Events

Collection of event entities.

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Telluride Bank Robbery, 1882
A robbery perpetrated by Butch Cassidy and the McCarty brothers.
Telluride Film Festival 1974
First held in the Sheridan Opera House, on August 30, 1974, this was the first annual Telluride Film Festival. From the book: Telluride in the Film Festival Galaxy, by Jeffrey Ruoff: "Opening Night. 9pm. The stage is set, projectors ready. The organist who traveled to Telluride, Colorado, for this evening--Friday, 30 August 1974--sits waiting at his instrument. The vintage Sheridan Opera House, with 232 fixed seats, overflows with 260 audience members. They have been lured by the promise of being with one of America's greatest and most legendary movie stars. Led to the stage by a teenage volunteer, Gloria Swanson, now 75, wearing a red chiffon dress and a sequinned cap, makes an impressive entrance to thunderous applause. The lights dim, silent 35mm pictures flicker on the screen, live organ music starts, and from her stage box, Swanson begins narrating her career in silent films. She starts with Hollywood clips from 1916, when she appeared in slapstick comedies for Mack Sennett, continuing through her work with director Cecil B. DeMille, and her roles as the romantic lead in movies that made her a world-famous actress and fashion icon in the 1920s. The audience soaks up the diva's stories, jokes, and anecdotes. Afterwards, as the lights come up, James Card of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, presents Swanson with a Silver Medallion honouring her career. The first Telluride Film Festival has begun."-- page 1 (Ruoff, 2016).
Telluride labor strike, 1903-1904
A strike by mill workers and miners in Telluride, Colorado.
Telluride's Ninth Annual Telluride Bluegrass & Country Music Festival
In 1982, in Telluride, Colorado, the Ninth Annual Bluegrass & Country Music Festival took place on June 25th until June 27th. Musicians include: The Android Sisters, Norman Blake, Country Gazette, The Dillards, Pat Donahue & Mary Flower, The Larry Franklin Band, Steve Goodman, Gospel Set, Levon Helm/Russell Smith & the Muscle Shoals All-Stars, Hot Rize, Delbert McClinton, Willie Nelson, New Grass Revival, Rattlesnake Annie, Peter Rowan, Ricky Skaggs, Southern Exposure, Buck White & the Down Home Folks.
The Filming of For Love of A Navajo
For Love of a Navajo was a silent film that was most probably made sometime in 1922, and released in that year or in 1923. In his book New Mexico Filmmaking, Jeff Berg says that the movie was filmed by the Durango Film Company or the Navajo Film Company at that time, and cites articles from the Farmington Times-Rustler that mention the filming of the movie in their community. In his Eleventh interview with the Mesa County Oral History Project, Al Look gives the story of the film's inception and creation, and talks about his starring role as a male lead in the film. According to Look, a man named James Jarvis who owned a Buick garage in Durango fancied himself a playwrite. He wrote the screenplay that eventually became For Love of a Navajo and sent it to studios in Hollywood, but received no interest. Together with a man named Marshal, who owned a theater in Durango and had become rich in the Kansas oil business, they decided to form a film company and to make the movie themselves. Jarvis and Marshal hired a professional actress (it is unclear for what role, although it may have been for the role of Look's sister in the movie) and a professional cameraman from Hollywood. A filmmaker from Denver, who happened to be in Durango at the inception of the project, offered his services as the film's director (Look does not recall his name). James Jarvis knew Al Look through a relation of his, and selected him for a role in his film. Look was working for the Durango Herald newspaper at that time, and obtained a leave of absence to work on the film. Jarvis knew an Englishman who owned a trading post in either Farmington or Aztec, New Mexico. The Englishman allowed the film company to use his land, and they built a revolving stage in his pasture, made so as to take advantage of the natural light. A man named Gold Tooth John, a Dineh, was able to convince other Native Americans to appear in the film. Look credits the film with being the first to involve Native American actors (this claim has not been verified). The film has two male leads: a consumptive and a cowboy. Look plays the consumptive, whose sister has brought him to New Mexico from Back East so that he might be cured of TB in the drier air. While in a stagecoach shortly after their arrival in Farmington, their coach is robbed by bandits. They are rescued by the cowboy (played by an actor who worked in a Durango bank). The sister and the cowboy fall in love. Footage of their courtship is inter-cut with footage of Look's character, shown coughing and growing sicker. Somehow, Look's consumptive wanders out into the desert alone, where he passes out, near death. He is found by a character named Lo-Lita, a Native American woman played by Ailene Caire (Albuquerque Journal, 24 Sep 1923, p.8). US Census records and Social Security records show that the actress Caire was born in Texas to a French father named Caire, and to a Mexican-American mother with the surname Sandoval. She was living in Albuquerque at the time of the film's shooting, and would have been about 22 years old (Al Look would have been about 29 years old). Upon finding Look's character in the desert, Lo-Lita puts him on her burro and takes him back to her hogan. There, she nurses him back to health. Look could not