A special tribute from the GUNNISON COUNTRY TIMES
Cattlemen’s Inn Let’s go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn, It’s white-wash built of brick, With a draft of beer and friendly cheer, It’s the perfect evening pick. Let’s go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn When it’s time to take a break, Your muscles sore from early chores And it’s time for eggs and steak. Let’s go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn To get a roper’s cut. And after your trim you amble in To sit by that antlered buck. Let’s go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn. It’s old but that’s all right. It’s a local place with a local pace And a bed to stay the night. We can’t go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn, Not now, not any more. We’ve lost a space, a personal place When flames roared through the floor. We can’t go down to the Cattlemen’s Inn Though some say they’ll build it back. I hope they do and when it’s through We’ll be there — that’s a fact! – Mark Todd
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or For nearly 63 years, The Cattlemen Inn – or the Allen Hotel, as it was originally called –was an unsurpassed Gunnison landmark. It was a familiar anchor in the center of town and remained more or less the same through decades of growth and change. Faces have come and gone, but the old hotel was always there. The Cattlemen Inn was destroyed last week in a devastating fire. But, as you will see in this special section, landmarks are often made of much more than bricks and mortar and what can be seen with the eyes. The true measure of a landmark like The Cattlemen Inn is how high it stands in the hearts and memories of the people who grew up there, gathered there, worked there and lived their lives within its reach.
In this commemorative section, you will read some of the “first moments” Gunnison residents had under the Cattlemen’s roof, and many memorable stories that are inseparable in our minds from the old place. Many of you have shared old photographs to bring back to life what was lost last week to fire. We offer a timeline to put the long life of this beloved meeting place into a broader perspective than most of us normally have in the hurried pace of our lives. A few of the community’s writers will share their thoughts and memories. These pages are intended as a wake of sorts, to honor a passage. More than that, they are a celebration of the community that made The Cattlemen Inn what it was: part of our home.
A History Of the Allen Hotel / Cattlemen Inn Harley Tripp The Cattlemen Inn, which opened in 1940 as the Allen Hotel, was the fourth building to occupy the four lots at the southeast corner of Tomichi Avenue and Pine Street. In many ways these lots reflect the history of Gunnison. In 1881 Gunnison was a booming town in its “Camp Phase” or early “Town Phase.” Captain Lounden Mullen, acting as a trustee for the Gunnison Town and Land Company, originally sold the four lots to Dr. James H. Mackintosh in September 1881. The next year, Gunnison’s population reached 5,000, and the four lots were resold several times. That summer William Bradburn, a local blacksmith, acquired the lots and built a small one-story frame blacksmith shop at the northeast corner with a western “false-front” that faced Tomichi Avenue and a one-story frame dwelling behind the blacksmith shop facing Pine Street. In 1883 the mining boom that had fueled Gunnison’s economy started to collapse. Bradburn was unable to pay his taxes and in September 1883 the Gunnison County Treasurer sold the property to C. R. Bourdett for $24.01. Gunnison then entered a depression that lasted through the silver panic of the early 1890’s when its population fell to 1,100. Bourdett in turn couldn’t pay his taxes and in September 1885 the County Treasurer sold the property to Gunnison County since no one else was willing to buy the lots for the price of the taxes owed on them. By the time the Gurley Investment Corporation bought the lots in 1890 both buildings were gone. In 1909, C. A. Nelson bought the four lots. Conveyed by marriages and deaths they stayed in the Nelson/Blackstock/Hards family for the next 30 years. Sanborn Insurance maps show that the lots remained vacant until the 1920’s when a two-story red brick house was built on
