Anaconda, an Early Town of Colorado’s Cripple Creek District

c 2022 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article appear in Jan’s 2016, book, Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County.

As the Cripple Creek District developed during the 1890s, thousands of miners flocked to the region seeking fortune. Within an incredibly short time, hundreds prospect holes dotted the landscape. In one area, located roughly halfway between Cripple Creek and Victor, the body of “a female aborigine” was unearthed. The remains were most likely those of a Ute Indian, since those native Americans once favored the area as a summer hunting ground. The area where she was found became known as Squaw Gulch.

By about March of 1892, the Anaconda Mine above Squaw Gulch was producing $50,000 in gold each month. The company was officially incorporated on June 21. David Moffat, the famed Colorado railroad tycoon, was president. The mine was not without its problems as principle officers of the company fought with each other over who got what, and the mine was shut down at least once. While the Anaconda struggled, other good producing mines followed, including the Mary McKinny just a few months later, and the Doctor Jack Pot and the Morning Glory in 1893.

Along Squaw Gulch, a series of small towns formed. The two earliest communities were Mound City and Barry which sat on either side of a wagon road traversing Squaw Gulch. Quite suddenly, a new camp emerged in Squaw Gulch, at the foot of Gold Hill. Without much aplomb, the Aspen Daily Times of May 20, 1893 simply mentioned that the “town of Anaconda, near Cripple Creek, has taken out incorporation papers.” At least the Daily Times was impressed by the town newspaper which began two months later. “The Anaconda Herald is a new candidate for newspaper favors at Cripple Creek. It is very ably edited by A.J. McNasser.”

It was not long before there was some news to report. On an August night in 1893, Larry Cavanaugh ended an all night drinking spree by coming home, knocking his wife to the floor and threatening to cut her throat. He also threatened to kill his brother in law, George Cosen. Mrs. Cavanaugh managed to escape to Cosen’s house. On her heels was her husband, who kicked in the door and went after Cosen with a revolver. Cosen “picked up his rifle and shot the intruder dead,” reported papers throughout Colorado. The news said Cosen was arrested, but that he would most likely be released.

Indeed, Anaconda had blossomed practically overnight into a real town with the accompanying violence of any western town. The 1893 directory lists Anaconda’s first mayor as Dr. A.A. Smith, with trustees consisting of U.G. McCrackin, James A. Doyle, Chas. A. Keith, J.C. McKenney, F.C. Hathaway and W.M. Armstrong. A second newspaper, the weekly Mining Standard run by W.A. Bray, soon replaced the Herald. Hotels, drugstores, groceries, physicians and lawyers put out their shingles. Three saloons—Good’s Place, Mayer & Cook and Page & Allen’s X 10 U 8 sample room—kept the blue collar workers happy. The Anaconda Dance Hall  and the Barry Club also provided entertainment. There also were churches, a school and a jail. There was even a music teacher and dressmaker living in town. Not bad for a town of only 200 people.

In December of 1893, Anaconda managed to snatch the post office from, and absorb, the nearby town of Barry. Another community, Mound City, was absorbed as well. The Anaconda post office officially opened on December 7, 1893. M. Lehman, who also ran a “gent’s furnishings” store, was postmaster. Barry resident Leslie Doyle Spell remembered the small jail at Anaconda, a two room affair built of rock from the nearby creek bed and filled with mortar. On a night, temporary marshal Tom Flanagan jailed a miner known as “Big Kelly” for being drunk. Flanagan had installed his prisoner and was playing poker when Big Kelly suddenly appeared at his elbow. “Tom whirled and said: ‘I thought I put you in jail,; whereat Kelly answered: ‘You didn’t expect to keep a hardrock miner in a jail like that, did you?'” It turned out that some local children, including Spell, had found an old  knife and given it to Kelly to dig his way out through a weak place in the mortar. Flanagan duly marched Kelly back to the jail and made him crawl through the hole, telling him to stay put or the marshal “would come back and give him a good licking.” Kelly stayed put for the rest of the night. Spell recalled that many years later he was telling this story in Bisbee Arizona. “An elderly man spoke up,” he remembered, “and said, ‘That’s a true story, men. I was playing poker with Tom at the time.”

Unlike Altman and other places in the Cripple Creek District, Anaconda seemed rather unaffected by the labor strikes of 1893-94. Even in Squaw Gulch, there were few places for miners to build a stronghold like they had at Altman. Rather, Anaconda’s miners seemed a bit more open to—or afraid of opposing—owners of the Anaconda mine who wanted them to work an extra hour for the same pay. In March of 1894, it was announced that the Anaconda Mine was one of the few who would reopen and hire anti-union employees to work there. While not all of Anaconda’s miners were for the change in policy, when the strike was settled a few months later citizens simply resumed their daily lives with little trouble or comment.

