer El Paso journal, though printed in Denver, was the short lived "Colorado City Journal," which made its appearance in 1861, under the direction of Benjamin F. Crowell, now a citizen of Colorado Springs. May 1st, 1858, Mr. Crowell came from Boston, a boy of nineteen, in company with A. Z. Sheldon and others. The party had varied experiences in crossing the plains, one of their chief dilemmas being to ascertain each morning before harnessing which was the "nigh" and which the "off" ox. From the days of the El Paso "Journal" till the present, Mr. Crowell has been connected with every important movement, political or otherwise, in El Paso.

Colorado Springs "Gazette" inaugurated the county's record in daily journalism, and ever has been a prominent factor in the building up of this region. It is one of the six papers of the State owning associated press dispatches, prints daily over five thousand words of telegraphic news, and is a four page eight column paper. It has a large job department, fifty men on its pay roll of $600 per week, and is erecting a fine block on a principal avenue. The chief stockowners are B. W. Steele, Hon. W. S. Jackson and Dr. B. F. D. Adams. Mr. Steele has been editor of the " Gazette " for the past several years, and came to Colorado in 1877, from Providence, Rhode Island. He is a graduate of Brown University. Mr. Steele's policy in conducting the "Gazette" has been fearless and judicial. His editorials show a remarkably sympathetic comprehension and prevision of public feeling.

The "Gazette" is about to build a fine new edifice on Pike's Peak avenue, a sharp contrast to its present dilapidated structure of historic fame. The material is to be St. Louis pressed brick with stone trimmings, and basement of stone. Besides the rooms used in the printing and binding departments of the journal, there will be eighteen offices. The building is supplied with fireproof vaults and a crane elevator.

The Colorado Springs "Republic" is the second paper of the county, and was first issued in 1880 (being the regular successor of the "Free Press" and the "Mountaineer,") as a daily evening journal, after as a weekly, and again as a daily under its present direction by Mr. L H. Gowdy. Its interests are mainly local, and together with an excellent job department, it has become a successful property.

EI Paso's growth may well be shown by an enumeration of the papers now published. While the county boasted but ten papers in 1888, in 1890 we find the list swelled to double the number. The El Paso "Register" is the representative paper of the (Palmer) Divide region, and is published at Monument. The Manitou "Journal" is issued four months of the year as a daily, and began its career in 1886. The Colorado City "News," under the able direction of J. Addison Cochran — present postmaster of that city — achieved, two years since, first place among the papers of El Paso's manufacturing center.

Other papers issued in the county are: "Pike's Peak Herald," "Saturday Mail," the "Methodist," the "Lever," and "Deaf Mute Index," at Colorado Springs, — the last two named being school papers, — Colorado City "Chieftain," Colorado City "Iris," Palmer Lake "Herald," Green Mountain Falls "Echo," Fountain "Dispatch," Woodland Park "News," and Crystal Peak "Beacon" (at Florissant).
To the Colorado Springs "Gazette" and "Republic," both of which publish weekly as well as daily edition we are indebted for valuable reports which have freely been used in this sketch," according to COGenWeb.

Adventure is for the adventurous

“Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary:
That I was burned and blinded by the desert sun;
Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseased;
Lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream!
my dream!”

__ Everett Ruess 

Although he vanished in the desert when he was only 20, Everett Ruess had already befriended artists like accomplished photographer Dorothea Lange who took this photo of him. Dorothea Lange, American, 1895-1965, Untitled (Portrait of Everett Ruess), 1933, © The Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Everett Ruess was known for making linoleum prints of landscapes and nature, and was associated with Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. His prints show scenes from the Monterey Bay coast, the northern California coast near Tomales Bay, the Sierra Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

Ruess wrote no books during his life, but he was a lifelong diarist, and he sent home hundreds of letters. His journals and poetry were posthumously published in two books, both illustrated with his own woodcuts:Lacy, Hugh (Editor) (1940). On Desert Trails. El Centro, California: Desert Magazine Press. Rusho, W.L. (1983). Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty. Peregrine Smith Books.

