A Brief Story of Cripple Creek

Post (C) Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

 THE TALE OF CRIPPLE CREEK 

Deserted Building between Cripple Creek & Victor, CO 2018
(Photo property of  Doris McCraw)

I am resharing some history of Cripple Creek, a mining town in the Colorado Rockies, prior to the rest of the DeLaVergne story. Of course, you can't share Cripple Creek's history without including the whole mining district, which sits in an extinct volcano caldera. So here we go.

It was during a time of volcanic eruptions some thirty-five million years ago, that lava flowed through what became the Cripple Creek Mining District. However, for some unknown reason, the flow did not bring gold to the surface. Richard M. Pearl, PhD, a geology professor at Colorado College, believed that when convulsions in the earth’s crust caused cracks in the underground granite to appear the gold salts were deposited into the cracks and seams of that granite. Those ores that were created by the various eruptions of volcanic activity in the region were almost exclusively gold ores. There was some small amount of silver associated with the gold, but usually in negligible quantities.

Between 1842 and 1844 Capt. John C. Fremont explored the region and his travels around Pikes Peak took him into the Cripple Creek area. During the Hayden survey of the 1870s, there were some gold specimens found by H.T. Wood, a member of that survey. In 1874, Wood returned to the Cripple Creek district with other prospectors set about trying to find the source of the gold he'd initially found. Wood organized the district under the name of Mt. Pisgah. The hope was they could find the source of the gold 'float'. Despite their efforts, no one was successful in finding the source.

In 1871 the Welty family moved into the region. Welty and his sons built a cabin and corral near the stream that flows through the Cripple Creek area. They were followed by the Womack family who purchased the Welty squatter rights for $500 and claimed a second homestead two miles south of the Cripple Creek stream with Robert (Bob) building a cabin at the bottom of a ravine the Hayden Survey had named Poverty Gulch.

High Mountain Ranching
 (photo property of Doris McCraw)

Other families moved into the region but by the mid 1880's most of the settlers had left and/or returned to places they had on the plains east of Colorado Springs, which had become active in the cattle and sheep industry. The homesteads were purchased by the Pikes Peak Land and Cattle Company, a partnership composed of three local residents and Phillip Elsworth, an eastern glove manufacturer. When Elsworth visited the area in 1885 he felt his partners had misrepresented the company's holdings. He forced them to quit claim their shares and he put the land up for sale. It was purchased by the Denver real estate firm of Horace W. Bennett & Julius A. Myers for $5,000 down and $20,000 if and when it could be paid.

That same year, 1885, Myers & Bennett created the Houseman Cattle and Land Company and renamed the area the Broken Box Ranch. George Carr was hired as foreman and within two years a profitable ranching operation was in place. Bob Womack, however, remained on the piece of the Womack homestead in Poverty Gulch.

Of all the towns affected by the Cripple Creek volcano perhaps the most impacted were Cripple Creek and Victor. However at the height of the mining boom, around 1900, there were approximately 10 additional towns. Cripple Creek became the financial center and Victor the mining area.

The land that Bennett and Myers platted out, from their Broken Box Ranch site, after gold was found again, was originally planned to sell for $25 and $50 for corner lots. By 1891 when the boom hit, those $25 lots were selling for $250. Buildings were put up very quickly, using wood, with wood pulp or newsprint for insulation. Some of the poorer buildings had rugs or tent canvas for insulation. This set the stage for the devastation that was to come. As Dr. Lester Williams said in his book Cripple Creek Conflagrations “Neither time nor money had been wasted on a mere town, or living accommodations, there wasn't much emphasis on safety from fire, and the end result was that Cripple Creek was ripe to burn...”

And burn it did. By April of 1896 when the first fire hit, the area was so crowded that to get a room meant you had to hustle to find a place to stay. The streets were crowded with all manner of people from all walks of life. The hotels were unable to accommodate the influx, so travelers were having to resort to lodging houses, which were being built at an average of a dozen or so a week. The first fire started on April 25, 1896, and by nightfall, approximately fifteen acres had burned. On April 29, 1896, the second fire broke out and burned all but a small portion of the western part of the town. The damage from both fires was approximately $2,000,000 in 1896 dollars.

Despite the setback of the fires caused, Cripple Creek was rebuilt, this time with brick. The 'new and improved' Cripple Creek remained the commercial center of the district. Of the rebuilding, the city now had buildings that were valued at “three-quarters of a million,” and were considered to be a “glorious monument to the energy and enterprise” of the residents. The city was proud of the fact that it was a 'law-abiding' camp. The camp had schools, churches plus the 'tenderloin' district. If one saw 'six-shooters' it was more as a precaution as opposed to necessity.

