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LOUISVILLE HISTORY
Founded in 1878, then incorporated in 1882, Louisville spans seven square miles. The Miners' Memorial Statue at the Louisville City Hall is a symbol of the people who created the town of Louisville--the coalminers and coal mining industry. In August 1877 the first coal mine, the Welch Mine, was opened. Louis Nawatny, a landowner in the area, platted his farm land into a town which he named for himself--Louisville. After Nawatny registered his plat in February of 1878, coal miners moved to town to work in the new, safer mine. From the beginning, Louisville was different from most coal-camp towns. Miners lived in the town and walked to their work at the mines. Louisville is an area that was known as the Northern Coal Field, an extensive coalfield in Boulder and Weld County. Wages in the early days of coal mining were relatively high in the Louisville mines, and the mines were relatively safe.
The economy was generally depressed because the mining was seasonal and strikes often interrupted production. The miners would try and sway strike votes by enlisting their companion/co-worker mules from the mines and counting their votes.
The mining company would hire mercenaries to shoot up the downtown area with machine guns from the compound grounds across the road, causing the town's residents to spend frequent sleepless nights in their basements. These compounds also had their own saloons, drug stores, and casinos. The constant labor strikes by the miners and the mining company's intimidation tactics caused Louisville regularly to be placed under martial law.
On April 20th, 1914, 20 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA (a union) for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Upon striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later investigations revealed that kerosene had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found dead, huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.
Brought in to suppress the miners, The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun--the Death Special-- that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM the militia surrounded the camp and began firing into the tents after a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the participants in the slaughter was ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and blackballed from the coal industry. Finally, due to the Ludlow massacre and the brutal violence in Louisville in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issued a directive stating that no more immigrants could be brought in by the mining companies to break the strikes.
Family gardens and odd jobs were the way of life during summertime unemployment, causing the miners to assist digging tunnels to connect the saloons. From 1890 to 1928 the Acme Mine operated directly beneath the original town of Louisville. Worked on two levels, the Acme produced nearly two million tons of coal and was one of 171 coalmines in Boulder County. A total of 30 mines opened in and around Louisville itself. During the peak years of 1907 to 1909 there were 12 mines in operation. The use of coal declined following World War II and the last mines near Louisville closed in 1952.
Many Europeans migrated to Louisville to work in the mines. Some came because jobs were plentiful and learned the skills to become miners, some continued the mining skills they had used in Europe, and some probably were recruited as strike breakers during the many union disagreements with the coal companies. They worked together in the mines, but they lived with their own relatives and fellow countrymen as neighbors. The Italian and French neighborhoods have gone just as the signs of the coalmines. Flowers grow in yards with never a hint of the passageways beneath them.
The community has become a middle-class haven where workers leave for all manner of jobs in every direction. The unique history of Louisville and the rich cultural contributions give the community a character not to be found in the new suburbs. Since 1980 the population has quadrupled from almost 6,000 to over 25,000 households.
The Louisville Cemetery, located at the corner of Highway 42 and Empire Road, was established about 1878.
OLD LOUISVILLE INN (from their website)
At the end of the 1800s, the Old Louisville Inn was built and owned by E.J. Defrancia, the Louisville agent for Denver's Tivoli Beer Company. In the early days, the saloon (also known as the Colorado Cafe and The Primrose) had an operating icehouse connected to the building. The original hand-crank elevator is still used to bring ice and beer barrels to the basement. Old Louisville Inn is the last remaining saloon of the original 13 that lined the 3-block strip of Front Street. At one time, most of Louisville's 22 saloons were connected by tunnels. Evidence of them still exists on the Inn's basement walls, along with the original coal-burning furnace.
During its livelier days, the saloon was the heart of the "red light district" and a brothel operated in the back of the building. The train workers were always fed by the saloon, making it easy to draw business from the neighboring train station.
For many years, Louisville was the only "wet town" in Boulder County, notorious for its drinking, gambling, and illegal connections. There is still a .22 caliber bullet hole in the lower front bar left by one of many scuffles that occurred there. The back bar, a cherry-wood, birch, and mahogany "Del Monte" model was built in the 1880s by the Brunswick Company in Dubuque, IA. One of Colorado's two oldest bars, it was cut-to-fit and constructed with no nails. The Brunswick back bar spent about ten years in Leadville before Tivoli worked with Defrancia to bring it to Louisville. The copper spit trough (once equipped with running water) that still exists along the floor of the bar was built to accommodate the miners, who could not smoke in the mines, and used chewing tobacco instead. When Prohibition hit in the 1920s the windows were covered up and two skylights were installed to bring in light.
Around the mid 1940's, the owner asked a local Native American man named Cheyenne to paint three large murals on the walls. As Cheyenne was known throughout the town for his preference for liquor, the work was done in exchange for a bar tab at the saloon. The pictures of Colorado's beautiful changing seasons took only a few days to paint and were completed using only one brush. Until their recent unveiling, they had spent the better part of 35 years under wallpaper.
