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From what I can tell, people who read City of Dust are pretty much split between those who enjoy the historical content and those who prefer the fiction/prose. I like to mix them up myself, but for the next few posts we’ll be firmly in the former category, visiting a few ghost towns around New Mexico. Last post we stopped by Pinos Altos (not REALLY a ghost town) and this time we’ll head in the opposite direction and go to Elizabethtown, which is just north of Eagle Nest, on the "Loop of Enchantment," not too far from the Colorado border. If you aren’t a history buff, you can always just look at the photos. Those are the remains of a ’46 Mercury in the photo above, if you’re wondering.
Elizabethtown is fairly well-known, as far as ghost towns go, and there is even a museum on-site. However, there isn’t much left of the place. Like most ghost towns in New Mexico, Elizabethtown came into existence because of shiny rocks. In 1866, Captain John William Moore helped a wounded Indian get medical attention at Fort Union, near Las Vegas, New Mexico. Later, the Indian returned to Fort Union to trade and ran into Captain Moore whose previous kindness the Indian now repaid with a few decorative stones which Mr. Moore immediately realized bore copper. Moore asked to be taken to the source of the rocks, which turned out to be high on 12,441 foot Mt. Baldy, just across the Moreno Valley from Wheeler Peak which, at over 13,161 feet, is the highest point in New Mexico. Even better than copper, it turned out that the mountains and valleys were rich with gold. And thus another western gold boom began. That's Mt. Baldy in the distance in the shot below.
Elizabethtown, named after Captain Moore’s young daughter, was incorporated quickly, becoming the first officially incorporated town in New Mexico, and a post office opened before 1866 was out. By the time Elizabethtown celebrated its first birthday, the population had ballooned to 3,000. Or 5,000. Or maybe 7,000. No one really seems to know for sure, but a lot of people showed up in a short period. Just before 1870, E-town, as miner’s referred to it, boasted over 100 buildings, including a couple hotels, seven saloons (some 200 feet long), three dance halls, and a drugstore.
You don’t have to dig too deep into a town’s past to find something unsavory, and Elizabethtown is no exception. In late 1870, the Ute wife of Charles Kennedy, who lived on the road between E-town and Taos, entered a saloon bleeding and crying. She told those gathered around that her husband had been killing travelers. 
Depending on whom you believe, he may have killed up to fourteen people and might even have killed two of his own children after they got on his nerves. Whatever the case, the last of his kids truly did raise the old man’s ire when Kennedy lured a traveler into his home only to have the man ask if there were any Indians in the area. Kennedy’s son is said to have replied, “Can’t you smell the one papa put under the floor?”, a retort which displeased the boy’s father so much that he shot the traveler immediately and then bashed his son’s head against the fireplace. After that he threw the bodies in the cellar, locked his wife up, and started drinking. Eventually he drank so much that his wife was able to escape up the chimney.
As seems to have happened fairly often in the Wild West, a mob quickly formed and went and found Kennedy drunk at his home, along with some bones, a human skull, and another eye-witness. The mob was led by the notorious (and dangerous) Clay Allison and Kennedy was summarily taken back to Elizabethtown and dragged through the streets with a noose around his neck for a very long time.
It has been said that Allison removed Kennedy’s head and gave it to Henri Lambert, owner of the Lambert Inn (later the St. James Hotel) in Cimarron, now considered one of the most haunted hotels in the U.S. Lambert apparently was told to hang the head outside his establishment as a warning and it eventually mummified on the corral fence before finally disappearing. The St. James Hotel is on the short list of future City of Dust destinations. But as much as I like stories about the St. James Hotel, Lambert was actually living in E-town when Kennedy was killed, not Cimarron, and so, if the story is at all true, the head would’ve surely been placed outside Lambert’s Elizabethtown saloon, not taken to Cimarron.
The building in the photo above is considered to be Froelick's Store, which survived a fire and, while slightly modified, is essentially the only original building left standing in E-town. Below is the final resting place of a Froelick.
Aside from the Kennedy affair, E-town was a notoriously rough place. When one defendant was asked to be tried in a different city because he figured he couldn’t get a fair trial in Elizabethtown, some citizens just took the man from the sheriff themselves and hung him, pinning a note to his coat that read, “So much for change of venue.”