them. Mr. Rogers, the school superintendent, lived in the house during the 1930’s. After Mrs. Springer bought the house in January 1939 she rented rooms to WSC coeds. In the late 1930’s Floyd and Mae Allen owned and operated the “Creamery” which packaged and sold “Mountain-Maid Butter, Ice Cream, and Pasteurized Milk.” The sign for the “Creamery” can still be seen on the front of the building at 302 W. Tomichi. A front-page article in the August 17, 1939 edition of the Gunnison NewsChampion announced that Mr. and Mrs. Allen had bought the lots, which were across the street from their “Creamery,” and started construction on a modern $50,000 hotel on them. Ray Miller razed the brick house and within a week the basement excavation was nearly complete. The original “L” shaped hotel building stretched 125 feet along Tomichi, 80 feet along Pine Street and was 35 feet deep. Delta Brick and Tile Company supplied the then new rough-surface tan bricks for the two-story building. The east first-floor wing contained the lobby and coffee shop. The west wing housed eight guest rooms and a four-room suite for the hotel owners. There were twenty-three additional guest rooms on the second floor, including seventeen rooms with private bathrooms. The large basement, that later housed the Beef ‘n Barrel Restaurant, was used for storage. One of the first neon signs in Gunnison and interior partitions of glass bricks helped give the
building a “Modern Movements” architectural look. First class furnishings, used throughout the hotel, included modernistic walnut furniture in the guest rooms. Bedsprings and innerspring mattresses were purchased from Miller’s Furniture Store. Although the Allen Hotel and Coffee Shop was scheduled to open Feb. 10, the opening was delayed until Feb. 22, 1940. Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Best ran the coffee shop and featured a special Sunday Dinner for $0.65 after the hotel opened. In 1947 the hotel was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Ted McCorkhill who immediately announced a $60,000 addition to the hotel that included a new dining room and ten more guest rooms. It appears
– circa 1968 that the dining room was added but the additional guest rooms were not. They sold the hotel to Max and Mary Fleetwood in May 1954, who traded it to Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Adams in June 1958 for the Adam’s ranch east of Doyleville and other considerations. In 1964 Warren Smith bought the Allen Hotel and started altering it. He added the board and batten front to the north and east doorways in 1965 and a few years later painted the bricks white. In the late 1960’s the Beef ‘n Barrel
restaurant opened and the name was changed from the Allen Hotel to the Cattlemen Inn. In the mid 1970’s he added the wooden awning to the north and east sides. After 17 years of Smith ownership, John Whistler bought the hotel in October 1981. Richard Paulson, the present owner, bought the Cattlemn Inn from John W. Whistler in October 1985. (Harley Tripp is a member of the City of Gunnison Historic Preservation Committee) �
Talking up the future at the Cattlemen’s A lot of the memories associated with an old building are about times gone by, a past that is no more. But for me, for the past 15 years or so, the strongest memories associated with the Cattlemen Inn have mostly been associated with the future, or at least talking about it – the future of the valley, the future of the college, the future of the mountain region and the West in general. Most of that Cattlemen Inn futurism, for me, was associated with the college’s regional Headwaters Project. The Headwaters Project was actually born at a bunch of monthly breakfast meetings at the Cattlemen Inn. The college, under one of its short-term presidents, was looking for ways to enhance its regional and national visibility. I thought the mountain region was lacking an
intellectual center, and thought the college could gain some regional credibility trying to fill that vacuum with conferences about “the headwaters region of the Southwest.” This idea came to the attention of a consultant from Colorado Springs named Bob Brossman – a breakfast man, for sure, and a good feeder at any meal – so next thing, one of the college vice-presidents and I were doing breakfasts at the Cattlemen Inn with Brossman whenever he was in town, and that’s where the first Headwaters Conference took shape. That first conference, fall of 1990, concluded with a big breakfast in the Cattlemen’s “inner sanctum” room, with people from around the region collaborating with notables like Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clay (Thomas Jefferson) Jenkinson
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The Cattlemen’s was where we had our first date 25 years ago, and breakfast the last Sunday morning. Thanks for the memories!!!
