Legends of the West

The Bard of the Yukon

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Few periods in American history have spawned as many legends as the 1896-99 Klondike Gold Rush.  The rush brought out the best and worst in the men and women who swarmed north in search of wealth.  The tales of their adventures, some true and some myths, have filled many books.  But few writers captured the spirit of gold rush life like poet Robert W. Service, sometimes called “The Bard of the Yukon.”  His writing was so expressive, and so evocative of the time that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Robert William Service never prospected for gold and did not, in fact, arrive in the Klondike until years after the gold rush played out. 

Service was born in 1874 to a Scottish family living in England.  Trained to be a bank clerk like his father, he left Glasgow for Canada at the age of 21, hoping to become a cowboy.  He drifted around western North America for a time and finally took work with the Canadian Bank of Commerce.  After working in a number of branches, he was posted to the branch in Whitehorse in 1904, then later to Dawson City in the Klondike in in 1908.  Inspired by the vast beauty of the wilderness, Service began writing poetry about the things he saw.  Conversations with local characters who’d lived through the gold rush led him to write about things he heard, embellishing them with his own imagination. 

After collecting enough poems for a book, he offered a publisher $100 of his own money to publish the work.  The publisher returned the money and offered Service a contract.  The book, published as The Spell of the Yukon in America and The Songs of a Sourdough in England, made him world famous and also very wealthy.  Within two years he was able to quit his job at the bank and travel to Paris and Hollywood.  Service remained a British citizen for life.  During World War I he served as an ambulance driver.  He wrote many poems about the war and about other places he visited – more than 1,000 poems in all, as well as two autobiographical novels.

He married a Parisian woman and lived most of his life in France, where he died in 1958.  His wife, thirteen years his junior, died in 1989 at the age of 102.

If you’ve never read Service’s Gold Rush poems you’re in for a treat.  I especially love “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” quoted in part at the beginning of this blog, about the prospector who was always cold.  It’s too long to include in its entirety, but here’s a link:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee/

Enjoy!

The Pony Express: Let’s Make A Movie

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On Monday I put the manuscript for The Outlaw’s Return in the mail to my editor. Well, not exactly the mail. I sent it via Fedex.  I take overnight service totally for granted, but there was a time when it took 10 days for an itty-bitty letter to to go from St. Jossph, Missouri to Sacramento California, and that was considered fast. The Pony Express did an amazing job for the short 18 months of its existence.  The first ride began on April 3, 1860 with Johnny Fry traveling westbound from St Joseph, Missourt and Billy Hamilton riding east from Sacramento.

As I was leaving the Fedex office, my imagination took off . . . It’s high time Hollywood made another blockbuster western, and the Pony Express is ripe with possibilities.

It wouldn’t be the first Hollywood movie on the subject.  Charlton Heston starred in the Pony Express in 1953, and it was one of the last “B” westerns. Let’s do a remake, something that honors the courage of these men.  How about this . . . we do a story about two riders traveling in opposite directions, both in love with the same young lady. Her older brother runs a pony express station at the midpoint.  The young men are racing to see her, and of course they’re going to arrive at the same time . . . One of them is a total “bad boy.”  The other took the job for the money and wants to go back East and become a doctor. (The job paid $100 a month.)

Past or present, who should we cast as the two riders?

Here’s the ad for riders that ran in a California newspaper:  “Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” Eighteen is too young for a hero in a romance, but most riders were in their early 20s.  The oldest was in his mid-40s. The youngest ever a boy named Brancho Charlie. He was only 11 years old and rode for five months.

Not only do we need actors, we need horses. The Pony Express ran 400 horses including mustangs, pintos and Morgans. A rider rode full-out for about an hour and covered 10 miles. A half-mile or so before arriving at the next station, he’d shout or blow a horn to announce his arrival. The stationmaster would have the next horse waiting, and off he’d go.  The route was 2,000 miles and 165 stations marked the trail that went from St. Joseph, Missouri, through Kansas, Nebraska, the northeast corner of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and finally California.

There’s plenty of room for drama and plot twists. Pony Express riders faced danger from terrain, weather and Indian attacks. I’m seeing one of our heroes stuck battling an unexpected blizzard. The other has a horse go lame and he’s stuck without water. The trip generally took 10 days in the summer and 12-16 in the winter. Perhaps most amazing of all, only one bag of mail was ever lost.

