Winfield Scott Stratton, Colorado’s Mystifying Millionaire

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Colorado, and especially the Cripple Creek District, are well familiar with Winfield Scott Stratton, the man whose Independence Mine made him a millionaire almost overnight. Between that and his other mines, Stratton’s daily income once peaked at some $12,000 per day. Per. Day. But so unlike other rich mining men who openly flaunted their wealth, threw their weight around, and paraded around the world as some of the most affluent socialites of their time, Stratton’s money bothered him a great deal. So did the slew of women, both wicked and chaste, who hoped to wile him into marrying them, or at least giving them money.

A carpenter by trade, Stratton began dabbling in mining as early as 1874. Urged by his friend, Bob Womack, Stratton arrived in Cripple Creek in 1891 divorced, broke, and tired. He was, after all, already in his 40’s when he invested in the Independence Mine. Within an amazingly short time, Stratton was wealthy far beyond his means, or anyone else’s for that matter. But he never saw his wealth as a healthy asset. “Too much money is not good for any man,” he once said. “I have too much and it is not good for me.” So rather than join the elite jetsetters who built extravagent mansions along Millionaires Row in Colorado Springs and traveled the world, Stratton continued to live a somewhat simple life, preferring to donate his wealth rather than flaunt it. Carefully choosing his own charities, on his own time, was the ultimate power the man could excercise.

For nearly 11 years, everyone wanted a piece of the man who bascially hid from sight in his modest homes (first at the town of Indpendence and later in Colorado Springs), morosely sipping whiskey and finding ways to terrorize his female house staff. It wasn’t the women’s faults, by any means. It was just that, especially after he became obscenely rich, Stratton felt like everyone was out to get his money. And no doubt some of them were. Even today, the female historians among us must sometimes wonder if, had we known him, we could bring him out of his melancholy state, tame his temper, and perhaps even marry right into his fat pocketbook. Probably not. Although he immersed himeself in culture, Stratton was not so much prone to attending the theater, or any public affairs. His social activities, from what is known about him, tended to focus on floosies like the future madam Laura Evens of Salida and other wanton women. And, anyone familiar with the zodiac signs knows that Cancers (Stratton was born July 22) in general hide in their shells and will not come out no matter how long or hard you poke them with a stick. Only they can choose when to come out into the light of day, and Stratton was no exception.

In spite of his refusal to follow the Big Book of Societal Rules for Millionaires of the 1890’s, Winfield Scott Stratton was indeed a generous man. For a few years, his good deeds were the stuff of gossip and speculation among his peers and fellow citizens. There was the time, for instance, that he spied his laundress bringing his freshly pressed shirts to him on foot. Upon learning that the lady could not afford so much as a bicycle to transport her goods, Stratton was said to have purchased the two-wheeled vehicles for every washerwoman in Colorado Springs. He also was known to reward his favorite employees by purchasing homes for them. Such sweet stories were countered by the one about the time Stratton and some dame (allegedly Madam Hazel Vernon of Cripple Creek) stumbled into the prestigious Brown Palace Hotel in Denver during a wretched storm. Stratton was ordered by an imperious employee to remove himself and his muddy boots from the lobby. The temperamental tycoon retaliated by purchasing the hotel outright so he could fire the employee. But Stratton’s unbridled generosity during Cripple Creek’s two disastrous fires in 1896 is a bonafide example of how he really did care for those with less, and jumped without hesitation to the rescue for thousands of people.

The two infamous fires of Cripple Creek, which destroyed much of the town, happened within four days of each other during April of 1896. Lost were nearly the entire business district along Bennett Avenue, the red-light district along Myers Avenue, and hundreds of homes. Five thousand people were left with no house, no food, no clothing. Although some of them filtered over to the nearby towns of Anaconda, Elkton and Victor, supplies throughout the whole district quickly ran dangerously low. Stratton, who was in Colorado Springs at the time, had gathered with his fellow millionaires to listen to the news via the primitive telephone system. As the devastation of the first fire during the afternoon on April 25th was described in detail, Stratton jumped into action and formed a relief committee like no other. Billing everything to himself, he lost no time in procuring a special two-car train to make the needed trip to Cripple Creek. In the meantime, volunteers were rounded up to gather as many supplies as they could.

Within hours, cases of food, blankets, tents and clothing were stacked into freight wagons and hauled to the Colorado Midland Depot at nearby Colorado City. It is said Stratton even commissioned Colorado College students to collect more food door-to-door, and that the effort took every available loaf of bread in Colorado Springs. The train began chugging towards Cripple Creek at 5 p.m., with stops at Chipeta Park, Green Mountain Falls, Crystola and Woodland Park to pick up more supplies. As the train made its way up Ute Pass, well-wishers ran alongside, tossing even more items to workers on the cars. At Divide, the goods were transferred quickly to Midland Terminal trains as more items were added.

The sight of Stratton’s relief train chugging into Cripple Creek that night must have brought tears to many an eye. It took most of the night to distribute supplies, which were handed out at the Midland Terminal Depot on Bennett Avenue (one of only a couple of buildings to survive the fire) and loaded onto wagons. Another relief train departed Colorado Springs at 2 a.m. with even more supplies, including furniture, liquor and cooking utensils. Even more supplies were sent after the second fire on April 29 burned more homes and businesses. Whether he liked it or not, Stratton’s selfless act made him a hero to many in the Cripple Creek District.

Naturally Stratton’s actions generated a lot of hero worship for the man in Colorado Springs, as well. During his time there, Stratton shaped so-called “Little London’s” distinguished reputation as a city of wealth by providing land on which to erect such opulent buildings as the City Hall, the El Paso County Courthouse, the Post Office, and two other important structures he was associated with: the Mining Exchange Building and the Independence Building. In addition, he bought and significantly improved the Colorado Springs and Interurban Railway, and oversaw construction of a professional baseball stadium where the “Colorado Springs Millionaires” team played. It is doubtful, however, that he ever attended a game. In fact, about the only place he ever went when he left his home was to his office in the Independence Building just a few blocks away. And when a lavish banquet was later thrown in his honor at the prestigious Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs, they say, Stratton stubbornly declined to attend.

For the rest of his life, Stratton remained as reclusive as ever. Curious is that he does not seem to appear in the 1900 census, anywhere. Odds are that he was holed up in his home on Weber Street in Colorado Springs (which sadly no longer stands), and outright refused to answer the door. That command would have been extended to his housekeeper, Eliza – the only one of his employees to put up with his shenannigans and who dared to talk back to him. It was a trait that Stratton would secretly admire. But by 1902, he was even more withdrawn and suffering from liver disease – the penalty for drinking like a fish in his efforts to escape from his wealthy status. He died on September 14 and, quite possibly against his wishes, was buried with much ceremony in Colorado Springs’ Evergreen Cemetery.

Stratton’s last great contribution was leaving money in his will to build the Myron Stratton Home, an expansive institution with beautiful grounds where orphaned children and the poor of El Paso and Teller counties could live and be treated with respect. He would be mortified if he knew that his last act of kindness was immediately cast into litigation for nearly 11 years as would-be heirs, supposed wives, and other so-called constituents battled over his fortune. In the end, however, the Myron Stratton Home won out and remains among the best assisted living facilities today, with private residences and other amenities seldom seen in the land of elder care. Today, Stratton’s buildings, a statue, Stratton Park, and other landmarks in Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek pay tribute to Winfield Scott Stratton. But it remains a shame that one of Colorado’s biggest, and most eccentric, philanthropists died without realizing the true appreciation so many felt for him, and his unwanted money.

Image courtesy of the Myron Stratton Home

Rufus Porter, The Hard-Rock Poet of Colorado’s Cripple Creek District

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Parts of this article are excerpted from Cripple Creek District: Last of Colorado’s Gold Booms.

