Cozy Farewell f JmmmmL ' t " - -. ( v l. a I tf-'r' f j$ , ' m- v! ? 'As A tliftilllllr:'' One of the last cultural monuments to Park City's silver mining heyday has fallen to the bulldozers of progress and a new age of prosperity. The Cozy First Chance and Last Chance saloon, the last of the original 27 "joints" that once lined Main Street, closed for good at 2 a.m. last Thursday morning. Later in the day, its fine oak back bar and other salvagable fixtures, were stripped, and early Saturday a bulldozer began reducing the old building to rubble and splinters. By Monday moring nothing was left but a small pile waiting to be hauled to the dump; The decision to raze the Cozy was made by City Councilman Rich Martinez who, along with his father Fonce, owns the establishment. establish-ment. Rich and new partner Jack Dozier plan to begin construction of a new building build-ing shortly on the site which will house a restaurant called "The Carbide Lamp". The , restaurant will be furnished with the mining relics from the old Cozy particularly the carbide lamps which com- bine carbide and water to produce a flame. The brass lamps have been used in the mines for over a hundred years. ''::.-:;.;Y';:;; Tentative plans also call for a bar to be located on the upper floor of the new two-story building. The Cozy was built hurriedly hur-riedly after the great fire of 1898 on the ashes of whatever preceeded it in the lower Main Street location. Old-timers seem to think that it originally; housed a butcher ' shop, but; as Silver prices soared in the teens and early twenties, giving rise to new mines and rich hew strikes, the owners apparently de- mmmmmmmmm 1 w ii 1 1 i i 1 1 i ii Hum yummuiMLQ . mm H ' J-fllf :ML ; - f if 3 I f Mr : . ' " fl 11' ' 1 'If: - Mi II i j r- v I ?? I tl f f-m -& w.,..,i,i , yM.,MM frM, . I!, s I fi r I i II i: if l f 4 f . ! II 1 4i i! 11 n , 1 ? i( ii 1 - - If II i f; " !j 'Ii JiL;;L.JLJLJi jl i 11 1 i If j f ! ;' " 4 1 J'! '' I I I II I il 1 ' i 'ilii yi 11 cided there was more money in whiskey and cards than meat. It was during these flush times that the. Cozy , Saloon opened. There were 5,000 miners in Park City in those days; many of whom lived at the mines, coming to town once a month with pockets lined with hard earned wages and powerful thirsts for whiskey and women. At the Cozy a miner and his gold were easily separated at dozens of pan, 21, faro, and poker tables, while his thirst was quenched quench-ed with an endless flow of "hootch". A miner's thirst for women was easily satisfied satis-fied a few doors a way in the mouth of Deer Valley where 16 brothels made up Park City's red light district. The history of the last fifty years of the Cozy is primarily the story of Hugh Steel and Fonce Martinez. Hugh Steel owned the bar from 1928 to 1962 when he sold out Fonce Martinez who had worked for him for many years tending bar and running the games in the back room. Steel was a conductor on the Union Pacific and owned a bar in Evanston, Wyoming as a sideline. In 1928 he bought the Cozy along with Charlie Carney; but shortly afterwords, according to Fonce, "Charlie went south with the bank roll leaving Steel holding the bag and the Cozy". "Steel was a drinker, gambler, miner, a working-man's working-man's friend and an elegant gentleman" says Fonce Martinez Mar-tinez who went to work at the Cozy in 1940. "Whatever he did, he did it all the way. He used to claimhe'd drink a hundred shots of whiskey a day roaming from one end of the bar to the other. He could always be counted on, and he helped many a miner and his . family out during hard times", recalls Mr. Martinez. Mar-tinez. During prohibition days, Steel was kept busy either bootlegging himself or making mak-ing connections near Kem-merrer, Kem-merrer, Wyoming in order to keep his hard working customers supplied. "There used to be a latch behind the bar in those days", claims Fonce, "and you couldn't get in the door unless the bartender pulled it. That way you had only the right people , in the joint and if someone wrong showed up, you had time to pour everything " down the sink." 1 "Back then there was a balcony overhanging Main Street, but that came down in 1948 when steel remodeled remodel-ed the joint and put up that blue tile, " remembers Fonce Martinez. "All the joints had those balconies and there were so many joints you could hardly count them. Fonce Martinez was born in Salt Lake but came to Park City when he was nine years old. His father was a miner in the district, an occupation Fonce followed at an early age when he went to work at the Silver King Mine. "I worked in practically every mine in the area," he says, "but the King was my stomping grounds." Fonce started bartending to earn a little extra money for himself and his wife, Mabel. He started out at Mike Sofinedes' saloon located loc-ated where the Red Banjo is now. He went to work part time at the Cozv in 1940. and Please Turn to Page 5 Fonce Martinez watches ' 'The Cozy" sign go down ... ... and later, the building itself. Fonce and the Cozy Continued from Page 4 when things got tough at the mines in 1946, began working work-ing there full time. "I'd tend bar in the days and deal 21 or poker at night," he says. "There was a back room which was closed off," Fonce remembers pointing to the rear end of the Cozy called the Stope, "and we had everything back there - pan, poker, 21, and before they started raising all this kanet out in the County in the fifties, we had 6 or 7 slot machines.!' "Back then, there were always two bartenders oh duty; one of the best was Frank Nancarrow. You had to wear a white apron and a tie and a woman was never allowed behind the bar. In fact," remembers Fonce, "you hardly ever saw a lady in the joint. Not that we didn't allow them - they just would never think of coming in." In 1949 Fonce quit the Cozy and went to work out in the mines at Bingham Canyon. He came back to Park City shortly after working back at. the Silver King. When the King closed in 1952, he bartened awhile at the Cozy, then went down to Marysville to help sink shafts for the uranium mines. He came back to Park City and bartended through the 50's. "Even if things were slow in town the weekends were always busy," he says, "you'd get a housefull of natives and everyone had a good time. We always had the miners - that's all we had. In the early days you'd get the tramp miners who'd hang around the joint until they'd get a grub stake together, then off they'd go. Fonce later went back to the mines when they reopened re-opened in 1972, and when Park City Ventures closed the Ontario Mine last" year, he retired from the position of head hoisting engineer at the Number 3 Shaft. Until this week, the Cozy was Park City's old local's bar - a piece of old Park City which many people could hang on to. During Labor Day and the Fourth of July, the joint was always packed with former Parkites who returned to renew old acquaintances. ac-quaintances. The Cozy was something stable for Park City natives in a town which is changing so fast that nothing seems the same. You could see the sense of loss on the faces of the Cozy's many regular customers cus-tomers on the last night of business who were about to witness one of the last reminders of a different and in some ways, a better time pulled out from under them. Many now have no place to go where they can see old friends and rehash bygone days. "Myself, I'd like to see the place built up," concludes Fonce Martinez, "but I'd rather see it stay kind of the way it was. I'm getting out of this rat race." Fonce and his wife Mabel moved out of Park City less than a year ago. "I couldn't take the congestion and the attitudes of all the new people moving into town."