Ruess's story, along with that of Christopher McCandless, was retold more briefly in Jon Krakauer's 1996 book Into the Wild. He is also mentioned in Edward Abbey's 1968 book Desert Solitaire. Wallace Stegner, in his 1942 book, Mormon Country, devotes an entire chapter, "Artist in Residence...", pages 319-350, to Ruess's travels and disappearance in southern Utah.

"… as to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon. I have not tired of the wilderness… It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty… This had been a full, rich year. I have left no strange or delightful thing undone I wanted to do," said Everett's last letter to his brother, Waldo.

Ruess disappeared before his last letters could be sent from Escalante and his 1934 diary was never found.

Starting in 1931, Ruess traveled by horse and burro through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, exploring the high desert of the Colorado Plateau. He rode broncos, branded calves, and investigated cliff dwellings. Ruess explored Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks and the High Sierra in the summers of 1930 and 1933. In 1934, he worked with University of California archaeologists near Kayenta, took part in a Hopi religious ceremony, and learned to speak Navajo. Ruess had limited success trading his prints and watercolors to pay his way, and primarily relied on his parents' support.

On November 20, 1934, Ruess set out alone into the Utah desert, taking two burros as pack animals. He was never seen again.

Earlier in 1934, Ruess had told his parents he would be unreachable for nearly two months, but about three months after his last correspondence, they started receiving their son's uncalled-for mail. They wrote a letter to the post office of Escalante, Utah, on February 7, 1935. 

A commissioner of Garfield County, H. Jennings Allen (the husband of Escalante's postmistress), saw the letter and decided to form a search party with other men in the area. Ruess' burros were found near the north side of Davis Gulch, a canyon of the Escalante River. The only sign of Ruess himself was a corral he had made at his campsit in Davis Gulch, as well as an inscription the search party found nearby, with the words "NEMO Nov 1934". Allen reported the discovery of the burros and the inscription to Ruess' parents in a letter dated March 8, 1935. On March 15, after completing a last attempt to find Ruess in the Kaiparowits Plateau, Allen wrote a final note to the family calling an end to the search efforts.

Later searches in late May and June 1935 included an aerial survey of the land from an altitude of 12,000 feet, covering the ground from Lee's Ferry to Escalante. On the ground, a party of nine horseback riders joined the search, but discontinued their effort a week later.

Some believe Ruess may have fallen off a cliff or drowned in a flash flood; others suspected he had been murdered.“Nearly 65 years after Ruess disappeared in the Escalante Desert, you can rouse a lively debate in almost any bar between Santa Fe and Flagstaff over the possible ways he met his fate,” wrote Roberts in a 1999 article in National Geographic Adventure magazine.

During his quest, Roberts hiked much of the same land as Ruess and spent three days in Davis Gulch where the young explorer disappeared, searching for answers. Despite all of the leads Roberts followed, including interviews with dozens of people in the region, he was no closer to solving the case.

In 1971, a Navajo named Aneth Nez told his granddaughter, Daisy Johnson, that he witnessed from afar the murder of a young white man near Bluff, Utah, in the 1930s by Ute Indians. Nez told her he buried the body in a crevice on nearby Comb Ridge, a jagged, 80-mile-long ridge of Navajo sandstone peppered with yucca and piñon pine that stretches from Blanding, Utah, into northern Arizona.

The discovery of a grave site on Comb Ridge, near the town of Bluff, Utah, added to the mystery. An elderly Navajo claimed that Ruess was murdered by two Ute Native Americans who wanted his burros. Bones and teeth found in the grave allegedly matched Ruess' race, age, size, and facial features.

In April 2009, comparison of DNA from the remains and that of Ruess' nieces and nephew and comparison of the skull to photographs, seemed to confirm that the remains were those of Ruess. Two months later, however, Kevin Jones, state archaeologist of Utah, advised the remains probably were not Ruess', since dental records from the 1930s did not match those in published photographs of the body.