“I ask no miracles of the muse,

I would not write like an old Khayyam,

The little talent that I use

Must show me only as I am.”

                        —Rufus Porter

As Colorado history goes, Cripple Creek District in Colorado remains at the forefront as the site of the last great gold boom in the Centennial State. Between 1891 and 1920, hundreds of mines, 25 towns and camps, three railroads, and thousands of people infiltrated a 24-square mile area, and generated a history quite unlike no other. Today, collectors of Cripple Creek memorabilia can consider themselves lucky to have the works of Rufus L. Porter among their treasures. From his arrival in Colorado in about 1915 to his death in 1979, Porter served as a blue-collar historian for the Cripple Creek District. Today, his home-spun yarns and poetry about life as it really was in the Cripple Creek District have survived in the way of columns for the Colorado Springs Gazette, as well as his own self-published books, as a crucial part of the District’s history.

Born in 1897 in Minnesota, Porter’s family had moved to Colorado Springs by the time his sister, Vera, was born in 1915. Two years later, Porter visited the Cripple Creek District and became enamored with the fading gold district. For a time, he remained in Colorado Springs, marrying his wife, Martha, and working as a coal miner in one of the 50 mines in the Rockrimmon and and Cragmoor area. By the time the Porter’s second child, Robert, was born in 1926, the family had migrated to Cripple Creek District where Rufus leased his own mine. Porter would later recall that the family initially stayed at the once-prestigious National Hotel in Cripple Creek, as well as the Baltimore Hotel in Victor, before moving into a house in Cripple Creek.

Following the death of their young daughter Doris, in 1932, the Porters returned to Colorado Springs for a few years (another daughter, also had died at the age of four years in 1925). Several years and two more children later, the Porter family returned to the Cripple Creek District. This time they settled in Goldfield, and Rufus went to work for the famous Cresson Mine. By his own account, he also worked at the Jay Gould Mine on Tenderfoot Hill, the Little Longfellow, and the Rigi. In between, he leased properties on Bull Hill and in other areas. He was working at the Vindicator Mine in 1940 when he fell 50 feet down the No. 12 shaft, breaking four vertebrae.

It took some two years for Porter to recover from his injuries, during which time he returned to Colorado Springs and eventually got a job as Chief Metallurgist for the Golden Cycle Mill. But he had also taken up a hobby, writing. For the next several years, Porter scribbled scores of poems and anecdotes about the Cripple Creek District, writing ballads about the people he knew and focusing on the District’s many colorful characters. In 1953, he published his first book, The Fiddler on Wilson Creek. The tome was a collection of poetry illustrated with historic images and Porter’s own photos depicting landscapes and characters of the district. A year later, a second book, Gold Fever, was published as well, and included tales of local folklore, as well as Porter’s recollections of his time in the District.

Now, Rufus balanced his time in Colorado Springs with extended trips to the Cripple Creek District, where he was known as the “Hard Rock Poet” and quite a colorful character himself. Of Cripple Creek’s annual Donkey Derby Days celebration in 1954, he would remember attending with his beloved donkey, Esau. “We won first prize in the whisker contest and second in the parade,” Porter he said. Those who remember the well-known billboards of the past advertising Cripple Creek will recall a miner and his donkey proclaiming, “Yonder is Cripple Creek!” That was, indeed, Rufus and Esau.

Sadly, Porter’s son Robert, a Navy veteran, was working in a local mine when he was accidentally electrocuted later that same time. Rufus battled his grief by even more. In the interest of discretion, Rufus rarely “named names,” preferring his own self-styled nicknames for the people whose stories he told. Thus the true identities of such characters as Bohunk Stan, Honest John the High-Grader, Greasy Miller of Gillette, Buffalo Brown, Old Man Oliver, Bathless Bill, Sloppy Frank and Kettle Belly Martin have been lost to history. Careful examination of the works, however, will also reveal several true historic figures—Sam Stumpff, Pat McCain, Dan O’Hara, and Tom and Ace Morris, just to name a few.

The characters in Porter’s books added much flavor to his perspective on the very real aspects of gold camp life. His often humorous anecdotes covered a wide range of real-life adventures, from fishing and hunting to high-grading, from gambling to ghost towns. He even had a favored camping spot, which he called “Poet’s Peak.” Porter was blatantly honest, too. Of the bawdy district of Cripple Creek in the face of government officials trying to ignore their naughty past, Porter wrote,

“Now sin and lust I ain’t defendin’,

But history must be fair,

And there ain’t no use in pretendin’

That Myers Avenue wasn’t there.”

In 1961 Porter published yet another booklet, Pay Dirt. As with his previous books, most of Porter’s stories were told with a tongue-in-cheek style. The tales could, however, occasionally take a gruesome turn. In writing of the “big Swede” who suffered a stroke and died in a shaft of the Golden Cycle Mine, Porter wrote, “…after workin’ for an hour without bein’ able to budge him, we decided that the only way we’d ever get him out of there was to saw his legs off. But by that time rigor mortis had set in…since he had no known kin we considered it more humane to leave him where he was…”

Following the closing of the Carlton Mill in 1962, Porter’s writings eventually caught the eye of the Colorado Springs Gazette editors, and he was hired as a regular columnist as he continued writing his little books. In 1966 he published a fourth work, The Saga of Dynamite Dan. Now, Porter’s tales earned him notoriety as a popular guest speaker and exhibitor of his own extensive gold ore sample collection. He also wrote several more books. Each effort supported Porter’s hope and theory that someday, the Cripple Creek District would boom once more.

In about 1978, for reasons known only to themselves, Rufus and Martha moved to Riverside, California. A scribbled note from Rufus to Colorado historian, author and Cripple Creek District Museum curator Leland Feitz in January of 1979 noted, “I am writing for Western Publications, Inc. Got a check for $150.00. By the way, I may be back next year. I don’t like Calif.” The letter included an historic photograph from the Cripple Creek District. “I’m going to have a print of it framed and give it to the museum in Cripple Creek,” Feitz wrote back. In response, Rufus typed a cryptic reply on Feitz’s letter on February 16, ending with, “Hope to hear frrom [sic] you soon. Rufus.” Later that day Porter passed away at the age of 81. His body, as well as that of Martha’s a year later, were returned to Colorado for burial in Colorado Springs.

Rufus Porter’s legacy has indeed lived on in the Cripple Creek District. His series of booklets were later published by his late nephew, Forest Porter, and are now highly collectible. And, after years of sitting forgotten, his charming little cabin in Goldfield is now privately owned and lovingly protected and cared for. Most interesting is Rufus Porter’s prediction that some day, the Cripple Creek District would boom once more, has come to fruition. Today, Newmont Mining is the largest gold mining operation in the state, and the City of Cripple Creek has legalized gambling. It’s a far cry from the days when Rufus saw two fellows spitting at a crack in the sidewalk for $20 gold pieces.

Special thank you to the memory of Forest Porter, a nephew of Rufus who corresponded with me regarding his charming uncle.

Bison Park: Victor, Colorado’s Private Playground

c 2022 by Jan MacKell Collins

This article is an excerpt from Collins’ book, Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County, Colorado.

Local legend records Bison as a logging camp dating to the 1860s and located between Cow Mountain and Pikes Peak near today’s Cripple Creek District. The east fork of West Beaver Creek feeds today’s Bison Reservoir, which, in turn, drains into Bison Creek running south. In 1874, Quincy King, who had just recently discovered the eventual nearby resort of Seven Lakes, partnered with two other men to form the “Smith, King and Unrue” mining claim in Bison Valley on the east fork of Beaver Creek.

The few mine diggings aside, Bison Park remained a pristine and most scenic area. Here, a road wound through lush trees to a quiet, wooded valley which opened into wide green meadows. Amazingly beautiful rock formations towered around the valley. Cabin ruins in the woods today attest to times when people worked or lived in the area. The remaining treasures also include a small Victorian home, built as a caretaker’s house in 1893. The spacious floor plan allowed for two bedrooms, a parlor, a dining area and a kitchen.

