• born January 26, 1923
• at home on ranch west of Salida, Colorado
• married Ethyl Marie Speeze in 1945

Father:

• Louis A. Post
• born July 25, 1898
• on family ranch west of Salida, Colorado

Mother:

• Vivian Marie Barbiero
• born October 6, 1903
• in Scofield, Utah

Children:

• Gary Louis Post - July 4, 1948
• Cheryl E. Post (Becker) - June 12, 1953

interviewed by Beth Smith on February 5, 2004

Well Hello, this is Beth Smith and ready to talk with Bob Post about his family. Ah, can you start for us Bob?

BOB POST: Yes. Ah, I’ll go back to the beginning when my Grandfather Dominik Posteraro and his brother Sam Posteraro came from Italy. The only way you’d come from a foreign country to America, many, many years ago, you had to have a sponsor and a job. And their older brother was a carpenter, building contractor in Pennsylvania. And he brought them over here. And they worked for him for a short period of time. And then they decided because they heard so much about the West developing, they got themselves a couple of saddle horses and started riding West. And they rode all the way across until they ended up in Pueblo, Colorado. And they got a job with the Rio Grand Railroad. The Rio Grand was at that time building the road from Canon City, the railroad up through the canyon. And they worked on that for quite some time. But then they, one day they decided to take a little time off, they got on the horses and rode up the canyon and they come out into this valley. My Grandfather always told me about, “you won’t believe it but the city of Salida was, the pinon trees were so thick where this town is today, you couldn’t walk through ‘em” Well him and his brother rode West further, and they got up there about 7 miles West of Salida and it opened up and there was real nice meadows and fields up there. So this is where they decided they wanted to take advantage of the Homestead Law that had just come into effect. And they applied for homesteads. So my Grandfather applied for a homestead in that area and his brother, Sam, down on the river, on the Arkansas River. And ah, so they got their homesteads approved and they had to build a small cabin to live in to get them approved. They had to have a living facility. And they got those done. After my Grandfather got everything going well, and things were working well for him, he was going back to Italy to marry the girl that he had met and wanted to marry. And her name was Mamie DeLuca. And ah, so he went back and his brother stayed here to take care of the places. And he got back to Italy and got married and just a few days after they got married he was called into the Italian Army, he was drafted into the Army. And he went in as a Cavalier, which was the cavalry at that time and sent to N Africa. He spent nearly a year in N Africa, that war they had, the Italian war with N Africa. So then when he returned back to Italy, he ah came back to the States. He brought his, his wife with him. They had a one little daughter who was just a baby, which was my Dad’s oldest sister, Mary. Her name Mary is Mary Feloso. She married a fellow named Louie Feloso here in Salida. And ah they came back here and then he had to start establishing a place to live, and he built a little cabin they lived in. Then in the meantime, my Grandfather decided, because his family was growing, that he would build a big ranch home there on the home place. And they ah got the Stancatto brothers at the time who were building contractors and brick masons to build this big home so he could raise his family in it. And ah course that was the home originally. That was where my Dad was born too, in that same area. So then all the k…., all of Grandpa’s children were, were born in that house. The whole family, all but Aunt Mary was born in Italy.

BETH SMITH: How many children did they have?