The Pony Express is the stuff of western legend. Like so many other pieces of history, it was done in by technology.  When the telegraph was completed, the Pony Express was no longer relevant. Ten days seemed like a long time compared to what the telegraph could do.

Which brings me back to the here-and-now. I have to wonder how relevant the Post Office is going to be in 10 years? My oldest son is in Baghdad, Iraq.  We Skype and IM several times a day. He’s 8,000 miles away, and we talk all the time for free. It’s pretty amazing. The ms I Fedexed arrived in less than 24 hours.

But back to the movie . . . My picks for the two riders are Chris Pane (the young James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek) for our future doctor and a young Johnny Depp for his rival. Any other ideas? Which actors, young or old, living or long gone, would make the best Pony Express riders?

St Joseph, Missouri ~ Stepping Off Spot for the West

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St Joseph MO

Best known as the place where the Pony Express began in 1860, and where Jesse James met his end in 1882, St. Joseph, Missouri, holds a place of honor in the history of westward expansion.

Situated on the bluffs of the Missouri River, St Joseph began life in 1826 as Joseph Robidoux’s first trading post. Although Missouri had become the 24th state five years earlier, in 1821, the area was still Indian territory. Lewis and Clark haJoseph Robidoux_founderd passed by here on their way upriver in 1804.

When the fur trader filed the plat for the new town, he named it for his patron saint. Robidoux had only one stipulation for those wanting to buy lots of his land: no one could take possession until he had harvested his crop of marijuana. In those days, it was used in the making of hemp. These days the delta 8 carts can be availed easily.

The town was destined to be successful because it’s location on the Missouri River made it easily accessable. Naturalist John James Audubon visited in May of 1843, (two months before its official incorporation) and described Robidoux’s settlement as “a delightful place for a populous city that will be here some 50 years hence.” St. Joseph celebrated its Sesquicentennial in 1993.

The settlement grew steadily, but the discovery of gold in California in 1848 turned it into a boom area. Gold seekers came across Missouri to St. Joseph by steamboat, to where the city’s location on the westward bend of the Missouri River made it one of two choice “jumping-off” points (the other was Independence, about 60 miles southwest). Gold rushers bought supplies here for the westward wagon trek. Estimates say as many as 50,000 passed through St Joseph in 1849 alone.

Another 100,000 or more pioneers would crowd the streets, bound for California and other points west, before the coming of the trains. And that’s why I chose it as a ssteamtrainubject for today’s blog post.

Where steamboats helped established St. Joseph as the place for travelers heading west, trains kept it there. The first train from the east arrived here February 14, 1859. Until after the Civil War, St. Joseph was the westernmost point accessible by rail. That means, until around 1870, if you wanted to get to Texas–or Colorado or Montana or anyplace west–by train, you had to go through St. Joseph. By 1900, one hundred passenger trains a day came into St. Joseph. I don’t know about you, but that number boggled my mind!

And where the train tracks ended, the stage coach lines began.Pony Express stables

If you read my blog on 11/27/09, you already know St. Joseph was the starting point of The Pony Express in 1860. And in 1887, St. Joseph became only the second city in the U.S.–after Richmond, VA–to have electric streetcars.

Wholesale houses for things like shoes, dry goods and hardware, helped ensure St. Joseph’s prosperity during its Golden Age in the late 19th century. At one time, the town ranked fourth in the nation for dry goods sales and fifth in hardware sales.

Cowboys were familiar with St. Joseph, too, since livestock was a large part of the economy beginning in 1846. Swift and Armour were important names in town.

I’m thinkiJesse Jamesng that song from the musical OKLAHOMA, “Everything’s Up To Date in Kansas City” probably should have been written about St. Joseph.

To top it off, infamous bank and train robber Jesse James, a Missouri native, tried to retire here in 1881. His wife wanted him to live a more normal life. And it was here, in a house on top of the highest hill, where, in 1882, one of his new partners, Bob Ford, decided collecting the reward for Jesse James would pay better than robbing the Platte City Bank.