In 1894, Anaconda was becoming an important part of the Cripple Creek District, and incorporated. The population consisted of about 1,000 people “who enjoy their cosy [sic] life snug in the embrace of the hills,” according to an 1894 directory. More billiard halls and saloons were now present, but more respectable businesses such as the Delmonico and Keystone Restaurants, hardware stores, attorneys, doctors, and others outnumbered them. As Anaconda grew, both the Midland Terminal Railroad and the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad were running a most heated race to reach the Cripple Creek District. The F. & C.C. won, with a passenger train chugging into nearby Cripple Creek on July 1, 1894. The next day the train continued on to Anaconda, only to derail and cause a spectacular crash close to town. Two passenger coaches and the baggage car went over the edge of a trestle. Twenty one people were injured, and W.G. Milner of Leadville was killed.

By 1895, upwards of 2,000 train passengers and visitors passed through Anaconda each day. Enter Jimmy Doyle, a former fireman, would soon to strike it rich at the famed Portland Mine and become a future mayor of nearby Victor. But his beginnings in the Cripple Creek District consisted of advertising his assaying services in newspapers throughout 1895. The city was still growing, and in May, the Blue Bell addition was added for more housing. Now, Anaconda even had a baseball team, and by November, the Midland Terminal Railroad tracks had reached one side of town.

Prizefighting became a popular pastime in Anaconda beginning in 1896, when newspapers announced that Billy Woods and Jim Williams would be duking it out for a purse of over $3,000. The fight was forgotten a few weeks later, however, when the city of Cripple Creek just a few miles away burned in not one, but two fires. Refugees from the fire crowded into Anaconda, tripling business at the post office. In the months following the fires, after the temporary visitors had returned to Cripple Creek, the Cripple Creek District directory of 1896 guessed there were roughly 1,800 people living in Anaconda. City businesses now included a blacksmith, drugstore, general merchandise store, laundry services, a livery, a meat market, shoemaker, two barbers, two confectionaries, two dressmakers, two dry goods stores, two physicians and two restaurants. There were also four grocery stores, and six bars to quench the thirst of locals. Guests of the town had two hotels and eight boardinghouses to choose from. There was even a justice of the peace and a notary public. Around town were about twenty six mines, plus a sampling works, stamp mill and three assayers.

Also in 1896, a new newspaper, the Assayer, was met with approval. “Mr. [C.P.] Brooks, it is needless to say, knows how to  make a bright and newsy paper,” commented the Leadville Herald Democrat. The article proved to be an understatement, for the lively Mr. Brooks kept readers entertained with plenty of news, and a good dose of editorial comment to boot. On January 13 of 1898, the Greeley Tribune noted that “Charles P. Brooks, who was reported a few weeks ago to be in a dying condition at Anaconda” had also become editor of the Cripple Creek Prospector newspaper in Cripple Creek. Greeley was, incidentally, Brooks’ former hometown. The Elbert County Banner also had something to say about Brooks’ character: “The editor of the Anaconda Assayer has been having a high old time with the mayor and town board of that camp. But he seems to be plenty for them even they do pummel him around and draw guns on him when he attends town council.”

Brooks’ antics aside, life at Anaconda throughout the late 1890’s remained rather quiet. Newspapers reported on a $250 robbery at John Knox’s saloon, the accidental deaths of various miners and a foiled ore robbery attempt at the Doctor Mine in 1897. Six trains were still coming through town daily. And in August Dr. Coleman, a local druggist, was digging a cellar behind his home and hit a rich gold vein.

Indeed, things were very bright for Anaconda at the turn of the century. The Cripple Creek Morning Times‘ New Year’s Day edition  of 1899 had much good to say about the town, calling Anaconda “a well governed little city with no debt and where the people are prosperous and happy.” The writer went on to claim that “There is no place in the state more picturesque, and as a ‘summer camp’ it has no equal.” Compliments were showered upon the peace-loving population as well. “The old-time notion that a  mining city must in the nature of things be ‘tough’ does not obtain in Anaconda,” the paper went on, emphasizing the point by mentioning a “splendid” school system with over 400 students.

By 1900 the Anaconda Mine was a major producer.  The town proper had become the fourth largest in the Cripple Creek District, even as the population remained at around a thousand residents. Even so, Anaconda was still considered a “young” city. The impressive downtown area spanned two blocks with false-fronted buildings housing churches, hotels, lawyers, an optician, pharmacies, physicians, saloons, stores and a nice, white wood-framed school house. Residents also enjoyed telephone service. The Anaconda School’s principal was E.E. Morris. Nellie Riggs, Maud Sheldon and Alida Colwell were employed as teachers. There was also a volunteer fire department at the Town Hall. Irving Douglas was postmaster. Baptist, Methodist and Catholic Church.