BOB POST: Ah, had eleven. And ah then, I was born in that same house when I was born. And ah then my Dad, after a short period of time, my Mother and my Dad lived in a little cabin behind the main home there. And then my Grandfather assigned these ranches, these different pieces of land to his sons. And the ranch he gave my son, my Dad, ah he decided to build a home on it. So at that time my Grandfather Barbiero had been in the carpenter business. So he went out with a couple other fellows and they built a home for my Dad and my Mother. And we moved in there when I was just a little kid, into that home. And I grew up in that house. I lived there for 31 years ‘til they sold the ranch. And I went to Pinon Grove School, which was a mile away across the fields. I used to have to walk to school every day. And ah, then in the winter months, when the snow got, I mean snow, not like we have today; snow was higher than the fences. They used to ah all the people in the area where we lived, would take turns with a sled and a team of horses and pick us kids up and take us across to school on a sled. And ah, after six years at the Pinon Grove School; my teachers at Pinon Grove School were ah Rosalie O’Harrell ; but your family, and Rosie’s was down by Poncha then, the O’Harrell family. And then when she left to come to teach in Salida High School, Victoria Binoski became our teacher. And she was around for a long time. And then I ah, wanted to go to Catholic school, my folks wanted me to go to Catholic school. We were Catholics and they wanted me to go to school there. So I went down and my 7th and 8th grade was in Catholic school. I graduated there and then I went to Salida High School. When I graduated from Salida High School, then, then I went to Colorado State University, which was CU, I mean ah, Colorado A & M at that time. And ah, I started taking forestry, I wanted to be a forest ranger. And in my second year, I got sick when I was in college. Had scarlet fever. And I had to quit school along February in the second year, so I had to come back home. In the meantime, the second world war broke out and I had to sign up for that. And they took us for our physical exams, that, that summer along about in April or May. They took us for physicals, a whole busload here from Salida. And ah…….

BETH SMITH: Where’d you go?

BOB POST: To Denver. Took us to Denver. And ah, down to Ft. Logan’s where we went. And we ah, came back home and hadn’t been home but just a couple of months, I got a notice to report for duty down at the ah, draft board station, which was downtown there at the old lumberyard. And so I went down there and Patterson’s, Patterson that had the hard ware store, son was one of ‘em. And ah, they ah were waiting for the bus to pick us all up, there were about 30 of us waiting there. And ah, Mr. Davenport, who was also a member of the Draft Board, said “just a minute Bob, could you come into my office, I hafta talk to you”. And I went in there and he said “I have some good news for you”, and he said, “Because you are deaf in your left ear, which scarlet fever let you totally deaf in your left year, they found that on your physical”, I said “yeah”; there’s enough soldiers now returning who’ve been wounded and are still were able to do some work, and you’d be in limited service anyhow, you’d be working, not in the front lines, but back at, on the bases and so forth, he said, so we got plenty of those coming back, but there’s one other thing you’ll have to do. Our railroads are so busy, and they can’t find employees, that you’ll have to go to work on the railroad down here from 11 at night till 8 in the morning, seven days a week, plus continue to run the ranch with your father. It was a tough life, I’ll promise you. But I did that for ah, oh, a little over 2 years, till the war was over. And then I went back to the ranch full time. And shortly thereafter, I got married. I married my wife, who, when I was working for the forest service, I was over at, ah summer work I was doing one summer, I had to do some work for the forest service to get some, at that time they required that. I worked for the Forest Ranger over at Sargents, Colorado. And that’s where I met my wife. Her father had the grocery store over there and a motel. And I met, met her there at that time.

BETH SMITH: What’s her name?

BP: Ethyl.

BS: Ethyl what? Her full name?

BP: Ethyl Marie Speeze.

BS: Speeze.

BP: Mm huh. And I met her, and ah it was ah, that was in 1940…‘42, I guess. And then, then I continued every chance I had to go over to see her and we got together off and on and ah then got married in 1945. And our first son was born in ’48 and our daughter in ’53.

BS: And you were ranching all this time?

BP: All this time. And then, in ah, ah my, my Dad’s health was real bad. My grandfather and my grandmother had passed away. And they, they lived over here on Poncha Blvd. The big red brick house. It was the first house. It was the Eddy brothers Estate. This whole land you probably know, the Eddy Brothers, you’ve heard of it. And he bought, he bought that home. The Eddy brothers were going back to England. They were big cattle ranchers. They were going back to England and he bought that home. And real estate was real expensive in those days. I found some papers awhile back, he paid $850.00 for that massive home. And behind that home there was a big building which was the bunk-house for all the cowhands. And on the hill behind that there was stables for their horses. But he bought that. And then after he bought that the Eddy brothers decided well they had all this land, there was this 17,000 acres at the foot of Mt. Shavano that they owned. He bought that too. They call that the Eddy brother’s flats up there. And he bought that from the Eddy brothers for $1,000 for 17,000 acres.

BS: What year was that?