By 1875, Elizabethtown was basically abandoned, but the ATCHISON TOPEKA AND SANTA FE RAILROAD (and the newfound ability to both transport ore long distances and commence dredging operations) brought the town back to life. E-town became a musical hotspot, with people traveling from all around to hear fiddle playing on a Saturday night. In 1903, Remsberg’s store went up in flames and a large part of the town went with it. Dredging ended in 1905 and E-town’s massive dredger, named “Eleanor” was left to sink deeper into Moreno Creek with each passing year. It’s still in the creek, but entirely buried now. Then it was a long, slow fade until 1917 or so, by which time hardly anyone was left in E-town. The post office hung on until 1931.
As I said, there’s not a whole lot to see nowadays. The above photo shows the remains of what was a two-story building which some say was the Mutz Hotel. However, Ofelia Barber, who was married in the building in 1872, stated that it was not the Mutz, but another facility, supposedly with rooms to rent on the first floor and a dance hall on the second. However, judging from other photos, even this ruin is a shadow of what it was 7 or 8 years ago. The Elizabethtown Cemetery, however, seems to still be quite active and not surprisingly. Who wouldn’t want their final resting place to be on a hill overlooking the Moreno Valley, with Mt. Baldy to the east and Wheeler Peak to the west? Mrs. Barber left not only her husband there but two daughters as well when she moved from E-town in 1936, one of its last remaining residents.
Once again New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide by Philip Varney (1981, Northland Press) provided not just information but inspiration, as well. LEGENDS OF AMERICA has a pretty in-depth piece on Elizabethtown and some great historic photos, as well. I tried my best to separate fact from fiction based on the accounts I read, but things get hazy down through the ages. If anyone has anything to add, please do.
Next time we’ll go to Hagan. Or what’s left of it.
About seven miles north of Silver City, New Mexico, on Hwy 15, at the gateway to the massive Gila Wilderness Area (the brainchild of Aldo Leopold, created in 1924 as the first designated wilderness in the world), is the small mountain town of Pinos Altos (“High Pines”). Sometimes called a “ghost town,” it’s really not, although it owes its existence to an activity common to many true ghost towns: mining. In the case of Pinos Altos, gold was the metal that brought the town to life.
In 1860, Thomas "Three-fingered" Birch, who’d been looking for gold for years with no success, got a drink of water from Bear Creek and happened to see the very thing to which he’d-until then-fruitlessly devoted his life. The town that sprang up around this initial find, Birchville, bore Birch’s name and sat atop the Continental Divide at just over 7,000 feet.
Later in the year a man named Captain Thomas Mastin established the Pacific Mine after discovering gold-bearing quartz in the area. Thomas sold the mine to his brother, Virgil, and a short time later Captain Thomas and three other miners were killed by a group of 400 Apache warriors led by Mangas Colorados (Red Sleeves) and Chief Cochise, Mangas Colorados’ son-in-law. (Seven years later Virgil Mastin would meet a similar fate.) Mangas Colorados lured other Birchville miners to their deaths by having Indian maidens brush out their hair and perform a bit of strip tease at the top of a hill. When the miners clamored up the hill to get a better look, the Apaches ambushed them, killing more than forty. It should be noted that some time earlier Mangas Colorados had been “invited” to the town, only to be tied to a tree and lashed with bullwhips. Thus, as was Chiricahua Apache custom, vengeance upon the miners was uppermost on Mangas Colorados’ mind for some time. The photo above is of the Gold Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, dedicated in May, 1898.
During the Civil War, Birchville’s population plummeted, mostly as there weren't many able-bodied men left to protect against Apaches. Upon resettlement a few years later folks reverted to an older name used by Mexican miners, Pino Alto, which became Pinos Altos. Interestingly, Birchville was under Confederate occupation from early 1861 until shortly after the Union prevailed at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, which occurred just outside Santa Fe in the spring of 1862. Virtually all the tall ponderosa pines for which the town got its name were cut down by the mining boom years of the late 19th century.
After the Civil War, Fort Bayard was built to protect miners from continued Apache attacks. The town of Pinos Altos received a post office in 1866 and became fully legitimate, featuring a saloon, general store and dueling ground (now the site of Saint Alexis Catholic Church). But Apache attacks continued to plague the area until 1874, when a deal was struck whereby, as long as a cross remained standing on an adjacent mountain, there would be no fighting. Both sides held to the deal and the cross was upgraded a total of three times, just to be on the safe side. The above photograph is of the Pinos Altos Opera House, which was built in 1969 from original material salvaged from various buildings.
