Last night, under a blue velvet sky with a sliver of a moon and far too many stars to count, we stepped outside, pulled up our chairs and joined our neighbors Joe and Diane to watch the fireworks. All the fireworks of the past kind of blend together, but I’ll not forget watching that spectacle of lights against a mountain back drop on a chilly Colorado night!
The ‘Silver Thread’ Highway is a Scenic and Historic Byway. We drove the length of it today. We stopped at the ‘Motherload” in Lake City for lunch and there sat Joe and Diane, our neighbors! They are the nicest couple and we shared a table and good conversation. It’s always nice when you meet people you like…along the way.
It was so pretty we didn’t want to stop so we drove though miles of cattle range, on into Gunnison. They have a store there called ‘Trader’s Rendezvous’ with Colorado’s largest display of Mounted Trophies and Antlers. What an amazing place.
One mounted bear was a huge specimen. A fellow told Rick that the bear had come up on the hunter unexpectedly. The hunter got off one shot…through the spine, but the bear kept coming. A second hunter raised his gun and shot him though the head. At last he fell…two feet from the boots of the first hunter!
The Alferd Packer Massacre Site…therein lies a grisly tale! In 1874 five gold seeking men hired Alferd Packer to guide them from Salt Lake City to Gunnison, Colorado. Despite the warnings that the Feb. weather was too severe in the winter for the journey and that the men would never live through it…they forged on.
In April Alferd came staggering into the Los Pinos Agency alone with a horrible tale to tell. He said that the party had become lost in a severe storm and soon ran out of food. He said as each man died, they were forced to eat the flesh of that man in order to stay alive. At the last he killed the other survivor in self defense. Odd though…Alferd sure didn’t look hungry and he had plenty of money and several of the wallets of the other men.
In the following summer the bodies of the five men were found…each one showed signs that his head had been crushed while he slept. Packer was accused of cannibalism and murder…and he ran for his life.
Nine years later he was captured and brought back for trial…many tales came from the trial. This was one account that was given by an observer…
“Th’ Judge( a stanch Democrat) says, says he, ‘Stand up, y’man-eatin’ son iv’a b—-, STAND UP!’ Thin, p’intin his tremblin’finger at Packer, so ragin’ mad he was, ‘they was seven Dimmycrats in Hinsdale County an’ ye et FIVE iv thim, Damn ye! I sintins ye t’ be hanged be th’ neck ontil ye’re dead, dead, DEAD, as a warnin’ ag’in reducin’ th’ Dimmycratic popyalachun iv th’ state!”