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Show jWhen a Mining Camp Was a j Cultural Center! j By ELMO SCOTT WATSON -MONG the entries to be written down r In America's Book of Time for the J j year 1935 undoubtedly will be this V I one: "A new gold rush In the West." nf" n For the higher price of gold and sll-fL4 sll-fL4 ver, established by governmental de- eree during the past year, has revived gKT" an almost prostrate Industry, has sfii" ' caused a bustle of excited activity in many a mining camp and has brought to life more than one "ghost town" whose deserted de-serted cabins and grass-grown streets were pitiful piti-ful reminders of the glories that had once been theirs In the bonanza days. Especially has this been true of the state of Colorado through the tapestry of whose history runs many a golden and silver thread. Lead-ville, Lead-ville, Idaho Springs, Breekenrldge Falrplay, Alma, Cripple Creek, Victor, Ouray, Silverton, Creede ("It's day all day in the daytime and there is no night In Creede") and Aspen once more those are glamorous names. Last March the name of Leadville appeared In virtually every newspaper in the United States. For out of that town came the news that a poverty-stricken old woman had frozen to death in a tumble-down shack on the side of a ... hill In Leadville. Her name was Elizabeth Doe Tabor and the busy world paused for a moment to remember that she had been the famous and beautiful "Baby Doe" Tabor, that a President of the United States had been a wedding guest when she was married to H. A. VV. Tabor, a Colorado bonanza king. And It remembered, too, that, when the great Tabor fortune had slipped through their lingers, she had gone back to Leadville, there to spend her last poverty-Btrlcken poverty-Btrlcken years guarding the Matchless mine, '. which had been the source of most of their wealth and from which she never ceased believ ing that wealth would come again. To the list of those mining camps whose fame has been revived recently there should be added another. It Is Central City, "Little Kingdom capital of the "Little King- of Gilpin" dom of Gilpin" ln " many respects the greatest of all the Colorado gold camps. At one time Central City was not only "the wildest, roughest and happiest mining camp In Colorado" but It was t.also one of the very richest. As such It helped save the federal Union by pouring Its gold Into the United States treasury when the successful prosecution of the Civil war was at stake. But despite these facts and the fact that ' Central City is sharing with the other gold camps In a renewed prosperity, a revival of Interest ln ; . Its name and fame Is not due to any such ma- 1 terial reason. The reason Is cultural 1 For Cen tral City has an opera house and thereby hangs one of the most romantic tales ln the history of the American theater, j First of all, consider some of the "back ground" history of Central City. In 1858 prospectors pros-pectors ln what was then Jefferson territory washed from the sands of Cherry creek some shining particles of metal. Others found some of the same precious stuff In the Pikes Peak region 75 miles south. The word was carried back East to a people still suffering from the panic of 1S57. Immediately the great Pikes Peak gold rush was on. Within a year more than 60,000 fortune seekers had stampeded across the plains to this new El Dorado. But most of them were doomed to disappointment, disappoint-ment, for the amount of free gold which could be panned out of the A Stampede to streams of the moun-"Gregory't moun-"Gregory't Diggins" taln country was rel-s rel-s s atlvely small. Most of It was still locked up In a matrix of quartz. On May C, 18T9, a settler named John H. Gregory Greg-ory discovered evidences of gold quartz In a gulch some 60 miles north and west of Denver. The Itocky Mountain News of Denver published Its first extra to herald the news of the strike and a stampede for "Gregory's Piggins" began. Soon the hills and valleys of that region were covered with the tents and crude shacks of the gold-seekers. The boom towns of Black Hawk and Nevadavllle came Into existence and since ' "Gregory's Dlgglns" was midway between them. Nathaniel Albortson, John Armous and Harrison G. Otis, who platted the town site to include the original gold camp, gave It the name of Central City. Calling this mushroom camp a city was paying It a rare compliment Indeed, for It was pitched on a rocky hillside with some of Its streets running run-ning almost perpendicular from the gulch where Gregory made his discovery. In fact, there used to be a saying In Central City that If "a man fell -. off his front steps, he'd roll for days." However. the camp grew both In population and In Importance Im-portance and when the county of Gilpin was organized and named for Thomas Gilpin, first territorial governor of Colorado, Central City became the county seat While the rush to "Gregory's Dlgglns" was on. a certain J. S. l.angrishe, an eastern theatrical producer, remembered the success of Lotta. Ad;ih Menken and Lola Montez during the California gold rush 10 years earlier. He decided that there was a golden opportunity for him In the new diggings and started west. But he didn't reach Denver until the fall of 1S(X when it was too . i;lt, to penetrate the snow-locked valleys of the ' ' "Little Kingdom of Gilpin." So he opened in Denver as O'Callaghan In "His Last Legs." followed fol-lowed by a farce, "Nature and Philosophy," ln which his wife was starred. After a successful season ol six months in Denver he went to Central City the next spring Central City , Colorado - i Lr -f: C?TaisV t Cits 4 rev$gn 1 f"V'V! k . JsSk ?f ? F - f.-. ,t . , i It t, ; vm, H;t rHil Street miAm ' Once Paved With Silver a fff"' and established himself ln a log building called ?"S ' f ' the Montana theater. The gold seekers were "-""""IT s hungry for entertainment and Langnshe's ven- T " . C x 1 5 Va ture was Immediately successful. His season ; !' ,t A -' bil there lasted for three months. Then he returned ' ) J - j - KM 2 to Denver. But year after year Langrishe came 18 V 14 s I ' i& 'M t$- back to Central City. According to a contem- , - - I V JfL -fel-IE j porary chronicler "They give us a change of bill , g r iEMil fi dally and a satisfying variety each evening. I vSt-wl -w?,w?,Js!is5 ' Everything In the entire range, from tragedy to i i ' s ' TV J farce: tonight It will be 'Young Lochlnvar' (with t 'i IAT V j a real horse on the stage) and a trifle of English xiJI!lL5l 1 A tTl comedy, such as 'She Stoops to Conquer'; to- t i r j ? i O x morrow a stirring melodrama, relieved by a light i&Jr-SiftfH l farce; on Saturday night 'Macbeth' or 'Richard " l LK X JgttiXllSt 1 " , I Six months of the year the company played ln -Ci HiS HWf Denver or visited the mining camps of Montana. f-F,liH ' I4K O tTt Three months were given to Central City and "iLA1- xL' - IZ I the "Little Kingdom of Gilpin" and the other m Zi V I three months to other camps George Gulch, Del- 'js-. n uJLlf aware Flats, Buckskin Joe Gulch and French- f'Or" i Street Once Paved With Silver and established himself ln a log building called the Montana theater. The gold-seekers were hungry for entertainment and Langnshe's venture ven-ture was Immediately successful. His season there lasted for three months. Then he returned to Denver. But year after year Langrishe came back to Central City. According to a contemporary contem-porary chronicler "They give us a change of bill dally and a satisfying variety each evening. Everything In the entire range, from tragedy to farce: tonight It will be 'Young Lochlnvar' (with a real horse on the stage) and a trifle of English comedy, such as 'She Stoops to Conquer'; tomorrow to-morrow a stirring melodrama, relieved by a light farce; on Saturday night 'Macbeth' or 'Richard-'" Six months of the year the company played In Denver or visited the mining camps of Montana. Three months were given to Central City and the "Little Kingdom of Gilpin" and the other three months to other camps George Gulch, Delaware Del-aware Flats, Buckskin Joe Gulch and French- uiau s umcu. jdui lor an mat uentrai city was a crude "boom town" In the heart of the mountains, moun-tains, difficult of access and inhabited for the most part by miners, there were perhaps 50 families whose education and cultured tastes kept alive the interest of the better type of theatrical the-atrical productions. They were the main support sup-port of the little theater; In fact, they supported It to the extent of 90 consecutive performances every year. A disastrous fire swept Central City In 1S74 and the Montana theater, along with most of the other buildings In the A Fire and place, went up In smoke. But Its Aftermath fire could Dot k111 the Interest of Its citizens ln the fine arts. They conceived the Idea of erecting a really fine opera house. Financed by popular subscription, -.c was finished ln the spring of 1878. It was a substantial structure with walls of stone four feet thick. A Denver newspaper of that time describes the Interior thus: "The large and comfortable gallery gal-lery Is swung across the rear of the auditorium but not carried down the sides. The floor of the parquette and dress circle slopes gently to the stage, giving every spectator a clear view of the performers. It is well lighted and heated, the central chandelier being a counterpart of the one In Central Presbyterian church In Denver. There Is not much 'gingerbread' about '.he woodwork wood-work of the Interior, which Is 'neat, not gaudy,' but the frescoing Is fine, very fine, as elegant In its line as anything In the country. The artist appears to have been more 'at home' In the theater than ln the church. The centerpiece Is an 'open dome' and one can almost Imagine he is looking through the roof at the sky overhead, with