Mining booms came and went in southwestern New Mexico, but the region around Pinos Altos also contained silver, copper, lead, and zinc, so the town continued to prosper. It wasn’t until the 1920’s that mining began to wind down for good, at which point over eight million dollars worth of minerals had been removed from the surrounding mountains.
Today, Pinos Altos is home to a few hundred friendly souls and is a pleasant place to spend some time, soaking up all that Wild West history. If you go, be sure to stop by the Pinos Altos Post Office and Ice Cream Parlor for some delicious homemade desserts and good conversation. The post office/parlor sits on the site of the Norton Store, built around 1890, which was itself built on the site of the Occidental Hotel, a two-storied log structure that is long gone into the mists of time, like so much else.
The above photo is from the Pinos Altos cemetery, near Saint Alexis Catholic Church. The cemetery was dedicated on July 17, 1888. Baby Effie lived from January 11, 1888 to September 21, 1888.
The information for this post was compiled from New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide by Philip Varney (1981, Northland Press), The Place Names of New Mexico by Robert Julyan, and Pinos Altos: Then and Now by Robert O. Wilson. Many thanks to these (unwitting) sources.
The Printmakers' Studio will be featuring some Albuquerque photographers for the next 6 weeks and I've got two prints in the show. The opening will be this Friday, March 4, 2011, in conjunction with Albuquerque's First Friday events. Most of the photographer's will be present and there will be art on the walls and free food on the tables. What could be better? There will be another event at the gallery the following First Friday, April 1, 2011, with photographer's present at that, too. So, if you're near Albuquerque and free this Friday, why not come on down? The gallery is open during business hours, as well.
This photo of a horse skeleton, taken on Albuquerque's West Mesa, is one of the photos I'll be showing. It looks different (better?) in a fancy frame. The other shot, also taken on the West Mesa, has already been posted on City of Dust. Can you guess which one it is? Yeah, didn't think so.
The Printmakers' Studio is located at 423-425 San Mateo Blvd NE, ABQ, NM. The openings will run from 5PM-9PM.
Recently I put together a book of selected photos from the last eight years, essentially the entire length of my photographic "career," which has seen me go from disposable cameras to, uh, toy cameras. Anyway, it turned out to be an arduous process, but I'm pretty happy with the results. These are what I would call "decay" photos; shots of abandoned houses, old prisons, destroyed motels, and desolate textile mills, amongst other alluring places, taken throughout the United States. I tried to include a variety of themes and geographic locations from amongst the relatively small pile of photos that I consider to be "good." "Good" meaning something I'm pretty much at a loss to articulate, which is why I had to take the photo in the first place, I guess. If you want to have a look you can flip through the book RIGHT HERE.
I'm not trying to sell this book, although you CAN buy a copy directly from the link above. The book is fairly expensive and I wouldn't make any money off it anyway. However, if you DO want a hard copy and don't have money to burn, I'd be happy to help you get a copy as cheaply as possible. Picaboo often has on-line coupons to reduce production costs and shipping. So, check for those. Also, they sometimes offer discounts for purchasing multiple copies. If several people want a copy, I could order them all and then send them out to folks at the discounted price. Thus it might pay to contact me before ordering. I can be reached at the e-mail address on my profile page. But, really, if you only check out the book on-line that's fine with me.
The photos accompanying this post are from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railyard in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. I did a whole post on this magnificent (and vacant) complex awhile back. If you like, you can read it HERE. Two railyard photos are featured prominently as a center spread in the book.
It’s been a hard, cold winter so far. Unrelenting. The snow keeps falling, sometimes just a few flakes throughout the day. But other times it’ll snow for 24, 36 hours at a stretch, an inch every couple hours. The city has already run out of money for plowing the roads. They didn’t budget for this kind of winter. Well, no one plans properly for disaster.
Last night I fell into bed with a girl I met at the bar. She was drunk and I was bored so I figured, “What the hell?” But someone must’ve called my wife because when I got home a little after 1 am Lucy was sitting in her chair waiting for me.