As the Cripple Creek District gold mining boom got under way, real estate men flocked in droves to settle small towns throughout the area. On July 2, 1895, a plat map for the “Bison Park Town Site” was surveyed by R.W. Bradshaw and filed in El Paso County. The map reads more like an advertisement, with the following description:

“Bison Park is a romantic and picturesque place. It is in the main mineral belt south of the Peak and is already surrounded with good mines. It is also on the established route of the [Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District] Railroad. Hence it is destined to become a town of considerable importance. Moral: Buy lots while they are cheap.”

Alas, the railroad declined to pass by Bison Park’s remote location, and the plat map shows that the town was vacated in September, 1895. The scenic valley was not lost, however, on the nearby City of Victor. In July 1901, the city proposed purchasing 213 acres of the park from the owner, a woman named Mary Miller, for $10,000. The plan was to build a reservoir as a water supply for local residents. The Altman Water Company, which already sold water to Victor, raised a slight ruckus at the idea. In the end, however, the city successfully completed the purchase. Bison Reservoir was constructed in about 1901. Several mining claims—namely, the Park Placer, Park Placer No. 2, Old No. 9 and a small portion of the Maggie A—were covered with water. As for Bison Park, the area remained as gorgeous and pristine as it ever was.

In more modern times, Bison continues to serve as Victor’s water supply but is also home to the Gold Camp Fishing Club. Membership to the club is extended to only Victor property owners, who take much pride in maintaining the area’s natural setting and historic sites. Much of the park is surrounded by BLM land. Numerous members actively volunteer their time, money and labor to Bison Reservoir. The grounds are frequently the scene of weddings, memorials, fishing tournaments and a host of other activities. In essence, visitors to Bison respect the land and its surroundings so that future generations can enjoy this natural playground for many years to come.

Please be respectful of this historic area by refraining from trespassing beyond the locked gates at the entrance.

Image of Bison Reservoir c 2022 by Jan MacKell Collins.

The Short-Lived Life of Lanter City, Colorado

c 2022 by Jan MacKell Collins

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

Alternately known as Lanter, Lantern, Lander’s, Landres and Landen, Lanter City hoped to become the next thriving metropolis in Teller County as the nearby Cripple Creek District boomed during one of America’s last great gold rushes. But alas, the effort was a failure. In about 1896, Lanter City first came into being and was described as being located on Pikes Peak, near a toll road leading to the top of of “America’s Mountain.” Roads from Lanter City probably led not just to Ute Pass between Colorado Springs and Woodland Park, but also the Pikes Peak Toll Road and perhaps even Edlowe between Woodland Park and Divide.

Around the turn of the century, as the Cripple Creek boom continued, the Fountain Creek Mining District was formed in the area that would later include Lanter City. The effort was just one of many, made in hopes that the amazing gold riches from the Cripple Creek District extended further. Though only four miles square, the Fountain Creek Mining District was comprised of thirty eight claims. At the time, the land on which Lanter City was situated was owned by one Henry Law. For three days, November 7, 8 and 9, 1900 surveyor L.J. Carrington platted and laid out the town in the vicinity of the North Star Gold Mining Company. First, Second and Third Streets were intersected by Carrington, Main and Parshall Avenues.

Lanter City’s desire to grow was indicated by a November, 1900 advertisement in the Colorado Springs Gazette. “Wanted,” the ad read, “Men and women to engage in all kinds of business at Lanter City in the Fountain mining district five miles north of Pikes Peak. One shipper and lots of good prospects. Take stage at Woodland Park. For information address Tyler and McDowell, Woodland Park, Colo.” The ad was presumably taken out by Robert Lanter, who appeared in various news articles about the budding boomtown.

Response to the advertisement was apparently positive, for on November 30 Robert Beers, who had purchased some nearby  land in 1891, platted his own Robert Beers Addition in Lanter City. The addition created 5th, 6th and 7th Streets, as well as Hartman Street. Not much happened, however, until 1900 when Lanter City at last made the newspaper. The December 3 edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette identified the “camp” as being located near Cascade in El Paso County, but “to the north of Pikes Peak.” In fact, the article wondered if Lanter City was not destined to be the next Cripple Creek. “Local mining men have been rather indifferent until very lately but it certainly must be admitted now that the camp…at least calls for respectful attention,” said the paper. Of particular interest, according to the article, was that gold was being found in the area. That news was enough to entice a mining group from Victor in the Cripple Creek District to hire one of their “experts” to come have a look. The man found several claims and figured that ore in the area was worth between $20 and $80 per ton.

County records show that Law was only able to sell only eight of the lots at Lanter City, to four different buyers. During the town’s heyday, however, there were twenty homes, a livery stable and a blacksmith shop. News of the town continued drifting into newspapers. “Ed Weston of Lanter City was in [Colorado Springs] Sunday,” read an article in January of 1901. “Mr. Weston, with Messs. McDowell, Foster and Wheat, have leased the Rico lode and will proceed at once to find what is in it.” On February 27, another article hinted a post office was soon to be established, but that never happened. Other news articles told of “Uncle Billy” Parshall who staked the Louise claim in April, and progress on the McCleary brothers’ mine in May. Also in May, fourteen more lots were sold at Lanter City. By October, plans were underway to build a steam plant on Lord and Dean’s claim just southwest of town.

Unfortunately, the gold mines around Lanter City simply weren’t enough to create the boom everyone was hoping for. Aside from gold mining, Lanter City’s other main industry was intended to be logging, until the Pike National Forest was established in 1907 and the homesteaders there became considered trespassers. In 1908 Henry Law bought back all of the lots of Lanter City and sold his city in its entirety to the Empire Water and Power Company for just $3,000. The company planned to build four reservoirs, but eventually sold the property to the City of Colorado Springs in 1930.

With the city officially deserted and owned by Colorado Springs, Lanter City was vacated for good. Five years later, South Catamount Reservoir covered about half of the old townsite. Researchers Kimberly Carsell and Kimberle Long believed they found five or so ruins at the site in 2000, as well as a large “glory hole” at the south end of the valley. Any remaining  mines were sealed by the Colorado Division of Reclamation and Mining Safety in 2008. Today there is nothing left of the town.

Adelaide, Colorado: The Ill-Fated Stop Along the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad

c 2021 by Jan MacKell Collins

Shortly after gold was discovered in the Cripple Creek District in 1891 merchant James A. McCandless of Florence, to the south, was one of many men who took an interest in generating commerce from the gold boom. In McCandless’s mind was Eight-Mile Canyon, an old, windy and sometimes precarious trail used by Ute natives to travel to the high country and make their summer quarters. With a creek of the same name meandering alongside much of the trail, the canyon was ideal for reaching the District. McCandless and several engineers first surveyed the canyon in 1891. By 1892 Thomas Robinson, whose endeavors included promoting the Florence Electric Street Railway Company, had opened the “Florence Free Road” leading to the District. Around this same time, give a take a few years, the name of the canyon was changed to Phantom Canyon.

Robinson intended for the road through Phantom Canyon to eventually run between the borders of Wyoming to the north and New Mexico to the south. When the Salaman Stage Line debuted on the Florence Free Road, its success inspired plans for the Florence and Cripple Creek State Line Railroad. A map of the new railroad was filed in May of 1892, and the company was reformed as the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad.

As plans unfolded for the new railroad, Denver & Rio Grande Railroad magnate David Moffat got involved. Under his wing, the F&CC was incorporated in April of 1893, and construction of the railroad commenced the following December. Robinson also remained involved with the project, to the effect that one early camp along the line was named for him. Railroad workers and travelers could stop at Robinson, situated nearly halfway between Florence and Cripple Creek, to buy supplies at a general store or stay at a boardinghouse nearby.

