June 2, 1914

My charmed, and privileged indentured childhood was over, and I ventured west on the train again.  I felt bound in emotional chains and unable to move.  I stared at cliff walls and mountains that were seemingly impossible to climb.  The weight of my world brought memories of my joyful youth flowing before my eyes; memories now dashed on the rocks of despair.  I turn the page to a new chapter in my life, employment at the newly constructed Cabin Hotel in Steamboat Springs. I spent my youth setting and serving estate dining tables. A mundane job but, on the other hand, now my first paying one.

I continued to look out the window. The river roared with spring runoff and the water level was close to the rails in several areas. The train seemed to stop on a whim. I soon learned the crew checked the bridges before crossing. During a scheduled standstill at Kremmling, I photographed a colossal “V” shaped notch dividing two massive mountain ranges. The porter informed me, “That’s Gore Canyon, and we will travel through it shortly.” I watched with apprehension during the approach. The mountains dwarfed the railroad and the narrow slash we traveled through.

A large group of women on the train laughed and joked loudly in my car. I eavesdropped on their boisterous conversations and perceived they were going to Glenwood Springs. The conductor smiled at them while walking down the aisle informing all the passengers, “We’ll have a short delay at the next bridge.”

The young women appeared to be old hands with train travel in the Rockies and streamed down to the tracks. Oddly, I felt not lustful but painfully shy, and sat. One yelled, “Come on out, it will be fun.” I followed them out with my camera. Unbelievably, they started rough housing. One grabbed another who spun and pushed the attacker to the rails. The rest surrounded them laughing and jeering. I was astonished by their good-natured sort of fun. Most of the passengers walked onto the bridge and a woman asked to be lowered to touch the river with her boots. Three gentlemen aided her dangling lark. These American women possessed the proclivity for hilarious impropriety. A knack, British women lack.

The locomotive whistled, and we all climbed to our respective cars. The view changed to wind-eroded red soil with pinon pines sparsely growing in crimson rocks. We left the Colorado River and climbed to Egeria Park. The conductor informed me we were following the smaller Bear or Yampa River. We passed through the switching yard in Phippsburg and the coal town of Oak Creek. The multi-colored wildflowers of June graced the landscape to Steamboat Springs.

The train rolled to a stop just past a bridge crossing the Yampa River.  Men in work clothes stood among milk cans and bags of sheep wool next to a newly constructed red brick depot.  Across the river, bald sheep gamboled around bubbling springs. A gazebo covered one of the springs. The rest had waist high wood railings and platforms for viewing and sitting.  More men with long canes and dogs surrounded the frolicking sheep across the river and forced them into groups.  The smell of manure and rotten eggs assaulted my senses.  A porter dropped my luggage and trunk onto wooden pallets covering the muddy ground.  I arranged for my trunk’s delivery, picked up my bags and walked over the iron bridge with thick rough-cut lumber planks to the Cabin Hotel which was only a stone’s throw distance upstream.

For a short walk, it took a long time.  My feet felt as heavy as my despair.  I continued as a stranger in a strange land and totally alone.  Large covered porches flanked two sides of the hotel.  Inside, the lounge area was empty, and I walked to the formal dining room.  Twenty round tables with white tablecloths were each surrounded with four chairs.  There were several banquet tables also covered with white cloth near the back of the high-ceilinged room supported by pillars with crafted wood trim.  A young woman with red hair arranged yellow, purple, and red flowers in glass vases and placed one on each table.  They were the same flowers I viewed growing wild along the railroad tracks.  She saw me, straightened her apron, walked up to me, and asked courteously, “May I help you sir?”

“Yes, my name is Julius Brandon.  I believe this is the place of my future employment.”

“Ha, some things never change,” she superciliously mocked with a chuckle.  “Wouldn’t you know an

Englishman would show up for work with a fishing rod in his hand?”  She turned, started to walk away

and then looked back with a smile that was hard to read.  “One of the owners, Mr. Milner is here.  I’ll tell

him you have arrived.”  Laughing again she said. “Put your bags and fishing rod in the room behind the

kitchen.  That is where you are staying until you find a place to live.  Unless you wish the penthouse,

then of course I’ll call the bellman to move your things up there right now.”

Speechless, I watched her leave the room and then I dropped my belongings in an almost empty storage

room behind the kitchen. It was furnished with a single bed, wooden shelving and a small window facing

the river.  I returned to the dining room.

F.E. Milner, a man of average height and build with dark hair and a gigantic moustache walked towards me extending his hand saying, “Mr. Brandon I presume?”

“Indeed sir, at your service,” I replied.

“Good, good.  Thank you for your prompt arrival.  You come highly recommended by your Uncle Thomas.  He is an occasional guest with us.  We are lucky to have you and the timing couldn’t be better.”

I glanced at the woman with red hair wandering among the dining tables lightly dragging her index finger across the tablecloths.  She pretended not to listen.

“You’ve met Maggie.  The two of you will share duties in the restaurant.  She keeps the kitchen running smoothly. Our chef Roy Rogers left for the Onxy Hotel. You’ll be in primarily in charge of the wait and bell staff.”

“When may I meet with the bell staff,” I asked?

“You’re it for now, we lost them too. But I have an ad in the newspaper and that should change soon.”

Maggie turned her head towards me and smiled mischievously.

“I arranged for $15,000 to build this hotel, and I want it to be the favorite for tourists and commercial men. Judge Shumate and District Attorney Gentry are staying here for the District Court session.”

“Mr. Brandon is a fisherman,” Maggie chirped.

“Are you?  Good, good you can help with that too.  The tourists seem to enjoy that.  The river is still quite high and dangerous with runoff. We’ll wait a few weeks before we offer fishing. Mr. Melon, the manager is ill, so I’m helping today.  He runs the hotel operations.  It’s early for our tourist season, but Independence Day will be here soon, and things should really start humming then.  Are you ready to start work?”

“Yes sir, as you wish.”

“Good, good … The bunting has arrived. It was late for Decoration Day, but we’ll have it for the 4th of July Holiday so why don’t you start putting that up.  Maggie can you show him were it is?”

“It would be my pleasure, sir.”

“Good, good.  Hang them tightly and evenly from the railings for the entire length of the covered porches.  I want a very festive atmosphere.  Good day, it was a pleasure meeting you.”  He turned and abruptly left the room. The irony of my first day working in the States was putting up decorations celebrating the country’s Declaration of Independence from England.