BP: Oh, god, I don’t know the year exactly. Way back. Ah, probably 1890’s, something like that. And ah then ah, let’s see where we’re at then…….

BS: Eddy brothers and their…….

BP: They left here. And my grandfather lived over here on Poncha Blvd. And after my grandmother passed away he was alone and he wasn’t in too good of health. So my Mother and Father, and my Dad wasn’t in too good a health either, so they moved out to live with him and take care of him and me and my wife stayed at the ranch, running the ranch. And that was from 19…..what about 1946. And then in 1951 an opportunity, Dad needed income, he didn’t have any income, had an opportunity to sell the ranch and his cattle and he did that. And then I moved to town and, and ah I bought a home there on the corner of 7th and “H” St. And ah then I went to work for the Rio Grand Motorway, and ah, delivering freight and so forth. After a year of that, some of the soldiers were coming back that had options on their job when they went into the service. And I had to leave, because they, they took the job back. So then I went to work for Safeway stores. Worked for them for three years as produce manager. And then I just never was happy working for somebody else, I wanted to be my own boss. So that’s when I decided to, to open a sporting goods store and a café up on Highway 50. And that’s what I did. I had that for five years.

BS: Where was that?

BP: Just ah, do you know where that jewelry store is there, just off of, going up…….. Right there in that building. That was the building.

BS: What did you call it?

BP: Bob’s Sporting Goods. And ah, Sporting Goods and Café.

BS: And that would be about what year?

BP: Oh that was in ah 1954. And ah we had that for five years. And then, I’d met a fella named Raleigh Gardner, who was with IDS, which is an investment company. He used to come in and eat there with us a lot. And he was always asking me for leads to people I knew, who had might have money to invest and I always had names for him, because I knew a lot of people. So one day he said, "Bob," he said, "we need a man in this area, why don’t you come to work and make some big money the easy way, and not have to work at this restaurant 24 hours a day?" So he talked me into it. So I went and took the examinations and I passed the test for the license, got a license. But I had this company told me, IDS told me I’d have get rid of the business, I couldn’t have both. So I put it up for sale, but nothing was happening. There, in ah the first part of September that year, and ah this was in April when this, when I passed the test and went to work for ‘em. And ah I was sitting there one day, went up there to help my wife and my mother who were running the place yet, and I was up there helping them out at lunch time. And a fellow was sitting there at the counter eating lunch. And he said, "Hey," he said, "you lived here a long time?" And I said, "Yeah, all my life." "Look," he said, "I want to move here, I like this town," he said. "Can you suggest a place that might be for for sale that I could buy?" I said, "Well," I said, "you’re looking at it right here." "This for sale?" I said, "Yeah." "Oh, god," he said, "I’ve watched it, this is quite a place, a busy place." I said, "Yeah." So he bought it. And that was September of that year.

BS: What was his name?

BP: Huh……He had it for a few years, ahhhh

BS: Well, its not that important. You went on to be a, an advisor, somebody with a little money, huh?

BP: I was a financial advisor and also a stockbroker.

BS: And what was the company you worked for?

BP: IDS. That was Investor Diversified Services. I worked for them. Then the area started opening up bigger and they needed more manpower. So I, they assigned me to the San Louis Valley. I had all the San Louis valley; I had Leadville, Salida and Buena Vista, then Canon City and Florence.

BS: Big territory.

BP: That’s right. And, then in the meantime I’d worked my way up to become a district manager, so I had to go to Colorado Springs and help ‘em develop some men there in the Colorado Springs area. So I had to work two or three days a week in Colorado Springs. And then that backed off when I got five or six men and trained ‘em. Then I worked this territory for 31 years. And ah then I retired, which seems like yesterday but it’s been 15 years ago. I retired when I was 65 and that was 15 years ago.

BS: Yeah.