By 1894, for reasons unknown, the name of Robinson had been changed to Adelaide. A depot was constructed for the F&CC, as well as some homes and a water tank for the train. Two men worked at the tank, each in a 12 hour shift, so that it would remain full of water for the locomotive. They, as well as other railroad employees, lived in a nearby bunkhouse with a coal-burning stove for warmth. The former boardinghouse was converted into a hotel called the Great Elk. The station agent’s quarters were in the back of the depot.

Adelaide served a second, more important purpose too. As the F&CC tracks progressed up the canyon, it was soon discovered that the last few miles into the district proved steeper than originally thought. A “helper” town of sorts, Alta Vista, was constructed on the edge of the Cripple Creek District near the city of Victor, wherein engines could travel down the canyon to the station at Adelaide in Fremont County and assist the trains in making it up the grade.

For about a year, everything was grand at little Adelaide, nestled there among the trees and below the majestic rock walls of Phantom Canyon. But there came an evening in July of 1895 when a horrific thunderstorm, typical for late summer in Colorado, let loose with a destructive might like no other.

The Cripple Creek Weekly Journal later described the carnage that ensued. A F&CC train with 14 cars had just been lightly damaged when a small landslide derailed the train just a mile above Adelaide. Four railroad men from the train walked down to the Great Elk Hotel, and Conductor Brown had just wired news of the incident when he chanced to step outside. In the twilight he could see a wall of water, towering some 20 feet high and flowing at about thirty miles per hour, roaring down the canyon, and Adelaide was directly in its path.

Just up the tracks from Adelaide, a helper engine with engineer Mathew Lines and fireman Bert Kreis had just passed through Glenbrook, the closest stop above Adelaide, on its way down from Alta Vista. Lines and Kreis saw the wall of water, quickly stoked the fire in the engine and sped up as fast as they could as the flood chased after them. If anyone saw the engine fly past Adelaide, there does not seem to be a record of it. The engine managed to pass by the next stop, McCourt, before reaching Russell where the tracks diverted away from the flooded creek. Lines and Kreis survived.

Back at Adelaide, meanwhile, the railroad men and the station agent and his family quickly climbed to safety, as well as three other men and “three tramps” who were dining at the hotel. The railroad men turned around in time to see the Great Elk Hotel smashed to pieces by the water and carried away. Tragically, inside were the hotel’s proprietress, Mrs. Carr, as well as waiter Lee Tracy and cook John Watson. Tracy’s body was eventually found nine miles south of Adelaide, near Russell. Mrs. Carr’s body was carried several miles further, almost to Vesta Junction near Florence. Watson was found too, as well as the bodies of three other men who were believed to be section men for the railroad. Three other men surfaced safely in Florence the next day.

In all, the flood washed away ten miles of tracks as well as several bridges. It took quite some time to reach Adelaide and assess the damage, which was estimated at $100,000—over $3 million dollars in today’s money. One would think that would be the end of the F&CC, but the company remained resilient. Over the next year, workers toiled to rebuild the railroad at a cost of just over $238,000. At Adelaide, the station was relocated about half a mile down from its original location on today’s Phantom Canyon Road, well above the creek. A new water tank, a large cistern and a new depot were eventually built at the site.

Although other cloudbursts and occasional floods continued to plague Phantom Canyon, Adelaide remained safe until July of 1912 when another storm sent yet another wall of water crashing down the F&CC tracks. This time, twelve bridges were wiped out and five miles of track were either damaged or lost altogether in the flood. Rather than rebuild again, the F&CC took into consideration its own finances but also those in the Cripple Creek District, where the mining boom was slowly fading away. In 1915 the F&CC was dissolved, and the remaining tracks were removed from the canyon.

Over the last several decades, any structural remnants remaining at Adelaide have disappeared altogether. The only evidence of the whistle stop today is the large cistern, which can be seen below the road along Phantom Canyon. Small signs denote Adelaide and most of the other stops along the route, making for a most scenic drive through the canyon with a little history thrown in. And in Florence, both the McCandless house and the Robinson mansion bear proof that, for a time, the F&CC was a good investment indeed.

Arbourville, Colorado and its Community Parlor House

c 2021 by Jan MacKell Collins

www.JanMacKellCollins.com

            Every day, hundreds of cars whiz along Highway 50 along Monarch Pass between Salida and Gunnison. Between these two metropolises lie a number of forgotten towns, some no larger than a building or two. Some of the communities no longer stand at all, their existence marked only by a pile of lumber or sign along the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad as it meanders along the Arkansas River and parallel to the highway. Though travelers in their fast cars have no real reason to stop now, a century ago these small hamlets played an important role in Colorado’s development. At the tiny town of Maysville, for instance, several toll roads offered mail and passenger service in a number of directions. As a crossroads leading to both the goldfields of the west and the southeastern plains of Colorado, Maysville became an important center for exchanging news and information.

These were the days of lawlessness in urban Colorado, but only because there weren’t many laws to break nor outlaws to break them—which would explain why Maysville was sometimes referred to as Crazy Town. When Arbourville was founded along Highway 50 just five miles west of Maysville, it too became a social center of the Monarch Mining District, mostly because the camp housed the only substantial brothel in the area.

Although Arbourville was never incorporated, a post office was established on September 12, 1879. The town was likely named for M. Arbour, a real estate agent who was living at A.B. Stemberger’s boardinghouse near Arbourville in 1880. It was said Arbour had migrated to the new camp from Silver Cliff. It is interesting to note that the first day lots went up for sale at Arbourville, over 100 were sold. Soon, the growing hamlet sported a hotel, boardinghouse and general store.

By 1880, the population was up to 159, a number that seems consistent with the town’s history. There were 102 men and 25 women, many with children. Residents included three local ranchers, as well as upwards of 46 miners who commuted further up Monarch Pass to the Madonna Mine and other surrounding prospect holes. Business folks in 1880 included a banker, two butchers, seven carpenters, three doctors (all of whom were also surgeons), a general merchandiser, a harness shop owner, three grocers, a hotel operator, two livery stables, miller H. Breckenridge, two house painters, two real estate agents, two restaurant operators, two saloon keepers, a shoemaker and two teamsters who likely carried freight and passengers between the mines and the railroad. Stage fare from Maysville to Arbourville cost fifty cents.

Arbourville’s brothel, which is said to have doubled as a stage coach stop, saloon and hotel, replaced a smaller log brothel that operated in the town years earlier. The new bordello is thought to have been constructed by James or Eli Wolfrom in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. In more recent years, the now empty building has become known as the “stone house”. Despite being a house of ill repute, this structure likely assisted Arbourville in rivaling the nearby towns of Garfield and Monarch, since people also gathered there for news and to socialize.

Renowned photographer William Henry Jackson was among those who recorded early-day photographs of Arbourville between 1880 and 1890. In 1881 the post office name was inexplicably changed to Conrow, but closed altogether in 1882. When travel-writer Ernest Ingersoll visited the area in 1885, he noted that Maysville and Monarch appeared to be the most important communities in the area.

Although the D. & R.G. crossed today’s Highway 50 on the town’s edge, there does not appear to have been a depot at Arbourville. Wagon roads led up to Cree’s Camp and other mines, and east or west along the “Rainbow Route” to Salida or Gunnison, respectively. The town cemetery was located under today’s Highway 50. Of the only two identified burials there, the earliest one dated to 1883.

The silver panic of 1893, combined with better transportation, left Arbourville in the dust to the point that the town wasn’t even covered in census records beginning in 1885. The buildings went into private ownership and the town settled into a quiet suburb. In 1938, when the state expanded the highway to its present size, workers declined to even bother moving the bodies from the graveyard.