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– Gary and Maureen Demuth
and John Nichols on where to go next. By the second or third year, the Cattlemen’s basement restaurant and bar area became the more or less official site for the Headwaters unofficial after-session sessions: every Friday and Saturday evening of the conference, a gob of presenters and participants headed into those smoky depths for the informal and better lubricated follow-up on the formal sessions. One of my duties as organizer was to call the Cattlemen Inn a week or so in advance and ask if they could stay open “a little past” their 11 p.m. closing those nights. That didn’t really matter, though, because the Cattlemen Inn was also the best lodging deal in town, if you weren’t too fussy about amenities, and the Salida contingent (Ed and Martha
Quillen, Margo and Kirby Perschbacher), Randy Russell, or someone always had a room there with a laid-in supply of warmish beer, where anyone who was still up for reconstructing the West went on about that for whatever amount of the remaining night the task took. The futures that were created, and as quickly abandoned there! – too bad some of them never made it to daybreak. In other cases, it was probably a good thing. My last idea session there was just before Christmas this year. Ed Marston, long-time publisher of High Country News, was passing through town on his way home from somewhere, and called up about lunchtime. Over a bowl of the Cattlemen’s good soup, an idea bloomed out of an otherwise casual conversation that will be a big part of the
George Sible y
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January 16, 2003
Headwaters conference this coming fall. At one of those Cattlemen’s breakfasts, the aforementioned Bob Brossman gave me a piece of advice once – or a warning or something: “It’s hard to put a high polish on a horseapple.” I never have figured out exactly what he was talking about. But – intending only respect for an interesting place I loved – I’ll say that might not be a bad metaphor for that “futuristic” aspect of the Cattlemen Inn: a place that didn’t have much of a high polish, but interesting things sure grew in it. �
Cattlemen was home, literally, to Sally Smith Debra Goodman
being named businessman of the year in 1973. If you have ever read about Eloise, the precocious “Dad was up to open the youngster who was raised living in the Plaza Hotel, front desk at 6 a.m. and you have caught a glimpse into the childhood of closed the bar at 2,” she Sally Smith. said. “All the meat was cut Sally’s parents bought the Allen Hotel and moved by Dad, too.” into the living quarters at the end of the west wing That was probably a when Sally was one year old. Thus began her 15 considerable task especially adventurous years as a resident of our much loved after he built and opened Cattlemen Inn. the Beef ‘n Barrel in the “It was wild,” Sally said to describe this unusual basement of the hotel. Sally Gunnison childhood. She recalls eating all of her especially liked the opening meals with the staff, never a sit-down family of the Beef and Barrel dinner, although Bobby, her mother, would rest for because the booth cushions a few moments between busing tables while Sally were so much fun to ride Bobby, Sally & Warren Smith ate her lunch or dinner. down the stairs! “I ordered off of the menu for every meal. Sometimes Sally, even as a child realized I would order the same thing day after day. I would just get a that this special place was more than just a “business” and she craving,” Sally reminisced. attributes that to her parents’ philosophy to not only focus on the The staff was more than her meal companions, they became travelers, but to create a place for the local people. members of her family. “More than once they told me I was a She now works and lives in Michigan and has just welcomed brat,” she said. Bobby and Warren’s first grandchild. She respected her dad’s accomplishments and remembers him �
How close you ask? This close. Safeway and its local employees sincerely thank each member of the Volunteer Fire Department and the Police Department for saving our building from suffering the same fate as the Cattlemen Inn. You are heroes! The Gunnison community is proud of each one of you!
This is Patrick Sarvak, a former resident and employee of Cattlemen’s. I can’t believe that the old place is gone! Life in Gunny just won’t be the same. No more “Gentle Man’s Rancher (aka: eggs benedict)” in the mornings, prime rib sandwich at lunch, or chicken cordon blue down at the bar! During the years that I waited tables downstairs, I met some of my best friends, was able to pay my way through college at Western and also eat like a king! My condolences to the owners, the people of Gunnison, and all of the hunters who show up this year to find the Cattlemen’s gone. P.S. I live in Hawaii now, but honestly think of Gunnison EVERY day!