“Where you been?” she asked.
“Out,” I replied, trying not to lie.
“Doing what?”
“Drinking a couple beers.”
She looked at me hard, then stood up, walked across the room to where I was taking off my boots and spit in my face. I wiped the saliva off my cheek and rubbed it on my jeans. We just stared at each other for a moment.
“I know you’ve been screwing Jimmy,” I said, finally. “I’ve known it for awhile.”
Jimmy and I worked at the garage together. I’d seen him and Lucy talking lots of times when Lucy’d come by to pick me up after work. And I saw how she flashed her eyes at him and how he grinned back at her. Eventually, Carl, our manager, took me aside and told me what I already knew. He said he’d fire Jimmy, but I told him to let it go. By then it’d been going on about three months.
A look passed over Lucy’s face that I can’t really put a name to. Then she called me a coward. I started to walk away but she grabbed my shoulder and held me back.
“You pathetic son-of-a-bitch,” she hissed. “Some guy is fucking your wife and you won’t do anything about it. You’re disgusting.”
She took a step closer and dropped her hands to her side. “Hit me,” she said. “Let’s see if you’ve got any man in you at all.” After a moment she twisted up her mouth. “You’re so goddamned weak.”
I started back toward the bedroom. I grabbed my green canvas duffel off the chair on my way down the hall. Lucy followed me.
“What if I told you how he fucked me, huh? Would that piss you off? What if I said he was better than you ever were? If you knew what I let him do to me…”
She said some other things as I put my clothes in the bag, but I wasn’t listening. The next thing I knew she screamed something and hit me in the side of the head. I put a hand to my temple and walked fast to the front door. As I was putting my boots back on she threw a picture at me. It was the one of us on vacation in Hawaii a couple years ago. The picture hit the door jamb and the glass went all over the dirty carpet. I could still hear Lucy screaming as I got in my truck. A few minutes later I was down the road a fair bit.
I decided I’d go to the cabin. I’ve never been able to afford a house, let alone a cabin in the north woods, but my dad’s family had it since way back and it got passed down to me when he died. It’s not the only thing I inherited from him, but it’s certainly been the most useful. The sun was coming up by the time I turned off the state highway. I put the truck in 4-wheel drive and hoped the roads wouldn’t get too bad. I don’t think a plow had been through in some days, but the snow was compacted by plenty of traffic. I don’t know what most guys are doing out here in the dead of winter, but it’s not deserted, that’s for sure. Maybe they’re doing the same thing as me.
There was no way I could drive up to the cabin, so I pulled off the road and walked the quarter mile down what was the driveway as near as I could guess. It was a hard walk and the duffel didn’t help. Sometimes I sank up to my thighs in the snow. I was sweating when I unlocked the door. I got the wood-burning stove going to warm the place up, lay down on the bed and fell asleep with my boots still on.
It was mid-afternoon when I woke up. I got a beer from the mini-fridge and just sat there, trying not to think of anything at all. Eventually I realized I was going to need some food. I had some cans in the cupboard and I could always drive back down the road to the convenience store, but I decided to go out and try to find a deer. I’d seen plenty of tracks on my way in. So, I got my rifle out of the safe in the bathroom closet, put on a few layers of clothes and went out.
It was cold. A few flakes drifted through the air, but it was too cold to really snow. I kept moving and the effort of getting through the snow soon warmed me up. I came into a stand of pine trees bowed by the weight of the snow and saw a deer about 20 yards away. He was stone still, sensing danger but not yet sure of its nature or direction. I lowered my gun, got the deer in the sight and was just pulling the trigger when a pine bough snapped. The deer started as I fired. It took two steps and went down. A moment later it was back up. I could see that I’d hit it just behind the neck and it was bleeding badly, but it stayed upright. It began to move off, slowly at first, and then it took a couple tentative leaps. I walked through the trees to where the deer had been. There was plenty of blood and I figured it wouldn’t be hard to track. I doubted the deer would live long.
I followed the bloody snow for over an hour, longer than I thought I would, although I guess I didn’t cover much distance because the snow made it such slow going. The forest had become denser and I had to duck under branches now and then. The sun was already starting to dip toward the western horizon. I was getting cold and was far enough from the cabin to be unsure if I could get the deer back before nightfall.