Long after its short glory faded, Arbourville eventually became home to just one resident, Frank E. Gimlett, the former proprietor of the Salida Opera House. In 1900, Gimlett and his family, including a cousin, were living at Monarch. Gimlett initially worked as a mine superintendent. Later he worked as a grocer and lived with his family in Salida until about 1930. Sometime after that, he made the defunct town of Arbourville his home.

An eccentric and likeable hermit, Gimlett lived year-round at Arbourville until his death in circa the mid-1940’s. He utilized his winter months by writing a series of booklets called “Over Trails of Yesterday.” As a veteran of the mining era, Gimlett knew many of the people and places from the old days and spun many a colorful yarn about them. His stories were entwined with his own personal philosophies. One of his books, “The Futility of Loving Vagarious Women,” inspired playwright and diplomat Clare Boothe Luce to write him a protest letter in defense of the fairer sex. But notably, Gimlett did love one woman, his wife Gertrude, who supposedly also lived with him at Arbourville.

Gimlett also dubbed Arbourville “Arbor Villa” and assigned his own names to various mountains in the area. Among them was Mount Aetna, which Gimlett petitioned to rename Ginger Peak after his favorite film star, Ginger Rogers. Gimlett went so far as to send a petition to President Franklin Roosevelt himself to change the name, but the president himself shot the idea down. Supposedly Roosevelt explained that while Ginger Rogers was worthy of the honor, the name change might prove too much trouble for cartographers. Gimlett retaliated by sending a bill to the government for $50,000. The fee was for “guarding the mountains” during winter and assuring the snow and ice were safe from thieves. It was never paid.

Today, about five buildings are left standing in Arbourville, along with old fences along traces of the main drag, collapsed structures, several foundations and the magnificent stone house. The roof of the building gets weaker and weaker each year and is in danger of sinking in altogether. The ghost town is accessed via the Monarch Spur RV Park, which was owned by Elsie Gunkel Porter in 2012. Having grown up in the stone house, Elsie and her brother Jerry were the last residents of Arbourville. “That town was Jerry’s life and his love,” said Christina Anastasia of Salida in a 2005 interview. Anastasia, along with her husband Raymond, was a good friend of Gunkel’s.

According to Anastasia it was Jerry Gunkel’s dream to re-develop Arbourville, but he passed away in May of 2003. In his honor Anastasia, a doctoral candidate and professor at Colorado Technical University of Salida, nominated Arbourville to the National Register of Historic Places and the Colorado State Register, but to no avail. “They said there is no historic relevance to the property, although there are all kinds of fun stories,” she says, “because there is so little documentation about it. Arbourville was a mining camp so there is no legal record that really shows anything. They said until someone can come up with some historical significance, it doesn’t have any relevance.”

Monarch Spur RV Park at Arbourville continues to serve as a wonderful and remote vacation spot with tent and RV sites, cabins, shower and laundry facilities, a store, and even internet service. For information or reservations, or to visit Arbourville, call 888-814-3001 or 719-530-0341 or access the website at msrvpark.com.

The Adventures of Captain Jack: A whimsical little woman combined her own stories with her vivid imagination to create a colorful life in Colorado.

c 2020 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article were originally published in All About History magazine.

“I was born November 4, 1842, in New Lantern, Nottingham, England.” So begins a seemingly plain and humble autobiography by a woman who was anything but plain, or humble. Ellen Elliott Jack’s book, The Fate of a Fairy, or, Twenty Seven Years in the Far West, would later tell of the spunky little woman’s amazing adventures. And although her facts were often sprinkled with a good dose of fiction, her story is very much worth telling.

When she was seven years old, Ellen met a “gypsy queen” at Nottingham’s annual Goose Fair who touched her on the head. “This child was born to be a great traveler, and if she had been a male would have been a great mining expert,” the gypsy said. “She is a Rosicrucian, born to find hidden treasures. She will meet great sorrows and be a widow early in life. Fire will cause her great trouble and losses.” Indeed, Ellen had already lost one sister in a fire. And as a teen, she had a brief romance with a man, “Carl,” who stabbed her in a fit of jealousy after seeing her in the company of her male cousin. Ellen recovered, and when her sister Lydia and her husband sailed to New York, Ellen successfully begged to go along.

Ellen loved New York, but fell ill and was unable to return to England with her sister until she was well. Upon boarding another ship, she recalled the horror of assisting a doctor in amputating the legs of a young Irish girl. But she also met first officer Charles E. Jack. The couple married at Liverpool in 1860 and returned to New York before Jack was called for duty during the Civil War.

The Jack’s first child, Nettie, was born between 1862 and 1864. During this time, Ellen claimed she took charge of a ring presented to her husband by General Robert E. Lee, attended a “president’s reception” with her husband during which she met President and Mrs. Lincoln, and toured Europe. After Charles Jack returned from the war with heart trouble, Ellen gave birth to a son. Both the infant and Nettie died just before the Jacks next moved to Chicago. Over the next three years another daughter, Jenny, was born. The family also lost everything in a fire, just like the gypsy predicted, and briefly farmed in Kansas before returning to Brooklyn. Ellen’s last child, Daisy, was born just before Charles Jack died in 1873.

The widow Ellen next built a hotel called the Bon Ton, but it burned in March of 1876 as she rescued her daughters and their nurse from the second floor. Daisy died three years later. Soon afterwards Ellen made friends with psychic Madam Clifford who, like the gypsy queen, told Ellen she was “born to find hidden treasures.” Ellen decided to head west, leaving Jenny with her sister-in-law. She arrived in Denver in about 1880, where she ran into her former nursemaid, Jennie. The woman advised her to go to Gunnison, but Ellen went to Leadville first. There, she was a witness when “Curley Frank” and another gambler killed each other in a shootout. A shook-up Ellen heeded Jennie’s advice and headed to Gunnison, where she arrived in the spring of 1881.

Ellen’s first night in Gunnison was spent at the Gunnison House where she paid a dollar to sleep in the lobby of the crowded hotel. The landlady advised Ellen to hide her valuables on her person, “as this is a very rough place.” Ellen followed the woman’s advice, saying she had “diamonds and government bonds sewed up in my bustle.” The next morning, Ellen was exploring the town when a stray bullet passed through her cloak. Ellen identified the shooter as “Wild Bill,” who scared her so badly that she shot him. Two lawmen appeared, but Ellen implored them to leave Wild Bill alone, “for he is a dying man.” Wild Bill gave her his gun, which the officers tried to take from her after the man died. Ellen boldy told them, “No. He gave me the gun, for you were too big a coward to get it, and you shall never have it.”

Ellen next purchased a tent with a cook stove, as well as a lot on Tomichi Avenue. She called her place “Jack’s Cabin” and began advertising a restaurant and “furnished rooms” in Gunnison’s Daily-News Democrat. Running a boardinghouse was no less exciting, for Ellen once discovered a group of Indian marauders pilfering Jack’s Cabin. Ellen said one of them was Ute leader Colorow, a “big buck” with “large gold earrings” who “came to me dancing and trying to touch my hair.” Ellen cut a lock of her golden hair for Colorow to keep, and a friendship was formed.

Eventually Ellen constructed some buildings. She rented one of them to Jeff Mickey, whom she had met on her trip to Gunnison. Mickey opened a saloon which became “headquarters for the freighters, and it was very crowded at night.” He was quite the businessman; once, the Gunnison Daily News Democrat revealed that the guest of honor at a funeral in the saloon was really only a passed-out drunk. “The joke was a profitable one for Jeff Mickey,” the paper explained. The supposed victim, with “burning candles at his head and feet, was better for business purposes, so Mickey said, than a free lunch or brass band.” Mickey also opened a gymnasium and “boxing school” next to the saloon.