BP: And ah since then, well, ten years after we’d ah bought that house down there and ah we sold the business out there on the highway, ah we decided we wanted up on the mesa. Things were starting to develop up here on the mesa, and so I decided to build up here. I was the first house on, next to the one, where the Smith’s, our neighbors lived across the street. It was the only house on Shavano Ave. And it was new, had just been built by a bookkeeper, and I can’t remember his name. But ah he was living there. He was alone, he didn’t have a family or anything. And then our house was the first one on the next block up. Other than the house across the street, the old brick house, ah was the Barketts owned that house. That was the only house on Shavano Ave on the West end. We built our first house on that corner in 19….., oh we built this in ’61, 1961. Been livin here ever since

BS: Good place to be.

BP: And they can’t run us off. They’ve tried, but we won’t let ‘em. Bout all I have to say, really.

BS: Oh I don’t know. Why don’t you think back to the changes that have happened in Salida since you, since you were growing up.

BP: Oh yeah, oh well. Well, orginally you probably wouldn’t believe this about Salida. But, and I’m just a kid. The Railroad was a big industry in Salida. At nights whenever I was down at my Grandfather’s place, staying overnight or something, with my folks or somein. You go downtown Salida, you could not go down “F”, or main street, which was a very small street at the time. There were very few businesses on that street. And ah you go down that street and the railroaders coming off of shifts were so thick you couldn’t have driven a car down there, just masses of men walking up the street. A little over 2,000 men worked down there in the shops and on the rib track. And this was the center for the Rio Grand railroad at one time. That’s why the hospital was here, the Rio grand hospital.

BS: Yeah, about what year would that have been?

BP: Oh….. back in ah……what….probably in the 30’s. Yeah back in the 30’s sometime. Then, something else I didn’t bring up, is back in those days, as I mentioned to begin with, the only way anyone could come to this country you had to have a sponsor and a job. So the Groy family, which is quite familiar in this town, my grandfather brought the old man Groy, old John Groy here and he worked for my grandfather and my grandfather helped him acquire a piece of land up by Maysville. And ah, got him going. And then the Scanga’s; which his sister was married to a Scanga. He brought them over and helped them get established down there on this ranch, which is Scanga Ranch, still part of it. And ah got them going and got them started. And the DeLuca’s; which old Joe DeLuca, which was my grandmother’s father. He brought them over and got them started in the ranching and farming business. And this is what he did for a lot of people in those days.

BS: Where did they come from?

BP: Italy

BS: What part of Italy, do you know?

BP: Ah, I used to know the name of it. It’s, it’s South East of Rome ah on the East coast of Italy. Hum, can’t remember the name of it. But my ah, see my grandfather, his parents there in Italy, they had a small, oh more or less like a truck garden. That’s where they, where he learned to be in like the farming business. They had a truck garden and they used to, I guess, raise a lot of vegetables and ship it into Rome and that was their source of living over there. But ah……

BS: So your family brought a lot of ‘em over here.

BP: Yeah, a lot of people over here. He brought an awful lot of ‘em over here. Ah, the Muto family, he brought them here too. The Spinos, the Mutos, huh, the…… ah, there were some other’s I can’t think of, there were several families through the years he brought over here. Cause that was the only way you could get to America, you had to have a sponsor and they had to be an American citizen.

BS: What did all these ah Italians do? Were they mostly ranchers, farmers or did they work in the mines, or?

BP: Here in Salida? No he brought ‘em, when he brought ‘em over he helped them acquire a piece of land. Each one of ‘em had a ranch. And he helped them acquire these pieces of land which were very inexpensive, but he had a source of where they could get the money to finance it. And so he did all these for all these people, which ah was a tremendous thing in those days, to help all those people.

BS: You bet.

BP: The city of Salida, to watch it grow, I think back and it was unbelievable. Up here where we live on Shavano Ave. We used to come down to my grandfather’s house and my Mother used to do her laundry down there, because we didn’t have any running water on the ranch. We’d come down here to do the laundry once in awhile. And me and my cousin Louie Barbiero, we’d ah go rabbit hunting up here. There wasn’t anything on this mesa, not a thing but the old Barkett house at that time over here. And we used to hunt rabbits up here. And then I remember ah it started to develop some. A few houses started to be built. And then ah, they built the golf course. The golf course in 1935. That took a big chunk of the land. It just started to develop along with that. As far as Poncha Blvd., there was not one thing on Poncha Blvd. The next thing above my grandfather’s house which was the old Eddy Brothers ah headquarters, was up the Dickerman house. A fella named Dickerman had it. That’s where ah, well ah, Williams lives in it now, her husband died, what was his name? Well, one of the Williams anyhow. Vallia, you’ve heard of Vallia Williams and so forth?