Anaconda unwittingly became home to a handful of people who eventually became famous in their own right. One of them was Josiah Roberts, who was ten years old when his family lived in town in 1900 (some websites claim Roberts was born in Anaconda. In 1890, however, neither the town or the Cripple Creek District existed yet. Roberts’ World War I draft registration verifies he was actually born in Rockvale, Colorado). By 1920 Roberts had  moved to Los Angeles, where he went to work for motion picture companies. When he died in 1971, he was noted as a cinematographer who had worked on the films “White Shadows in the South Seas” in 1928 and “Eskimo” in 1933.

Other famous residents included Judge Melvin B. Gerry and Dr. Susan “Doc Susie” Anderson who became citizens as Anaconda swallowed up Mound City and Barry, respectively. But the woman who really turned heads at Anaconda was the later-known speakeasy queen, Texas Guinan. Mary Louise Cecelia Guinan, as she was then known, came to town with her mother in 1902. Mother and daughter were there to visit Mrs. Guinan’s sister, Mrs. Margaret Conley.

During her extended stay, Tex began playing the organ for the local Sunday school. But she also began dressing a little too modern for the standards of young ladies of Anaconda. Not only were her outfits a bit too revealing, but she also wore rouge and makeup. Next, she lined up a series of suitors, whom she would date once or twice before casting them aside. Those who complained were given the same response that would soon be Tex’s tradmark saying: “Oh, you poor sucker.” It was probably at Anaconda that Tex met John Joseph Moynahan. The 1900 census verifies that John was in town visiting his uncle, John O’Brien. Later that year, Moynahan was hired as a cartoonist with the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. He also may have invested in real estate in Cripple Creek, where the now-defunct Moynahan Street was named for him.

By 1904 both Moynahan and Tex were in Denver, where they married on December 4. The couple later divorced and went on to marry others; in the meantime, Texas Guinan eventually made her way to New York where she found work as a chorus girl and started appearing in short films starting in 1917. She also ran a series of successful nightclubs and speakeasies during the prohibition era. The name of one of them, the Culture Club, was later used by a popular British band during the 1980’s. Tex appeared in more than thirty films before she died in 1933. A film, “Incendiary Blonde”, profiled her lively and interesting life in 1945.

Anaconda boasted “good schools and several churches” in 1902, with a population of about 1,000. George Horton was mayor. Notably, there was no pastor at the Baptist Church, nor the Methodist Episcopal Church,  when the Cripple Creek District Directory was published. Instead, Reverend Father Victor was overseeing the Catholic Church. Three lodges, the I.O.O.F. Ivanhoe Rebekah Lodgw No. 60, Miners’ Union No. 21 and White Swan Council No. 31, D. of P., were available to members. Other businesses included a wagon maker, a drugstore, a dry goods, a boardinghouse, a hardware store, a meat market, one tailor, a doctor, one realtor, one shoe store, a stationary store, two restaurants, two barbers, two cigar stores, three assayers, three fuel and feed stores, three saloons, and four groceries.

Like many towns across the west, Anaconda suffered a fire that was almost the town’s undoing. On November 11, 1904, a fire began at Nelson’s Grocery at 11:30 p.m. The flames had been growing for some time before they were discovered by Edwin Irwin. News of the fire was reported as far away as Los Angeles, where the Los Angeles Herald warned the town was “in danger of total destruction by fire.” One block of the downtown had already burned, with many other in danger. A lack of water pressure combined with strong winds spelled disaster, even after a bucket brigade was formed. Anaconda’s volunteer fire department finally called Cripple Creek for help. Many buildings, including the city hall, were dynamited in an effort to stop the flames, but in the end every building south of the railroad tracks through town burned. Only one of them was insured. Newspapers guessed the damage to be between $50,000 and $60,000.

In spite of nearly being burned out altogether, Anaconda did survive for a few years more. The town still had “good schools and several churches” in 1905, and the Cripple Creek District Directory for that year did offer this disclaimer: “A large portion of the business section of Anaconda was recently burned and owing to its nearness to the city of Cripple Creek there is considerable doubt of its being rebuilt.” Nonetheless, the population still hovered around 1,000 people. Lyman Cornwell was mayor. Two of the three churches had no pastor. There were, however, still three lodges surviving. Businesses included one cigar store, a drugstore, one dry goods, one saloon, one shoe store, two physicians, two grocers.

