Dynamic Dyes of Telluride

This cave is near the original cave the Turner's stumbled upon.

It was an average day in 1896 for Mel Turner and his nephew Ed. As they herded stray cattle, meandering through the mesas of Southern Colorado, something on a nearby hill caught their eye. As they grew closer they spied a large cave and the two eagerly scrambled up the hillside to investigate.

Partially buried in the floor of the cave the Turner’s discovered an earthen vessel containing beads, a bone awl, a 16 foot long string of glass beads, and a square textile in nearly perfect condition. Little did Mel and Ed realize that they had stumbled upon what would become one of Colorado’s most prized and priceless artifacts: the Telluride Blanket.

The blanket was woven on a loom with what is called a twill weave. Twill weaves are used today to create denim, and seeing as it is a sophisticated and difficult weave to master, the Anasazi weaver was likely an expert at his craft. The blanket was probably made by a man, as ancient Puebloans traditionally delegated weaving to their men, and it likely served as a “wearing blanket,” or a multi-purpose blanket that provided warmth, helped with heavy loads, cushioned seating, or swaddled infants.

Dated at over 800 years old, the Telluride Blanket has surpassed the typical lifespan of similar textiles by nearly 700 years. According to textile expert Kate Peck Kent, “No other complete specimen exists. There are only two other patterned prehistoric blankets that match this when it comes to its undamaged state.”

Many mysteries still surround the blanket and its history. Where was the blanket made? What was the story of its maker? Where was the cotton harvested for its delicate threads? And what dyes were used to create its vibrant pattern?

The Telluride Historical Museum is excited to host a new program, Cool Colors with Dynamic Dyes on Tuesday, March 5 at 3:30pm. Delve deeper into the history of the blanket, its wild journey to the Museum, and how it has been preserved over time. We will unravel possible sources for the blanket’s rich color and then try our hand at dying our own textile. While all are welcome, this program is best suited for children grades 1-4. Hope to see you there!

Anne Gerhard

Programs and Interpretation Coordinator

Telluride Historical Museum

www.telluridemuseum.org

Gentlemanly Pastimes

A gentleman always knows the rules of proper behavior. His appearance is flawless, refined, and never eccentric. His manners exceed expectations, and his moral code is chivalric. He is perfectly bred. From the 1850s on, the etiquette market was inundated with books, pamphlets and manuals defining how to measure up socially as a gentile lady or refined gentleman. After training in manners, morals and decorum, the Victorian gentleman was also encouraged to take up hobby. Not only for entertainment, a gentleman’s pastime developed character, civility, and confidence. 

The Rules of Etiquette and Home Culture 1886 read, "It is the duty of a gentleman to know how to ride, to shoot, to fence, to box, to swim, to row and to dance."

With the population of Telluride near 5,000 at the height of the gold rush in the 1890s, the men of Telluride undoubtedly had a vast choice of character building hobbies. Seemingly, the most popular was a civil game of poker at one of the many saloons or parlor houses, but the Victorian era was also when baseball first saw developments towards the All American game we know today.

  

Catcher's Mitt, THM Collection

The first set of rules were laid down in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright, founder of New York City’s Knickerbockers club - one of the first organized baseball teams to play under a set of rules. Marked by the spirit of gentlemanly sportsmanship, baseball soon became known as the "gentleman's game." The strategy of the era was base hits, stolen bases, and hit and run plays. The home run? That was considered so boring it was worthy of rotten tomatoes being pitched at the hitter. It wasn’t until Babe Ruth made the home run a famous achievement of strength in baseball that a "hit out of the park" was celebrated.

 

Telluride Team, Western Slope Champions 1913


Telluride has a long standing tradition of baseball. In 1913, the Telluride Baseball Team became the Western Slope Champions and in 1964 the team won state. During baseball season town park fills with teams cheering, yelling, heckling, winning and losing. Baseball camaraderie gives a sense of community and sportsmanship. The gentleman's game has now also become a ladies game, and the sidelined fans patiently await the home runs.