The first major renovations in over 40 years were completed in 1994. The work required thousands of hours of labor, as does the continued stewardship of the premises. This project was undertaken to link the new Louisville with its colorful past.
It is rumored to be home to a mischievous ghost named Samantha, a prostitute who was stabbed to death by one of her customers. Two other ghosts have also been seen; one is a gentleman in a derby hat. Among other things, doors swing for no reason, and chairs stack, rearrange and unstack themselves. When Samantha was asked to "give a sign if this was her" once, she turned on the outside sign, which had been turned off.
The Whaley House
The Whaley House, in the Old Town area of San Diego, was built by Thomas Whaley in 1857. The area’s history was dark even prior to construction and the house seemed to be unlucky from the start.
Before San Diego grew to encompass the area, the Kumeyaay Indians spent their winters there. When San Diego started encroaching on the area, bringing with it disease and conflict, the Kumeyaay population dropped quickly- of 16,000 Kumeyaay baptized in a ten-year period, 9,000 died. The cemetery from the nearby Catholic Church expanded, and some graves may have been on what would become the Whaley property. Prior to buying the property, Thomas Whaley had attended the hanging of thief “Yankee Jim” Robinson. The hanging was botched, his neck didn’t break and it took him 45 minutes, kicking and swinging, to die.
After building the house, Whaley ran a failing cash only general store for some time downstairs. The attached granary was rented out. From October 1868 to January 1869, the Tanner Troupe Theatre operated out of the front upstairs bedroom. One of the members of the troupe, accusing his sometimes girlfriend of infidelity, stabbed her, chased her into the rose garden and finished the job. In August of 1869, a portion of the mansion was rented out to San Diego County as a courtroom and records rooms. Sometimes the courtroom would also serve as the town morgue. A local political uprising in March of 1871 led to the house being invaded, hundreds of court documents stolen and threats made to the Whaley family. Thomas and Anna Whaley’s first son died at eighteen months of age. One of their daughters was poisoned at age eleven. A neighbor running across the property ran into an unseen clothesline, crushing her trachea and causing her death. Two of the four daughters were married here, in a double ceremony in 1882. One married her first cousin. The other married and in less than 3 years was divorced, the humiliation of which was said to have caused her to commit suicide OR under other speculation caused one of her sisters to murder her for unknown reasons (the gun was recovered in a back building's foundation some years later and claimed by her sister).
It is believed at least eight different spirits haunt the Whaley House. Viewers have identified these spirits as Thomas Whaley, his wife Anna, their eighteen month old son, one of their daughters, the family cat and dog, Yankee Jim, and Anna Washburn (the neighbor). An unknown woman in a gingham dress and an Indian man (possibly a member of the Kumeyaay tribe that frequented in the area), have also been seen on several occasions.
Other phenomena include organ music from empty rooms, phantom footsteps, cold spots, self rocking chairs and bolted windows that open themselves. Scents of perfume and cigars appear and disappear. The rose garden has a great variety of standard colors, and 2 extremely non-standard ones, black and green. The second house on the property, the Derby-Pendleton House, is also haunted. Built to save the Whaley House from being torn down due to highway construction, local residents believe Whaley is angry about its intrusion on “his property”.
Manitou Springs Area
The Nations of The Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Kiowa were all frequent visitors to this area; a place dedicated to relieving physical ailments without the worry of defending themselves. The soda water was a perfect tonic for the Indian diet and had a healing effect on dry skin. Signs of gratitude in the form of beads, clothing, weapons, and talismans were said to surround the spring.
The increase of visitors and the discovery of gold in the mountains in 1858, made Ute Pass a convenient road to the fields. The inevitable conflicts between white settlers and the Native Americans didn't end until the Cheyennes and Arapahos were removed to a reservation in 1868. The Mountain Utes remained friendly and continued to camp at their sacred springs, when they too were eventually relocated in 1879.
. By the end of the 1890's, the town could boast of a magnificent Queen-Anne style Bath House, a large bottling plant for the ever popular Manitou Table Water and Ginger Champagne, seven elegant hotels (the Barker House and the Cliff House still exist), two railroad connections, numerous spring pavilions, the engineering marvel of the Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railroad and the many natural attractions of the area, like the Cave of the Winds and Garden of the Gods. Each summer, families would arrive with trunks full of clothing, ready to enjoy the area for months. Hack drivers offered buggy rides to all the sights and, there was the burro trail to the summit of Pikes Peak for a view of the sunrise.
For the health seekers, usually tubercular patients, a stay in Manitou Springs was a chance for a cure. These people were escaping the polluted air and tainted food in the industrial cities for dry mountain air and medicinal waters. Manitou quickly became a town of doctors and the hillsides were dotted with tubercular huts and tents, since the best treatments of the time included lots of fresh air. There was even one female doctor, Dr. Harriet Leonard, the resident physician at the Bath House for many years, who specialized in Russian Vapor Baths
Many famous personalities of the day enjoyed the charms of the town, like Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant, P.T. Barnum, and Thomas Edison all took the cure at the Manitou Soda Spring.
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