Ellen would later attribute a large scar on her forehead to another Indian raid. This time, Jack’s Cabin was set on fire and she “was struck on the forehead with a tomahawk” laced with poison. Ellen claimed that she managed to kill some of the Indians before Chief Colorow declared a truce. “Pale face! Me wants to save her,” he exclaimed upon seeing her. “Bloody poison killy the white squaw, and we lovey the pale face.”[sic] There is no recorded Indian raid in Gunnison at the time, although it is true that Colorow often camped nearby. Only Ellen’s scar remained as a testament to her whimsical story.

Jack’s Cabin made the news again in January of 1882, when escaped convict Jim McClees appeared there. Ellen recalled that one of her employees told her, “There will be trouble in the bunkhouse, for Jim is full [of liquor] and has a gun, and is abusing one of the carpenters.” Ellen tried to make McClees leave. Instead, she said, McClees “pulled out his gun to fire at the man. I pulled mine and shot the gun out of his hands and part of his hand off with it.” A Sheriff Clark soon came looking for McClees and searched a room “occupied as a sleeping apartment by Mr. and Mrs. Mickey.”

When the officers found a trap door in the floor, “Mrs. Mickey” called out, “There is no use, Jim; there are fifty men here with guns, and you might as well come out without losing your life or shedding their blood.” McClees surrendered, Jeff Mickey was arrested, and Mrs. Mickey was notified she must appear in court. Ellen never admitted that she was “Mrs. Mickey.” She did admit, however, that she was unduly credited with beating everyone up during a fight in the courtroom and that a news reporter called her “Mrs. Captain Jack, the Dare Devil of the West”. All that is known for sure is that Ellen accused Sheriff Clark of false arrest while McClees bonded out and returned to Jack’s Cabin as he awaited his trial.

Ellen next decided to go to Crested Butte and told Jeff Mickey to leave. Mickey, she said, proposed marriage and promised to stop drinking. When she refused him, he told her that “when I breathe my last breath on earth it will be, ‘love for you, my fairy queen’, goodbye!” The Daily News-Democrat later explained more truthfully that “when (Mickey) took to drinking there was sure to be trouble. This last spree angered Mrs. Mickey so much that hot words followed and she left the house.” Ellen went on to Crested Butte. Later that evening at Jack’s Cabin, McClees saw Mickey with a vial of morphine powder. “Here’s the thing that will end all of my troubles,” he said. He died after consuming half of the vial.

The Daily News-Democrat noted that Ellen was slow to return to Gunnison because “the telegram instead of reading, ‘Jeff has taken poison,’ read, ‘Jeff has taken horses,’ and she supposed he coming for her with a team.” The paper also revealed Ellen was trying to lease the Miners’ Boarding House in Crested Butte “hoping in that way to get her husband away from his present business”. Ellen “thought her absence would bring him to his senses, and sober him up.” But Ellen had already placed a new advertisement for Jack’s Cabin, which appeared on the same day as Mickey’s funeral. “The business will be carried on as heretofore,” it said, “and Mrs. Jeff Mickey will be glad to see old friends.”

Within a month of Mickey’s death, however, Ellen rented Jack’s Cabin to someone else and ventured “into the mountains in Wild Cat Gulch where the Indians camped,” looking for mining investments. This time her partner was sometime outlaw Bill Edwards, who promised to share any gold discoveries if Ellen would bail him out of jail. Edwards kept his promise and for the first time, Ellen made money off of the Big Congo and Maggie Jack mining claims. She also became half owner of the Black Queen Mine near Crystal City.

In 1882 Ellen had returned to Jack’s Cabin when one of her boarders, Redmond Walsh, proposed marriage. The couple traveled to Denver, but the night before the wedding, Ellen dreamed of children crying and awoke with a sense of dread. During the ceremony, the children’s crying sounded again, as well as a man’s voice. Startled, Ellen dropped the ring on the floor, but Walsh “grabbed my hand and put the ring on my finger without any more ceremony.” Afterwards, Walsh left Ellen at a hotel and did not return.

The next morning, Ellen caught the train back to Gunnison. Walsh eventually returned too, but spent much of his time away from home. A few months later he asked Ellen to take out a note for $2,600, explaining that the Black Queen’s payroll was short. But the miners only received half of their promised pay. A cashier from the bank informed Ellen that Walsh had “duped” her, and advised that Walsh had his eye on her half of the Black Queen. “Be on your lookout for that man,” he said. “He would not hesitate to take your life to get that mine.”

There was more about the deceitful Walsh. For one thing, he was still married to another woman. Ellen confronted him about it and recalled that his face turned into “an incarnated demon, and such a hellish, fiendish look I never saw on a human face before.” The next day, Walsh tried to make Ellen sign a contract deeding half of her properties to him. When she threw it in the fire, Walsh “grabbed me and tried to stick my head in the fire. I clung to him and screamed until two men came and took him by the collar, and then he let go of me.” Ellen’s hair, she said, “was nearly all burned and my face and neck were in blisters.”

Walsh’s debtors soon came after Ellen, who next caught Walsh planting dynamite under her window. She finally divorced him, but spent two years battling him in court. She also was arrested, in 1886, for applying for the pension left to her by Charles Jack. The reason? Nobody knew her as Ellen Jack, and the court believed she was trying to steal the pension. It took almost a year for Ellen to gain an acquittal, at which time she also was embroiled in another suit with the other owners of the Black Queen. Ellen’s rollercoaster of money troubles continued: She nearly lost the Black Queen in 1888, although she did manage to invest in the Little Mandie mine. Also, however, some property she purchased in Ouray in 1891 was seized to pay an outstanding bill.

In 1894 Denver’s Queen Bee, a feminist newspaper “devoted to the interests of humanity, woman’s political quality and individuality,” at last defended Ellen. “Captain Ellen E. Jack is back on her claim near Gunnison, again,” the paper reported. “The powers that be have had the wiley Captain Jack arrested for defending her claim at the point of her pistols…Men are simply absurd or they would let her alone, and fight professional pugilists and small dogs. It is shameful how the lords of creation will condescend to badger a plucky woman just because they like to have a winning fight.”

Ellen was likely not aware of the article, for she never mentioned it. Her autobiography ends after her account of a trip she took through Utah and Arizona, as well as her musings on God and how far society had come. “So, cheer up, for the aura light is breaking through the dark circle of apprehension,” she concluded, “And this is the prophecy of the Fated Fairy and a wanderer for twenty-seven years in the far West.”

Ellen’s adventures, however, were far from over. In February, 1900, the Aspen Daily Times reported that Ellen sold her interest in the Black Queen and was heading to Cripple Creek. “She is a good rustler and will make a strike in that camp,” the paper predicted. But Ellen did not invest in any mines in the Cripple Creek District. Instead she merely rented a lodging house above a grocery store. By 1903 she was in Colorado Springs, where it was reported a year later that she had established a mining claim in nearby Cheyenne Canyon called the Mars group, with four gold and copper mines. There also was a “tent town” called Camp Jack. Ellen said the claims were averaging $21.00 per ton.

None of Ellen’s claims ever amounted to much. Beginning in about 1907, she turned to the tourism industry. One of her endeavors was generating photographic postcards, featuring herself in various scenarios. In the earliest known image, she poses along with several men, two burros and some equipment. The image is captioned hopefully, “Mrs. Capt. Jack Looking for a Company to Buy Mine.” Next, in 1909, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that Ellen had located a cave “of wonderful formation”, but was keeping its location a secret until she could “purchase the property and turn it into a tourist attraction.”

Promotion of the cave never did come to fruition, but Ellen did establish a resort on High Drive in Cheyenne Canyon. She called it “Captain Jack’s” and told visitors colorful stories while hawking her postcards and copies of Fate of a Fairy. During 1912, her advertisement in a traveler’s guide of the Pikes Peak region commanded, “Stop at Captain Jack’s!”