~ Cameo

Exhibits Curator

Telluride Historical Museum

www.telluridemuseum.org

Fair Audrey of Telluride

"Audrey" by Jim Shane
On loan from Kim Sheek

The story of this iconic portrait begins with a wayward drifter, James Shane. Struck by gold fever, he stumbled into Telluride in the 1890s looking to secure a ‘grubstake’ (prospecting supplies or money advance in return for a promised share of profits). Not a soul would lend to him though, for they had already judged his character by his un-calloused well groomed hands. Instead, Jim played the piano in the red light district at parlor houses and saloons for small wages and a warm bed.

Audrey Shane c. 1900
Courtesy Kim Sheek 

Jim sometimes spent weeks at a house. The ladies cared for him, fed him, and were entertained by his music. After a fortnight of entertaining at the Pacific Avenue house in Popcorn Alley, word spread that he was also an artist. One lady of the night in particular, Audrey Ford, took special interest in his artistic ability and proposed an attractive business deal: if Mr. Shane would paint a portrait of her, he could sell it to a local establishment, giving him enough money for prospecting. In return, the portrait would serve as advertisement for Audrey hanging in a proper establishment about town.

During the course of completing the painting, Audrey Ford and Jim Shane fell in love. He sold the painting, went prospecting, struck gold, and married Audrey. With a successful business of buying and selling profitable claims, they built a respectable life together in Telluride until 1936. It was a true love story.



Jim, Audrey and daughter Nina,
at their Telluride home, 1896
Courtesy Kim Sheek

The painting was displayed in about every saloon in Telluride including the Diamond, the Roma, the Beer Garden and eventually in a private gambling room above Frank Wilson's drugstore, the Busy Corner Pharmacy. Audrey had been around town, but when the Colorado attorney general cracked down on private gambling, the club closed and she was left abandoned. 

Over the next twenty years, Audrey grew a mustache (by way of mischievous kids and a marker), was shot at with a .22, had a ski pole jabbed into her ribs, and became a battered, vandalized, and lost link to Telluride's history. She was headed for the dumpster when Frank Wilson's grandaughter, Kim Sheek, saved her. The life size 100 year old portrait found life again at the Rocky Mountain Conservation Center in Denver where Kim sent Audrey to be lovingly restored.

Audrey can be seen up close and personal in the Sight and Sound exhibit at the Telluride Historical Museum until April 2013 in all her colorful, lady of the night glory.

Shine on Audrey! Shine on...

~ Cameo Hoyle

Exhibits Manager

Telluride Historical Museum

telluridemuseum.org



The Game of Faro



Faro Card Table c. 1910 - THM Collection

Favored because the odds of winning were greater than any other gambling game, Faro was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West. Its easy to learn rules, fast action play and gainful odds against the house gave it popularity among the gambling masses. In 1882, a New York Police Gazette study estimated more money was wagered on Faro in the U.S. each year than on all other forms of gambling combined.

Surviving its forbidden play in France during the reign of Louis the XIV, the late 17^th century French gambling card game came to the U.S. in the 19^th century. It infiltrated the Old West saloons with vigor and this game of chance soon became a dangerous scam.

The game was played with one deck of 52 cards and as many players, "punters", that could fit around the Faro table. Unlike most games in the gambling hall, faro was not owned by the saloon proprietor but instead by the faro dealer. He owned the table, cards, all the faro equipment, and put his own investment down to cover the bets of the game. One of the most famous faro dealers to set up in the west was Wyatt Earp who dealt faro in Tombstone when he first arrived.


To play the game, gamblers placed bets on the thirteen card Faro table layout. Flat bets, split bets, copper bets, high card bets -- all betting on the winning card or the loser. The dealer then draws two cards from the "Faro Box." The first card drawn, the bankers card, was the loser and the second was declared the winning card. So, if you had placed your chip on the Ace, and the Ace was the winning card you received a matching payout.


Faro Case Keep c.1910
THM collection

The Faro Box and Case Keep were employed to ensure gamblers fair play. However, since the equipment was owned by an entrepreneur, it soon became a false sense of  security. The gaffing of a Faro Box was so prevalent that rigged boxes were openly sold by catalog companies.