St. Joseph is a town full of history. There are national parks dedicated to the Lewis & Clark expedition, museums housing collections about The Pony Express, Jesse James and westward expansion, and stunning views of the mighty Missouri River. Stop in sometime. You’re bound to learn something new. I did.

Cowboys of the Silver Screen ~ ROY ROGERS

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With the issuance of the “Cowboys of the Silver Screen” stamps, the U.S. Postal Service honors four extraordinary performers who helped make the American Western a popular form of entertainment. Film stars from the silent era through the singing era are featured on the stamps: William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. The stamps go on sale April 17.

Cowboys_Stamps

Roy Rogers was so much more than an extraordinary performer. Born Leonard Slye on November 5, 1911, on a quiet street in Cincinnati, Ohio, whroy-rogersere Cinergy Field, home of the Reds, now stands; “right where second base is now” according to Roy.

Though Roy was city born, he was farm raised. His family bought a small farm near Duck Run, OH, when Roy was seven. On Saturday nights, Roy was the musical entertainment, singing, yodeling, and playing mandolin while the family and their neighbors danced. His yodeling abilities were self-taught, and he, his mother, and sisters used the musical form to communicate when they worked in different areas of the farm.

The Roy Rogers we know best was a silver screen cowboy who sang his way to stardom. He always played the Western hero, with a warm smile, good character, and strong values.

Thanks to Gene Autry and his wildly successful films, every movie studio in Hollywood wanted a singing cowboy. Columbia Pictures signed the Sons Sons of the Pioneers_CMHFof the Pioneers to appear in a series of westerns. Here, give ’em a listen.

Sons of the Pioneers ~ Tumbling Tumbleweeds, written by band member Bob Nolan

When Gene Autry, who’d grown unhappy with his contract with Republic Pictures, threatened not to report for the start of his next film,  Republic held auditions for another singing cowboy, just in case. Roy heard about the auditions: “I saddled my guitar the next morning and went out there, but I couldn’t get in because I didn’t have an appointment. So I waited around until the extras began coming back from lunch, and I got on the opposite side of the crowd of people and came in with them…” It worked, and Republic signed him to a sever year contract. And when Autry left the studio, they put Len Slye, who had been renamed Roy Rogers, into the lead role in Under Western Stars. When the film was released in April 1938, it became an immediate hit, and Roy Rogers was a star.Roy Rogers and Trigger

In preparation for filming of Under Western Stars, several of the stables that provided horses to Republic brought their best lead horses to the studio so Roy could select a mount. The third horse Roy got on was a beautiful golden palomino that handled smoothly and reacted quickly to commands. Roy used to say “he could turn on a dime and give you change.” Roy named him Trigger, and the horse became synonymous with Roy Rogers.

As Roy’s popularity grew he never failed to give Trigger credit for much of his success. Roy was proud of the fact that through more than 80 films, 101 episodes of his television series, and countless personal appearances, Trigger never fell.

Trigger wasn’t his only sidekick. Smiley Burnette was Roy’s sidekick in his first two films, followed by Raymond Hatton, who worked with him in three films. Early in 1939, Gabby Hayes was cast as Roy’s sidekick in Southward Ho. Although Gabby had already made a number of films with John Wayne and William (Hopalong Cassidy) Boyd, he is probably best remembered today for the many films he made with Roy Rogers.

Roy Rogers & Gabby Hayes ~ We’re Not Comin Out Tonight

In 1943 Roy was voted the #1 Western star at the box office, and Republic began billing him as the King of the Cowboys. A few months later he made a guest appearance in the Warner Bros. all-star wartime musical film Hollywood Canteen, in which he and the Pioneers introduced the Cole Porter song Don’t Fence Me In.

Here’s another one I think you’ll enjoy: Roy Rogers & Sons of the Pioneers ~ Cowboy Ham and Eggs 

Dale_EvansBy 1944, Roy had starred in 39 films and had worked with almost as many leading ladies. Then the studio cast Dale Evans in The Cowboy And The Senorita. The immediate chemistry between Roy and Dale lit up the silver screen. Dale’s intelligence, strong will, beauty and talent earned her the moniker “the queen of the West.”