angry clouds hurrying by en route to Georgetown direct, without change, as the railroad rail-road guides say. The drop curtain Is also very fine, representing a Rhine scene, shown through parted drapery. The great stage Is fully equipped with handsome new scenery everything is new about the building, from roof to basement and there are four elegant dressing rooms, besides all the necessary space for the multitudinous 'properties' of the profession." Besides the opera house they also built a square stone school house and churches of many denominations, for Central City was flourishing, both as a business and cultural center. Among the people of all grades and conditions of society who were flocking into the Little Klncrdnm of Gilpin" were several destined for later fame. When a narrow gauge railway as built from Denver to Central City. It boomed still more. But for all this, the opera house was an expert ment that was not always a success. Even with the railroad Central City v s still remote and It was sometimes difficult to persuade the best theatrical companies to make the trip into the mountains. Then, too, other mining towns were springing up. Leadville had struck the richest pay dirt ever found In the state. Slowly but surely an exodus from Central City began. When H. A. W. Tabor built his Tabor Grand o;era house In Denver, the lr-ishness of that theater quite overshadowed CeL'ral City's opera Imuse. But It helped the mountain theater in one way: the Tabor Gram brought to the West every tour ing company of any consequence and lien (hey played iu Denver they also played m Central City. Central City's rkmous Opera House So such stage notables as Edwin Booth, Lawrence Law-rence Barrett, Joseph Jefferson, Emma Abbott, Lotta Crabtree, Christine Nil-A Nil-A Roll Call son, Madame Januschek and of Notables tne great Modjeska In fact, virtually every great actor and actress of that period at one time or another an-other trod the boards In Central City's Opera house. Moreover It continued to have other celebrities as visitors, for the Teller house, built by Senator Henry M. Teller, was one of the most famous hostelrles In the whole country. President Presi-dent Grant stayed there when he came to Colorado Colo-rado and at the time of his visit the citizens of Central City did a spectacular thing. They paved an entire street to the very doors of the hotel with silver bricks in, honor of the President's coming. This, of course, was In the days of Central City's greatest glory. But that glory soon began to fade. As other mining camps prospered Central Cen-tral City began to decline. At one time a hundred hun-dred families moved from Central City to Denver In one group. Eventually the town dwindled away to a town of only a few hundred people. The old opera house was dark now for months and years on end. Mountain rats took It over as their playground. Ownership of the building finally passed to Peter McFarlane, one of the original contractors for the building, who kept It ln memory of the splendor that had once been Central City's. Several years ago the heirs of the McFarlane estate decided to present the historic old building build-ing to the University of Denver. A group of public-spirited Denver citizens decided to restore the opera house and make a living monument of It by reviving the romance of the gold days and by preserving for posterity the best traditions of the American stage. Among them was Allen True, a nationally-known mural artist, who volunteered vol-unteered to restore the Interior decorations of the theater, buried under years of accumulated grime. As a result of the work of this group, the old opera house has resumed Its former splendors and every summer a play festival Is presented there. For the last four years Central City has again been a center of culture, as expressed In the art of the theater. In 1!).'!2 It captured ibe Imagination of the world by presenting Lillian Gish In "Camille." In lira "The Merry Widow-was Widow-was produced there with Gladys Swarthout, Natalie Hall and Richard Bonelll, stars of the Metropolitan opera, taking the leading roles. In Hl.'!4 Walter Huston closed the Broadway success, "Dodsworth." to play the lead In "Othello," supported sup-ported by Nan Sutherland, Helen Freeman and Kenneth McKenna. Last year there whs a revue, "Central City Nights," written by Itichard Edmund Ed-mund Jones and the music arranged under the direction of Frank St. I.eger, conductor of the Houston Symphony orchestra and formerly director di-rector of the Chicago Grand opera. So while there has been a revival In the material ma-terial prosperity of most of Coloradoa nnriing '.-ainps ilipre has also been a revival of armftier sort In one of them. It Is a cultural revival In t lie one that vvas once famed as a place wliere the art of the theater flourished iu Central City I an J US old ( Uiera house. I Wcslern Newsplser Union. |