I was about to turn back when I entered a small clearing and there, on the other side, maybe 15 yards away, was the deer. It stared at me and lowered its head. Then it bellowed and charged a few feet before stopping. It was a buck, an eight-pointer, well-fed and strong. Again it bellowed and then stomped a foreleg heavily. I lowered my rifle as the deer charged to within about 30 feet. It backed up a bit and I could see blood running from its nose. It reared up on its hind legs and then slammed its front hooves into the snow. I took aim and the deer charged again. I realized that the deer wanted to kill me. This wasn’t a grizzly or a mountain lion that wanted me for its dinner. The deer couldn’t use my body for anything at all. It wasn’t defending a mate or its offspring. I don't think it was even defending itself. It just wanted me dead. All at once I was struck by the power of the moment. Nothing in the world had ever wanted me dead before. Lucy might wish me gone in the abstract, but she would never actually do the deed. This deer, however, could not act against its instinct.
The deer came and this time it did not stop but reared up right in front of me. It stood taller than I did. I could’ve gotten a clean shot off, but I hesitated and didn't pull the trigger. Instead, I turned slightly to the left and the deer’s hooves caught me in the ribs on my right side. I fell to the snow and the hooves came down again, this time across my back. I heard a crack that seemed to come from inside my head and I saw the deer stagger and fall and then everything went black.
When I woke it was getting dark. I could move my arms but not my legs. I couldn’t feel my legs at all. I wasn’t in any real pain, but I knew I was not getting out of these woods on my own. A few feet away lay the deer. I could see a trickle of blood running from its mouth into the snow. Using all my strength I pulled myself to the animal, telling myself that the warmth from its body would be good, but, really, I think I just wanted to be close to it. As I drew near it heaved and its black eye seemed to come alive. It made a strange noise, an exhalation that seemed part fear and part resignation. I put my hand on its bloody neck and it did not move.
Slowly, I pulled my entire body closer until I was nestled along the deer’s belly, my head resting on its shoulder. I could feel its heat, though it was nearly dead now and would not retain that warmth for long. For my part, I knew I was going to freeze to death before morning but I suddenly felt that this was the most right—-maybe the only right—-thing that had ever happened to me. We live unnatural lives. We die unnaturally, too. We remain plugged into machines long after we’ve ceased to be of use. We even eat ourselves to death. But for most of human history you got taken out by an animal or fell down a ravine or simply couldn’t make the journey to the wintering grounds again. Now, me, here, in these woods, with this deer, the snow drifting out of the trees on the slight evening breeze, this is good. I only hope I can stay conscious long enough to watch the full moon rise over the pines, the snow sparkling, the reflected yellow light making it nearly as bright as day, the silence of these woods and this animal beneath me slowly becoming my own.
It was almost 10 years that I worked for the county, up until I couldn’t really take it anymore. For all that time I cleaned-out houses that were going to auction after their owners had died without leaving a living relative or specifying a beneficiary. Sometimes I’d show up pretty much right as the medical examiner was loading the body into the ambulance. Other times it took quite awhile to comb through the deceased’s past and determine if they were, for our purposes, at least, alone in this world. Some people talk about immortality as something to be desired but, from what I’ve seen, outliving (or, perhaps, living long enough to alienate) every one of your friends and family is a fate a far sight worse than death.
You might think that I’d have come across some pretty cool things over the years and, in fact, I was explicitly barred from taking anything for myself from any of the homes I worked. On one occasion, in amongst a stack of worthless albums by the Ray Coniff Singers and Bing Crosby, I found a Blind Lemon Jefferson 78 rpm record. “Bad Luck Blues” on one side and “Broke and Hungry” on the other. I slid the record into the duffel that held my lunch even though I don’t have the equipment to play it. 
Another time I found a water-stained photo of Marilyn Monroe signed, “To Petey, Love Always, MM.” I’ve tried to compare the writing against other examples I’ve found on the internet and can’t be sure but it might be authentic. Really, though, most of what was in these houses, the vast, vast majority, was of no use to anyone. Old photo albums, paperbacks, clothes, trinkets of every sort and description; things that mattered only to the decedent. Most of this gets put in black plastic bags and taken to the landfill. Even the Goodwill didn’t want it from us. Furniture that is in nice shape, electronic equipment, appliances, and things of some obvious value are shipped to a warehouse and auctioned off four times a year. You might not think that in a city of this size enough people shuffle off this mortal coil entirely without heir to warrant such an operation. In fact, I was part of a twelve-person team and we struggled not to run a backlog.