On October 21, 2009, the Associated Press reported that DNA tests conducted by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology showed the remains were not those of Ruess. They identified them as of likely Native American origin. A later article in National Geographic Adventure Magazine identified problems in the DNA matching software as the source of the error.

In March 2010, the family of Joe Santistevan was contacted by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) and was informed that 

the Y-DNA of the remains initially identified as Ruess matched exactly to Santistevan. AFDIL found a 13-marker exact match between the man buried at the Comb Ridge site and Santistevan. AFDIL then ran another Y-DNA test and reconfirmed the 13 markers and confirmed four more exact matches. Santistevan's remains were returned to the Navajo Nation.







 

"Everett Ruess was an artistic, adventurous young man who set out alone several times to experience the beauty, as well as the fury, of nature in the American West. During the 1930s, he met and discussed art with painter Maynard Dixon, and with well-known photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange. He was lured first by the splendors of Yosemite and the California coast, and later by portions of the lonely red rock lands of Utah and Arizona. In November 1934, at age twenty, Everett disappeared from the canyon country near Escalante, Utah, and was never seen again. Although his burros were found near his camp, his fate remains a mystery," says the current site. everettruess.net

Images of hardrock hazards and mucker's hard luck in Silverton celebration

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin' ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock
__ Bob Seger

Thing of the past ...

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

On Labor Day in 1940, American photographer and photojournalist Russell Lee, best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), attended hardrock mining competitions and labor celebrations in Silverton, Colorado.

"Hardrock miners in the San Juans tend to be very proud. Mining required a great deal of arduously achieved experience and skill. Compared to other occupations available to them, the job paid very well. Supposing a miner survived his job, he could earn his weight in gold and generate an esteemed reputation to pass on through generations," notes Caroline Arlen, in her book "Colorado Mining Stories: Hazards, Heroics, & Humor." 

As he traditionally did, Lee's images documented the ethnography of various American classes and cultures.

Lee grew up in Ottawa, Illinois, and went to the Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana for high school. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

He gave up a position as a chemist to become a painter. Originally he used photography as a precursor to his painting, but soon became interested in photography for its own sake, recording the people and places around him. Among his earliest subjects were Pennsylvanian bootleg mining and the Father Divine cult.

In the fall of 1936, during the Great Depression, Lee was hired for the federally sponsored Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic documentation project of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He joined a team assembled under Roy Stryker, along with Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and Walker Evans. Stryker provided direction and bureaucratic protection to the group, leaving the photographers free to compile what in 1973 was described as "the greatest documentary collection which has ever been assembled."

Silverton’s mining heritage is still celebrated at annual three-day competition. There are events for men, women, and children and range from horseshoes, hand mucking, machine drilling, tug-of-war, arm wrestling, and much more.

Children’s events are on Friday. Some evening activities, including live music.
Food, beer and other beverages are sold on site. Concessions benefit the Fire Department. Come cheer on the competitors and help keep our mining heritage alive.

Other nearby celebrations were canceled. Located adjacent to Fellin Park, on the south side of the park near the gazebo, the Miner’s Heritage Park is the location of the Highgrader’s Holiday, Ouray’s annual hard rock mining competition held at the end of August. Highgrader’s Holiday is a non-profit competitive event showcasing the strength and skill of the men and women who make their livings extracting ore from the hard rock of the San Juan Mountains. During the rest of the year the Mining Heritage Park offers visitors an opportunity to see mining tools and equipment once used in area mines.

In nearby Ouray recently, the Hardrockers Holidays Committee wasn’t sure the 46th annual event would be able to go forward last year, said Kuhlman, who has competed there 44 times. All the other mining competitions, the ones in Creede, Leadville and other historic mining towns, had been canceled due to the coronavirus.

Ouray’s Highgraders Holiday mining competition, typically held the weekend after Silverton’s, was canceled last year. Board members Adam Kunz and Steve Martinez announced the decision came after “heart-wrenching deliberation.” The competition attracts miners from across the West to compete in feats of strength and skill, keeping mining traditions alive just as lumberjack competitions are held in places traditionally connected with the timber industry.