After 1900 Cripple Creek began a slow decline and by 1960 the population had dropped considerably. 

Today Cripple Creek has seen a small boon with the coming of limited-stakes gambling. Traveling into the area, one will see the casinos but there is also the history of the region and the remembrance of “The World's Greatest Gold Camp”.

A brief note on Victor, Colorado the second important town in the district.

View from Victor, CO.
(photo property of Doris McCraw)

According to one publication “The town [of Victor] is beautifully located, and in the summer of 1893, when the natural scenery was yet undisturbed and the sweet perfumery of wildflowers was the only outgoing freight, one would have seemed much at fault in judgment had he predicted that $5,000,000 in gold would have been transported thence in 1895.”

Victor from the beginning has been known as the ‘city of mines’. In fact, it had a gold mine right in the middle of town. The Woods brothers, who founded the town, were in the process of building a “first-class hotel” when gold was found as they were digging the foundation. Instead of a hotel, the Gold Coin mine came into existence. As a mine in the middle of town, the building was built of brick and even had a stained glass window at the entrance. As much as possible the mine looked as if it belonged in the city.

Remnants of the Gold Coin Mine entrance
(Photo property of Doris McCraw)

Most of the major producing mines were located near Victor and during the town’s heyday of activity Victor Avenue was one of the best-known streets in the world. By 1896 just three years after being founded the city was the second largest in the region and had light, water, telegraph, and telephone service the same as Cripple Creek.

Due to the vicinity of the mines, a large portion of the population of Victor and nearby towns was composed of miners. The nearby town of Goldfield was considered the 'family' town, but Victor was a mining and milling center. In the early days men were known to pay one dollar to sleep on a pool table and stand in line to eat. The growth was explosive. By 1896, three years after its founding, Victor’s population had grown to approximately 8,000 people. Like Cripple Creek, the growth had been so fast the structures were mostly of wood. In 1899 Victor was hit with its own destructive fire. The devastation covered twelve blocks of the business district, composed of some 200 buildings including the original Gold Coin Mine building. It was estimated that 3,000 were left homeless. The fire burned for approximately three and a half hours. The total estimated cost of the fire in 1899 funds was $2,000,000. After the fire, in fact, beginning the very next day, Victor set about to rebuild. The debris was cleared and tents and makeshift temporary buildings were erected. Saloons and restaurants were almost immediately back in business. By noon the post office was up and running

Victor had become so well known that after the fire the “Colorado Road” arranged an excursion train to view the 'effect of the great fire' for $4.50. The trip would begin in Denver and travel to Cripple Creek and Victor on August 26 and return on August 27.

So there you have it, a very brief history of Cripple Creek and Victor. Also of note, there is still an active gold mine in the region, although it is an open pit mine.

Battle Mountain Mines, Victor, CO (USGS photo)

I shall leave you with the following quotes about mining and prospectors:

“Geologically Cripple Creek is a freak. It is erratic, eccentric, and full of whims and caprices. That is, it is so to the man of science and the miner of experience.”

“...geology, so far as the location of ore deposits was concerned, was an unknown quantity. The prospector was the sole mine seeker...He was the lone wolf of mining for he usually went on his own. He wanted no prying eyes to behold the long elusive pot of gold at the end of his rainbow...”

Bibliography: 

Geochronology of the central Colorado Volcanic field, Wm. C. McIntosh, Charles E Chapin, New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, Bulletin 160, 2004
Gazette Telegraph May 20, 1973
Cripple Creek and Colorado Springs...Illustrated, Henry L Warren & Robert Stride, authors and publishers, 1896 
Cripple Creek Mining District, Robert Guilford Taylor, Filter Press, Palmer Lake, CO 1973 
Cripple Creek, A Quick History, Leland Feitz, Little London Press, Colo.Spgs. CO 1967 Cripple Creek Conflagrations, Lester L. Williams MD, Filter Press, Palmer Lake, Co 1994 
Cripple Creek Guide, April 25, 1896 
History of Cripple Creek, America's Most Famous Gold Camp, The Quarterly Sentinel Vol I, Denver, Co, Feb 1896, WC Calhoun, Publisher 
A Quick History of Victor, Leland Feitz, 1969 Little London Press, Colo.Spgs, CO
The Denver Evening Post, August 25, 1899 
The Daily Mining Record, February 23, 1894