BS: Yeah.

BP: Ok, her mother lives over there in that house. That, that was the old Dickerman place. And then George Means from over at Sargents and that area, a big rancher over there. He came over and built that house at ah, oh….. down that big white brick house, ah…. what’s her name, she had all those kids. Ah, he was an attorney here in Salida and passed away, oh god. You know where I mean, that big white brick house on Poncha Blvd. as you come up over the hill, on the left side? I’ll think of their name pretty soon. Then up the street, there’s a big red brick house right on the corner of 5th St. and Poncha Blvd. That was Sandusky’s home, a fella that was in the, had a clothing store, started a clothing store, called Sandusky’s. Probably you’ve heard the name yet, still here. And ah after that ah on up the street ah, on the corner of ah Crestone, not Crestone, but ah 7th St. and Poncha Blvd., big red brick house on the corner there. An attorney built that home.
Then I didn’t tell you how the name Posterero was changed to Post.

BS: Yeah, how did it?

BP: Well, my grandfather and his brother, the old country way of doing things where your oldest son would be named after your father. And it just got to be, well, they were all, they just kept getting bigger and bigger. And each generation as they had another son, the oldest son would be named after the grandfather. So John Voyle was his name, he was an attorney, and he called, he was my grandfather’s attorney, and he called him one day and said I have to talk to you. And he said we’ve got a mess, on especially on land and all the holdings. He said, just can’t keep ‘em straight there at the Court House. They can’t keep ‘em straight in the Buena Vista Court House. He said do you mind if I changed your, all your holdings to POST? You still can keep your name of Posteraro, you don’t have to give that up, but your land holdings, change it to Post. So they agreed. They went to all this trouble of changing all his holdings into Post. His brother Sam said “I like that name, I’ll change mine too”. So they didn’t gain any ground by that. And that’s ah how the name Post came by. So then, 'cause it was a lot simpler than Posteraro, all the kids, they all started changing their names and becoming Post. But that’s when that happened. But ah,….. well, that was a lot of history, I can’t think of any more that would be interesting.
BS: Well, tell me, you went to Salida High School, when did you graduate?

BP: When? From Salida High School? 19…. ah let’s see ah, ‘37.

BS: What’d you do when you were a teenager in Salida?

BP: What’d I do as a teenager. There’d be one place in town, for any place for teenagers, Louis’s Candy Kitchen. Right there on the corner where the Pueblo Bank is at. Right there on the corner there. That was the only place for kids. And indeed, this fella run a nice ice cream parlor. Go in there and you could have cokes or ice cream. And ah you’d be able to get ice cream cones, one so big you couldn’t eat it, for a nickel. But for most of the kids that’s all there was. There wasn’t too much to do really. Other than they had, played baseball. They had a lot of baseball teams for teenagers, even when they weren’t going to school. All summer long they had baseball out here at the baseball park. And used to ski, and did a lot of skiing. And all young kids were skiing at that time.

BS: Was it up at Monarch?

BP: Yeah. On the first, the old original, up on the top of old Monarch Pass. There were no lifts or anything. My Uncle would take me and Louie my cousin up there. He’d take us up to the top on the old road and we’d ski down into Monarch Park and he’d pick us up there to drive to the top, bring us back up there to ski back down.

BS: Well you had your own lift.

BP: Yeah, we had our own lift. And that’s, that’s where we used to ski. But then, ah in High School I played basketball, I played ah, I wrestled, I played football. I did everything in High School. And then ah I was ah, played football. A year at Salida High School we were State Champions over all teams in football?

BS: Yeah, I’d heard about that.