"The final OK for Hardrockers came from the county after organizers made changes to comply with the county’s health order in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus," according to Liz Teitz of Ouray County Plaindealer.

"Entrants were required to wear masks, though compliance varied. Some, like Kuhlman, wore them constantly throughout the event, while others wore their face coverings around their necks most of the time. Temperatures were taken at the gate, and all attendees were asked about symptoms before entering. There were frequent reminders to maintain social distancing throughout the weekend, though many competitors seemed happy to celebrate with hugs and handshakes. At one point, everyone scrambled to pull up their masks when an accidental siren went off on a bullhorn, in case law enforcement had arrived to check on compliance," said Teitz.

They canceled arm wrestling and children’s events, and altered tug-of-war rules to allow for more space between competitors. Masks and gloves were also required during the tug of war, which veteran competitor Kuhlman said made it harder to hold on. In a joking nod to the pandemic panic-buying, organizers handed out rolls of toilet paper alongside raffle prizes.

"Otherwise, though, the festivities went on largely as they have in past years, Contestants still pushed half their weight around an obstacle course in wheelbarrows, scrambled to fill buckets in hand- and machine-mucking races, and challenged each other in drilling holes in boulders, driving spikes into timber and hammering steel into concrete and rock," the Plaindealer reported.

All images by Russell Lee taken in Silverton on Labor Day, 1940. Bottom Photo of Russell Lee, about 1942.

Colorado shipbuilding in a landlocked state

Denver, Colorado. Twenty-four hours a day the sparks from acetylene torches of steel workers in eight Denver fabricating plants are flying thick and fast that the U.S. Navy may carry the battle to the enemy in all parts of the world. Here in secluded Denver, the world's largest city not on a navigable waterway, this war production worker, who has never seen a battleship or an ocean, fashions the steel hull parts which are being assembled at Mare Island Navy Yard--1,200 miles from where he and his fellow workers are on the job to help "keep 'em sailing." May, 1942

Hundreds of miles away and a mile higher, Denver doesn't miss out in the Naval war effort

By Rob Carrigan, rocarrigan1@gmail.com

It may seem odd now that Denver played such a 'solid steel' role in Navy shipbuilding during World War II,  but it was even more bizarre back in early 1940s, when shipbuilding was really a 'coastal' thing. 

"August 18, 1942, a delegation of forty Denver manufacturers and War Production Board officials, headed by Governor Ralph Carr, left Denver for Vallejo, California, to officially launch the first destroyer escort built in Colorado. Cynthia Carr, the governor’s daughter, was selected to christen the first such vessel almost entirely prefabricated in an inland city. Originally slated to join the US Navy as the USS Bull, the ship was given to the Royal Navy as the HMS Bentinckand launched on August 22, 1942, amid much fanfare," wrote Tom Lytle, “Shipbuilding on a ‘Mountaintop’: World War II’s Rocky Mountain Fleet,” Colorado Heritage Magazine 18, no. 3 (1998).

During World War II, Denver’s war production industry expanded to include the production of ship parts bound for assembly on the West Coast. Known colloquially as “the Rocky Mountain Fleet,” dozens of ships would eventually see production at the Colorado works. Today, the Rocky Mountain Fleet serves as a historical example of Colorado’s contribution to the war effort as well as how national industry operated during “total war”—before World War II, it was unheard of for prefabricated ship parts to be produced in a landlocked state, says Colorado Encyclopedia.

Two ingenious American steel fabricators who "took a quick look at a blue print and in less time than it takes to tell it" turned from making steel guard rails for a gold mine shaft to building parts for Navy escort vessels. May 1942, Denver.

But war production in Colorado, and by August 22, 1942, the destroyer escort Bentinck launched at the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California. The occasion might have been ordinary, had it not been for the fact that the Bentinck and twenty-three sister warships were largely constructed in landlocked Denver, Colorado—more than 1,000 miles from the ocean and a mile above it. 

