Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1933-03-02
Colorado Springs. Colo.
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

~
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON
PEAK of the vanishing American.
-. and at once you think OF 10, the
~ Poor Indian" While 1t is true that
the number OF Indians In the Unit
ed States has greatly decreased
since the caravels of Columbus first
touched the shores of the New
World, yet the presence of nearly
quarter OF a million red men
within our borders is testimony to
~ the fact that poor Lo has far from
~ reached the vanishing point
But there is another type OF In
dian that Is truly vanishing
American lie Is the cigar store Indian the
sign, symbol and guardian angel of the cigar
store There was a time when no tobacco shoD
was complete without the figure OF stalwart
brave or plump Indian princess standing In
front Of But today, with hut few exceptions
you Will have to go to a museum or an antique
shop to find such an aboriginal symbol of trade
In one OF the earliest American commodities.
And. II by chance you wish to own one, you'd
better be prepared to pay from 5000 up for 1t.
For the cigar store Indian Is now. Americana
and his value Is In Inverse ratio to his scarcity.
IT Is one of the paradoxes Of history that this
vanishing American was not of American or
sigln at all. Tobacco was introduced to the Old
World by a Spanish physician In 1858 and In
1886 Sir Francis Drake brought the eoufpment
for smoking to Sir Walter Raleigh who made
the habit fashionable In England When England
was Merle England under James / (1603 1921
there were wooden Indian trade signs In that
country. When Pocahontas died, In 1917 the
wooden Indian was no strange sight
But the early Indians seen In Europe were
IN nntF, -.
seen American Indians. AS one writer has OBJ
served.
EARLY Indians showed that Europe had set
tied down to the belief that American Indians
wore no clothes except Kilt Of tobacco leaves
"a wonderful triad of utility when one thinks
of lat once neither apparel, currency and
the makins, to be drawn upon up TO the limit
or decency London types resembled negroes
and for 200 years were known as black boys'r
While the Indian figure as trade sign started
In England, 1t reached grandeur and true char
acter In the United States. American sculptors
knew the Indian, his features and characteris-
tics, and the resulting figures were astounding
-Four groups Of designs for wooden tobacco
trade sign figures developed In the United
States-chefs, squaws, Roman figures and white
men. The last named included such figures as
Uncle Sam, Walter Raleigh, policemen, forty
Miners and smoking girls
plump Pocahontas-the squaw type-was
seen In Boston as early as 1880. In ITO, when
Christopher Demuth opened little tobacco shop
at Lancaster, Pa, dainty wooden gentleman
offered a snuff box instead Of the traditional
cigars Baltimore claims to have had cigar
store fixtures before ITO.
But 1t was not until shortly before the Civil
war that hordes of this race Of red men appeared
on the American scene According to one chron-
yr1a fbo Trd{
his Job as guardian angel of cigar stores BY a
man named Chichester about 1850 The sculptor
OF these earliest specimens was Tom Willard
In the first days Of the fad some Of the more
arstocratic chiefs were made of metal cast In
molds. This type, however was soon abandoned;
even from the first most OF the figures were OF
wood. These were all made by hand, generally
of white pine, and considerable skill was re-
qnlred In their shaping Logs were first blocked
out with an ak for the body after which the
arms were attached and the features marked
out with chse Finer carving tools gave the
finishing touches They we're then painted and
mounted on wheels for delivery.
The original scnptors were carvers OF ship's
figure heads. With the decay OF American ship
ping, carvers here. finding their occupation slip
ping away from them, made the wooden Indian
more than parttim Job. They turned to him
as their mainstay. One of these carvers per-
haps the most famous of them all, was Louis
John Of Ste Anne de Beaupre In Quebec
When JOHN died there a few years ago at the
age OF eighty-six he was given wide publicity
as "the originator of the cigarstore Indian"
although 1t is doubtful If that characterization
can justly be applied TO any one man. But his
pre-eminence In this field is Indicated by the
following excerpts from his obituary notices In
the newspapers at the time of his death:
Louis Johns family name does not rest ex-
clusively his bizarre production He was
described the greatest wood carver In the
world. He carved wood for seventy years though
OF late his sight had failed and he had laid away
bis chisel.
IWhile cigar store Indians are becoming ex-
tinct those created By John In his early days