The final bet, when there are only three cards left in the deck, is known as a “Calling Turn.” It was the most popular and exciting point in the game. Players bet on what card would be dealt as the loosing card, the winning card, and the “Hock,” the last card which is not used. If you hit this bet, it paid four to one.


If you want to take your chance and belly up to the Faro table, follow this link for an online version:

http://www.gleeson.us/faro/game


~ Cameo Hoyle
Telluride Historical Museum
Exhibits Manager
http://www.telluridemuseum.org/

Quilting Decoded

Last week we celebrated the opening of our newest temporary exhibit, Harvest of Heritage. The touring exhibit created by the Museum of Western Colorado, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Program and presented by Colorado Creative Industries, displays artists works linked to Colorado’s rich agricultural heritage. Artists chosen for inclusion in this exhibit have met the highest standards of the Colorado Creative Industries’ Cultural Heritage Program. Many have been awarded state grants and fellowships to help them preserve, present, pass on and celebrate their traditional art form. Two have received the National Endowment for the Arts’ highest honor for our nation’s tradition bearers. Many have served as master artists who have passed on skills and knowledge to a next generation of apprentices. Their stories bring our state’s history and geography to life.

The museum has contributed a few of its own artifacts to the exhibit while it is being housed there for six weeks. The artifacts celebrate Telluride's heritage through traditional art form, and just like the others displayed; they too have a story to tell.

The cotton gold and cream double hourglass patterned traditional quilt had been authenticated by the Colorado Quilting Council in 2005 as a historic quilt. The general knowledge of its construction and fabric content were noted. Beyond that however, the museum currently has no information on its origination. Admittedly I was interested in it mainly because it matched the yellow color theme of the exhibit, but also its intricate hand stitching and simple design has impact. It seemed special, magical. In honor of the Harvest of Heritage exhibit and having heard that every quilt pieces together a story, I felt compelled to research the story of our quilt's pattern.

Most quilting bees were social gatherings of women helping a friend or neighbor finish a quilt, and more often helping a bride-to-be finish her quilts before she married. Women could share family news, exchange recipes, and give child-rearing tips. Quilting was a social asset, and next to church, going to quilting bees was the primary contact for women.

It is speculated the hourglass quilt pattern was originally developed as “quilt code” by the Sealcott Indians to help fugitive slaves escape north to freedom. These coded quilts would have hung outside windows or on fences advising escaped slaves when and where it was safe to travel. The color of the hourglass indicated what time of day help would come: red for morning, yellow or green for afternoon and blue or black for evening.[1]

"Quilt code" is a highly debated subject, with many theories on the code's existence, or non existence. Myth or fact, the idea of quilt code empowers and adds mystery to the unknown story of our own traditional gold and cream double hourglass patterned quilt.
~

Cameo Hoyle
Exhbits Manager
Telluride Historical Museum
http://www.telluridemuseum.org/

---

Referenced:
[1]  http://ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com//

Smile for the Camera

The snapping of the camera shutter is all too familiar during the holiday season as families in their Sunday best cheerfully pose for portraits and children “cheeeeeezzz” for Grandma unwillingly.

Historically, portraiture was reserved for aristocracy, painted on canvas, and documented the sitter’s nobility. Ordinary middle class peoples looked upon portraiture as an extravagant expression of superiority. As democracy rose and middle class demanded bourgeois luxuries, artists responded with miniature portraits and silhouettes. However, those archetypal substitutions could not survive the invention of the Daguerreotype in the mid 19^th century. The Daguerreotype (the first successful commercial photographic process) made portraiture affordable, although at first only afforded by the well-to-do.

Today, photographs capture sentimental moments like fleeting memories, but photography wasn’t always so candid.  Before the camera became a commodity and Uncle Joe could snap the family portrait in half a second, having your photograph made was luxury and privilege. The photographer’s studio was a fixed business establishment and a scheduled appointment was a must. However, the realization of cameras with built in processing freed the photographer from his studio by mid 19^th century.

