The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-05
BUTTE News.
HE'S seen ALL SORTS
Fred Ritchie Has Been Through
Ali Kinds of Luck.
HE HAS HAD GOOD TIMES
But His Habit Is to go Broke" Onca
in So Often and Then Start
Out Again as Bravely
as Ever.

Fred Richie. the we'll known amuse-
Elent director, whose latest venture in
Butte proved a failure, has gone to
Idaho to look up a new field where en-
ergy may find reward. Richie has had
about as many ups and downs as fall
TO the lot of the average Snowman, but
he is not the kind of a man that can be
kept down by bad luck or discouraged
by adversely; he accepts i'll fortune as
calmly and complacently as he does
good fortune, because they are the
common and alternating experience of
the Snowman. There was a time, in the
good and palmy days of the old
Comique, when Richie owned all kinds
of property in and around Butte, and
few men in the city could command
more ready cash than he Many stories
are told of his profiigate use of money,
his liberality and his eXtravagant ex-
penditures, but he was always the same
Richie whether on the top wave of
success or in the ditch of financial dis
tress
There is no man in the business who
IS more resourceful of schemes for re-
coupling waning fortune than Fred
Richie, and as he carries many Of
them out successfully, he is never long
in that embarrassing condition known
as broke AS long as his name will
be remembered in Butte, people will
recall such financially successful at
fairs as the great Swiss celebration, to
which the late Colonel Robert q. Inger-
soil contributed his talents, and the
later butchers tournament. which was
a mint to its promoter. Richie
schemes have not, howsvec all pan
ned OUT so successfully.
Back in 1876, after a run of bad luck,
Richie found himself one day stranded
in the town of AlamooSa, Colo. AS he
walked the streets of the town, tired
and hungry, and lacking the price of a
bed or a meal, he came as near being
discouraged as he has ever been in his
life. While his stomach was craving
his mind was busy evolving scheme
after scheme, but each one, as it was
worked out, had to be abandoned be-
cause of the lack of means to carry it
out. In his walk he approached a
butchers shop and was about to enter
in quest of something to eat, when his
attention was attracted by the antics of
a big bear that was tied to a tree in a
yard near by. Richie stopped to
watch bruin and soon had him asso-
ciated with various new schemes, but
each was given up as not being feasible
until he CHANGED to look across the
street and saw an ugly, vicious looking
bull in a corral.
work! E-. ..
What was the matter with a pull and
bear fight?
The scheme struck him so f1rcibiy
AMI fayoTably that he forgot his hun
ger and his Poverty. Ball fights Ill that
part of the country were co:ninon, AZ
least were not novel, but a bull and
bear fight was something new.
Ritchie was stranger in Alamoosa,
and for a time he hesitated about at
tempting to enlist anyone in the scheme
with him, but necessity forced him to
it, and he finally approached a citizen
of sporting proclivities and laid the
scheme before him. The man looked
favorably upon it and entered into the
enterprise, but did not wish it to be
publicly known that he was identified
with it.
Richie needed credit and he obtain
ed an unlimited amount of it in Ala
moosa as soon as his silent partner had
introduced him among the business
men. When he had established himself
he got possession of the bull and the
bear and then made public his great
amusement scheme. He got permission
to use the race track for the fight and
proceeded to build an arena about 100
feet long and so feet wide in front of
the grand stand. The arena was en-
closed with high board fence on three
sides and with fencing wire in front
of the grand stand.
The coming contest was widely adj
vertised and caused great excitement.
The day for the great event arrived
and the prospects were that Richie and
his partner would make a cleanup. "A
treasurer was put in the ticket office to
take in the cash, and everything was
working satisfactorily Thousands of