The unusual consortium of Denver steel fabrication companies, working in cooperation with Mare Island, began in the Washington office of Democratic Congressman Lawrence Lewis when he met with G. H. Garrett, general manager of Denver’s Thompson Pipe and Steel Company, in July 1941. The Great Depression had damaged Denver’s economy, and city leaders were anxious to attract defense contracts to help restore the city. Denver successfully lured large defense-related employers such as Remington Arms and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, but smaller local companies such as Thompson Pipe and Steel were in danger of going out of business because of their low priority for critical war materials—in this case, steel.

Interior of a once-abandoned railroad machine shop, now producing fabricated steel parts for the hulls of escort vessels, showing an overhead crane which once lifted switch engine boilers and old box car axles, now moving a heavy steel plate which will become the sturdy belly of a fighting ship. May 1942.

Lewis arranged an appointment with Commander M. L. Ring, a navy purchasing agent, who put aside the pressures of his job to spend time with Garrett to discuss the navy’s shipbuilding requirements. Garrett spent three days in Washington discussing the navy’s construction priorities and how Thompson Pipe and Steel could help meet them. His final appointment in Washington proved instrumental in Denver’s involvement with Mare Island; before he boarded the train home to Denver, he met with Lieutenant Commander E. P. Simpson, who had just arrived in Washington from Mare Island. Simpson suggested that Garrett contact Captain F. G. Crisp, the industrial manager of the Mare Island Navy Yard, who Simpson knew required additional manufacturing facilities outside the Bay Area, wrote Tom Lytle in his piece for the Colorado Historic Society.

Ship production begins for the Denver manufacturing interests in November 1941, when the navy designated Mare Island the site for the construction of destroyer escorts. The yard was already working at full capacity, and the navy wanted the ships completed by summer 1943. Denver’s manufacturing consortium helped provide the answer. 

"The subsections of twenty-four ships were to be prefabricated in the Mile High City, shipped to Mare Island via railroad, and assembled there for launching. On December 2, 1941, in conjunction with Director Hartzell, Commander Antonio Pitre and a delegation from Mare Island formally announced the signing of contracts for building ship hull sections, bulkheads, decks, and other parts," Lytle said.

The following Denver firms contributed to early shipbuilding efforts:

• Ajax Iron Works
• E. Burkhardt and Sons Steel and Iron Works
• Denver Steel and Iron Works
• Midwest Steel and Iron Works
• Silver Engineering Works
• Thompson Pipe and Steel
• R. Hardesty Manufacturing
• Eaton Metal Products

"Weicker Transfer and Storage was to receive and handle all steel when it arrived in Denver by rail, and reload the finished pieces for shipment to Mare Island. The terms of the contracts called for the Denver consortium to fabricate parts for twenty-four destroyer escorts with a total estimated value of $56 million, to be delivered by June 1943. Construction was scheduled to begin in January 1942," notes Lytle.

Though secret, the agreement between Denver and Mare Island marked the navy’s first foray into “farming-out” work and would be watched closely. The success or failure of the Denver program would help determine whether other navy yards would be allowed to use outside facilities to help fulfill contracts.

Steel ship parts getting a bath of sulphuric acid at one of the eight Denver plants which prepares the parts and sends them to Mare Island for assembly. May 1942.

The navy work meant that the Denver contractors needed to hire additional workers. The Emily Griffith Opportunity School assisted by providing welding training sessions around the clock. In addition to handling and storage facilities in Denver, the steelyard producing the ship parts needed space for two tanks fifty feet long by five feet wide and ten feet deep, plus a 25,000-gallon acid storage tank, all to be built by the navy. The tanks were to be sunk into the ground to form acid baths into which raw steel would be dipped to remove scale and dirt. The Denver program experienced an early problem with these tanks, colloquially known as “pickling tanks,” when the navy failed to specify that Weicker Transfer and Storage use corrosion-resistant steel bolts: the tanks collapsed after two weeks when the acid ate through the bolts.