Until Next Time Stay Safe & Stay Well

Doris

Fall Dump Cake

Time: 2 hours 5 minutes Yield: 12 servings

Ah, fall is in the air... can't you smell it? Yes, we do mean smell and you'll understand why here in a minute! Load up your slow cooker with this Fall Dump Cake for the easiest, sweetest, autumn-flared scents to circulate your surroundings for hours. Not only does it smell like all your fall fantasies, but the way the syrupy apple filling blends so nicely with the crumbly, cinnamon-coated cake will have you dancing around like a leaf on a windy day. Your senses will totally fall for Fall Dump Cake! 'Tis the season!

Ingredients

2 (20-ounce) cans apple pie filling 1 (15.25-ounce) package yellow cake mix 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into cubes 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon whipped topping, to taste, for topping

Directions

Step 1 In a slow cooker, add the apple pie filling.

Step 2 Evenly sprinkle the cake mix over the filling, then dot it all over with the butter cubes.

Step 3 Sprinkle the cinnamon over the apple mixture.

Step 4 Cover the slow cooker and cook on high heat until the filling is bubbly and the top is golden-brown, about 2 hours.

Step 5 Serve the dump cake with the whipped topping.

Thanksgiving in the Old West

 Everyone has heard of the First Thanksgiving, the three-day feast at Plymouth in 1621. But how did the American harvest festival end up the national holiday we all know and love? Of course, harvest celebrations are nothing new, but in the New World, pioneers were eager to create a holiday of their own. George Washington attempted to set up a Thanksgiving holiday, but the day didn’t gain much momentum until 1846, when Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, began a letter-writing campaign to establish the last Thursday in November as National Thanksgiving Day. It took 17 years, but eventually her pleas fell on the ears of President Abraham Lincoln, who issued a proclamation on October 3, 1863, designating Thanksgiving Day.

So, how would your characters have celebrated the holiday? Why, with a feast, of course. Menu items from restaurants to home tables would have included many of the traditional favorites we still enjoy today, such as turkey, cranberry sauce, and mince, apple, or pumpkin pies. Hotels in Kansas City, Missouri outdid themselves in 1888. Their menu included Blue Point oysters, little neck clams, calf’s brains, buffalo tongue, red snapper, black bass, salmon, capon, turkey duck, ribs of beef, veal, quail stuffed with truffles, elk, squirrel, opossum, shrimp, pompano, asparagus, artichokes, puddings, pies, ice cream, macaroons, and Roquefort and Edam cheeses.

 

The New England Economical Housekeeper, and Family Receipt Book of 1845, by Mrs. E.A. Howland, urged readers to serve the following Thanksgiving Dinner: Roast Turkey, stuffed; A Pair of Chickens, stuffed, and boiled, with cabbage and a piece of lean pork; A Chicken Pie; Potatoes; turnip sauce, squash; onions; gravy and gravy sauce; apple and cranberry sauce; oyster sauce brown and white bread; Plum and Plain Pudding, with Sweet sauce; Mince, Pumpkin and Apple Pies; Cheese.

 

The Golden Lamb in Ohio, served a Thanksgiving menu that included several oyster dishes (including plain oysters), such as consommé oysters as well as turkey stuffed with oysters. Other dishes were whitefish, roast beef, chicken croquettes, wild duck, broiled quail, celery and lettuce (plain or with mayonnaise), plum pudding, mince pie, pineapple with “De Brie cheese” and Charlotte Russe (a dessert of sweet cream and sponge cake popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods).

 

And in Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox suggested that the perfect Thanksgiving dinner included oyster soup; boiled fresh cod with egg sauce; roast turkey, cranberry sauce; roast goose, bread sauce or currant jelly; stuffed ham, apple sauce or jelly; pork and beans; mashed potatoes and boiled onions, salsify, macaroni and cheese; brown bread and superior biscuit; lobste4r salad; pressed beef, cold corned beef, tongue; celery, cream slaw; watermelon, peach, pear, or apple sweet-pickles; mangoes, cucumbers, chow-chow, and tomato catsup; stewed peaches or prunes; doughnuts and ginger cakes; mince, pumpkin, and peach pies; plum and boiled Indian puddings; apple, cocoa-nut or almond tarts; vanilla ice-cream;; old-fashioned loaf cake, pound cake, black cake, white perfection cake, ribbon cake, almond layer cake; citron, peach, plum, or cherry preserves; apples, oranges, figs, grapes, raisins, and nuts; tea and coffee.