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– Aloha, The Sarvaks – Gary & Suzanne Love Grain Valley, MO.
You couldn’t drive past the Cattleman’s at 2 p.m. without seeing John Wilson’s Bronco parked out front. All of the rancher’s brands and the collection of hats made the Beef and Barrel a real local’s place.
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– Leonard (“Mac”) McAdams
sale, only to be sold again and later torn down
Township 49 North / Lots 21, 22, 23, 24 of West Gunnison block 147 Feb. 22, 1940 - Allen Hotel Coffee Shop and Hotel opened today.
Allen Hotel / Cattlemen Inn
1943 - The La Veta Hotel is sold for $8,350 at a sheriff’s
Aug. 1939 - A front-page article in the August 17, 1939 edition of the Gunnison News-Champion announced that Mr. and Mrs. Allen had bought the lots and immediately started construction on a modern $50,000 hotel on them. When the Floyd Allens bought the land, Ray Miller razed the boarding house.
Jan 21, 1939 - Joseph Blackstock sold the lots to Mabel R. Springer
superintendent of schools (Mr. Rogers) lived in it.
1927 - a red brick two story house is on the lots and the
Nov. 20, 1911 - C. A. Nelson transferred the property to Emma Nelson who became Emma Blackstock
map shows the four lots are vacant
Oct. 1902 - Sanborn Insurance
Jan. 1896 - Sanborn Insurance map shows the four lots are vacant
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It was with great dismay that I heard of the Cattlemens fire. My family started coming to the area over 50 years ago. With all of the changes to the area, you could always count on Cattlemen. Breakfast at the Cattlemen was always a treat. No matter what you ordered it was consistently good. During our graduate school years at WSC, if we needed to be filled up for the day, Cattlemen is where we would go. We will certainly miss it.
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Aug. 1939 - Mabel Springer sold the lots to Floyd & Mae Allen. Aug. 10, 1939 – Joseph Blackstock sold the lots to Floyd E. and Mae C. Allen.
March 9, 1938 - Arthur D. Hards sold the property to Joseph Blackstock for $250.00
May 5, 1909 - Adam Miller sold the property to C. A. Nelson
1911 - Western State College opens as Colorado Normal School
April 20, 1899 - Gunnison Land and Promotion sold the land to Adam Miller
Fannie B. Bradburn. The property included a one-story frame blacksmith shop (facing Tomichi) and a one story frame dwelling (apparently facing Pine Street.)
Sept. 1, 1882 – William L. Bradburn sold the east 25 feet of lots 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 to
Sept. 21, 1881 – Gunnison Town and Land Company sold the four lots, along with 27 other lots to James H. Mackintosh of Paterson, New Jersey for a total of $10,000. Mackintosh then sold the four lots back to the Gunnison Town and Land Company.
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When it was the Allen Hotel, we lived in Utah and would travel to Cañon City for holidays. We would plan our travels to make sure we could eat a meal at the Allen Hotel when we came through Gunnison.
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September 21, 1881
1950 - Local rancher, Dan Thornton, became the republican candidate for governor and won the election
Barbara Smith started working there at 16 years old when it was the Allen Hotel and worked there every summer until she was married to “Smitty”. Smitty ran the barbershop in the hotel and Barbara worked the front desk until the Smiths sold it. Later, she worked the front desk in the evenings for Dick Paulsen. Barbara recalls that, “Warren and Bobby were just the tops!” and that the Cattleman was, “a real wonderful meeting place of the locals.” She especially remembered Dan Thornton, local rancher who later became Governor, bringing in his own beef to be grilled up special for him in the Beef and Barrel Lounge.
1963 - President Kennedy is assassinated
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Oct. 29, 1981 - W.B.S.C.P., Inc. (Warren Smith) sold the property to John W. Whistler (Cattleman’s)
Nov. 28, 1985 - John W. Whistler sold the property to Richard and Susan Paulsen for $519,000.