BP: Yes, there was quite a….. I’ll never forget, when I went out ah from ah Jr. High School and played my Sophomore year in High School, Coach White was his name. That’s who the football field’s named after. And he was the Coach. He said, OK you guys got to proof yourself to me that you can play football for me. He said, stand right in the middle of the field, brace yourself. And he had a kid named Sully Britain; he was just a fantastic football player. He weighed about 190 pounds and run like a horse. And he’d start running down the filed and you’re on the 50 yard line and you had to stop him, going full speed. Well, I stopped him. An hour later I woke up. That’s when I got my knee hurt, at that time. But ah, I played football. And of course that was the year, they were still on the downtrend from the State Championship. And I played football for 2 years after that. And then ah, I wrestled. They started a wrestling team and I wrestled. And I played basketball every year. Then we used to have softball teams. Everything. Kids were involved so much in sports in Salida High School. But they used to, well that was the only thing really to do. If you didn’t do that , nothing else you could so. And, we didn’t have 25 policeman in Salida. We had TWO policeman. And they made you walk the line, I’ll tell you. You didn’t dare get out of line, with just two policeman. And now, we’ve got 23 policeman. But ah, that was about it in Salida other than watching it grow. It kept expanding. And ah, very, very steady expansion because things started to happen when things started happening here. The railroad was the biggest contributing factor of Salida and its growth. And for many years, even up to about the time of the second World War, the railroad was a big industry. Even after the second World War, it was their top industry in this town. Most people wouldn’t believe it, the number of freight trains going through here every day. There was just a steady stream. And this was the main line to the West Coast at that time.

BS: What company?

BP: Rio Grand Railroad. Rio Grand motor, Rio Grand railroad. And this was their main line. Because they, well the Santa Fe went from the southern end, but they were so busy they could not handle it anymore. So then the Rio Grand took it’s western route and went through Utah and into the ah, up in the San Francisco area. That’s where they ended up, where the trains went from here.
But I remember, during the war when I worked down there we’d have as high as 22 or 23 trains in an eleven-hour shift. They were just lined up, one backed up against the other. And they were troop trains with soldiers and ah war equipment, tanks and trucks. And this went on day in and day out. There was no end to it.

BS: When a troop train went through town, did the, did they stop so the soldiers could get off?

BP: They would stop and they would get off. And ah down there ah, well it used to be Taliaferro’s Café the lowest part of “F” St. there, ah just up that first building there by the old ah Palace Hotel down there. Know where it was at? The building right below it, from there clear down to the river, that was all, it was one big building. And then that was Taliaferro’s Café and these boys would run across there and grab something to eat. And then, there was ah where the Victoria Bar is at now, they used to run up there and grab a beer and they just like flies, you know. But that’s ah, that street was so busy with soldiers when the come to town, they’d come into town. Some of the troop trains didn’t allow ‘em to get off, but a lot of ‘em did, and a lot of them stopped for service. And when they had to service them it would probably take a half-hour or forty-five minutes so service a train. You had to take the engines down and fill the coal cars, because they run by coal at that time. And ah they had to do that, unhook ‘em there by the depot, the old depot and then run the engines clear back down to the coal shoots.
Well, my grandfather had the first car in the family. My grandfather had a Hudson. And then ah when the Argys Brothers opened their garage down here on E. First St., ah my Dad bought a Nash, it was a coup at that time, about a 19…probably ‘35 or something like that. And my Uncle Ralph, he bought one too, same time. And had that for a few years, then he, Ford’s got real popular, the Model A’s that came out. And he bought a Model A, ah sedan, which was a lot nicer, it carried more people in it. And ah had that for several years. And then ah, then the Plymouth, I think the Plymouth came out. He bought a Plymouth and he had that for several years. And ah……..

BS: What was your first car?

BP: My first car? My first car was a Buick. And I bought that, Joe Lionel had the Buick dealership at the time, and he was a cousin of mine. And ah, he had the Buick dealership and he sold me a Buick. And it was ah, let’s see what was it, a 1943 or ’44 Buick. And I stayed with Buicks pretty much after that. I’ve only, I’ve owned, I think, seven Buicks in my life. And ah that’s the only type of car I ever own was a Buick, until I bought my Bronco then. And that Broncos……..