Anaconda would continue to downsize in the coming years. There were 130 residents left when the post office closed on March 31, 1909. In 1911 the post office reopened during a small surge in mining, and 200 people called Anaconda home in 1912. Only a confectionary store and a grocery, however, represented the business section. Five years later, the post office closed a final time. By 1920, any remaining residents of Anaconda were listed as part of the nearby town of Victor in the census. A few mines did continue to survive around Anaconda. One of them was the Mary McKinney, which finally closed in 1953 after producing $11 million in Gold.

For years, Anaconda’s main street was an empty dirt road with a few buildings scattered about. The Mary McKinney’s huge cribbing paralleled the highway. In Squaw Gulch, only faint remnants of Barry and Mound City could be seen, including the jail. Beginning in 1967, the Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad in Cripple Creek brought visitors on a four mile scenic tour from Cripple Creek to Anaconda. The trip dead-ended at the old blacksmith barn for the Mary McKinney, one of the few relics left of Anaconda. A year later, the CCVNG recovered the former Midland Terminal Depot at Bull Hill and moved it to their property in Cripple Creek.

Anaconda remained a highly popular spot for history buffs and ghost town hunters. Tragically, however, in April of 1984 Anaconda made the news when 23-year old Wayne Tease, of Colorado Springs, suffered a fatal fall down an old mine shaft at the Mary McKinney. Due to the depth of the shaft, one thousand feet, authorities could do little to retrieve the body short of slinking a camera down the shaft to identify Tease. The only thing his family could do was erect a small memorial to him at the shaft where he died. Over time, the story took on some interesting twists. It took Tease’s mother fourteen years to obtain a death certificate for her son. Then in 2011, it was discovered that modern mining operations by the Cripple Creek/Victor Mine were slated to cover the shaft. Although the mine offered to move the memorial, the family objected since the shaft was considered by them to be a grave for their son. After negotiations which lasted a year or better, and with no law to stop them, the mine proceeded with their plans. Today there is barely anything left of Anaconda, nor the little valley below it which once led to Shelf Road, which is still used to access towns south of the Cripple Creek District.

Image: Famed Colorado photographer William Henry Jackson captured Anaconda during the 1890s. Library of Congress.

Altman, the Wickedest Town in Colorado’s Cripple Creek District

c 2022 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article are from Jan’s book, Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County, Colorado

Nobody seems to agree about the exact altitude of Altman, one of the more notorious towns of the Cripple Creek District. The 1894 Cripple Creek District directory located the town at 10,500 feet. Author Robert L. Brown reported that Altman sat at 10,700′. Historian Allan C. Lewis more accurately calculated the town’s height at 11,150′. Newspapers of the day claimed the town sat at 11,650′. The Colorado State Business Directory of 1908 guessed the altitude to be 11,146 feet. The Cripple Creek District Directory for 1915-16 claimed an altitude of 10,728 feet. At the very least, everyone agrees that during its heyday, Altman was the highest incorporated city in the United States. Altman citizens, and later historians, also liked to claim the town was actually the highest in the world. It wasn’t, according to Brown, who said that honor actually went to La Paz, Bolivia.

What is known for sure is that Altman, situated at the top of the Cripple Creek District with a clear view of Pike’s Peak, was platted on September 25, 1893 by Samuel Altman. In 1891, Sam owned the Altman Mill in Squaw Gulch a mile or so away. He also owned two local mines. Further away, Sam also operated a sawmill in Park County’s town, Lake George, during the 1890’s. Altman had purchased the Free Coinage Mine on Bull Hill before founding his namesake town nearby.

In its infancy, Altman grew very quickly. The population may have soared as high as 1,200 in 1893. The main thoroughfares included Main, Baldwin and Brown Streets. Business buildings were of the wood, false fronted variety. Four restaurants, six saloons, six grocery stores, a schoolhouse and 200 homes already dotted the hillside by the time the town was platted. Almost immediately, a few roughnecks moved into town. On October 10, 1893 four newcomers, Felix Parrow, Robert McCullough, Harry Cavanaugh and Jim McDonald showed up at W.R. Goodey’s saloon. The men spent a most pleasant night playing cards for drinks. Around 4 a.m., however, the men suddenly broke into a fight as a ruse to rob the place.

During the fray, barkeeper John Ashby was whacked in the head with a gun and “laid out”, while faro dealer J.S. Bush was disarmed. In all, the robbers took $610.00 in cash and another $350.00 in checks, along with five gold watches and a pair of bracelets. Within a day, however, one of the robbers had already been arrested. Next, in November, ex-prizefighter George Lear was labeled a “Green Monster” by newspapers when he shot and killed a dance hall girl named Irene Goode in a jealous rage. Lear got his; a short time later, Altman bartender Sam Jones killed Lear at Kilday & Sullivan’s Saloon.