1975 - Awning added to north and east sides
1965 - Blue Mesa dam is completed
Oct. 10, 1964 - Adams sold the property to Warren Smith (W.B.S.C.P., Inc.)
1961 - Crested Butte ski area is opened
In the early 1970’s C.J. Miller lays the carpet in the new Beef and Barrel Lounge with “supervisor” Sally Smith.
Jan. 6, 2003 - Cattlemen Inn burns
1969 or 1970 - Name changed from Allen Hotel to Cattlemen Inn
1965 - Batten Board front was added to the east side of the hotel.
the Allen Hotel to Everd C. and Frieda Adams
June 10, 1958 - Max and Mary Fleetwood sell
’ May 1, 1954 - Ted and Jeanette McCorkill sold the property to Max and Mary Fleetwood.
1952 - Colorado Fuel and Iron Company’s Big Mine in Crested Butte is closed
Feb. 6, 1947 - The Gunnison Courier (Ted McCorkhill) announces plans for a $60,000 expansion to the Allen Hotel.
January 16, 2003 Gunnison Country Times • 5
January, 6 2003
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Ghost story
At the time, it was one of the best places in Gunnison to eat and all the cattlemen and cowboys would congregate there on Saturday night. One evening after the rodeo, a bunch of ranchers and cowboys came in and were celebrating with good drinks and rare steaks when Tom Field (father of Fred Field and Shirley Woodbury) climbed onto the bar and broke into song. The Rotary Club met on Monday nights in the banquet room downstairs. Some of the Rotarians I served at that time were Warren Mergleman, Doctor Mason Light, Virgil Spann, Wes and Norman McDermott, Pete Eastman and Forrest Kelly. They were always playing tricks on one another, or me, and had a great time.
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– Pat Nesbit Uniforms matched the tablecloths in the early days of the Cattleman Restaurant.
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When my phone rang last week and Sally Smith was on the other end crying that the hotel was on fire it felt as if time stood still for a minute. We then reminisced for the next hour about all the people whose lives that great old hotel had touched. Having been born and raised in Gunnison, I don’t remember it not being there. I remember when Red Adams sold it to Warren Smith. I had the pleasure of working for Warren and Bobby from around 1973 to 1976 before coming out to California. Then I went back to help Warren and Bobby in 1979. If those walls could talk, there would be stories told no one would believe. Stories of haunted hallways, food as good as any restaurant in the United States served, a night of “branding the walls,” of a true craftsman who dug the “Beef and Barrel” restrooms with a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow because we couldn’t get a Bobcat in there. Stories of hundreds and hundreds of college kids and local kids who worked their way through school learning how to “do it right.” In the 70’s when “streaking” was a big thing, seeing several naked bodies run through the Beef and Barrel on a busy Saturday night, with no one noticing that their waitresses hadn’t been seen on the floor for a little while. When their waitresses returned and the customers were “buzzing” about what they had just seen, NOT ONE person recognized the bare troupe as the service staff. Warren, Bobby, Sally, Vickie, Winnie, Tommy, Jackie, Eva, Judy, Smitty, Barb, Rex, the list goes on and on and on, it was a blast. Who knows, maybe we can all do it again sometime. To The Cattlemen’s Inn... THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING
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I just wanted to write to you about how much the Cattlemen Inn was part of my life in Gunnison. I have recently moved to Portland, Oregon but I have not forgotten about Gunnison and all the wonderful memories that I have from there. I worked at the Cattlemen Inn for 3 1/2 years and I feel like I would not be who I am today with out the memories I have of that place. When I found out about the fire I had an overwhelming sense of sadness and now that I look at the pictures of the devastation it really hits me. I met so many of my friends that I left behind at the Cattlemen Inn. I spent so much of my time there waitressing and bartending. I became a Gunnison “local” there and I will never forget the place, the people and especially the memories. I just want to send my thoughts along to Dick and all my friends that have lost a “friend” and a job. I am thinking about you all and I can’t wait to return. Sending my thoughts and prayers.