Did you know that Happy Trails to You, the song that became a Roy Rogers trademark, was written by Dale? Here are the two of them singing it together: Happy Trails to You

 Children across America who grew up on The Roy Rogers Show wanted to be just like him and tried to live by the Roy Rogers Riders Club Rules:Roy & Dale

  1. Be neat and clean.
  2. Be courteous and polite.
  3. Always obey your parents.
  4. Protect the weak and help them.
  5. Be brave, but never take chances.
  6. Study hard and learn all you can.
  7. Be kind to animals and care for them.
  8. Eat all your food and never waste any.
  9. Love God and go to Sunday School regularly.
  10. Always respect our flag and our country.

Roy Rogers died on July 6, 1998, at the age of 86. Although Roy was a huge success in show business, he remained a down-to-earth country boy that Americans couldn’t help but admire. “Roy Rogers was a man who unashamedly loved his God, his family, and his country. He was that rare public figure who was just the same on screen as he was off. He just wouldn’t have known how to be anything else.”    — from Happy Trails: The Life of Roy Rogers by Laurence Zwisohn  (www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio.html)

It’s Home Sweet Home to Me

Roy Rogers

“Goodbye, good luck, and may the good Lord take a likin’ to ya.”  – Roy Rogers

Cowboys of the Silver Screen: GENE AUTRY

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momlogolihNot much happened in the telegraphy office of the St. Louis-San Francisco railroad, especially not on the late shift. To pass the time, the young clerk brought his guitar and played to amuse himself. On one of those lonely nights, he received a visitor. That visitor was legendary humorist Will Rogers, and Rogers liked what he heard from a young man called Orvon Gene Autry.

The chance meeting launched a career spanning six decades that included 640geneautry1 records with over 100 million copies sold.  And that’s just the start of it. Gene Autry starred in 95 movies, had a long running radio program, and produced and starred in his own television show.  When he retired from Hollywood, he went on to own the California Angels and KTLA, a Los Angeles television station. He’s also the only entertainer to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for every category established by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.  No wonder he’s on a postage stamp honoring Hollywood cowboys!

His success was quite a leap for the young man born Sept. 29, 1907 in Tioga, Texas. At the age of five, Gene’s preacher-grandfather taught him to sing. His mother encouraged her son’s interest in music with hymns and folks songs. Gene was 12 when he bought his first guitar for $8 out of the Sears Catalog. After graduating from high school, he took the telegraphy job that led to his chance meeting with Will Rogers.

Rogers advised him to purse a career in show business, and a year later Gene went to New York to audition for RCA Victor. He didn’t win immediate favor. An executive told him to come back when he’d gotten more experience, and Gene did just that. He returned in six months and made his first recording, “My Dreaming of You” with a flipside of “My Alabama Home.”

Gene Autry horse guitarIn 1929 he signed with Columbia Records and went on to star in “National Barn Dance,” a popular show on a Chicago radio station. By the 1930s, he was one of the most beloved country singers in America, and his sales proved it. Gene Autry earned the first Gold Record ever awarded. No wonder he’s known as “America’s Favorite Singing Cowboy.”

Movies came next for Gene. He first appeared on the screen in 1934, but the film that made him a star was “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” in 1935. It led to several more “singing cowboy” movies, produced by Republic Pictures at a rate of a movie every six weeks. By 1937, Gene was rated a top box office attraction in the class of Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy.

In addition to the  movies, Gene had a radio presence. His “Melody Ranch” show aired from 1940 to 1956.  Just about everyone knew the words to Back in the Saddle Again.  When television became the main source of familyGene Autry radio entertainment, Gene was the first major movie star to make the shift. He produced and starred in the Gene Autry Show for six years.

The stats for Gene Autry go on and on, but there are two things he’s known for that don’t have a number attached. One of those things is “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Gene recorded this Christmas song  in 1949, and it’s a true American Classic.

The second is even more fitting for Petticoats & Pistols, a blog dedicated to western romance.  Gene Autry is credited with “The Cowboy Code.” Here is it:

 

 1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage – even of an enemy.

 2. A cowboy never betrays a trust. He never goes back on his word.

 3. A cowboy always tells the truth.

 4. A cowboy is kind and gentle to small children, old folks, and animals.

 5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious intolerances.

