Taking the High Road- Leadville to Vail in 100 Years

This book is dedicated to all of my friends, classmates and their

families who live or have ever lived in Leadville, Red Cliff, Gilman,

Minturn, and Vail.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1- An Old Indian Trail

Chapter 2- Leadville, Mining and the Gilded Age

America in the 1870s

The Birth of Leadville

It’s Cold Up Here

Getting There and Around

Horace Tabor- the Early Years

This Thing Called Mining

Growing Pains

David May- Mining the Miners

Meyer Guggenheim- Like Father, Like Son

A Train is Coming !

Life and Some Leisure

Horace Tabor - The Middle Years

Baby Doe, Augusta and Molly

Bat, Doc and Wyatt

America in the 1880s

Horace Tabor & Leadville in Decline

The Coming Century

Chapter 3- Early Gilman, Red Cliff and Minturn

Masters of Recording and Preserving

Mystery of Astor City

Gilman, Red Cliff and the Mining District

The Pullman Experience

Minturn - at the Crossroads

Time for School

Chapter 4- Colorado Growth and Transition

Theodore Roosevelt- Reformer and Conservationist

Ludlow and The Progressive Era

America Reluctantly Goes To War

The Spanish Flu Epidemic

Roaring Twenties- A Mixed Bag

Depression and Hope

New Deal Highways and Electricity

This Thing Called Skiing

Chapter 5- The War and Post War Years

A Great Storm Now Upon Us

The Winter War

Camp Hale- Training Snow Warriors

The Red Cliff Bridge

Early Ski Industry

Chapter 6- Skiing: Growth of an Industry

Skiing’s First Super Stars

The Impact of Television

All That Is Needed

Gear Gurus of Skiing

Meanwhile, Back in the Mines

Vail Valley- the Old Homestead Days

Another Ski Resort?

Ascent into Bliss

Show Us The Money

The Real Work Begins

Quest for White Gold

Skier of the Decade

Honoring the Pioneers

Chapter 7- Enterprise: The Long-Tail Effects

The Mining Industry

The Ski Industry

Chapter 8- Today and a Near Future

Epilogue

References

Appendix (Map of Region)

About Me

Foreword

R

andall Howlett is

uniquely qualified to write Taking the High Road having lived in Vail for over two decades after his family’s arrival in 1970. His father ran the Talisman Lodge while his mother owned and operated the Skandia gift shop. Randall (Randy) and his sister attended Battle Mountain High School with him graduating in 1971, the same class as my older sister Laura. From my memory, what stands out most is his love for my mother’s green chile and as a track star I remember him being very fast, consistently winning the sprint events in his senior year.

After high school, Randy would go off to college and then into the US Marine Corps. During a break from military service he came back to coach his old high school track team for a couple seasons with the girls’ team placing third at the state meet. Battle Mountain, then as now, was the public high school for students from Red Cliff, Gilman, Minturn, Avon and, of course, Vail. Randy was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain before returning to Colorado and working in Environmental Claims management for twenty years at a major insurance company. His experience in dealing with Superfund sites and natural resource restoration would shape his viewpoint regarding care of Colorado’s environment.

Randy’s desire to preserve nature, coupled with a love for history and the Vail Valley, compelled him to write a historical narrative unlike any other. That being said, I’ll let him now tell his story.

- Charles Troxel

Introduction

Taking the high road is tough, it requires Courage and Perseverance ....anyone can go downhill

– Unknown

T

his book deals

with the premise of traveling a portion of US Route 24 in the Colorado high country. It’s a thirty mile stretch of mountain highway beginning in Leadville, going over Tennessee Pass and ending in Vail, following a short jog on Interstate 70 (see map in the Appendix). Tennessee Pass at 10,424 ft isn’t the highest pass in Colorado but it’s one of the more scenic ones and definitely one of the most historic. The proposition is that as you journey, you’re not only traveling in real time and distance but also going through a large course of history. In this case that course spans a one hundred year period, a time of great change in local, national and even world history. The towns we travel through; Leadville, Red Cliff, Gilman, Minturn and Vail would come into being, maybe even boom, and in some cases, recede much like Colorado itself. This route and these five towns represent a microcosm of both Colorado and America from 1870 to 1970. A century filled with struggle, change, turmoil and promise.

History should be more than just a simple recitation of dates and facts. It has a life and it was very real to the people who lived during earlier times. Back then it was their today just as much as our today is now. They didn’t know what the future would hold as their lives were all shaped by the present world that surrounded them. Dates and events provide the bones of history but it’s really peoples’ experiences, hardships and accomplishments which give those bones the necessary fat and muscle. Towards that end, this writer will attempt to provide firsthand accounts from those who actually lived during various periods of time. Also, it’s worth noting that local history doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s affected by and, in turn, influences events happening most everywhere else, whether it be in Colorado or America at large. For that reason, I’ve also included a much broader historical perspective to provide the reader a better sense of context for why things happened.