Ellen also maintained a separate home in Colorado Springs, where passerby remembered seeing her “brilliantly colored parrots in the trees in front of her house.” In 1921 she filed for patents on her Cobra No. 3 and Mars No. 1 mining claims and seemed to be doing well until a flood which washed out the road to Captain Jack’s. The loss of her tourist resort was Ellen’s undoing. Her heart failed and she died on June 17. She was buried in Colorado Springs’ Evergreen Cemetery. Her long-forgotten daughter, Jenny, appeared in the hopes of gaining something from her mother’s will, but received nothing.

Ellen’s rival tour operator, Nora Gaines, purchased Ellen’s resort in 1923. The Colorado Springs Gazette noted that the “New Captain Jack’s Place Now Being Constructed on the High Drive” would offer rest for hikers and motorists, but Nora died just ten years later. The property was abandoned, and the “rotting cabins” were torn down in 1965. Today, Captain Jack’s Mountain Bike Trail outside of Colorado Springs is named for her.

The Terrible Mill

c 2020 by Jan MacKell Collins

The Terrible Mill. The sinister sounding name was what intrigued me from the git. Even before I ever saw it, I could picture it in my mind, a large skeleton of a building, looming quietly on a hillside above the long forgotten town of Ilse in which ghosts roamed and winds moaned. Such was what I pictured the first time I first went to the mill back in the 1980s. What I found was interestingly different. The town was nowhere to be found, save perhaps one home, still occupied, with another modern dwelling nearby. And the mill, oh the Terrible Mill! There it sat, a quarter of a mile away from the houses, not a skeleton so much as one large, rusty square of wood and tin. Three glorious stories of rambling corrugated steel and wood beams and scaffolding and ancient cement jutted out of the hillside, right beside the road.

We roamed discreetly around the backside of the mill, keeping a careful eye on the houses lest anyone protest our intrusion. But once we had climbed through a broken window into the dank confines of that old place, all cautions were forgotten in the wonderful splendor of a building time forgot. We rambled at our leisure up one side and down the other, exploring endless passageways, chutes, large rooms, small rooms and halls. And there were wonderful, crooked but solid stairways, one of which led to the very top of the mill and the greatest treasure of many: a small sparrow hawk, trapped in the uppermost room. Catching and exploring his sleek and refined shape, returning him to the outdoors, and watching him fly away from us was an experience like none other.

Seven years later, we returned to the mill. As it is with ghost towns, one can never know how fast they will deteriorate. We took a back way in, different from the last time, and I felt an assuring pang of excitement when I sighted the old mill from around the next bend. We passed the first of the two houses, and lo and behold, there sat a sheriff’s blazer. It wasn’t there the last time, and my heart sank at the thought of not being able to see the mill after such a long drive. But we respectfully took our chances, and stopped to ask permission. A small, affable man, not at all resembling a sheriff, gave us permission to explore and take photographs. His father once worked at the mill.

How amazing and refreshing it was to find the Terrible Mill held up well over those seven years, with virtually no change at all. There it was, all three stories still there and holding. The wind, as before, whistled through cracks in the walls and rustled the tin roof – but the building stood strong.

My first mission was to find my favorite staircase, the one leading to the top. It was still there, scaling the side of the wall up, up a good hundred feet, and so crooked that I had to half climb it, hanging precariously on to the supporting wall. Even in its dilapidated position, its steps worn and slick from the hundreds of feet that have climbed it through the years, it was strong and sturdy.

Hardly anything had been moved. The old iron bed was still in the office, complete with mattress and the old shoes looking like someone just took them off before retiring. The bedside table was still there too, although a previous visitor had spilled the bottles of vitamin B to the floor. The old lab looked almost exactly the way I last left it. Samples were scattered in small brown packets, mixed in with old bottles of acid and other mining chemicals. The old bottle of salad dressing, still half full, lay exactly where I’d swear I put it. A box of wire mesh, looking like a giant brillo pad, still leaned against the wall. Even the old empty cans of cat food lay untouched, just as I’d seen them seven years ago, and the cat, whose petrified carcass we found when we pulled a Persian rug from the rafters back then, still lay prone on an old piece of cardboard in a doorway.

We wandered back down to the bottom story, where ore once rumbled down chutes to be melted by a large drum furnace, and eventually found our way out of a large sliding door. As we climbed carefully across the barbed wire fence, I felt a sense of duty relieved. It was as if I had just been to see an elderly aunt, and was leaving with the assurance she was doing just fine. In all the hussle of influx to this state, amongst all the construction and destruction going on, all the people old and new who have no appreciation for how this state came to be and the people who toiled so hard to make their dreams come true here, there are still some quiet corners in which to take refuge. I can rest easy knowing this, and that it is still possible for time to stand still in certain spots if you know where to look.

Q & A With “Dr. Colorado” Tom Noel

c 2020 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article first appeared in All About History magazine.

“Doctor Colorado’s” shingle is always out for the Centennial State’s History. Dr. Noel is an award-winning author and Colorado’s official State Historian. He is Professor of History at University of Colorado at Denver, and has authored an amazing 53 books and thousands of articles. In 2018, he was awarded the Colorado Author’s League Lifetime Achievement Award. He appears as “Dr. Colorado” regularly on “Colorado and Company” on Denver’s NBC. In 2018, Dr. Noel took time out of his busy day to talk about what he does.

Q: Being a native of Boston, what is your link to Colorado?

A: Although I was born in Boston, I must point out that I was conceived in Colorado, inside the Moffat Railroad Tunnel [insert laugh track here].

Q. Who gave you your colorful moniker, “Dr. Colorado”?

A. I received it from Colorado’s star marketing man, the late Lew Cady. He proposed that I become “Dr. Colorado” and make appearances. He set up a booth for me with signs at the front—“The Doctor is In” or “The Doctor is Out”—so I could go for a bathroom or a beer break. Then he gave me a lab coat monogrammed “Dr. Colorado.” At the time, I was mowing yards for $1 a yard. I asked if the “Dr. Colorado” gig paid. It was $100 an hour! So I have been “Dr. Colorado” ever since.

Q. Is it true that your Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Colorado Boulder was on the bars of Denver?

A. Yes. I was looking for a topic when my main advisor suggested, “Why don’t you do your dissertation on bars; you are already spending so much time there?” So I undertook to visit every single bar in Denver. I focused on the social, political and economic aspects, how they welcomed ethnic and gay groups, how they worked elections, and how they helped newcomers find a job, a home, a spouse. This was in the 1970’s when the Denver Urban Renewal Authority was demolishing many skid row bars. So I visited those bars first.

Initially my wife, Sumiko, would go with me. She was a visiting nurse who was assigned to make sure that the skid row denizens who had Tuberculosis were taking their medicine. Along with another nurse, she would go to the hotels and flophouses where the patients lived, but found that these guys hit the bars first thing in the morning. The landlords would tell the girls in which bars their patients could be found. The pair, in their nursing uniforms, would find their patients and take them, one at a time, to a back room and order them, “Drop your pants.” Then they would give them a shot of streptomycin in the fanny.

Q. What have you written lately?

Since Colorado: A Historical Atlas came out, I have co-authored with Steve Leonard on A Short History of Denver (2015), and just finished E-470: More Than a Highway: The Story of a Global Tolling Industry Pioneer. And I recently updated my book, Buildings of Colorado. Also, I signed on with Globe Pequot Press to write Boom & Bust Colorado, which focuses on booms and busts in the soaring beer and marijuana business. As the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, Colorado is reaping more than $100 million a year in taxes.

Q. Why is preserving history is important?

I have come to appreciate, promote and practice historic preservation as a way to make history come alive. With 2,000 new residents arriving in Colorado every week, it is vital to preserve the buildings that meant so much to our ancestors and can become anchors for present Coloradans. I served as chair of the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission, which has now designated more than 350 individual landmarks and 56 historic districts.