So your characters would have eaten well on the holiday, even if their meal wasn't exactly what we'd serve today. Much of their Thanksgiving feast would have included whatever they could catch or raise, which may or may not include turkey. But you can certainly have your characters celebrating with a feast.

J.E.S. Hays

www.jeshays.com

www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks

Classic Country Ballads of Lost Love – Give My Love to Rose #westernfictioneers #countryballads #classiccountrymusic

I grew up in the late 50s and 60s listening to the country music of that era. I stuck with country music through the 70s. I made it into the 80s but, by the late 80s, country music as I knew and loved was headed in a direction that, with a few exceptions, I wasn’t interested going. So I didn’t. (Get off my lawn.)

 The old west gunfighter and trail ballads, drinking songs, and revenge songs had an influence on me that was, and still is, every bit as strong as the impact Louis L’Amour’s books left with me. My lifelong interest, perhaps fascination bordering on obsession, with everything old west—truth, legends, and myths alike—have roots in those old cowboy and country songs.

 I’m inviting you to read along with me this year as I post one or two nostalgic-for-me country ballads on the first Wednesday of each month. I will share a snippet of trivia about each song along with a YouTube video.

 Each month, I will include a link back to the previous month’s article as reference to those songs. The common thread that runs among the songs I’ve chosen for this musical memory lane excursion is tragic lost love.

January – Marty Robbins – El Paso and Feleena
February – Faron Young – TheYellow Bandana
March – Willie Nelson and Ray Charles – Seven Spanish Angels
April – Marty Robbins – San Angelo
May – Billy Walker – Cross the Brazos at Waco
June – Billy Walker – Matamoros
July – Marty Robbins – Running Gun
August – Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger
September – Marty Robbins – They’re Hanging Me Tonight
October – Lefty Frizzell – Long Black Veil

Give My Love to Rose is the song for November. It was written by Johnny Cash. He recorded and released it in 1957. It was the “B” side of his single Home of the Blues. In 2002, Cash re-recorded Give My Love to Rose, which garnered him his fourth Grammy Award.

According to Cash, he came up with the basic idea for the song after having had a conversation with an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. The prisoner had asked Cash to give a message to his wife. From there, Cash wrote the story of a released convict traveling home to reunite with his wife and son. The former prisoner is either terminally ill or somehow injured, and he collapses along the railroad tracks. The song’s narrator finds him, listens to the dying man’s last requests, and presumably conveys that message to his family.

Until we meet again,

Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time
www.kayespencer.com

FISH FARM?

Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Photo from Find a Grave

Of the many things that Colorado Springs is known for, one of the most unique, given the fact that Colorado Springs sits in a High Plains desert, is that one Col. George De La Vergne had a series of fish ponds.

An article in the local paper, Colorado Springs Gazette, from March 27, 1879, discussed visiting his business. The following is a description of the reporter's visit to these ponds.

"We first saw a pond in which there were about 70 mountain trout, caught by the Col. himself in the mountains, and brought to this place. Other ponds contained about 200 more of these trout. Most of these are two years old, and of good size for eating, but they will be kept for reproducing purposes. They reproduce very rapidly, one female trout laying at least 500 eggs. Near the mountain trout is a hospital where the sick trout are successfully treated on allopathic principles.

A little distance off are three other ponds containing about 1300 brook trout which were bought a few months ago in Denver from a party who had brought them from the East. The brook trout are decidedly the "gamest" of the trout species. We were much interested in seeing them partake of a little lunch of beef liver. Some of them would jump clear out of the water to grab a piece held over the water, while over the long pieces there would be a terrific struggle for full possession between two or three trout who might have hold of it.

Next we went into the nursery, a covered stone building, which was filled with youngsters. There were about 55,000 baby brook trout and 3,500 Lake Trout. It will be about two years before these fish will be large enough to send to market."

 Col. De La Vergne was born in New York on October 18, 1800. He died in Colorado Springs, CO. on January 15, 1893, of pneumonia. In his lifetime De La Vergne was more than just a fish farmer, but for Colorado Springs, this was an interesting way to make money.

His son, Edward Morton De La Vergne, is known as one of the first men to invest in what became the Cripple Creek Mining District. His story will follow later.