– Craig Cope
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– Rachel Barron
Ghosts at the Cattlemen Inn? Of course there are, and according to an old article reported in the Times by Sarah Acker, the Cattlemen’s ghost is none other than Warren Smith - who owned the Cattlemen Hotel and Restaurant and made it into one of Gunnison’s finest establishments. As the report recalls, bartender Nelson Hamill was loading glasses into the automatic dishwasher behind the bar after closing one night. As he went to collect more glasses, he turned to see the dishwasher door close by itself and begin washing. Winnie Hutchinson, Cattleman cook for many years, told of a time her daughter was carrying supplies up from the downstairs and a heavy plate glass door opened up for her. All she said was, “Thank you, Warren”, and walked on through. The article also reports of a time when Winnie’s infant granddaughter was found crawling outside her crib while she was staying in Winnie’s apartment in the hotel. The rails were up on the crib and there seemed no way the child could have gotten out without falling to the floor. Most impressively was the evening when Winnie was feeling depressed. As she sat at the bar speaking to Nelson, an arm went around her to give her a reassuring hug. Turning, she saw no one was there. No one, or maybe someone since passed who was a great part of the history of this fine hotel. �
Ed Quillen
Virtues that extend beyond political correctness
If there had ever been a contest for “Most Politically Incorrect Establishment in Colorado,’’ the Cattlemen Inn in Gunnison would surely have ranked near the top, and likely at the head of the list. Now it’s gone, victim of a fire last Monday that left only a smoldering brick shell. The political incorrectness started with the name. It wasn’t the Diversity Grill or the Veganperson’s Salad Emporium or the Healthy Haven of Low-Calorie Broiled Skinless Breast of FreeRange Chicken. It was the Cattlemen, and the Beef and Barrel restaurant downstairs certainly lived up to the bovicultural name: brands on the walls, restrooms labeled “Bulls’’ and “Heifers,’’ a menu that featured red meat in quantities that just the aroma could turn your arteries into concrete.
The menu was only the start of the political incorrectness. Given Gunnison’s gelid climate, it would have been cruel to send people outdoors to enjoy a cigarette, so the west end of the room was hazy with tobacco smoke. In a time when Colorado has dozens of excellent microbrews, the beer list was short - as best as I can remember, Killian’s Red was about as exotic as it got. There was also a big-screen TV, always tuned to some sports event, but fortunately, the sound was always low. The restaurant and saloon had many small tables, which you could assemble into one long table when it was time to converse with a crowd, and that happened at every conference I attended in Gunnison: Headwaters, Rural Journalism, Western Water Workshop, Colorado Preservation, to name a few. The formal events were somewhere on the Western State College campus, but the socializing and the intense conversation and arguments always happened at the Cattlemen, downtown on Highway 50 next to the Safeway store. Water buffaloes would continue their arguments with envi-
ronmentalists, deconstructionists would try to convert literalists, Marxists like John Nichols would attack capitalism, and conservatives like Linda Chavez would extol it. The Cattlemen also had hotel rooms, a dozen of them upstairs. They weren’t big or fancy, but they were quite reasonable - the most I can remember paying was $14 for a night of lodging, and it provided real metal room keys that you could carry in your pocket, instead of those computer-swipe annoyances that are impossible to carry conveniently. Many of us who attended George Sibley’s annual Headwaters Conference would stay there. Not only was it affordable, but there was no risk of improper driving if the trip from saloon to lodging was just two flights of stairs. One year, Kirby and Margo Perschbacher of Salida managed to get the $24 honeymoon suite, and of course we all had to see it and marvel at the two rooms, one with a couch and even a TV set. The other rooms merely held a bed and a chair, although all had private baths (noteworthy for old downtown hotels, because a few
years ago, you could get a room at the Palace in Salida for only $6, providing you could handle a bath down the hall). The rooms did not have those little refrigerators, but we managed anyway when we wanted to continue the conversations after last call downstairs. There was an arcade along the north side, the roof just below the room windows that didn’t have screens. Set the beer out there, even in July, and it stayed pleasantly chilled. These inexpensive rooms offered several benefits to society. As mentioned, they cut down on the number of impaired drivers. And when you’re headed home to Salida from Grand Junction or Montrose on a winter night, hoping you’re ahead of a predicted pass-closing storm, it’s a comfort to know that there’s a cheap warm place to hole up. It makes for prudent travel decisions, and fewer people sliding off Monarch Pass. Although the upstairs rooms had their virtues, and there was a civilized main-floor restaurant with real tablecloths and the like, the basement bar and grill really was the heart of the place, a