 6. A cowboy is always helpful when someone is in trouble.

 7. A cowboy is always a good worker.

 8. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents and his nation’s laws.

 9. A cowboy is clean about his person in thought, word, and deed.

10.A cowboy is a Patriot.

If that doesn’t sum up what it means to be a western hero, I don’t know what does. Autry small

 

 The Singing Cowboy stamps go on sale Saturday, April 17th.  It’s fitting the official unveiling will be at the Autry National Center in the Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. 

Cheryl Pierson: The Adventures of the Abernathy Brothers

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In the summer of 1909, two young brothers under the age of ten set out to make their own “cowboy dreams” come true.  They rode across two states on horseback.  Alone.Temple_&_Bud_in_Manhattan--1910page81-2[1]

It’s a story that sounds too unbelievable to be true, but it is.

Oklahoma had been a state not quite two years when these young long riders undertook the adventure of a lifetime.  The brothers, Bud (Louis), and Temple Abernathy rode from their Tillman County ranch in the southwest corner of the state to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Bud was nine years old, and Temple was five.

They were the sons of a U.S. Marshal, Jack Abernathy, who had the particular talent of catching wolves and coyotes alive, earning him the nickname “Catch ’Em Alive Jack.”

Jack Abernathy

Odd as it seems to us today, Jack Abernathy had unwavering faith in his two young sons’ survival skills.  Their mother had died the year before, and, as young boys will, they had developed a wanderlust listening to their father’s stories.

Jack agreed to let them undertake the journey, Bud riding Sam Bass (Jack’s own Arabian that he used chase wolves down with) and Temple riding Geronimo, a half-Shetland pony.  There were four rules the boys had to agree to:  Never to ride more than fifty miles a day unless seeking food or shelter; never to cross a creek unless they could see the bottom of it or have a guide with them; never to carry more than five dollars at a time; and no riding on Sunday. Temple_and_Bud_in_Amarillo2[1]

The jaunt into New Mexico to visit their father’s friend, governor George Curry, took them six weeks.  Along the way, they were escorted by a band of outlaws for many miles to ensure their safe passage.  The boys didn’t realize they were outlaws until later, when the men wrote to Abernathy telling him they didn’t respect him because he was a marshal.  But, in the letter, they wrote they “liked what those boys were made of.”

One year later, they set out on the trip that made them famous.  At ten and six, the boys rode from their Cross Roads Ranch in Frederick, Oklahoma, to New York City to meet their friend, former president Theodore Roosevelt, on his return from an African safari.  They set out on April 5, 1910, riding for two months.

Along the way, they were greeted in every major city, being feted at dinners and amusement parks, given automobile rides, and even an aeroplane ride by Wilbur Wright in Dayton, Ohio.

Their trip to New York City went as planned, but they had to buy a new horse to replace Geronimo.  While they were there, he had gotten loose in a field of clover and nearly foundered, and had to be shipped home by train.

They traveled on to Washington, D.C., and met with President Taft and other politicians.

It was on this trip that the brothers decided they needed an automobile of their own.  They had fallen in love with the new mode of transportation, and they convinced their father to buy a Brush runabout.  After practicing for a few hours in New York, they headed for Oklahoma—Bud drove, and Temple was the mechanic.

Pierson blog 1

They arrived safe and sound back in Oklahoma in only 23 days.

But their adventures weren’t over.  The next year, they were challenged to ride from New York City to San Francisco.  If they could make it in 60 days, they would win $10,000.  Due to some bad weather along the 3,619-mile-long trip, they missed the deadline by only two days.  Still, they broke a record—and that record of 62 days still stands, nearly one hundred years later.

The boys’ last cross country trip was made in 1913 driving a custom designed, two-seat motorcycle from their Cross Roads Ranch to New York City.  They returned to Oklahoma by train.

As adults, Temple became an oilman, and Bud became a lawyer.  There is a statue that commemorates the youngest long riders ever in their hometown of Frederick, Oklahoma, on the lawn of the Tillman County Courthouse.

StatueBoys[1]

 

Neither sleet nor snow…the first Mailman of the West

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marryingminda-crop-to-useOkay, I was going to wait but I’m excited! I just learned yesterday my first effort at not only writing a contemporary Western but also an inspirational one will be published! (details will follow.) I’m kind of on Cloud Nine so to celebrate, I’ll draw a name from today’s commenters for a copy of my current release, Marrying Minda. 