Until Next Time Stay Safe & Stay Well

Doris

Several years ago, about ten or so, I wrote a book called “The Half-Breed’s Woman” about our hero, U.S. Deputy Marshal Jaxson McCall, who was the son of a white man and an Indian woman. Brought up in Indian Territory, he’s lived a very hard-knock life with his younger brother, Brendan, who is also a deputy marshal.

The heroine is a young debutante from Washington, D.C., Callie Buchanan, whose stepfather, Dunstan Treadwell, has nefarious plans for her now that she is eighteen. She is on the run (who wouldn’t be?) and Treadwell hires Jaxson to track Callie down and return her to him.

Jaxson takes the job, but things get complicated, and soon they are both in danger.

As the years passed, I thought of so many things I wanted to change in this book. Writers do that, many times—and a “do-over” is not always possible. BUT, in my case, I was able to do just that, and what fun I had with this!

I’m re-releasing this fabulous story under a new title and cover, A MARSHAL FOR CALLIE. It’s full of surprises and action, and one of the most poignant love stories ever.

It’s one of my favorite stories, and I have plans, still, to write sequels as to what happens to these characters—they are some of my very favorite creations. I hope you will feel the same.

Here’s the blurb—it tells the gist of the story much better than I can in the space I have:

A MARSHAL FOR CALLIE--A sensual western historical romance that draws you in and won't let go.

  U.S. Deputy Marshal Jaxson McCall is hired by Dunstan Treadwell, a powerful government official, to track down his runaway stepdaughter, debutante Callie Buchanan. When Jax realizes he’s been double-crossed by Callie’s stepfather, he doubles down to protect Callie from an evil nemesis from his own past who has been hired to kill them both.

The stakes have changed: Treadwell doesn’t want Callie back—he wants her dead. And the man coming after them is a master at murder.

Jax catches up to Callie in Fort Smith, and none too soon, for Wolf Blocker, the man Treadwell has hired to murder his stepdaughter and Jax, is one step ahead of them—and he’s got assassination on his mind. Jax and Callie set out on the stagecoach for Texas, neither of them able to be honest about their circumstances. With Blocker on their trail and Apaches ahead of them, the future is uncertain.

One thing Jaxson knows: he cannot take Callie back to Washington to face an attempted murder charge. Matters are further complicated when Jax and Callie are forced into marriage by worried Cavalry Captain Alan Tolbert to avoid the trouble he believes Treadwell could cause.

Through all the pretense, the hardships, and the deadly danger, one thing becomes obvious. Callie and Jaxson were meant to be together for this new beginning, for this new forever love that neither of them had ever hoped to find. Will they live long enough to see it through?

Have you ever read a story or seen a movie that had characters so REAL that they stayed with you long after the book was finished, or the movie had ended? What characters have stayed in your heart and mind long after the story was over?

A MARSHAL FOR CALLIE--KINDLE LINK: https://tinyurl.com/yn85vnkk

A MARSHAL FOR CALLIE--PAPERBACK LINK: https://tinyurl.com/mryt2fwf

CHERYL'S AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE:  https://tinyurl.com/2k7xeddt

On This Day in the Old West: October 13

 October 13, 1792 marks the beginning of an American institution: The Old Farmer’s Almanac. The periodical’s first editor, Robert B. Thomas, published the very first edition on this date in 1792, during George Washington’s first term as US President. Although many other almanacs were being published at that time, Thomas’ The Old Farmer’s Almanac became an instant success. It cost only 6 pence (about 9 cents), and by the second year, circulation had tripled (from 3,000 to 9.000). Published every year since, it is now the oldest continually published periodical in the United States.

 

An almanac, by definition, records and predicts astronomical events (like sunrise/sunset), tides, weather, and other phenomena with respect to time. So what made The Old Farmer’s Almanac so different? Since Thomas’ format wasn’t all that original, we can only surmise that his astronomical and weather predictions were more accurate, the advice more useful, and the features more entertaining. 

 

Thomas used a complex series of natural cycles to devise a secret weather forecasting formula, still in use today, which brought amazingly accurate results, said to be as much as 80 percent accurate. His last edition, in 1846, was not that much different from his first, over 50 years earlier. However, in those 50 years, Thomas established The Old Farmer’s Almanac as America’s leading periodical by outselling and outlasting the competition. Thomas died at the age of 80, supposedly reading page proofs for the 1847 edition of the almanac.