Of course, the first rule of the job is not to get involved. Don’t read the personal correspondence. Don’t try to put meaning to the faces in the pictures. And don’t try to reconstruct the last days or years of the deceased. Remain detached. Keep filling the black plastic bags. It’s hard. 
I think most people expect that death will be a passageway from a life well-lived to something even better. Surrounded by our family and friends there will be anxiety and tears, to be sure, but also the warmth given off by a lifetime of memories and the knowledge that, in a very real way, our life continues in those that come after us. Perhaps it is like that for some. But the evidence I’ve seen would indicate that the end of life can also be a long slide into oblivion, the weight of regret hanging heavy as dreams go unfulfilled or collapse in on themselves entirely. When the mind finally can’t cope I guess madness sets in. I often found it something to consider as I tried to not get involved.
A good number of the homes I went into were what you might call “garbage houses,” the former occupants having hoarded mountains of worthless material items against a yawning spiritual and emotional void. Old newspapers. Cereal boxes. Children’s toys (despite there apparently having been no children around lately). Bits of yarn. Anything that might be of some use in a future that would never arrive. When it got real bad we had to call in a HAZMAT team. My own father lived in a house somewhat like this. As a boy I recall a mix of anticipation and revulsion as I dug around in drawers looking for interesting artifacts or stalked around piles of old magazines that had begun to disintegrate in backed-up sewage. 
The lights in the basement didn’t work and I had to use a flashlight to make my way over the cracked concrete floor, occasionally scaring up the ragged old black cat my dad kept, while holding my shirt over my mouth and nose, afraid of catching some type of disease. Even the garage was piled high with junk, some of which--strange medallions, old coins, car parts--I found truly fascinating. But, in the end, my wariness always won out and I was careful to keep some distance from both my father and his house, sensing, however obliquely, that what was reflected, each in the other, could do me harm. When my father died a few years later there was no clean-up or estate auction. Instead, the city bulldozed his house and everything in it to the ground and carted the wreckage off to the dump. I went by twice afterward; once to see the flattened house and again to see the newly vacant lot. To this day I think that this is really the right and proper way to deal with such homes. Thus, I suppose, I do believe it would be better if jobs such as mine didn’t exist.
Or, I should say, jobs such as mine used to be. I’d like to relate that one day some dramatic realization hit me in some filthy home whose tainted atmosphere suddenly struck me deeply with a dire message. That would be interesting. But, I think, it was more a process of attrition, each “case,” wearing me down a bit more until all I saw was the utter futility and grinding isolation of lives that came to an end surrounded by useless bits of paper and plastic and not much else. We can’t always choose our fate but I’ve seen a lot of what happens when life is simply left to follow its own slow, sad course. Someone had better be at the wheel at all times. What I saw were lives and deaths empty of action or meaning. Finally, I couldn’t stomach the waste. I just had to turn away and find something better to do with my time.
All the above photos were taken Spring 2010 inside three abandoned homes standing right next to each other in downtown Augusta, Georgia, USA.
I first heard of Willis Earl Beal through Found Magazine. Gracing the COVER OF ISSUE #7 was a flier Willis had made in an attempt to meet a “nice pretty girl” and inside was an interview with Willis himself. At the end of the interview was a note telling readers that if they wanted to see some of Willis’s artwork or hear some of his music they should e-mail Found Magazine. I was intrigued by the interview and, as Willis and I lived in the same town, I wanted to see what this guy was up to. So, I e-mailed Found and they told me they hadn’t actually received anything from Willis yet. Could I track him down, collect some of his work, and send it on to them? Well, sure, I could do that. After all, Willis wasn’t hard to reach; his phone number was on the cover of Found Magazine.
While walking home from work one day I gave Willis a call and told him that Found Magazine wanted me to send some of his artwork on to them. He said he had some CD’s with him right then and that we could meet at a nearby Wendy’s, where he was applying for a job. So, I turned around and headed over to the restaurant. I didn’t know if we’d have much to talk about. All I knew about Willis was what I’d read in Found: that he liked nighttime, oatmeal and heavily favored the music of Norah Jones. As it turned out, he also liked Werner Herzog, Bob Dylan and William Burroughs. Alright, then.