As of January 1894, Altman’s population was guessed to be around 2,000 residents. Prominent citizens included Peter Hettig, who was credited with opening the very first store in nearby Cripple Creek when that town was founded. Likewise, Hettig also opened the first store on Bull Hill near the Pharmacist Mine. Altman’s authorities likely hoped for the best as a post office was established on January 18, 1894 in what was then El Paso County. But even this news, was soon overshadowed as Altman unwittingly became a major player in the labor war of 1893-94. Beginning February 1 local mine owners, including Sam Altman, changed their employees’ work day from eight to nine hours per day—for the same daily wage of three dollars. Rather than bow down, however, the miners took matters into their own hands and simply walked off the job on February 2.

As word spread through the District, the residents of Altman decided to drive their point home—by leaving altogether. “The entire population of the camp packed up their effects,” reported the Aspen Daily Times on February 7, “and a motley procession was formed, including miners, saloonkeepers and their outfits, merchants with their stocks and the denizens of the brothels. The hilarious cavalcade moved to Cripple Creek and within a few hours the camp was deserted.” Other miners expressed their desire to follow suit, and a walkout from every mine in the camp was planned for February 8.

Failing to get a proper response to their actions, the population of Altman was soon back, openly declaring their hometown a union town. Most of the residents were pro-union anyway and before long, the Free Coinage Union Local No. 19 opened its doors for the first time. In the meantime, mine owners succeeded in procuring court orders to cease striking, but they were to no avail. As the highest town in the District, Altman afforded views in all directions and offered relative security from invading forces. The Western Federation of Miners (W.F.M.), led by John Calderwood, soon found a home in town and successfully closed Altman to all but union men. Union membership cards were required of anyone wishing to enter town.

Angered mine owners next hired a number of temporary deputies to disperse the miners at Altman. During one encounter in March, six sheriff’s deputies on their way to Altman were accosted by the town’s own police staff. A fist fight broke out and shots were fired. One deputy was wounded, and two others were arrested for carrying concealed weapons. El Paso County Sheriff Frank Bowers was enraged and sent a message to Colorado Governor Davis H. Waite. He claimed a deputy was actually killed, Waite later said; hence, the governor allowed fifty special sheriffs to be deputized and sent up from Colorado Springs.

Embellishments such as Bowers’ fib to Governor Waite continued. Adjutant General Thomas J. Tarsney also received word that the strikers were rioting and causing mayhem. Tarsney hurried to the Altman but encountered only “disheartened but dedicated miners” and was ready to rescind his offer of assistance by the time Bowers secured numerous warrants against the men. Tarsney also played witness as the men surrendered. Only one was tried and acquitted, the others released without going to trial. Bowers’ actions incensed the strikers. On May 25 a group of men attacked the Strong Mine above Victor, disarmed the guards and blew the mine to smithereens. Only three men who were in the mine at the time suffered no more than shock from the explosion. A short time later, during a clash of mining strikers versus Colorado Springs deputies and a number of anti-union men, two strikers were killed and five were arrested.

More violence followed; in June another scuffle broke out as deputies cut the telegraph wires at Altman, arrested reporters who were covering the event and were exchanging gunfire with miners on Bull Hill when a fresh militia was sent by Governor Waite. But so many lies were being told by men on either side of the war that Waite ultimately visited Altman himself and called for a civil mediation in Colorado Springs. On June 11, the strike was finally settled.

Altman recovered nicely from the labor war, but continued on its raucous path. By late 1894 the population was said to have soared to more than two thousand people. Businesses were flourishing. They included the two-story Hill Top Hotel, the Altman Oyster and Chop House, the Belmont Restaurant, a watchmaker and jeweler, and several general merchandise stores, restaurants, laundries, books and stationary stores, bakeries, liveries and boarding houses. There were also six saloons where hard-working miners toasted their town on a regular basis. Adjacent Towns. Cripple Creek, CO: Hazeltine & Co., publishers, May 1, 1894 p. 148-149)

When authorities announced plans to close the growing community’s post office and move it to the town of Independence down the mountain in 1895, the citizens protested at an “indignation meeting”. The problem, postal authorities explained, was that Altman was simply too darn high to be lugging mail up and down the mountain. It was a hard point to argue. In the end it was agreed that all mail for Altman would be directed to Cripple Creek. From there, the mail would be delivered to Altman by Faharbeck Brothers express company, and distributed by M.L. Dowling. A telegraph was also sent to the House of Representatives, explaining the situation and requesting an investigation into the matter. The post office was indeed moved to Independence during the investigation, but a month later it was re-established at Altman. The citizens had conquered once again.