BS: That’s what you got now, huh?

BP: But I bought that from a cousin of mine that live up here at Buena Vista. I stopped one day to see her. "See, I ain't got any more money." And I said, "Where’s your Bronco, its brand new, your husband bought it; he’d just passed away." "Oh," she said, "kids made me put it out here, and we put a tarp over it out there in the garage and they won’t let me drive it." I said, "Well, do you want to sell it?" "Well, I don’t know, but well, let’s, I’ll take and show it to you." So we went out there and I said, "How much you want for that?" She says "Well, $3,000." Oh,…. it was brand new. It only had, oh, three or four thousand miles on it. I said "No, I’ll give you $2,000 for it." "No, no no." And then we argued for about 2 hours. Went into the house and had a cup of coffee. She says, "OK, $2500." And I said, "Ok, you just sold it." And I bought it for $2500. And ah, then in the meantime, after I had that, an I bought another Buick from Tad Haskell when he had the Buick garage down there, well I still have that one, ah the ’42. And then I bought that ah ‘96 Chevy Suburban out there.

BS: That’s nice, yeah. Ah, think back, ah during the days of prohibition. Can you ah remember anything about that?

BP: A little bit.

BS: Little bit? What?

BP: All the drunkards.

BS: Well were there stills in everybody’s house?

BP: A lot of people did have them. I don’t like to mention any of those because it's probably not. But I knew people who had them. But I knew people that bootlegged here and shipped it to Cripple Creek to the mines and made a fortune. Well, all those people, whose names I can’t give………

BS: No , no don’t give.

BP: Well, they bought half of Salida. But that was ah, that was, that was the biggest one. Then there was another one. A fellow run a ranch next to us, our ranch. He ah, we wondered why we could never seen him. You’d never see him. His family’d be out workin in the field, never see him.
Well they found out, finally the Sheriff heard about him I guess. The Sheriff’s name was Showalter. But he had dug a hole in this big irrigation ditch at the bottom of it. He’d stopped the water up above, someway. He’d open this big door, go down into this celler he had under that ditch, then his kids would close that door and he’d be in there bootlegging. The Sheriff caught him and arrested him. The jail was in Buena Vista. And he took him up to Buena Vista. But… the Sheriff took his still to Buena Vista and made him make whisky for him in the back of the Courthouse. And, he ah, every night the Sheriff would bring him back to his family at home, then pick him up in the morning, and take him back up to prison to bootleg for him. That’s the way he spent his prison time. I’ll never forget that.

BS: Good story. How about ah other organizations, Elks or KKK, did you have any of those here in town?

BP: Oh yes, Klu Klux Klan? Oh lord, yes.

BS: What did you know about them?

BP: Not too much. They were a pretty secretive outfit. They didn’t let too much out. We know that they ah had a lot of things going, but no one ever knew what was going on. They were a very quiet outfit. The Elks, yeah, the Elks, I joined the Elks ah, 55 years ago I became an Elk. I belonged to the Knights of Columbus for years. And ah, then ah, Sertoma Club. I bought Sertoma Club to Salida. A good customer of mine in Colorado Springs, he’d take me, when I’d go to the Springs to work, he would take me out to lunch at the Sertoma Club, their luncheon. So one day he said, "We’d like to start one in Salida, can you help us?" So I said, "OK." So, he said, "All we need is 10 charter members." And I came home and I got 20 people signed up, and we got our Sertoma Club started in Salida.

BS: Good. Still going.

BP: Oh yeah.

BS: So what do you think is the most significant changes in the County, huh?

BP: Oh god, I don’t know. Ah, the growth factor, and why I don’t know. Why the growth here, there’s no, there’s no job opportunities I know of here. But I don’t know why. I often sit and wonder why were getting all these people here. The population in this town. I remember when Salida was about ah 1500-1800. And it was, it grew and grew up to 4,000 and now it’s over 6,000. The County at one time, the entire County; well Buena Vista at one time, Buena Vista about 6 or 700 people and now it’s up over 4,000. The County at one time, the whole County, rural areas and all was probably about ah 6 or 7,000 and now it’s up to 16 or 17,000. Why? I don’t know. No one can answer that question either.