watering hole for half the Western Slope and some of us from the other side of the Divide. One evening, I looked up and saw a Salida woman I knew across the room. Alas, I loudly bellowed something like “Here I am, in a saloon 65 miles from home, and what do I see? My children’s Sunday School teacher, of all people.’’ She may forgive me someday. What distinguished the Cattlemen’s was something beyond cuisine or architecture - it offered hospitality. People felt comfortable and welcome, no matter what their politics, or their attitudes about eating meat, or whether they wore Stetsons or Lycra. Somehow, that seems more important than being smoke-free or cholesterol-conscious, but hospitality doesn’t seem to matter much in Colorado these days. (Ed Quillen lives in Salida and with his wife, Martha, publishes the monthly regional magazine, Colorado Central. He also writes a twice-weekly column for the Denver Post, where this piece was initially published. We re-print it with permission from both Ed and the Post.) �
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January 16, 2003
From day one, Lang part of Cattlemen lore Debra Goodman Jean Lang went to work at the Cattleman Restaurant the day it opened for business for the first time. She recalls that it was the epitome of cleanliness, waitresses wearing black skirts and crisp, white blouses, tables perfectly set. She recalls, “Our fingernails couldn’t be longer than the end of our finger, and NO fingernail polish. Hair couldn’t touch your collar, no high heels and hosiery at all times.” One of her tasks was to cut the butter. “It didn’t come precut back then, and I cut more than 10 pounds a day”. They would close down the
restaurant from 3 to 5 p.m. every day to do their side work, and opened every evening with formal linens and napkins on each table. Banquets were a real challenge as they were in the basement of the hotel, even with the fancy dumbwaiter to help. “We had football players around to pull the ropes up and down,” Jean described. Even then, the Cattlemen was attracting mostly locals, and it was always busy. Back then, the main choices for dining out were the La Veta Hotel, Johnson’s Restaurant and Almont. “The Cattleman had very fine cooks and a baker,” Lang said. “It was always a toss-up whether to
go to the Allen or Johnsons. “The Columbine and La Veta were the extent of the hotels at the time. I believe Floyd built the Allen to give travelers another choice in the business district of Gunnison.” Today, Jean lives in the Mountain View apartments in Gunnison and shares many vivid memories of the Gunnison of yesterday. �
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I have very fond memories of the Cattlemen’s. My Aunt Tekla Soderlind used to work at the Cattlemen’s back in the 1950’s, her room that she stayed in was the last room on the street side. I spent many nights with her. She was the hotel front desk. What a great part of history the Cattlemen’s was, it will be sorely missed.
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– Lynda Pittman, 56 Grand Junction (winter) Quartz Creek (summer)
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In the 1960’s, our house was right across the street from the Cattlemen’s Inn, so, as kids, we would wander over there on a regular basis. We would buy the Gunnison Times for a dime in the lobby. There was an old gentleman (I think his name was Mr. Withers) who was about 100 years old who used to sit in the lobby and read the newspaper. He used to tell all of the kids who would listen about the early days of Gunnison — specifically, Chief Ouray and Chipeta. He claimed to be the only white man who knew where Chief Ouray was buried. He would tell how as a young boy, his mother was frightened one day by Indians coming to her door and asking for a bar of soap. She thought it was because they wanted to bathe — but what they did, was rub the soap on their ponies’ backs so they wouldn’t get saddle sore! Our family brand (Hogan) was on the wall. Although I haven’t lived in Gunnison for over 20 years, I have lots of fond memories of the Cattlemen’s and will miss it when we visit. I live in Omaha, Nebraska with my husband and four children. We try to make it back to Gunnison every couple of years as a family vacation —unfortunately now I am truly a tourist since none of my family lives in Gunnison any longer. I lived in Gunnison until I graduated from High School (1975).