With their post office back in place, the outlaws around Altman felt free to start their shenanigans once more. In March of 1895 a four-horse stage was coming down the hill from town when three men jumped out of nowhere. In their attempt to stop the stage, one of the men grabbed the lead horse’s bridles. Instead of slowing down, however, the stage driver simply snapped his whip. The horses “made a jump and rushed down the road, throwing the would-be robber to the ground and apparently running over him.” As much as Altman’s citizens declined to put up with much, however, the town did gain a reputation for being a rough-and-tumble sort of place. History buffs over time have sometimes stretched the truth, stating that the local undertaker even offered to give group rates for funerals on Saturdays. When poet and Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph columnist Rufus L. Porter wrote a ballad about the town’s first marshal, Mike McKinnon, dying after a gunfight with six Texans (but not, allegedly, before he killed all six outlaws), people accepted the story as fact.

Porter may have actually been recalling a real scenario which played out in May of 1895. In that case, outlaw gangster “General” Jack Smith dueled it out with Marshal Jack Kelley. Smith had been running amuck for some time, and had been warned by Kelley to stop trying “to run the town in his usual style.” On May 14, 1895, Smith wrapped up a night of drinking by shooting the locks off of the Altman jail. Inside were two of his buddies, who had already been arrested for drunkenness. Smith wisely left town as soon as his friends were free, but the next day a constable named Lupton and one Frank Vanneck located him in a Victor saloon. “I want you Jack,” Lupton said, to which Smith replied, “If you want me, then read your warrant.” As Lupton began reading the warrant, Smith appeared to go for his gun. The constable quickly pinned down the outlaw’s arms while Vanneck shoved a gun to Smith’s chest. Smith was taken to court and a hearing was set with a bond of three hundred dollars. The angry outlaw bonded out immediately and was next seen riding towards Altman “with the open declaration of doing up the marshal who swore the complaint.”

Lupton made a quick call up to Altman (presumably by telegraph) to warn of Smith’s threat. Then he mounted his own horse and headed for the town with Victor Deputy Sheriff Benton. Meanwhile, Smith had made it to Altman where he gathered a small force of men including one named George Popst. The bunch headed to Gavin and Toohey’s Saloon, where Smith started ordering one drink after another. Outside, Lupton and Benton met up with Marshal Kelley and set out in search of the “General”. Kelley “had just lifted the latch of Lavine and Touhey’s [sic] saloon, when ‘crack’ went a gun from the inside. The ball struck the latch and glanced off.” Kelley threw the door open and shot Smith just below the heart. From the floor, Smith emptied his gun and Kelley continued shooting him. Outside, Deputy Benton fired a shot through the window that hit Popst. “The latter may recover,” predicted the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper, “but Smith is certain to die.” Popst also died, about a week later.

Marshal Kelley had barely recovered from the ghastly shoot out with General Jack when a bartender at another saloon was killed and robbed in early September. This time, two men entered the place which was occupied by the barkeep and two other men. The robbers abruptly shouted “Throw up your hands!” even as one of them shot the bartender three times. “And this is after he had thrown up his hands,” it was noted, “a signal which even bandits respect.” The bandits only netted seventy dollars for their trouble, because the bartender had wisely hidden the bulk of his nightly proceeds in a safe place before he was killed. The robbers remained elusive to authorities until two men fitting their descriptions turned up in the El Paso County jail for robbing a Wells Fargo Express. Kelley lost no time in visiting the jail to see the men, Lloyd Marye and Pete Wilson. The men were indeed the ones Kelley was looking for.

Surprisingly, the gritty events at Altman were not enough to deter the Denver Chamber of Commerce from coming through for a day visit later that month. And when the Miners Union Ball was hosted in Altman in December, an advertisement promised the dance would “be the event of the season.” Residents around Altman, including families, miners and business folk, clearly learned to work around the rowdy outbursts of certain citizens. In January of 1896 Mr. and Mrs. H. Wolf were driving the road up to Altman from Goldfield when two men stopped them. The gentlemen bandits relieved Mr. Wolf of his valuables, but let Mrs. Wolf keep hers. A short time later the men, identified as Mike McMillan and Jack Haggerty, were arrested in Goldfield.

Altman was finally incorporated on July 25, 1896 and David B. Rhoads was declared the first official mayor. Within a year, the population was said to have doubled to 1,000 people. Serving the citizens of Altman were an assayer, bakery, drugstore, general merchandise store, grocery, hotel, jeweler, shoemaker and tailor, also two dry goods stores, two liveries, two meat markets, two physicians and two restaurants. Four barbers were also on hand. Six saloons served thirsty miners at all hours of the day and night. They included the Thirst Parlor, The Mint, The Silver Dollar, and the Monte Carlo. Newcomers and visitors to town could choose from eight boardinghouses. Around the town, approximately thirty seven mines employed miners and other blue collar workers. Their children attended the Altman School, overseen by schoolmaster Thomas Roundtree. For the ladies, Mitchell’s Millinery offered stylish hats. And, Altman’s own Weekly Champion newspaper reported the goings-on through the whole town.