I took the CD’s home, not sure what to expect, and put one in the player. The first track I heard was “Blue Escape.”
Once Willis began singing, my first thought was, “I want to be in a band with this guy!” The music came across like a bedroom mix of Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, the Dirt Bombs and Cat Power. So, I called him back and said I could play some drums, my girlfriend could play guitar, and he could obviously sing and write songs. Did he want to be in a band? Willis was up for trying something, but it took awhile for us to find a place to practice. Our first session was on a cold winter’s afternoon in an open barn, the snow-capped mountains of central New Mexico in the distance. It sounded good. In a short time we had a few tunes worked-out, including some from his home-recorded CD’s. One that Willis never seemed too keen on but that we pretty much insisted on playing was called “Monotony.”
Over the next few weeks we managed to practice once a week or so. We got a set together, booked a show, and got a lead on some recording time. The weekend before the gig we were set to rehearse but Willis didn’t show up on time. This was unusual. An hour later he called saying he was on the way to the airport and was flying back home to Chicago. He and his girlfriend had broken up the night before and he couldn’t stand being in New Mexico another day. He'd told his landlady to just throw all his stuff out. And that was that.
Who knows what might or might not have come of Willis’s songs? But we understood that he had to leave. And many of the songs he was writing seemed to be about his relationship; it would have been hard for him to keep singing them. It’s too bad we didn’t record anything though. My girlfriend and I spent a whole Saturday in thrift stores trying (and failing) to find a simple boom box. Even a practice tape would’ve been nice. Here’s one we eventually worked-up called “White Noize.”
Anyway, Willis is back in Chicago—hopefully writing some new songs—and I figured I’d post a couple of his tunes here on City of Dust. All three of these were from his original home recordings, mostly played on instruments he kept pawning. If anyone wants to hear more songs—and there’s a lot more—get in touch and maybe we can find a way to get them out to folks. Willis can sort of be found on FACEBOOK. But the best way to contact him is still to just give him a call. (UPDATE: Not anymore.)
WOCA medium-format photos are from Albuquerque's West Mesa, the old SANTA FE PENITENTIARY, and the ALBUQUERQUE RAILYARDS, respectively.
In addition to James Brown’s old neighborhood, my recent trip back to Augusta, Georgia yielded another forgotten treasure: the Palace Theater, later known as the Red Star Restaurant and/or Café. I’d passed this old building countless times on my wanderings up and down deserted James Brown Boulevard, but always assumed it had once been a church or something. And, I guess, in a way, it was.
The Palace Theater originally opened in 1920 as a vaudeville theater typical of the era except, perhaps, for the fact that it catered to an African-American audience. As such, it is the only theater of its type still standing in Augusta. And, when I say “standing,” that used to imply “just barely.” Recently the entire front façade of the building collapsed into the street. I’m a little surprised that the façade has now been rebuilt exactly as it looked for decades and decades since the place appeared basically abandoned for years. Is something finally going to be done with the old theater? Is its face lift merely because of the new Federal Justice Center across the street? Is the theater still as historic if it has an entirely new façade? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, I’m just glad they didn’t tear it down.
Anyway, the Palace Theater eventually became the Red Star Restaurant. The building may also have housed the Palace Restaurant and the Red Star Café, but I am uncertain as to whether these are real names or just transpositions of the various monikers. The Red Star Restaurant also functioned as a hotel for African-American performers who were in town. Some friends of mine in Augusta referenced an article stating that not only had Ray Charles stayed at the Red Star Restaurant on an early tour, but that he’d played there, as well. Unfortunately, the original article could not be found and, beyond that, there is almost no information to be found on the history of the Palace Theater/Red Star Restaurant, hence the name of this post.
The ONLY PAGE I could find on-line turned out to have some interesting historical information, including a few old ads and posters. As I have only one photo of the building in my archive (had I known its history I certainly would’ve taken more!) I have taken the liberty of presenting these same ads here. I have attempted to contact the owner of this page to no avail but if you happen to read this, Augusta Amusements, thanks for the info and please get in touch. Hopefully you don’t mind my wholesale ranacking of much of your page.