Well, that said, after watching the Olympics, I’ve kind of got skiing on the brain, especially since our three-year-old grandson saw the mogul run and said, I want to do that. I know I can manage a bunny hill after all these years…I know how to get off a ski lift without crashing and down a slope without major havoc upon my person or anybody else’s, but what else do I really know about skiing?

I found out some stuff. 

Skiing developed in Scandinavian countries centuries ago for transportation, not for fun or sport. Emigrants from Norway and Sweden brought skis with them to America, and in 1841, skis were used for the first time in the United States in Beloit, Wisconsin. During the California Gold Rush of 1849, Norwegian pioneers took skis, and snowshoes, to the West. Although no documentation exists, it is believed that the first ski races in America were held by California miners as early as 1860.                                                                                        

The first skier recorded in America history is the legendary “Snowshow” John A. Thompson, who was the first mailman of the West.Snow Shoe Thompson Born Jon Torsteinson-Rue in Telemarken, Norway, he came to Illinois in 1837 with his family at the age of ten. Although the family eventually moved to Iowa via Missouri, Jon was living with a brother in Wisconsin when Gold Fever struck.  In 1851 when Thompson was 24, he drove a herd of dairy cows to California and settled in Placerville, California, down the mountain from Lake Tahoe. He mined for a little while in Kelsey Diggins and Coon Hollow, saved some money and bought a small ranch at  Putah Creek.

placerville1850

At this time, despite snowshoes woven by Native Americans, all attempts by mail deliverers to cross the Sierra had failed. Johnson himself personally suffered by the lack of reliable mail—the letter explaining the flu epidemic that had claimed his mother’s life had been long delayed. When he saw an ad in late 1855 in the Sacramento Union titled “People Lost to the World; Uncle Sam Needs a Mail Carrier,” he quickly applied for the job. snowshoecoin

For 20 consecutive winters, he used skis to bring mail to and from the Placerville area to Genoa, Nevada, and later to Virginia City. Although his nickname was “Snowshoe,” he used ten-foot skis and a single pole held by both hands at once. Never lost even in blizzards, he never carried a gun or took a blanket. And he was never paid!

snowshoe-thompson6 His trips east took three days uphill, two days to get home. He followed what is today’s U.S. Highway 50 from Placerville to South Lake Tahoe. The 90-mile distances also included snowdrifts up to 50 feet high and blizzards with 80 miles per winds. For the long winter months, he was the sole link between California and states to the east.

Off duty, he taught settlers how to make skis. Married with one son, Snowshoe died on May 15, 1876, from complications to appendicitis and pneumonia. He is buried in the Carson Valley and honored there in bronze. statue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within ten years of his death, ski contests were held among the Norwegian and Swedish settlers in Wisconsin and Minnesota. On Feb. 21, 1904, at Ishpeming, Michigan., a small group of skiers organized the National Ski Association.

ipsheming-mich-1928

(This photo courtesy of www.VintageWinter.com)

America’s first ski lift, a simple rope tow, was constructed in 1913 in Truckee, California, near Lake Tahoe. In the 1920’s, similar rope tows appeared throughout the West, and resort skiing began to be a popular recreation about 1930. Sun Valley, Idaho built the first world’s first overhead chairlift in 1936, followed by Loveland, Colorado and Berthoud Pass, Colorado in 1937.  Ski resorts followed at Alta, Utah in 1937; Mammoth Mountain, California in 1938; Monarch, Colorado and Sugar Bowl, California 1939; Winter Park, Colorado in 1940. Understandably, ski resort development slowed during World War II.

hhistoric ski 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Of course, Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe was the site of the Winter Olympic Games in 1960 and still proudly wears the Olympic Rings.  Kenneth Henry carries torch at Squaw Valley OlympicsIn 1961, the National Ski Association was renamed the United States Ski Association. Known today as the United States Ski and Snowboard Association, it now includes freestyle and disabled skiing.