In June, Sam Altman began suffering financial woes starting with a lawsuit against his Free Coinage mine. Back in January of 1896, he had already sold his interest in the Free Coinage mine to fellow mine owner Sam Strong. Altman eventually moved to Colorado Springs, where he died in 1922. Long before that, Altman’s town carried on swimmingly. In April of 1896 it had been announced that a new water works plant was being planned. And in October, the Florence & Cripple Creek railroad announced plans to build a spur to Altman. Soon, Altman had grown large enough to begin calling a portion of it “South Altman”. Amongst the fancier hotels at Altman during 1897 was the Altman Hotel and the Hill Top Hotel.

Altman was just starting to look like a real first class city when another shooting occurred, in April of 1897. The perpetrator in this case was Jack Cox, who had been in Cripple Creek since 1895 after being pardoned for murder. Cox had been gambling and drinking all night at McElroy and Coll’s Saloon. With him were his best friend, Bob Daily, also another friend, Sam Loshey. At 10 a.m. the next morning, Cox and his friends were still at it when a fight broke out. Said to be “crazed with liquor”, Cox opened fire and killed Daily. He shot at bartender J.C. McElroy too, but missed. His third shot killed Loshey, too.

Following the shootings, Cox ran for the door. On his way out he encountered Harry Miner, another friend whose mother ran the boarding house where Cox lived. Miner was also shot, which fortunately only broke his arm. Out on the street, Cox saw Town Marshal Ed O’Brien coming and fired yet again. This time the marshal returned fire, seriously wounding the murderer. Cox lived to stand trial, but three witnesses on the stand didn’t seem to know why the fight broke out. After some confusion, Cox finally explained that the “witnesses” were actually his gang members, and the argument had been over stolen goods. The men were arrested. In the end, Cox was found guilty of murder. He was lucky, as Colorado’s death penalty had only recently been abolished by the legislature. 

By August of 1897, Altman’s baseball team was playing other District teams regularly at Mt. Pisgah Gardens outside of Cripple Creek. Later that same month, Miss Marie Nelson, a professional singer and former student at Altman’s school, returned to perform for her home town. By September, however, the natives were restless yet again. This time, miners Pat Gildea and Jerry O’Donnell had a round at Goodley’s Saloon. The two had been at each other since an altercation during the Corbett-Fitzsimmons boxing match clear back in March. At Goodley’s, Gildea was arguing with saloon manager George Savadge when O’Donnell decided to chime in. “Maybe you want some of this yourself,” sneered Gildea, striking O’Donnell twice in the face and knocking him down. Then he gave him a kick for good measure. O’Donnell rose to his feet. He was covered in blood, and mad. “You wouldn’t do this if I hadn’t been drinking, and I don’t believe you can whip me anyway!” he retorted. The fight was on. This time, when Gildea hit O’Donnell in the face again, the latter pulled a knife and sliced his opponent right across the guts. Gildea was able to run outside, bring in a rock and clobber O’Donnell again before onlookers broke up the fight. By the next day, Gildea was suffering terribly with internal bleeding and died soon after. O’Donnell was arrested.

During 1898, Altman’s bad boys seemed to calm down a bit. In its New Year’s Day edition, the Cripple Creek Morning Times noted South Altman was “a place worthy of commendation”, and explained that “more miners make their home in Altman than any other town in the district.” The town appeared to be doing just fine with a population of 2,000, electric lights, a telephone company and a postal telegraph company. The Florence & Cripple Creek apparently concluded there was no way to lay tracks to the high town, but residents were still hoping that David Moffatt’s Golden Circle railway would come there instead. Meanwhile, Altman continued living up to the Morning Times‘ expectations. By February the city had its own Bull Hill Literary Society, a French club and a Ladies’ Aid Society. Crimes were still being committed, but they were half hearted efforts at best. When two men robbed Mutterer and Blass’ Saloon, they only got four dollars and nobody was even hurt.

The dwindling crime element took an even stranger turn one night in October when Edward Callahan ran into police headquarters at Cripple Creek. He told officers he was turning himself in for shooting two men at Altman. Callahan was out of breath, he said, because “he had started to this city on horseback but could not ride fast enough, so he had jumped off the horse and run. [And] it was very evident that he had run,” according to the Cripple Creek Morning Times. After some investigation, Marshal O’Brien finally found a witness to the shooting. The man said he had seen Callahan fire his Winchester twice at hillside, but he hadn’t shot at anybody. Meanwhile, Callahan “told a marvelously bloody tale of how he had shot the two men all to pieces, but every time he told it, the story took on new phases, until it was clear that he was non compos mentis.” The police put him in jail until they could take him to Colorado Springs and “care for him.”