 

Every September, The Old Farmer’s Almanac publishes weather forecasts, planting charts, astronomical data, recipes, and articles. Topics include gardening, sports, astronomy, folklore, and predictions on trends in fashion, food, home, technology, and living for the coming year. Few people, other than the Almanac’sprognosticators, have ever seen Thomas’ secret formula for predicting the weather. It is kept in a black tin box at the Almanac offices in Dublin, New Hampshire.

 

The publication was not always “Old,” however. At first, it was simply known as The Farmer’s Almanac. However, in 1832, with his publication having survived longer than similarly-named competitors, Thomas inserted the word “Old” in the title, later dropping it from the title of the 1836 edition. After his death in 1846, John Henry Jenks was appointed editor, and, in 1848, changed the title of the book permanently and officially to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. In 1851, Jenks made another change to the Almanac when he featured a “four seasons” drawing on the cover by Boston artist Hammatt Billings, engraved by Henry Nichols. Jenks dropped the new cover for three years, but then reinstated it permanently in 1855. This trademarked desing is still in use today.

 

An interesting anecdote has lawyer Abraham Lincoln using The Old Farmer’s Almanac to free his client from murder charges in 1858. William “Duff” Armstrong was on trial for murder in Beardstown, Illinois. Lincoln used an almanac, supposedly The Old Farmer’s Almanac, to refute the testimony of Charles Allen, an eyewitness who claimed he had seen the crime by the light of the moon. The book stated that not only was the Moon in the first quarter, but it was riding “low” on the horizon, about to set. There was no way Allen could have seen Lincoln’s client.

 

With The Old Farmer’s Almanac in continuous publication since 1792, any of your characters could have read this periodical, depended on its forecasts, or just noted its articles. You could even use the information contained in this post to date the exact cover and title your character would have seen. Robert B. Thomas’ creation has withstood the test of time.

 

J.E.S. Hays

www.jeshays.com

www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks

Classic Country Ballads of Lost Love – Long Black Veil #westernfictioneers #countryballads #classiccountrymusic

I grew up in the late 50s and 60s listening to the country music of that era. I stuck with country music through the 70s. I made it into the 80s but, by the late 80s, country music as I knew and loved was headed in a direction that, with a few exceptions, I wasn’t interested going. So I didn’t. (Get off my lawn.)

The old west gunfighter and trail ballads, drinking songs, and revenge songs had an influence on me that was, and still is, every bit as strong as the impact Louis L’Amour’s books left with me. My lifelong interest, perhaps fascination bordering on obsession, with everything old west—truth, legends, and myths alike—have roots in those old cowboy and country songs.

I’m inviting you to read along with me this year as I post one or two nostalgic-for-me country ballads on the first Wednesday of each month. I will share a snippet of trivia about each song along with a YouTube video.

Each month, I will include a link back to the previous month’s article as reference to those songs. The common thread that runs among the songs I’ve chosen for this musical memory lane excursion is tragic lost love.

January – Marty Robbins – El Paso and Feleena
February – Faron Young – TheYellow Bandana
March – Willie Nelson and Ray Charles – Seven Spanish Angels
April – Marty Robbins – San Angelo
May – Billy Walker – Cross the Brazos at Waco
June – Billy Walker – Matamoros
July – Marty Robbins – Running Gun
August – Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger
September – Marty Robbins – They’re Hanging Me Tonight

I planned this month’s song specifically for October, since the song has a paranormal slant. The song is [The] Long Black Veil by Lefty Frizzell.

Lefty Frizzell promo 1957

Long Black Veil is a 1959 country ballad written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin. Lefty Frizzell was the original artist who recorded and released the song.

The story is sung from the perspective of a man who has been falsely accused of murder and has been executed. He declined to provide the alibi that would have exonerated him, because he was having an extramarital affair with his best friend’s wife at the time of the murder ‘neath the town hall light. He chose death over dishonor and took their secret to the grave with him.

The woman mourns his death by walking the cemetery and visiting his grave while wearing a long black veil and enduring the unforgiving, wailing night wind.

This song is equal parts tragic, achingly sad, and otherworldly. Otherworldly, because the singer is dead, and he’s telling their story, which is creepy-fabulous.

Now, hear me out.

I have a theory about the woman and why she visits his grave when the night winds wail. Nobody knows. Nobody sees. Nobody knows but me.

If nobody knows and nobody sees and nobody knows but the dead man, then I say the woman is also dead, and her soul can’t rest because she stood in the crowd at his hanging and ‘shed not a tear’. Her guilt for allowing an innocent man to die, a man she evidently cared about, drove her to suicide.