The railroad delivered the first 3,000-ton shipment of steel from Mare Island in December 1941, and fabrication began the following month. All subsequent shipments of steel came from US Steel’s eastern mills. Under normal circumstances, the navy would have relied upon the principal trunk lines—the Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, or the Southern Pacific—to transport the completed sections from Denver to California. However, these lines were already running at capacity, carrying war materials across the country. The rail route through and under Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountain ranges imposed limitations upon the size of the ship pieces to be shipped. The Moffat Tunnel, on the line linking Denver and Craig, was the principal bottleneck. The tunnel’s narrow dimensions meant that ship pieces had to be reduced in size to fit through it. None could exceed seventeen feet from the rails in height, nine feet, six inches in width, and fifty feet in length.

Shipbuilding expanded when the destroyer escort program was so successful that on February 26, 1942, the navy named Denver as one of the major steel-fabricating points in the country for naval vessels. 

"With this designation came an agreement to build more ships, resulting in a major expansion of shipbuilding operations in Denver. By being named a major shipbuilding center, Denver was also awarded new contracts to help build fifteen more destroyer escorts worth an estimated $3 million. Mare Island had been ordered to build the ships in 1942, with delivery for early 1944. However, the Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic by the summer of 1943, before all of the ordered ships could be delivered. Thus, five contracts were canceled, and the ships were ordered scrapped on March 13, 1944. Three others were canceled in September 1944.

The interior of one of eight Colorado plants engaged in 56 million dollar ship-building program, showing workers who once made highway bridge girders, gold mining machinery and water culverts, laying out parts of an escort vessel. The parts will be assembled at Mare Island Navy Yard on the West coast.

"By late 1943, the tide of war was beginning to turn against the Axis. Allied defeats of the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic and in North Africa initiated a shift in ship construction priorities. Destroyer escorts and other ships designed to combat the U-Boat menace were no longer the focus of Allied shipbuilding. On July 6, 1943, the navy ordered Mare Island to build eighty-seven LCT-6s (Landing Craft, Tank) for delivery in October. In spite of the limited time the navy allowed for the LCTs’ construction, production in Denver was ahead of schedule. The first vessel was ready for shipment to Mare Island in September. As with the first destroyer escort 'launching,' Denver prepared an elaborate ceremony to commemorate the occasion," says Colorado Ecyclopedia.

According to records, Denver contractors continued working on army barges and navy pontoons until the Japanese surrender in August 1945. The end of the war saw the end of “the Shipyard of the Rockies,” as defense contracts were cancelled and the companies were on their own again. Eaton Metals returned to peacetime work within twenty-four hours of Victory in Japan Day. On August 15, 1945, the workers who had previously built warships for service around the world returned to fabricating sheet and steel products such as storage tanks and farm equipment. Had the experiment in 'farming out' defense contracts not been successful in Denver, later, much more common defense contracting efforts probably would not have been tried in other inland cities, Lytle notes.

Potato pickers San Luis Valley

Thing of the past ...

Potato picker empties basket into shaker screen, Rio Grande County, Colorado

Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1939 October.

Potato pickers in town, Monte Vista, Colorado

Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1939 October.

Potato pickers, Rio Grande County, Colorado

Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1939 October.

Sewing a sack of potatoes, Rio Grande County, Colorado
Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1939 Oct.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives

The legend of 'Rattlesnake Kate'

Look to the left

Look to the right
You're dead, you're dead, you're dead with just one bite
Look to the front
Look to the sides
Don't forget your back else they'll have your hide

__ Neyla Pekarek, "The Attack"

'She earned the title the hard way'

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The legend of 'Rattlesnake Kate' was a big enough deal locally to make the front page of the Greeley Daily Tribune and Greeley Republican that Thursday, in early October, 1969, after Kate died in Weld County General Hospital the preceding Monday. Her story was placed right there at the top alongside the casualty considerations from Saigon, and above the stories of growing opposition locally to the war in Vietnam. 