BS: A lot of people retiring.

BP: A lot of retired people. That’s basically it. That’s why there’s so many houses; I asked a Real Estate man the other day, how come we had so many houses in town here for sale and for rent. Well, he said, people are moving here and they acquire one of these older homes because it’s for sale. But in the meantime their building out in the country. And they build these big homes out in the country in these subdivisions. As soon as their completed, they leave and then they put the house up for sale again. He said all of a sudden, what’s happened now, just in the last year or so, the flow of retired people moving in here has slowed down, so now we have all these houses for rent and for sale, the older homes. That’s the reason we’ve got ‘em. I don’t know what we’re going to do to get ‘em going again.

BS: Well, can you think of anything else you want to tell me?

BP: No.

BS: Well I think you’ve done a great job. Thanks for……..

BP: About all I can say right now is just, a lot of history involved and the way it all happened, I, I think of that a lot. How my Grandfather really, a lot of people, to this day, would say, some of these other families, thanks to your Grandfather, he made this area. Him and his brother made this area. They did. There was always the other outfits and their families expanded and grew and they brought some of their people in and their friends in and it just kept growing and growing and growing.

BS: It’s still growing.

BP: My Grandfather owned a lot of real estate downtown. You know the building where the Greenburgs furniture’s at? He owned all that building. And up there where Dr. Lund's office, he owned that whole corner there, clear down to, clear to the bank builiding. He owned all that back in there. And where Safeway store’s at, he had, there was a big ah, at that time, a big packing plant there, where they used to pack lettuce and stuff and ship it out. And ah he owned that, and rented it out to, ah I forget the name of the guy that had that at that time. But ah, then the buildings across from the theater, him and his brother owned all those buildings right across from the old Salida theater, on that street. He owned a lot of the old ones around here. Along with the Groy family. The Groy family that he brought over here, they’d start building all of F Street.

BS: That’s right.

BP: That’s right.

BS: Well that’s great. You’ve done a good job this afternoon, I think maybe it’s time we quit, huh?

BP: Yeah, I think so.

BS: { After Bob and I finished, he remembered be wanted to add something about Shavano & Ouray, chiefs of the Ute tribes in the valley. So we started the tape again}

BP: My grandfather became a very close and good friend of Chief Shavano and Chief Ouray. They used to come into the ranch and they would trade him ah leather goods that they made and blankets for food to eat for their, for their immediate families. And ah, then he ah, he helped the ah, ah they used to come through here. Their Indian tribe would go over into the South Park and then they would move across into the Gunnison, or into the ah San Luis Valley. This, this across here, this is the Ute trail, that’s why that call it the Ute Indian Trail. And ah they became great friends of his. And at one time, ah my Grandfather had a picture, and just, I think it would be worth a fortune today, of Chief Shavano and Chief Ouray and him standing with their arms around each other. A wonderful picture. And, course the whole thing is, my Grandfather had a lot of old stuff like that. Had a whole trunk full. When he passed away, being Uncle was the oldest brother, he took all of that, because that was kinda tradition. So then when my Uncle Ben passed away, I asked one of his sons, "Art," I said, “Art where is that trunk?” And Art said, “Oh, that junk, I took it to the dump”. That picture’d be worth a fortune, Chief Ouray and Shavano. Ah, and then my Grandfather also in that trunk had ah, had a Indian Chief’s ah, what do they call those, you know, with all their feathers, ah…….

BS: Headdress.

BP: Headdress, yeah he had that, they give him one of those. He had that in that trunk. There’s stuff like that, it was all throwd away. It kinda bothered me, because ah I got a little box out here that was, that my Dad had, that was in my Grandfather’s safe that he kept. And I found some things that are quite exciting. Ah, ah just like ah I found out what he paid for the Eddy Brothers ranch, you know the home and the farmland and all that. That’s all, the receipts to that are all in there. This stuff I have, the basic other stuff is all gone.

BS: Well, good thing to hang onto those things.

BP: Yeah.