Taking the High Road also carries with it a meaning beyond simply traveling a given distance on a mountain highway. It’s a metaphor for choosing the difficult path in life if doing so would lead towards a more promising future. Being unsatisfied with one’s life, yet willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be more and to do more. It’s a clarion call for Americans and immigrants alike who came out west to fully explore this country with its offer of wealth, adventure and opportunity for a better future. So, let’s begin that journey now.

Chapter 1- An Old Indian Trail

I fought the enemies of peace, no matter who, while I lived. I will fight them after my death

- Chief Ouray

T

he Ute Indians

inhabited Utah and Colorado since at least the 1300s, and by the 1600s they had occupied most of Colorado from the front range westward. Their sometimes allies and frequent enemies, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, would control the vast Colorado plains. When the Spanish explorers arrived in the mid 1500s, they introduced the horse to the Utes who would never be the same - a traditional hunter-gatherer society now took on warrior characteristics, often raiding other Indian tribes. Traversing rugged mountain topography became a routine part of their culture to which establishing trails became a necessity. Trails which had the seasonal purpose of facilitating high country hunting with lower level winter encampments along still flowing rivers. One such trail is the route taken by US 24 today.

This Ute trail also becomes the logical path taken by early explorers, trappers and prospectors, later to be widened for wagon and stage coach use. Traveling from Leadville down to Minturn in 1879, the road would be known as the Red Cliff Wagon toll road and the Eagle River toll road. Tolls were commonly charged on roads to pay for initial construction and ongoing maintenance and in winter, sleighs would often be used instead of wheeled vehicles. By the 1880s railroad tracks would be laid on or alongside the road to facilitate the transport of people and freight.

In 1913 US Route 24 was developed into an auto road, and by 1926 it became one of America’s original highways under the new United States Highway System. The western terminus would be Minturn and the highway would actually extend eastward beyond Leadville all the way to the state of Michigan. We are, of course, only concerned here with the Leadville to Minturn portion which runs in a more northerly direction and is the highest segment traversing the Continental Divide at Tennessee Pass. In this area the 30-mile route averages about 9,000 feet in elevation with the summit of Tennessee Pass sitting at 10,424 feet. At this summit is also where Lake County of Leadville borders Eagle County, home to the remaining towns in this book. By the time a traveler arrives in Minturn, he’s descended almost 3,000 feet at a 6% grade while following the path of the Eagle River much of the way. This spectacular section of Route 24 is today ranked as one of the top scenic routes in Colorado.

Chapter 2- Leadville, Mining and the Gilded Age

(1870 to 1900)

Tell the miners from me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of our nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world.

- Abraham Lincoln

America in the 1870s

B

y 1870, the

devastating Civil War was over and had been for several years, and Reconstruction which began in 1863 was in mid-process of healing a nation’s physical and psychological wounds. It would still have another seven years to go before its completion. The Transcontinental Railroad had been completed the previous year and it revolutionized the settlement and the economy of the American West. What previously took over four months of travel overland now took about six days. Accordingly, the western frontier had shrunk dramatically and was more easily within reach. Gold had been discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the California Sierra foothills in 1849 followed by the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush in 1858 in Colorado (then called Kansas Territory). The Pike’s Peak Rush was one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history resulting in 100,000 seekers taking part and being instrumental in Colorado becoming a new territory in 1861. Whether successful or not at mining, many of those new arrivals decided to stay on and make Colorado their home. The first placer discovery in Colorado was in the vicinity of present-day Englewood on the Front Range. Other gold finds led to the establishment of towns such as Breckenridge, Fairplay and Golden which still exist today although transformed from their original purpose of mining.

The US population in 1870 stood at 35 million, with about 74% of people being rural; an increase of 65% in numbers over the previous 20 years. America was slowly becoming less rural with the urban segment increasing 12% over the same time period. Importantly, the country was about to enter the Gilded Age which runs from 1870 to about 1900. It’s a term coined by Mark Twain and is considered a time of rapid industrialization and economic growth particularly in the northern and western states. While there is real wage growth, the tremendous influx of immigrants, particularly from poorer European countries creates pockets of poverty and results in a concentration of wealth amongst the fortunate few. These conditions would drive many to seek a better life out west in prospecting, homesteading and working in the many businesses and towns that supported these ventures.

Given this timeframe, it’s important to digress and explain the financial context of the 1800s as it relates to gold and silver mining. The United States had a bi-metallic standard (gold and silver) for the first forty years since the country’s inception. The price of gold was set at $19.32/oz and silver at $1.29/oz, essentially a 15:1 ratio. In 1834, The Coinage Act devalued silver by keeping the price the same but increasing gold in relation to $20.65/oz. The Comstock Lode Silver Rush in Nevada in 1859 increased silver supply within a few years leading to an over-supply and debasing of silver prices