recall all of the film, but did remember a scene in which Native Americans storm a barn and burn it down. He references this part of the movie by saying that Jarvis had put "a lot of corn" into the movie (in other words, he found the scene corny). In their marriage scene, Lo-Lita and Look's character sit before a semi-circle of Native American women. They cross arms, eat a kind of porridge together, and are thus married. Gold Tooth John plays the officiant. The cowboy and Look's sister also marry. During the filming of For Love of a Navajo, canisters of film were sent to Hollywood, presumably to a studio there that then finished the film and sent back movie stills. These stills were used to see if the film footage was good, or if a section needed to be refilmed. After the film's release, it was shown in Durango, Farmington and Denver. In Denver, it showed in a theater on Market Street for about a month. It also showed in the Ideal Theater in Albuquerque on September 23, 24, and 25 of 1923. During the Albuquerque showings, Ailene Caire talked about the film and her role in it. Look indicates that the film was also shown elsewhere in the country. After moving to Grand Junction, Look temporarily procured a copy of the film and it was shown there as well. Look was unable to find another copy of the film during his life, and was unsure if one survived. Other interested parties have also come up empty in trying to locate a copy of For Love of a Navajo. *The above photograph is a still photo from the set of For Love of a Navajo. It pictures Ailene Caire in the role of Lo-Lita, and Al Look in the role of a consumptive. Public domain photograph from 1922. Digital image from photographic print held by the Farmington Museum.
The Great Depression
The Killing of Shake Gilman by Mattie Gilman
Shake and Mattie Gilman were a De Beque area couple who dressed like wild-west characters, raised ponies, and used to come into town to buy ice cream for the children. They enjoyed getting very drunk and shooting their guns. During one sad incident, Mattie was messing with Shake and shot her gun at him, trying to get him to climb higher up a tree. Mattie accidentally shot and killed Shake, then she went to prison for a year for her crime.
The Ludlow Massacre (Ludlow, Colorado)
On April 20, 1914, armed state officials and the Colorado National Guard murdered about 25 miners and their families striking against unfair working conditions. Those murdered included women and children.
The Murder of Henry "Indian Henry" Huff by John Keski
Sometime in the 1910's, Indian Henry, a Ute raised by white settlers in the Paradox Valley, was shot and killed by his friend, the Finish immigrant and miner John Keski. The shooting took place in a boarding house in Bull Canyon that was owned by W.L. Cummings and run by Laura Foster. According to the stepchildren of Keski, Earl Foster and Ella (Foster) O'Brien, their mother Laura Foster was playing cards with Keski, Henry and other men. Keski and Henry were very drunk, and, after everyone had dropped out of the hand except for them, Keski led an ace that Henry trumped with a spade. When Henry got up to leave, Keski became irate and accused him of cheating. He shot Henry outside of the building. Earl Foster was sent to a place called the Wedding Bell to get first aid help for Henry, who did not die immediately, but the man refused to come until morning time. Another doctor sent for by Ella Foster did not get there in time, possibly due to prejudice against Native Americans. Henry did not get medical attention in time and died. Earl Foster, who was a teenager, recalled looking under the table the next day and seeing the single dollar bill that the shooting had been over. He also looked at Henry's hand and saw that it was filled with spades, and that Henry had had no choice but to trump Keski. Keski served eight months in prison for the crime, and Laura Foster divorced him.
The Murder of Slim Hickox
Slim Hickox was the caretaker of the Cashin Mine. He was a flamboyant character who carried a Colt .45. He also carried a money belt with a large amount of cash. He disappeared in 1923 and his decapitated body was found two weeks later in the oat bin in his barn. The Montrose Sherriff’s Department, located far away from Bedrock, Colorado, was unable to make progress on the case. The Michigan-Colorado Copper Company, which owned and operated the Cashin Mine, hired a Pinkerton detective to investigate. He apprehended a young man in a store who had an unusually large amount of money, and who was wearing Hickox’s watch. He confessed that a party of five, with the ringleader being a man named Gassway, had killed Hickox and chopped off his head so that authorities would not find the bullet.
The Palisade Peach Festival
An annual festival celebrating the peach harvest of Palisade, Colorado. It was established in the late 1800's as Peach Days, and is ongoing. According to oral history interviewee Virgil Hickman, Peach Festivals in the first half of the Twentieth century were "almost a fair", with dances on fruit shipping platforms, a Peach Queen, and displays. The festivities would also include a water fight, with the town fire department and their opponent from another municipality dressed in firemen's gear and spraying each other with fire hoses until one group of men was forced back sufficiently. Peach Days also included kid sack races, stilt, and three-legged races, and a woman's nail driving contest.
The Telluride Jazz Festival
Starting in 1977, Telluride has offered an annual Jazz Festival, usually held in August, each year.

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