The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1918-05-02
OR almost a score of years
the town had slumbered
in obscurity-and blessed

UE#SS@1B in obscurity-and blessed
lg9l contentment. Some time
before that it had been a slumber-
ing metropolis with sawdust
ozone, ''Whiskey Row." pay days
and the red tinged nights that fol-
low. But as the trees fell and
were converted into marketable
commodity and the sawyers and
lumber-jacks moved gradually back
and back, like a receding tide, the
town was left as high and dry and
almost as much forgotten as de-
serted hulk on a desert island.
Even the multitude of summer-re-
sortists that every year food the
Santa Cruz mountains broke, as on
a rock in mid-stream, flowed on
either side and completely sur
rounded but at the same time al
most as completely avoided the
place. True, a few took bed and
meals at the Boulder Greek House,
but they were of the sedentary
type which looks only for quiet and
repose-for late breakfasts and the
early drone of beetles to call them
to bed. Possibly they might dan
gle a fish line in the stream that
babbled past the hostelry's back
door, but by no more strenuous ex-
ercise did they disturb the COM
munity in its chronic siesta.
Then came the great awakening.
A movie" company, headed by
Beatriz Michelena, invaded the
peaceful canyon. took boisterous
possession of its hotel and other
wise profaned the sacredness of its
ingrown solitude, and all for the
sake of translating Brete Harte in
to motion picture film. Cowboys
be-spurred and sombreroed. veter-
ans all of hundred rodeos. mount
ed their outlaw bronchos and
bucked their perilous ways down
Boulder Creeks main thorough
fare, There were the loud bawl-
ings of the director through the
megaphone, the frantic inroads of
the prop" boy in his search-by
either purchase, lease or theft t.
of properties, and the syncopated
explosion of blank cartridges. For
a moment, at least, the town. taken
unawares, figuratively rubbed its
eyes and blinked its astonishment.
Then enthusiastically it fell in with
this strange but exciting new order
of things.
Having witnessed this original
inoculation of the town with film
bacilli, one comes back after a
period of three years to marvel at
the extent of the epidemic 8 growth.
Following the trail blazed by the
first invaders, other motion picture
outfits" swarmed in upon the
town and trifed with its emotions.
They cajoled and flattered it, and,
balancing soft words against hard
cash, magnanimously invited it's in
habitants to be in the pictures.
Thus the townsfolk were privileged
to bask in the resplendent presence
of some of the very greatest. Will
liam Hart came here to film The
Aryan," and Douglas Fairbanks
''The Halfbreed." Here Mary
Miles Minter got atmosphere for
her Melissa of the Hills" and
Mary PickfOrd for The Romance
of the Redwoods." "Freckles"
with Jack Pickford and Louise
Huff as the stars was done here;
also Sudden JIM with Charles
Ray, The Sunset Trail' with
Vivian Martin and The Call of the
East with Sessue Hayakawa.
There has been horde of others,
of the great and near great. each
attracted here by the same inde-
Unable something. worshipped OBJ
sequiously by all true devotees at
the shrine of Art and called atmos-
phere-in this case atmosphere of