Another rather comical event was said to have taken place in December of 1899. The Denver Times reported that Mayor Thomas Ferroll decided the people of Altman had no need for that newfangled contraption called a telephone. When the Colorado Telephone Company attempted to install telephone poles in town, Ferroll retaliated by chopping two poles down. The mayor was made to pay for the poles, as well as the wages of the telephone workers. Ultimately, Altman did succeed in obtaining a single telephone located at Morrison & McMillan’s store.

Although the population had dropped in half by 1900, Altman still retained its school and city hall. In addition to the usual saloons, there were also two restaurants, a drugstore, assay office, two mercantiles, and four boardinghouses. There was even a Justice of the Peace and a volunteer fire department. As promised, the Golden Circle railroad was providing transportation to a station just west of Altman. Citizens could also frequent a number of organizations including the Home Forum Benefit Order, and two chapters of the Red Men. Two unions prospered as well: the Free Coinage Miners’ Union, and the Stationary Engineers’ Union. And as usual, there were four saloons in which to whoop it up on Saturday night. There were two churches too, and one of them oversaw the marriage of mining millionaire Sam Strong to Altman resident Regina Neville. The couple had barely been pronounced husband and wife, however, before one of a string of lawsuits were served on the philandering Strong by various women. The suits were settled, but Strong was later killed by Sherman Crumley’s brother, Grant, at Cripple Creek in 1901.

it was the 1902 Cripple Creek District Directory that first boasted that Altman was the highest incorporated city in the world. The population of 1,500 was comprised of citizens within the city limits, but also those “who receive their mail at that point as well as those who have no regular postoffice address, giving locations where possible.” Businesses in town had dwindled to three barbers, three dressmakers and three saloons, but only one each of such important places like assayers, drugstores, general merchandise stores, hotels, meat markets, restaurants and shoe stores. There was only a single physician remaining as well. Then, in 1903, a fire destroyed most of the town.

The conflagration broke out in the early morning hours at Mrs. Ollie Davisson’s Altman Hotel. The fire had been raging for some time before it was discovered, and when firemen tried hooking their hoses to the hydrants they found the faucets had been “tampered with”. It took four hours to fix the hydrants, during which some buildings were dynamited in an attempt to keep the fire from spreading. All was for naught. By the time surrounding fire departments had arrived to help, the entire business district and numerous homes were in ashes. In the wake of the fire, it was noted that this was the second time someone had tried to set fire to Mrs. Davisson’s hotel, also that red pepper had been spread around the scene to deter bloodhounds. Soon it was discovered that Mrs. Davisson had set the fire herself. She was arrested, along with her housemaid, miners Neal Osborne, Thomas Deetson and a man named Johns, and even Altman Water Company manager J. W. Dumpee.

Further news of Altman’s fire was lost in the shuffle as the Cripple Creek District launched into a second labor strike. The labor strike of 1904 was even worse than the one ten years before. Altman had no time to set up a fortress like before, and the militia plopped down in the middle of town before anyone could do anything. Eventually, the union lost the war and their members were forced to leave town at gunpoint.

Altman’s population continued to fall, totaling only 900 people by 1907. “While many of the rich mining properties of the District are located in the neighborhood,” explained the Cripple Creek District directory that year, “the facilities for reaching the valley towns are so excellent that many of the miners prefer to travel back and forth rather than to reside at so high an altitude.” Only a dozen businesses remained. A year later the population was reported at 150 residents, with only eight business men and women appearing in the Colorado State Business Directory. The post office closed on May 20, 1911.

For a few more years, one or two businesses clung to life at Altman. By 1915 those left at Altman began receiving their mail at Independence, and were considered residents of that town thereafter. Even so, Altman’s Mayor, Frank Dorethy, and other government officials were listed separately in the directory. John Giblin was still mayor pro-tem in 1917, but no businesses appeared in the Cripple Creek District Directory at all. The town was eventually vacated for good. Most of the buildings were gone by 1937, although some buildings on Main Street still stood as late as the 1960’s. Among these was the city hall, still containing a large safe. The remaining buildings swayed with time, and a few even survived into the 1980’s when the road to Altman was closed by a modern mining interests. Today the mine, recently acquired by Newmont Mining Corporation, let visitors up a graded road to the American Eagles Mine. A gate up top used to lead to Altman. But finding Altman is literally impossible today, for even the mountain where it once stood no longer exists.

Image: A colored postcard shows Altman circa 1899. Pikes Peak is visible in the background. Courtesy Jan MacKell Collins