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– Katie (Hogan) Gurnett Daughter of Gracie Hogan
Oh Dear, Oh Dear Phoebe Cranor RANCH LIFE
Doesn’t it seem as if we should do SOMETHING to say a proper goodbye to our friend? I think so. We might try having a funeral service in the multipurpose room at the fairgrounds. Since there has been cremation, maybe we could do it if we had a big enough receptacle for the remains. I’m talking about paying tribute to everyone’s old friend, the Cattlemen Hotel and Restaurant. Last week the editor requested information and memories. So here goes. As a child visitor, I met the Floyd Allens who began the whole thing. It was called the Allen Hotel. After I became a Gunnison resident I had lots of experiences with the place. One time after the Allen became the Cattlemen, we went to a Stockgrowers meeting. They served man-sized wonderful steaks. My husband had never quite said so, but I knew he wasn’t entirely satisfied with my steak-fryin’ methods. And, since I was a hard-up city girl before I moved to the ranch, I had never even tasted steak. So my methods weren’t too sophisticated. Anyhow, since the cook was a friend and very obliging, he took us to his workplace to get a lesson from someone in the know. There we watched what he did. He started with frozen meat, browning it well on each side. Then he gave it as much lower temperature time as the diner’s taste dictated. Hmmm... so that was the way it worked. It took a bit of mental gymnastics to
John Cranor branding the wall figure out how to apply his suggestions to our little kitchen. The restaurant had a huge stove with skillets to match - plus a sink big enough to take a bath in. (I just THOUGHT I could. I didn’t try it.) Yes I did eventually learn to accomplish exactly what my husband wanted: “a dang good job of steak fryin’.” Later, we naturally took the
kids to the Cattlemen. Everyone seemed to know my husband and gave us the red carpet treatment. We took along our four little hand-made booster chairs, much to the delight of the crew. The last time I went with my friends to eat breakfast I sort of wished I had a booster chair. Probably the seat’s height is calculated with cattlemen in mind, not little old ladies. Another day, after some work on the restaurant downstairs, there was a “party” for ranchers. Each one brought his own iron to brand the wall over the salad bar. “We’ll have a fire goin’ in the alley and the stair door open so we kin hustle ourselves down in a hurry,” the organizer told us. Of course we went. My husband had made a miniature iron with our heartcross for the kids so they could brand their stick horses. Stick horses tend to wander off - or fall into the irrigation ditch and float downstream to the next headgate. That’s why they need to be branded. We took that small iron along for the event. True to their promise, the owners had a genuine heater for the irons and the men took turns getting them red hot and dashing down the stairs two steps at a time to put them against the wall before they cooled. There was a lot of smoke and steam and the smell of scorching wood. Personally I preferred those odors to what burning hair and skin offered at a regular branding. Each time a brand was successfully applied, the other ranchers slapped its owner on the back and toasted him with a swallow of something potent. Whatever it was, presently my man and I decided it was time for us to leave. Anyhow we would soon have to milk the cow. Otherwise the folks in town would likely hear her protesting - except at the party, of course. So now we are all left feeling sad and wondering how we will EVER m a n a g e without our friend the Cattlemen. But on the other hand I am glad to have had over 55 years worth of happy memories of the place and all the people whom we saw there. When we tried breakfast the other day, we found several of the “regulars” at a different restaurant. It was good - but not the same as the dear old Cattlemen we were used to. �
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