Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-09-25
OLD LEADVILLE
TIMES REVIVED
BY WORLD WAR 2
TOWN IS WHOOPING IT UP AGAIN
AS IT DID BEFORE LITTLE
JOHNNY MINE FIZZLED

AS H DID BEFORE LITTLE
JOHNNY MINE FIZZLED
A wartime construction bonanza has
given Leadville. a pale purple shell of
Colorado's richest and rowdiest mining
| camp, jingling cash shot-in -the-arm
The old town is whooping it I'D
again like 1t hasn't done since the
Little Johnny fizzled out more than
30 years ago.
On Saturday nights roughly dressed
men jam five and six deep against
the 60-year-old Pioneer Club bar on
State street. State was an avenue of
ribald revelry and reckless spending
sprees in the time of A. w. Tabor,
who found 100000 fortune in
Leadville and died broke.
The boys at the Pioneer bar are
spending part Of the payroll of the
contractors building Camp Hale, a
big army ski troop cantonment. There
are carpenters getting SIPS a week at
time and half and double time over
40 hours. Common laborers make SIS.
Started in June, the cantonment
construction near Pando. in a steep
walled mountain valley 20 miles north
west across Tennessee pass from Lead
vile, is going to be finished by winter
Great While 1t Lasted
Then the old mining towns latest
whirl in flush times will subside. But
Leadville's used to that. When Camp
Hale's construction payroll estimated
now at 100000 weekly peaks cut
off in a few more months, Leadville
will remember, as it always has, they
were great days while they lasted"
Leadville, in 1880 a riotous city of
10000 with tent hotels, is jammed
again.
Its population in June was about
$780,
Leadville's population now is esti-
mated at 5000 to 10000, more than
doubled in two months
No vacancy signs are pasted in
the stairway doors leading to the Sec
ond floor rooms on Harrison avenue,
the towns main drag.
On State street, now officially called
Second, the signs read, significantly,
private residence" They report the
demise of Leadville's red light district,
one phase of the towns old life which
the army decreed must not be revived.
At the Vendome hotel, built in 1884
and still the towns most luxurious,
Owner F. w. Henson has partitioned
two banquet rooms off the lobby into
one-cot stalls. They are full every
night at 81 bed.
Those who come too late for a cot
can and do curl up in the lobby chairs
without charge.
Sheriff Angelo Travison,s office is
an agency Of last resort for people
hunting rooms. A man can have a
Jail bunk for the asking, except on
Saturday nights. The bunk space then
Is reserved for boys who take on too
many drinks for Leadville's two-mile-
high atmosphere.
Legend says that a newcomer into
Leadville's altitude can't hit the floor
with his hat after three drinks Oscar
Wilde, accepting drink from the
battles of IL Old Matches miners in
quick succession, proved in 1882 that
he was an exception.
News of Camp Hale's high wages
has Travelled like the word of rich
metal strikes in former days.
Roy D. Price, Ocate, N. M, rancher,
rolled into town with his pickup truck,
bed roll, and Lawrence M. Stevens,
10, hitchhiker from Versailles, Ind.
MY crops were hailed out" ex-
planned Price. There was nothing to
do on the ranch that my wife couldn't
do. I heard about this good money up
here and I said, there's no reason
why I shouldn't get myself some.'"
Young Stevens was making his way
to work as a hay hand at Gunnison
and see the Rockies for the first time
when Price picked him up.
II told him." Price said, he'd better
come along with men and get some of
this good money, too"
Price and Stevens couldn't find any
bed when they arrived. Price parked
his truck outside town. They turned
down the hedroll and slept in the
truck.
Next morning they signed on at the
union office as carpenters helpers at
$1.10 an hour, agreeing to pay $13
union fee and 50 month dues.
Eye for Business
The first fellow locked up in Sheriff
Travison's jail one Saturday night was
thrown out of State street bar be-
cause he took a leather jacket from
under the arm of one bar acquaint-
ance and tried to sell it to another.
F. M. Blakley, Denver carpenter,
came in as TraVison finished locking
the man away.
Can you find me place for five
people to sleep?" he asked. Its for
me and my son and my wife and two
women friends of my wife,
Sheriff Travison found what he said
was the last available place in town.
It was one room over a First street
bar with three beds in it.
In the Pastime bar, blonde Garrett
Murray, who's been playing the piano
in Leadville spots for Is years, says:
tits all right, this army camp boom,
but they're not spending money like
they did in the old days. These boys
come to town to have little good
time, but they're careful with their
money.