Landmark designation has transformed the lower downtown from dollar-a-night flophouses to million dollar lofts. It is the most spectacular case of how historic district designation can stabilize and uplift neighborhoods. Preservation is a way to promote a sense of place, of commitment to your neighborhood, your city. I try to build up interest in local landmarks, be they churches or taverns, parks or haunted houses.

Q. I have had the privilege of visiting your wonderful library, which spans the inner walls of your basement. Tell us more about your book collection.

A. In the last few years, my bookshelves have started groaning. I originally aspired to collect every book ever written on Colorado. Now if I acquire another book, I have to make shelf space by giving books to Denver Public Library. I have kept the most precious books, of course, hoping to take them to Heaven with me. I know I am going there, in case you wondered, because the archbishop promised me that when I finished Colorado Catholicism and the Archdiocese of Denver, 1857-1989.

Also I work with grad students and Denver Public Library to list all new Colorado non-fiction books in The Colorado Book Review. We try to list all books and review the more important ones. I have loved teaching at CU Denver full time since 1990. I am proud of many students whom I have helped to publish their own books or articles over the years, as well as those with whom I have co-authored. I do suspect my students have taught me more than I have taught them.

Q. It seems you are always on the run, giving tours for Colorado history buffs and students, History Colorado and the Smithsonian. Does it feel as though you eat, breathe, drink and sleep history?

A. My wife takes wonderful care of me and runs the household, giving me all the time I want for writing. Since I work at home, I take breaks to go out and putter in the garden, pull a few weeds, and pick flowers. I love gardening. Voltaire, the wonderful French wit and historian, concluded his masterpiece, Candide, with his final advice: “Cultive ton jardin” (cultivate your garden). Voltaire also gave us my favorite definition of history as “a trick we play on the dead.”

For more about Jan MacKell Collins, check out her website at JanMacKellCollins.com.

High Altitude Adventures with Corydon Rose

c 2019 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article first appeared in Colorado Central magazine.

Fifteen miles from Lake City, Colorado, high up along Engineer’s Pass, lie the ruins of a dream held by one man. His name was Corydon Rose, and today he is remembered as the courteous host at his namesake mining camp, Rose’s Cabin.

Born in New York in 1835, Rose had made his way to Colorado by 1873 where he took up mining in the majestic San Juan Mountains. He chose a gorgeous high—mountain meadow, roughly halfway between Ouray and Lake City, to build his home. When entrepreneur Otto Mears built a toll road along Engineer’s Pass in 1877, Rose’s place officially became known as Rose’s Cabin, complete with a store, eating house and roughly 50 miners. A passing stage line guaranteed further success, since the coaches stopped at the camp to change horses.

Rose’s mining endeavors also paid off. By August, his “Blue, White and Gold” silver mine was assaying at $243 per ton. A month later, a travel correspondent for Lake City’s Silver World newspaper described the genteel hospitality extended to some proper ladies who spent the night at Rose’s Cabin:

“A small log cabin with dirt floor and side bunks partially filled with pine boughs was assigned to the ladies. The roof covered with dirt, a few stones in one corner in which was made a fire, nearby a beautiful, clear, cold rivulet furnished facilities for making their toilets; a couple of miners’ candles were substituted for gas, and the sides of the berths were utilized for seats. It was a novel sight to see a bevy of ladies accustomed to luxurious surroundings thus quartered for the night, and from the peals of laughter continually pouring forth, the novelty was evidently enjoyable in the extreme.”

Nearby, Merritt’s Restaurant contained a cookstove, a “rough plank” table and benches made from planks set on empty powder kegs. A “very creditable meal” was served in tin plates and cups. The writer and his friend slept in this cabin alongside five or six other men. Their accommodations consisted of “blankets spread on the bare, hard ground, with not even the intervention of pine boughs.”

In February 1878, Corydon Rose and his partner, Charlie Schafer, were inured in a rockslide. The two were at Schafer’s cabin at the Moltke lode when they heard the slide roaring down the hill. The men “attempted to escape but were caught in it and carried down the mountain and badly hurt,” reported the Silver World. Rose especially was “pretty effectually jammed up”, leading to speculation as to whether he would live. He  survived, but with permanent injuries.

Rose’s Cabin continued gaining popularity. In June, the Silver World reported that “the mines above Rose’s Cabin and in that vicinity are employing quite a force of men.” A post office opened later that year with Schafer as postmaster. Advertisements for the camp offered “meals and lodging, hay and grain, liquors and cigars”, as well as a “pack train of 60 animals”, and a second floor was added to Rose’s original cabin.

Rose typically stationed himself at the door, wearing a long black coat and a high hat. His signature greeting was “Howdy, stranger,” followed by an invitation to step inside where a bar ran along one side of the room. There also was a faro table, with a dealer wearing “short sleeves, plush waistcoat and long flowing tie”. Upstairs, twenty-two spindle beds, divided by partitions, awaited the weary traveler.

In 1880, Rose shared his roomy cabin with several others, including two women. One was Cornelia Porter, wife of silver miner William Porter. The other was Jennie Eastman, a divorcee with three children whose oldest son, 14—year—old Ira, worked as a teamster. Male residents of the camp included laborers, miners, carpenters and teamsters, as well as a blacksmith, saloonkeeper, butcher and druggist.

On his wedding night in 1884, Charles Schafer and his wife Augusta, still wearing her wedding gown, walked the whole fifteen miles from Lake City to Rose’s Cabin. When the census was taken in 1885, one of the couple’s lodgers was identified as mail carrier William Owens. Corydon Rose, meanwhile, was in Lake City and also worked as a mail carrier. Rose and Owens likely stayed at both Lake City and Rose’s Cabin as they transported mail back and forth.

That same year, George Crofutt’s Grip-Sack Guide of Colorado counted 120 people at Rose’s Cabin. For a dollar, the camp could be reached by hack during the summer months. In winter, Crofutt suggested reaching the camp via “winter saddle and snow—shoes.” Overall, Crofutt noted, there were “a great many mines and good ‘prospects’ which, with improved facilities, will make this one of the prosperous camps of the country.”

In spite of Crofutt’s prediction, the post office closed in 1887. Although about 50 miners continued living in the area, Corydon Rose was in Montrose by 1890. Meals were still available at Rose’s Cabin as late as 1895, when a correspondent for the North Platte Semi-Weekly Tribune recalled, “At noon we halted at Rose’s Cabin and had a good dinner—the finest in milk and butter.”

The Schafers remained at Rose’s Cabin as late as 1900. In time, larger mining conglomerates moved into the area. One of them, Golconda Mines Inc., proposed using Rose’s Cabin as their headquarters, and a telephone was installed connecting callers to Lake City. The new phone came in handy in September of 1900, when Jos. Nevin and Andy McLaughlin scuffled over a card game at Rose’s Cabin. “Nevins assaulted McLaughlin with an axe and was shot and killed by the latter,” reported the San Juan Prospector newspaper.

The news likely did not reach Corydon Rose, who had moved to Utah. His trail might have been lost but for a 1905 article in the Salt Lake City Herald. “Corydon Rose, an old gentleman who had been a county charge for the last two years, placed an advertisement in the Moab paper inquiring for his relatives in Kansas,” the paper explained. “The advertisement was answered by a nephew, who took the old gentleman back to Kansas with him. The young man stated that Mr. Rose was the owner of a farm of 160 acres within ten miles of Kansas City, which is worth $10,000.”

Rose’s brother, August, had apparently made significant improvements to the farm. Although August died in 1904, Rose’s nephew willingly took in his uncle. Rose lived out his life comfortably, dying in 1908. His gravestone bears the simple inscription, “Uncle Corydon”. Charles Schafer had also died, in 1907. He is buried in Lake City, where his tombstone identifies him as “owner of Rose’s Cabin on Henson Creek.” Today, not much is left of Rose’s Cabin but the ruins of a chimney and a couple of log walls.