"She'was known as 'Rattlesnake Kate' and she earned the title the hard way," wrote Jim Briggs, Tribune staff writer at the time. 

"Yes, Ms Kalherine Slaughterback, was buried Thursday afternoon but the legend she leaves behind was not buried with her."
The saga of "Rattlesnake Kate" was recalled Wednesday by Mrs. Leta Woolridge of La Salle, a close friend of Ms. Slaughterback.

"Early that morning hunters had been banging away before daylight at the ducks that stopped overnight at the pond. Kate Siaughterback knew from experience that there would be some wounded ducks there. 

some wounded ducks so she , saddled up her horse, got down her .22 Remington, lifted Ernie into the saddle and off they went to the pond to search for ducks for supper.
She hopped off the horse to open a gate and there at the gate post, coiled up and ready to 'fight anything that came — along was a huge rattlesnake."
"This didn't bother her much. She took the rifle out of the saddle and blew the head off the reptile. But he had his gang with him, and Kate heard the dreadful warnings from three directions. Three, glistening, thick-bellied rattlers slithered into the open toward her," wrote Briggs.
Katherine McHale Slaughterback was born on July 25, 1893 (or 1894) to Wallace and Albina McHale in a log cabin near Longmont, Colorado. She would go on to attend nursing school at St. Joseph's School of Nursing and move to Hudson, Colorado. She also had skill as a taxidermist. She frequently wore pants instead of dresses, which was unusual for a woman at the time.

Slaughterback married and divorced six times—one of her husbands was Jack Slaughterback —and had one son, Ernie Adamson. It is disputed if Ernie was an adopted child or born to her out of wedlock.
According to the lore, Slaughterback singlehandedly killed 140 rattlesnakes Oct. 28, 1925. 

Slaughterback and her three-year-old son Ernie were on horseback headed to a lake near her farm. Hunters had been there the day before, and she was hoping to find harvested ducks left behind. However, she instead found over 100 migrating rattlesnakes. Kate shot the snakes until she ran out of ammunition for her .22 caliber Remington rifle, at which point she grabbed a nearby sign (reportedly, it said "No Hunting") and bludgeoned the remaining snakes to death.
Of her snake-killing spree, Slaughterback later said:
"I fought them with a club not more than three feet long, whirling constantly for over two hours before I could kill my way out of them and get back to my faithful horse and Ernie, who were staring at me during my terrible battle not more than 60 feet away."
She was "frantic that [the snakes] would frighten the horse, and cause him to rear up and throw Ernie into the snakes."
The story goes she returned to her farm afterward, a neighbor learned of what had happened, which eventually led to a reporter coming to photograph and interview her. She strung the dead snakes together on a rope for the photograph, which became famous. She would later make herself a dress, shoes, and belt from the snakeskins. The dress, made from the skins of 53 rattlesnakes, was particularly famous. She claimed later that she received an offer from the Smithsonian Institution to buy it for $2,000.
Her story became popular and was written about it the New York Evening Journal. News of her exploits was reported as far away as Germany, Belgium, Scotland, France, England, Mexico, and Canada.
Later in life, Slaughterback reportedly raised rattlesnakes, milking them for their venom and selling it to scientists in California. Three weeks before her death, Slaughterback donated her famous rattlesnake skin dress to the Greeley Municipal Museum; Ernie donated more of her possessions after her death, including her Remington rifle.
Slaughterback was a nurse during World War II and served in the Pacific Theater. She lived in El Paso, Texas for a few years. She died on Oct. 6, 1969, and was buried in Mizpah Cemetery in Platteville, Colorado. On her headstone, her name simply reads "Rattlesnake Kate," per her request. She was survived by her son, two grandsons, and two great-grandchildren.

Former member of The Lumineers and Colorado native Neyla Pekarek wrote a folk opera about Slaughterback called Rattlesnake. Pekarek was then commissioned by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts to create a full musical about the legend of 'Rattlesnake Kate.' Other songwriters, including Carter Sampson, have also touched on the subject.