Portraits then came in all sizes, from small pocket sized to lockets and mantle wedding portraits. Street photographers solicited on boardwalks by the beach, cameras were toted to picnics, and even the Civil War. Portrait enthusiasm also developed into sentimental jewelry with the invention of the photo button camera in 1910.

A curious type of photo found in our collections is not a wearable button, but instead a six inch button plaque stamped Chicago Portrait Company on the back. Founded in Chicago about 1893, this innovative portrait company took full advantage of street photography. They sent out photographers (really salesmen then called “drummers”) to travel the country and take portrait photos. The film was then mailed to headquarters, printed, mounted and mailed back to the customer.

The button plaque was a popular alternative to the traditional framed portrait. Not only was it small and portable (important for a booming mining town where space was a disappearing commodity), but it was also affordable because of its tintype photo process, the faster cheaper way to produce a print.

We haven’t identified the woman in the portrait, but can trace the artifact to the McPhee estate in Telluride. Their lineage is a mystery other than John McPhee who published a local newspaper covering Norwood, Nuclea, and Telluride news.


~ Cameo Hoyle
Exhibits Manager
Telluride Historical Museum
www.telluridemuseum.org

Velocipede for Two

In 1894, while working at a small bike shop in New Castle, Indiana, Charles Teetor built a fine bike for his wife. Soon after, the Division Superintendent of the Chicago and NW Railroad, Charles Hartley (also cousin of Mrs. Teetor), saw the bike. "Build me a bike that will ride the rails!" Hartley requested.

You see, the only way Mr. Hartley's inspectors could perform their rail inspecting jobs was by walking the tracks or firing up a locomotive, neither very efficient. At the height of the industrial revolution however, efficiency could not be thrown under the train. A year later the Railway Cycle Manufacturing Company was founded in Hagerstown, Indiana by the Teetor brothers.

The cycle debuted with much debate. Inspectors were sure biking the railroad would be a hassle. It would be too much work to pedal the bike and just plain inconvenient. However, almost immediately after its debut, the lightweight quad cycle was adopted by railways across the nation and also the mines.

With underground tunnels spanning miles, mine staff covered large distances on foot (or perhaps if lucky, catch a passing ore train) to reach different designated working areas within the tunnels. In Telluride, these distances could sometimes be more than five miles and increase in elevation by 1600 feet. That's a lot of beat for a shift boss.

The rail mounted cycle began use in the Telluride region around the early 1900's, but was abandoned in the 1930's. Some thirty years later, the Idarado Mine Superintendent, Dick Swerdfeger, revived the use of a mine bike after walking a visiting geologist through miles of the Idarado Mine. He knew of the quadcycle from early mine drawings, but hadn't known he could order the fantastic invention until the visiting geologist made the connection for him. He put Dick Swerdfeger in touch with the V-Plex Clutch Corporation, the successor to the Railway Cycle Manufacturing Company and makers of the Teetor Light Inspection Car. Mr Swerdfeger ordered one.

1919 Teetor Light Inspection Car

A mine bike hadn't been used in the local mines since the depression era, and with industrial improvements on diesel powered mining locomotives, the mining crew was greatly amused by the prospects of running over the Superintendent on his "quadcycle." Determined to prove the crew wrong, Swerdfeger took off on a mine bike pilot test a few minutes ahead of the first morning crew train. Two miles later he arrived at his first stop, the main service raise location. The train arrived ten minutes later with a surprised, and maybe somewhat disappointed crew, saddened because they didn't have the opportunity to give the Superintendent a good bump on the bike tail.

Our 1919 Teetor Light Inspection Car now exhibited in the museum was rescued from the Atlas Mine dump above the Ajax mine and donated to us in 1970. Ten thousand rail bikes were still in service in 1971. They often transported more than one mine employee by piling as many as the peddler could withstand on the back platform.

FUN FACT: Despite an accident that left him blind at the age of five, Charles Teetor's nephew, Ralph Teetor, became a brilliant automobile engineer and invented the speedostat (more commonly known as cruise control). What year did cruise control debut? 1958 on the Chrysler Imperial.

~ Cameo
Exhibit Manager
Telluride Historical Museum