So why does she wear a long black veil? Maybe she wore a black dress with a long black mourning veil after the man died, and that’s what she was wearing when she died.

 I didn’t make up the afterlife wardrobe rules.

But, I do know that ghosts are stereotypically depicted as an entity of flowing, draped, white cloth because, for hundreds and hundreds of years, people were buried in white linen shrouds as the proper care for the deceased and also as an affordable alternative for a ‘coffin’. White shrouds eventually became associated with spirits that can’t rest...aka... Ghosts.

It’s not unreasonable that her eternity outfit included a long black veil.

Back to the song…

Evidently, the man and woman are unable to communicate directly with each other in the afterlife. But, he can watch her visit his grave and walk the hills, and she can visit his grave and walk the hills for all eternity. Almost together, yet always apart.

Country Music Trivia:

Marijohn Wilkin was known as “The Den Mother of Music Row”. She toured with Red Foley, co-wrote ‘Waterloo’ (Stonewall Jackson’s No. 1 country hit), and co-wrote ‘Cut Across Shorty’ and ‘I Just Don’t Understand’ (big hit for Ann Margaret). Most famously, she wrote ‘One Day at a Time’ (big gospel hit of the 1970s).

She was the first to publish Kris Kristofferson’s songs (specifically, ‘For the Good Times’ which was a huge hit for Ray Price). Her son, John “Bucky” Wilkin was front man for the surf rock group Ronny & the Daytonas who had a 1964 hit single with ‘G.T.O.’

Wilkin and Dill said the inspiration behind Long Black Veil came from a Red Foley gospel song called ‘God Walks these Hills with Me’; a newspaper story of an unsolved murder of a priest; and the legend of the mysterious woman who visited Rudolph Valentino’s grave.

Lefty Frizzell’s version of Long Black Veil was selected by the Library of Congress in 2019 for preservation for being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’.

Image: Lefty Frizzell promotional image attribution by Columbia Records, derived from Public Domain.

Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time
www.kayespencer.com

Still On the Trail

Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Tandem Ox Yoke
 Photo (C) Doris McCraw

The Smokey Hill River Trail, one of the more treacherous routes to the Colorado Gold Fields, gave way to the Butterfield Overland Dispatch in 1865. This stage line only ran for about a year before its purchase by Ben Holliday, known as the "Stagecoach King". Holliday in turn sold to Wells Fargo who sold to the United States Express Company.

According to records, the cost for an individual ticket was $175.00 one way. There were a total of thirty-nine stage stops along the trail. It was here passengers could purchase a meal for an additional fifty cents to one dollar.

Map of the Smokey Hill Trail 
from Legends of America

Additionally, the Army built several forts along this route to protect travelers from attacks. The Smokey River was a favored hunting ground for the Plains Indians. Some of the Forts along the trail were: Fort Downer, Fort Hays, Fort Harker, Fort Monument, and Fort Wallace.

Despite the presence of the Army, the attacks cost the stage line but ultimately it was the railroad that resulted in the end of the travel on the trail but what stories you find when you start researching.

From the Smokey Hill River Trail exhibit at the Elbert County
Historical Society & Museum
Photo (C) Doris McCraw

As for the forts, some of the names probably sound familiar and many are now museums.

For those who might be interested here is a link to a PBS show talking about Four-Mile-House, the last stage stop before arriving in Denver. Four-Mile House

Until Next Time Stay Safe & Stay Well

Doris

On This Day in the Old West: September 8

School in the 1800s was a far different thing than it is today. For one thing, did you know that most schools didn’t even have an American flag flying over the schoolhouse? This began to change starting in 1888, when Daniel Sharp Ford, the owner of the patriotic circular The Youth’s Companion, began a campaign to sell United States flags to public schools. The magazine sent out 100 free cards to each student who wished to obtain a school flag, printed with these words: This Certificate entitles the holder to One Share in the patriotic influence of the School Flag. The students then sold the certificates for 10 cents each, and when they had sold all 100 of them, they would send the money to The Youth’s Companion and receive “a good-sized, substantial flag” to display at their school.

Four years later, the magazine had sold US flags to approximately 26,000 schools across the country. The market at this time was slowing, but Ford felt it was not yet saturated. Ford had already hired Christian Socialist Baptist minister and author Francis Julius Bellamy to work with Ford’s nephew, James B. Upham, in the premium department of the magazine. Upham had begun his campaign with an essay contest for students: “The Patriotic Influence of the American Flag,” with one winner chosen from each state and that winner’s school receiving a large US flag. Upham now had the idea of using the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing in the Americas in 1492 to further bolster the schoolhouse flag movement. 