It’s been a while since I hit the slopes, but I learned quickly at Loveland during my student-teaching months in Denver, Colorado, and the lmarryingminda_w2706_120ast time I performed on a family trip, I was still hanging in.  How about ya’ll? Who of you skis?  What winter sports blow your hair back? What’s your favorite winter Olympic competition?

 

(to order a copy, click on cover.)

The Legend of Baby Doe

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Tabor, HoraceHorace “Haw” Tabor may not have been long on talent or ambition, but he made up for it with sheer dumb luck.  1878 found the 48-year-old Tabor running a store in Leadville, Colorado, while his loyal wife Augusta kept a boarding house.  Storekeepers at the time had the option of providing a “grubstake” for miners on their way to the wilds for a shot at fortune.  In return, the storekeeper was entitled to one-third of any riches the miners discovered.

That spring, Tabor grubstaked a pair of sorry-looking miners named August Rische and George Hook.  They didn’t seem to know much about prospecting, but the two of them wandered into the hills and, by pure chance, dug into a vein of pure silver.  Their Little Pittsburgh Mine yielded $20,000 a week.  Haw Tabor’s $60 investment earned him $2 million in the first year alone without getting his hands dirty.  In short order he became mayor of boomtown Leadville and lieutenant governor of Colorado.  Augusta, unable to adjust to her husband’s meteoric rise, became more and more reclusive.

Tabor, Baby Doe 1Enter Baby Doe.  Born Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt, and newly divorced from her slacker husband, Harvey Doe, she was blue-eyed, blond, spunky and irresistible.  In 1879 she met the newly Rich Haw Tabor.  Despite their 26-year age difference the two fell in love.  Over the next few years, as Tabor’s relationship with Augusta became more distant, his liaison with Baby Doe became increasingly public.  In 1881, Tabor quietly obtained a backwoods divorce from his wife (without bothering to inform her).  At some point he and Baby Doe were quietly married.

Eventually word of the secret divorce reached Augusta Tabor.  She hauled her ex husband into court and received a million dollar settlement.

 In 1883 Tabor was appointed to fill a 30-day vacancy as U.S. Senator from Colorado.  He and Baby Doe took advantage of the chance to stage a lavish Washington wedding, attended by no less a person than President Chester A. Arthur.  Soon, however, the gossip caught up with them.  The priest who’d performed the ceremony declared the marriage illegal because both parties had been divorced.  But since they’d already married each other earlier, it didn’t make any difference.  The wedding had been pure theatre.

That was the end of Tabor’s political career.  Although he and Baby Doe lived well for a time, and he attempted to run for governor and senator, public opinion had turned against him.

            In 1893 the final blow came when the federal government announced that it was going to stop buying silver for its currency and convert to the gold standard.  The crash ruined Tabor.  Everything he had was sold, but nothing he could do was enough to support Baby Doe and their two daughters.  In 1899 he died of appendicitis in the single room he shared with his family.  Shortly before his death, he reportedly told his wife to “hang onto the Matchless Mine.”

 Baby Doe spent the remaining thirty-five years of her life in a cabin outside the Matchless Mine in Leadville.  Still beautiful, she could have easily remarried.  She chose instead to “hold onto the Matchless.”

 In Early March, 1935, her frozen body was discovered on the floor of her cabin.  Deserted by her two daughters, she had passed into legend.  Her life has been the subject of two books, a Hollywood movie, two operas, a screen play, a one-woman show and countless other books and articles.

 

The Horseman's Bride The only connection this story has to my March 2010 book, THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE, is that they both take place in Colorado.  But I wanted to give you the first look at my cover.  More about the story next month!  Or if you’d like a sneak preview, you can check it out on my web site: 

http://www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

Badges of the Texas Rangers

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tracy-garrett-tile

   

  

  

The Texas Rangers, one of the most well-known law enforcement agencies in the world, has an on-again off-again history. First established in 1823 by Stephen F. Austin to “act as rangers for the common defense, the Rangers were disbanded and reformed many times over the years, mostly at the whim of whatever pWarrantolitician was in power at the time. It wasn’t until 1987 that the Texas Legislature enacted a statute that made the Texas Rangers a permanent entity of the Department of Public Service.

Through those years, the Rangers have worn several different styles of badges. Contrary to legend, they didn’t start out with stars on their vests. The first Rangers carried a Warrant of Authority, signed by The Adjutant General, that granted them the right to enforce the law when and where they saw fit.

