Granada, Colorado

The day of our departure from Kit Carson finally came. Pat Shanley was back for the second round of loads, and all that remained was placed on the wagons. Instead of going with the rest of the family in the government ambulance, I chose to go along with the wagons. Shanley took a route that followed Big Sandy Creek until its junction with the Arkansas River; then the road turned east until it reached Granada. I enjoyed the trip immensely, as the game was plentiful and the hunting good. We were never out sight of buffalo from the time we left Kit Carson until we reached Granada. Antelope, geese and duck were plentiful during the entire journey, and occasionally we would run across a band of wild horses. After getting with in ten miles of the Arkansas River, we were constantly on the look-out for hostile Indians, who that time had gone on the war path and were beginning to be troublesome on the line of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in western Kansas.

We arrived at Granada about the middle of August, 1873, and found it a bustling place. The railroad had just been completed to that point, but the bridge across the Arkansas River was not yet finished. Rails were down so the train could pass over, but much remained to be done before it would be a finished job. Hundreds of carpenters, plasterers, painters and other workmen were busy building the new town. The large commission houses of Otero, Sellar & Co., and Chick, Browne & Co., the railroad depots and practically all the other buildings in the town were in process of construction, there being very few buildings of any sort that were really completed. The Perry House joined the commission houses, and moved to Granada, occupying the same place as it had in Kit Carson, the east end of the main block opposite the depot.

Until a home could be built, our family occupied rooms in the second story of the commission house which were intended for the clerks. This compelled the clerks to sleep on the floor downstairs, with their trunks beside their sleeping places. We all took our meals at the new hotel just across the street from the warehouse. John Windram and his wife ran it, and served really excellent meals. So, on the whole, we managed to live comfortably and contentedly for the time being, although we sometimes yearned for the greater comforts we had enjoyed at Kit Carson.

We had not been in town long before we began to grow acquainted with the wildness of Granada. Just after finishing supper the evening after my arrival-my father with the balance of the family having arrived with the Government ambulance two or three days ahead of Pat Shanly wagons-we were crossing the street between the Windram Hotel and the warehouse when we heard shooting behind us-so close that on turning we could see the flashes of pistol-fire a few yards from us.

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This shooting scrape had been started by a man named Oliver, who had recently been a prisoner at Fort Lyon. While he had been standing on the corner just back of the Windram Hotel, an Army lieutenant happened to approach the hotel intending to get his supper. Oliver, who had a particular grudge against the young officer, claimed that he had kicked him while he was in jail, opened fire. The lieutenant quickly pulled his gun, and, backing away from the hotel, returned the fire vigorously.

This was the duel we were witnessing with some danger to ourselves, for Oliver was firing toward our warehouse. Neither of the men was ever arrested; in fact, the community rather favored Oliver. The consensus of opinion was that the Army officer who would treat a prisoner as Oliver alleged he had been treated deserved what Oliver had intended to mete out to him.

But Granada was not really a wild town from the standpoint of bad men and gun-play. Though we did have some killings, they were nothing in comparison with those that had taken place in the earlier towns along the Kansas-pacific Railroad. The town marshal was "High" Davis, and the nickname was appropriate, for he was about six feet eight inches tall. He had a brother serving as deputy who was almost as tall as "High". The brothers owned a small farm between the town and the river and ran a dairy besides selling chickens and eggs, butter and vegetables. Both were good men and made capable officers, but they were not as handy with a gun or as quick on the trigger as the marshals of some of the other towns I had lived in.

Granada, of course, had its dance hall, which figured largely in the life of the town. It was the east end of Main Street, in the block just east of the Perry House, and was owned and managed by Ham Bell, who I have mentioned in a previous chapter, he returned to Dodge City and in the course of time became its mayor. Ham Bell was fine fellow and ran what was rarely known in those days, a very quiet and orderly resort. The girls in his place were what were called "hand-picked," and were not like those I have described in earlier chapters. I cannot remember any difficulties occurring there during the careful management of Ham Bell, and I was frequently there. In fact, I took numerous lessons in dancing there, and many an evening I frequented the place in company with such of the commission- house boys as Jacob Gross, A M Blackwell, C N Blackwell, Thomas B McNair, Harry W Kelly and J S Garcia.

I shall never forget an amusing incident connected with Ham Bell's Dance Hall. Among the girls attached to it was one who went by the name of "Dolly Varden". She was quite a character and a conspicuous member of the entourage. She was a rather large woman, pleasant and good-natured always, and the sort that never seemed to grown old. In fact, she was more like a child than a grown woman, and seemed to act the part as well. Her dresses were loud, displaying violently colored flowers and striking figures and above all she like to be noticed and admired. Somehow the name "Dolly Varden" had been fixed upon her by the frequenters of the dance hall, because in those days a style of dress with a loud pattern of bright colors and flowers was called "Dolly Varden" after the young lady in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, described as a coquettish girl who always dressed in extremes of bright-colored flowered material. And ever thereafter she went by that name

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One night her little one-room house caught fire, and the volunteer fire company was called out. As the commission- house boys composed the major part of the fire company, they did the best they could to save their friend Dolly Varden and most of her belongings. After taking an inventory, it was found that Dolly's losses were small. What amused us most was that one of the commission-house boys had been devoting his attention to the young lady on that particular evening, and having imbibed too many old-fashioned toddies, had accidentally dropped his lighted cigarette on his own clothing, which caught fire, destroying the house as well as all of his belongings. So when he was rescued by his companions, he was a sorry sight to behold. There was no insurance on the property, but the next morning Dolly received a neat sum in full payment for all her losses and the name of the culprit was never divulged by his comrades.

While in Granada I had a pleasant group of associates among the commission-house boys. Harry W Kelly, now president of Gross, Kelly & Co., East Las Vegas, and I were clerks together in the retail department of Otero, Sellar & Co., and we were also roommates and side-partners generally. It was perhaps natural that a close friendship should spring up between us, for our fathers had been good friends in Leavenworth, Kans., during the closing years of the Civil War, it was as a favor to him that my father had taken Harry into his store to secure business experience. Harry and I were about the same age and there were precious few things we ever overlooked in the day of available amusement.

Among the commission-house boys were a number of good musicians, a few having excellent voices. In Ham Bell's orchestra was a man by the name of Kelly, who played the banjo to perfection, and during pleasant weather he would come over to the commission house with his banjo in the afternoons and the singing would commence. Thomas Benton McNair and Arthur M Blackwell, clerks of Chick, Brown & Co., and Henry W Gibbons and my brother Page, representing Otero, Sellar & Co., were acknowledged to be the best singers in the crowd. Kelly's favorite song was one composed by himself and named Fort Dodge.

The members of the quartets had their favorite songs. Mack Blackwell, as A M Blackwell was called, was partial to Old Black Joe, The Poor Old Slave, Nellie was a Lady, I Miss You, Nettie Moore, `Way Down Upon the Suwanee River, Take Me Back to Old Virginia, Dixie Land, and many other negro melodies. Thomas Benton McNair would sing con amore Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, Marching Through Georgia, My Old Kentucky Home, Speak to me, Love, Only Speak, Down the Ohio. My brother page had a beautiful baritone voice and played his accompaniment on the guitar. His favorite songs were The Old Section, In Days of Old when Knights were Bold, Muldoon's Picnic, The Man who Attended O'Reilly's Bar, and several beautiful duets with Henry W. Gibbons.

pages 47 - 50 and part of page 51 transcribed in altered form for the web by Larry Green

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