 

The Youth’s Companion called for a national Columbian Public School Celebration to coincide with the World’s Columbian Exposition, scheduled for 1893 in Chicago, Illinois. Forty-six countries from all over the world were sending exhibitions to this World’s Fair. A flag salute was to be part of the official program for the Columbus Day celebration on October 12^th, to be held in schools all over the United States. Francis Bellamy created a special pledge, published in the September 8, 1892 issue of the magazine.

 

Bellamy’s original pledge read as follows:

 

I pledge Allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

 

This pledge was immediately put to use in the magazine’s campaign. Bellamy went to speak to a national meeting of school superintendents to promote the Columbian celebration. The superintendents liked the idea and selected a committee of leading educators to implement the program, including the immediate past president of the National Education Association. Bellamy was selected as the committee chair.

 

With the official blessing of the American educators, Bellamy’s committee now had the task of spreading the word around the nation and of designing an official program for schools to follow on the day of national celebration. Bellamy structured the program around a flag-raising ceremony and his pledge, which was accompanied with a salute known as the Bellamy Salute. Unfortunately, this salute resembled the later Nazi salute, so during World War II, it was replaced with the now-familiar hand-over-heart gesture.

 

Bellamy described his thoughts as he crafted the language of the pledge:

 

“It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution…with the meaning of the Civil War, with the aspiration of the people…

 

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the ‘republic for which it stands.’ …And what does that last thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation—the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

 

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity.’ No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all…”

 

Bellamy thought of his Pledge as an “inoculation” that would protect immigrants and native-born but insufficiently patriotic Americans from the “virus” of radicalism and subversion. Whether or not this has worked, your characters could have either read The Youth’s Companion as a child, or may have perhaps participated in the Flag Day celebrations that the magazine encouraged after September 8, 1892.

 

J.E.S. Hays

www.jeshays.com

www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks

Classic Country Ballads of Lost Love – They’re Hanging Me Tonight #westernfictioneers #countryballads #classiccountrymusic

 I grew up in the late 50s and 60s listening to the country music of that era. I stuck with country music through the 70s. I made it into the 80s but, by the late 80s, country music as I knew and loved was headed in a direction that, with a few exceptions, I wasn’t interested going. So I didn’t. (Get off my lawn.)

The old west gunfighter and trail ballads, drinking songs, and revenge songs had an influence on me that was, and still is, every bit as strong as the impact Louis L’Amour’s books left with me. My lifelong interest, perhaps fascination bordering on obsession, with everything old west—truth, legends, and myths alike—have roots in those old cowboy and country songs.

I’m inviting you to read along with me this year as I post one or two nostalgic-for-me country ballads on the first Wednesday of each month. I will share a snippet of trivia about each song along with a YouTube video.

Each month, I will include a link back to the previous month’s article as reference to those songs. The common thread that runs among the songs I’ve chosen for this musical memory lane excursion is tragic lost love.

January – Marty Robbins – El Paso and Feleena
February – Faron Young – TheYellow Bandana
March – Willie Nelson and Ray Charles – Seven Spanish Angels
April – Marty Robbins – San Angelo
May – Billy Walker – Cross the Brazos at Waco
June – Billy Walker – Matamoros
July – Marty Robbins – Running Gun
August – Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger

This month’s song is ballad They’re Hanging Me Tonight by Marty Robbins.

The story expresses the lamentations of a man facing his hanging for murdering Flo (ex-girlfriend?) and ‘her new love’. It’s also interesting to note that the man apparently didn’t evade arrest after he killed Flo and her new man, since they’ll bury Flo tomorrow, but they’re hanging me tonight. Not much time has elapsed between murder and punishment.

Conversely, if he did flee the scene at the dimly lit café, he wasn’t on the lam for long. Reading between the lines suggests Old West ‘justice’ happened to bring about his hanging so quickly after Flo is buried. No lengthy trial for this man. Was this a case of vigilante justice for the double murders—these crimes of passion—since he freely admits what he did wasn’t right? Either way, his heart is filled with fear as he faces his imminent execution.

James Lowe and Art Wolpert wrote They’re Hanging Me Tonight. Marty Robbins released it in September 1959 on his album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. The album’s peak position on the country music chart for 1960 was No. 6 in the U.S. and No. 20 in the U.K.

Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time
www.kayespencer.com