1889It wasn’t until 1889 that the first Texas Ranger badge was created. Made from a silver Mexican coin, this unofficial badge was made from a Mexican silver dollar by the Rangers riding the southern and western parts of the state. The five-pointed star design is thought to have come from the unofficial seal of the state first used in 1835.

It changed a bit over the years:

1910-25_1

  

1910-25_3  1910-25_2 

An official, state-issued badge didn’t come along until 1935.

1938-57

 

 

And even that cha1957nged again in 1957:

 

 

 

 

In 1962, in a decision that the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety called “going back to the tradition steeped Mexican silver badge worn by their predecessors during frontier days,” the department adopted their permanent badge.

1962-2010The “wagon-wheel” design is a five-pointed star, symbolizing the “Lone Star” of Texas, supported by an engraved wheel. The oak leaves on the left side represent strength and the olive branch on the right signifies peace, just as they appear on the Texas State Seal. The center of the star is reserved for the Company designation or the rank of Sergeant or Captain or Senior Captain.

This is the star you will see on the uniform of every Texas Ranger, along with their boots, revolvers and signature white cowboy hats.

 

If you want to know more about the Texas Rangers, visit their website: www.texasranger.org. There’s some fascinating stuff on that site.

Grand Canyon-The Hard Way-The Hance Trail 1884

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hance“Captain” John Hance was reputedly the Canyon’s first non-Native American resident.  He built a cabin east of Grandview Point at the trailhead of an ancient Native American trail he improved to allow access to his asbestos mining claim in the Canyon. He started giving tours of the canyon after his attempts at mining asbestos failed, largely due to the expense of removing the asbestos from the canyon. 

The trail, completed in 1884 and commonly called the Old Hance Trail by historians, was to become Grand Canyon’s first tourist trail, as Hance quickly realized there was money to be made guiding wide-eyed tourists into the depths of the Canyon.

 I love this. This is what makes America great. Hance abandoned mining for tourism in the mid-1880s. To me that’s just a man seeing a way to make money, supplying a product others want, a product that is born out of his life and his skill and his hard work.

 Hance delighted in telling canyon stories to visitors, favoring the whopper of a tale over mere facts. With a straight face, Hance told travelers how he had dug the canyon himself, piling the excavated earth down near Flagstaff (a dirt pile now known as the San Francisco Peaks). 

I exchanged emails with a man who works at Grand Canyon National Park and does re-enactments of John Hance’s tall tales. I asked him if any of those tales were written down and he directed me to one recording of a tale similar to one John Hance told. But Hance never told the same story, the same way, twice and he never wrote any of them down, so only oral history survives. Despite his many outrageous claims, Hance left a lasting legacy at the Grand Canyon,  passing away in 1919, the year the Grand Canyon became a National Park.  Hance was the first person buried in what would become the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery.

The trail John Hance found still exists. It’s listed as unmaintained and in poor condition. A Falcon Guidebook, Hiking Grand Canyon National Park, calls it a vigorous rim-to-rim backpack of three or more days—the South Rim’s most difficult trail. One man, an Hance Rooseveltexperience back country hiker said that even having been over the trail before, the time he took the trail with it in mind to report on it, he got lost five different times-by lost I mean he realized he’d gotten off the trail and had to backtrack to find it. There are miles with no discernable trail. I also, just because research is maddening, found this account of the Hance Trail.

The New Hance descends into Red Canyon (a side canyon of the Grand) and arrives at Hance Rapids on the Colorado River. Although the New Hance is a secondary trail, it is well marked and easy to follow. Note that this is really HusbandTree smdifferent than the other report. So what is the truth? Ah, research! Such fun.

One picture I found showed people rock climbing down a stretch of rock face, so that seems pretty challenging to me but when you think back to those days, it was probably a wonder to even find a way down. No state roads department was in there clearing it and paving it.

So, has anyone been there? Have any of you gone down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Anyone spent the night at Phantom Ranch or taken the burro ride? If so, you have my deepest respect because this is a truly rugged place.

Tell me about it if you were down there.

 Mary Connealy

Petticoats & Pistols