the diamond Saloon

Click the pics of the past,  the past doesn't last, but the future goes on and on.

As you can see, the roundhouse and other train stuff is all locked up. I could easily have jumped the fence, there was certainly no one here to stop me from doing so. But I believe in following the rules especially in little mountain towns where everyone is armed to the teeth.

I'm back at my daughter's house now; I got back just before lunch.

I had a great time, as I always do when I'm in the mountains. There's always so much to do and see; in every direction I look, there's a potential picture. And the best thing this time of year is the high temperatures in the high country are in the 70s and 80s, not in the 90s like Denver. And believe me, the high temperatures in the 70s and 80s in the mountains are only between two and three O'clock. The rest of the time, it's in the 50s and 60s,

A fair amount of traffic was heading for the mountains as I returned to Denver this morning. I'm assuming it was folks getting an early start for the holidays. And speaking of an early start, my daughter and her family will leave here early Friday afternoon when the kids get out of school, for a couple of nights of camping at Sand Dunes National Park. It's about a 200-mile drive, and even though It's not exactly a beach, there's a 100-foot wide, 2-inch deep shallow Creek through the sand that you can wade in. So it's not exactly a beach, but you can still get plenty of sand between your toes.

Finding out that there was nowhere to camp or boondock near Como, I had to drive to the national forest near the old mining town of Fairplay and boondock in the national forest.

I slept peacefully last night, and it was chilly enough to use a blanket. I didn't see anyone else boondocking in the area I was at, even though there were plenty of signs folks had boondocked there in the past, like a fire ring and leftover wood piled next to it. Folks who like to build campfires often leave their extra firewood for the next person....I'm not a campfire person myself so I also left the firewood for the next boondocker

On the way back to Denver, I took pictures of the old buildings in Fairplay and even the hills and valleys near my property. It was a great trip, but it was all to brief due to the approaching holiday and my desire to get off the road before I get in anyone's way.

Theboondork

This is the second person I met in Como, the first being the Postmistress. As I was standing in the middle of a dirt road taking a picture of a building, this guy came walking down the road pushing a wheelbarrow, and by the fact that he was wearing pajama bottoms rolled up to the knee, and no shoes or socks with all of this broken glass, and rusty nails, laying around from all these old buildings, I fully expected to be involved in a really strange conversation....But, I was wrong.

one of the doors had fallen off the building and being fairly heavy I helped him carry the door around to the back and put it on a pile of other wood that once belonged on the building.

After which we had a perfectly intelligent and interesting 15 minute conversation about some of these old buildings of which he had great knowledge. And if it weren't for the pajama bottoms and the bare feet, he seemed at least as sane or even more so than me.

Barefoot explained to me that at one time this was the Diamond Saloon, and if you look just above the door you can see a small diamond shaped frame that used to be the sign for the Diamond Saloon, and it was the hottest joint in town. And even during prohibition you could get a drink at the Diamond Saloon.

Mostly because the sheriff and his deputies did not want to mess with the hard-rock miners, the coal miners, and the Railroad workers that spent their off-hours drinking at the  Diamond  Saloon, and who can blame them? Little mountain towns are famous for ignoring laws made by stupid Politicians.

But due to circumstances beyond anyone's control the Diamond Saloon is gone now, and will forever be. there's no returning to your heyday when you look like this. The gold and silver has played out so there's no need for hard rock miners anymore. The trains no longer run on coal, so the coal miners have moved on. And there's no need for the Railroad workers to be around, since Como's one little train doesn't go anywhere except in the memories of the old timers.

But on payday night, a long, long time ago, the  miners and the railroad workers would belly up to the bar and drink a toast to the unending success of the railroad on which their very lives depended... And then after a few fistfights they would help each other stagger home to their angry wives not realizing that everything in their world was changing for the worse. As the gold and silver was playing out in the mountains, mass layoffs were on the way, and on that very night the Diamond Saloon closed its doors forever.