Colorado’s odd stories and attractions
Like every state, Colorado has its folklore, hoaxes, tall tales and humbugs. Indeed, a gold rush that many called a humbug first put Colorado on the map. Three centuries earlier, the first great Coloroddity attracted Spanish conquistadors. In 1540, Coronado set out from Mexico in search of the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. All too well aware of the problems that the Spanish could cause, smart American Indians urged Coronado and his armored entourage to move on, assuring them that the golden cities were farther away — far, far away, perhaps in what would become Colorado. Neither Coronado nor anyone else ever found those mythical seven cities of gold.
Golden rumors continued to drift out of Colorado. After the first major gold discovery in 1858, one hoaxer claimed that you could simply put a big blade on the front of a sled, slide down Pikes Peak, and pick up the gold shavings. Daniel C. Oakes, the first of the major-league Colorado hoaxers, wrote an 1859 guide book purporting to provide the safest and speediest route to a Pikes Peak fortune. Oakes assured folks that “the whole country between the Cache la Poudre and Cherry Creek is a beautiful rich valley full of mountain streams of living water and exceedingly rich in gold.”
Such promises helped launch one of the
greatest mass migrations in U.S. history. Between 1858 and 1861, an estimated 100,000 fortune seekers rushed into what quickly became Colorado Territory. Most never found the guaranteed gold or the verdant valleys. Two thirds of them became “go backers.” Along the trails back to their homes, they hanged D.C. Oakes in effigy and planted mock tombstones: Here lies D.C. Oakes Author of the Pikes Peak Hoax
DIAMONDS, CON MEN AND GETRICH SCAMS
Lost gold mines and swindled investors led many others to see Colorado as humbug. Of gold mining, Mark Twain supposedly said it best: “A gold mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.” Even that statement stretches the truth as the Mark Twain Library at the University of California Berkeley’s Bancroft Library reports it cannot find that statement anywhere in Twain’s papers.
In a state founded on a gamble for gold, getrichquick gurus have thrived on gullible greenhorns. Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith sold them bars of soap at $1 apiece with assurances that $100 bills lay hidden in many a wrapper. Soapy earned the title “King of All Western Con Men,” bringing Colorado notoriety for its gullible residents.
Gold and dollars prompted many scams, but so did diamonds.
Diamond Peak, in the northwest corner of Colorado, commemorates the great Diamond Hoax of 1872. Two shaggy, dirty prospectors showed up in a San Francisco bank one foggy morning with a pouch of raw diamonds. In no time, the diamonds inspired creation of the New York and San Francisco Mining and Commercial Company, capitalized at $600,000, to exploit their discovery. It took U.S. government surveyor Clarence King months to locate the site in a remote area of Moffat County and expose the hoax.
Even scientists were fooled by the Solid Muldoon Hoax, the name given to an alleged petrified man exhumed 25 miles west of Pueblo on Sept. 20, 1877. More recently, the Heene Balloon Boy Hoax of Oct.15, 2009, joined a long list of schemes and scams in a state founded on what many called a gold hoax. Hoping for fame, the Heene family and their “balloon boy” became one of the newest Coloroddities and a reminder, generally unheeded, that if it is too good — or too bad — to believe, suspect another in a long list of boondoggles.
Other strange and curious things actually did happen or do exist. Below are some of the most remarkable Coloroddities:
ANTONITO Virgin Deguadalupe Shrine
10th Avenue, northwest corner of State Street. In 1988, a disabled veteran, Donald “Cano” Espinosa, began building his residence using recycled lumber, and rubble stone, hub caps and aluminum cans. The irregular, fourstory structure is topped by an open wooden tower housing a homemade statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some of the poles bristling around and above the virgin form a surrealistic cross in a glittering fantasy reminiscent of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles.
BAILEY The big hot dog
The Coney Island Diner (1966: Lloyd Williams and Marcus R. Shannon) on U.S. 285 two miles west of Bailey is Colorado’s most delicious example of roadside architecture: a 14-ton hot dog measuring, from wiener tip to wiener tip, 42 feet and sitting in a 34-foot bun. The hot dog is decorated with bright yellow mustard and green relish that blend well with autumn aspen and the evergreen trees on surrounding mountainsides.
CORTEZ Sleeping Ute Mountain
Fifteen miles southwest of Cortez lies an elongated mountain that resembles a reclining Indian warrior with his headdress to the north, arms folded across his chest and toes tapering off to the south. Centuries ago, according to Ute folklore, he went to sleep, allowing the Spaniards to come into Colorado, followed by Plains Indians, and then by pale-faced prospectors. Someday, Utes believe, Sleeping Ute Mountain will wake up and drive all these newcomers out of Colorado.
CREEDE Soapy Smith
Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith polished his Colorado career in Creede and became “King of All Western Con Men.” An affable Southerner, he could talk nearly anyone out of their cash. His name came from a favorite scam, hawking soap on street corners. To lure suckers, he would conspicuously wrap $100 bills into soap bars and toss them into a basket then sell you a chance to pick whatever bar you wanted for only one dollar. After stints in Creede, Leadville and Denver, he pushed on to Skagway, Alaska, where he was shot and killed as a public nuisance.
CRESTED BUTTE Two-story outhouses
Like many high-country folks, Crested Butte residents wrestled with getting to the outhouse on freezing nights in deep snow. While some built tunnels, Crested Butte has surviving examples of another solution — two-story outhouses. The two levels are offset to allow use of both stories. In Crested Butte, one such marvel is connected to the Masonic Hall by a covered wooden walkway. Another can be found on the rear of the Crested Butte Town Hall.
DENVER First cheeseburger
Along with the Denver Omelet (add diced green peppers, ham and onions) and the Denver Boot (used to immobilize illegally parked cars), Denver brags about the first cheeseburger. Louis E. Ballast at his Humpty Dumpty Drive Inn, 2776 Speer Blvd., sent in his patent application on Jan. 1, 1932. He invented the cheeseburger by accidentally spilling cheddar cheese on his hamburger grill.
FRUITA Mike the Headless Chicken
Lloyd Olsen, a Fruita farmer, chopped Mike’s head off while butchering chickens in March 1945. These birds sometimes flopped around after the heads were cut off, but Mike was still alive the next day. Word quickly spread, and national newspaper and magazine articles celebrated “Miracle Mike, the Headless Chicken.” Olsen kept Mike alive by using an eye dropper to give him water and ground grain down his esophagus. University of Utah scientists examined Mike and reported that the rooster could live because his brain stem was still connected to the spinal cord and his throat and windpipe were intact. Olsen turned Mike into a sideshow hit, traveling around the country to display him to paying tourists. He used the money to pay off his farm mortgage, purchase a pickup truck and buy feed for Mike, who lived for 18 months until October 1946. Fruita’s famous fowl had faded from memory until 1997, when the town looked for a way to promote the area. Once again, Mike received national, even international, attention, as the star of Fruita’s Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.
GENESSE Flying-saucer house
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Charles Deaton Sculptured House, this clamshell-shaped residence is named for its architect. Built in 1966 on Genesee Mountain overlooking Interstate 70, it is made of a double shell of concrete sprayed on a welded steel frame. In this elliptical, three-story, cement-and-glass house, the doors, windows, walls, closets and furniture are all curved, except for a few straight lines in the kitchen. This 3,000-square-foot house, built for $100,000, last sold for a reported $10 million.
GEORGETOWN Six-seat outhouse
Behind the restored Hamill House (1867, 1879) at 305 Argentine St. sits the state’s grandest outhouse. Silver mining tycoon George Hamill built the six-seat house with a fashionable cupola