So, I’d like to wrap this post up by asking anyone that has any memories of the Palace Theater/Red Star Restaurant to please submit your recollections via the comment form or e-mail (see my profile for address). I’d love to know who performed, stayed or ate in this building, once a lonely relict amongst lonely relicts on James Brown Boulevard and now a lonely relict across from a massive government complex.
Cleopatra Hill sits at about 5,000 feet above sea level in north-central Arizona. It was here that in 1883 a New York investor, Eugene Murray Jerome, purchased mineral rights from a small group of prospectors and began to finance a mining operation. A short time later, in early 1889, the town of Jerome, encompassing less than one square mile on the side of the steep hill and with a population of eight, was incorporated. The town’s namesake, Mr. Jerome, would never set foot in it.
Jerome really came into its own around the turn of the 20th Century, when the New York Sun dubbed it the “wickedest town in the West.” Of course, this meant that the place was rife with that holy trinity of the Wild West: Gunfights, gambling and working girls. 
Nora “Butter” Brown opened the first bordello in Jerome but by the mid-1880’s was already retired and in San Diego. In 1905 she was shot by her husband, an opium addict. Her protégé, Jennie Bauters, didn’t fare much better, leaving Jerome in 1903 only to be shot two years later (the same year as her former boss, incidentally) by her hard-gambling boyfriend in Acme (now Goldroad), Arizona. The boyfriend, Clement C. Leigh, then turned the gun on himself and laid down to die beside Jennie. Only, he didn’t actually die until he was taken behind a stockade and hung for murder. The photo below is of one of the buildings in Jerome where prostitutes lived and worked.
The population of Jerome reached 15,000 by the 1920’s with the mines operating 24 hours a day. However, the Great Depression hit the town hard and, in 1930, the mines closed. The history of Jerome during these dark years is lost to the ages. However, in 1935, a man named Phelp Dodge bought up the mining rights around Jerome and began open pit mining, using up to 250,000 pounds of TNT to blow chunks out of the hill, rocking the entire city. One blast sent an entire block sliding downgrade. The vast majority of that block was dismantled, but the jail remains standing to this day. Sort of. Known as the “sliding jail” it now sits tucked away beneath a parking lot, hundreds of feet below its original location. The photo at the top of this post is from inside the jail. The shot below is from just outside.
By the mid-20th Century, nearly 1 billion dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and copper had been hauled out of Cleopatra Hill and the immediate vicinity. But, by then, Jerome had become a true ghost town. Below is a shot of the Connor Hotel, which burned down twice before this brick building was finally built in 1898. Once the classiest hotel in town, by 1931 the place was shuttered. It re-opened in the 1960’s as a flophouse. It shut down again in the 1980’s due to building code violations but has since re-opened as something somewhat above a flophouse.
Today, the population of Jerome hovers around 350, making it the least-populated city in the state of Arizona. Its most famous resident is probably Maynard James Keenan, the singer for Tool, who also co-owns the Caduceus Winery, which has a retail store in town. There’s also a boutique for Keenan’s other band, Puscifer, up a street or two. (Up truly meaning "above" in vertical Jerome.) Even if it’s no longer the “wickedest town in the West” (hello my former home of Oakland, CA!), Jerome still has some ghosts floating around.
The JEROME TIMES has the most extensive history of Jerome to be found on-line. Wanna stay at the Connor Hotel? Go HERE. Thirsty? Try HERE.
Next post is going to be a surprise to everyone, including me.
Back in April of 2005, when City of Dust posts were almost exclusively about the Central Savannah River Area, I wrote something regarding the neighborhood James Brown grew up in, a place once known as “The Terry,” a contraction of “Negro Territory.” I described this area, adjacent to downtown on the west and roughly bounded on the north by Walton Way and Laney Walker Boulevard to the south, as containing Augusta’s poorest and most dangerous streets. I also wrote about how, based on what I’d been told, I had decided not to go exploring those streets, which also meant I did not go looking for the childhood home of James Brown.
Shortly after publishing that post, someone by the name of Tawanda left a comment chastising me for believing what I’d been told. She said that the neighborhood was safe and, while people might be curious to know why I was walking around with a camera, no harm would come to me. Re-reading the original post, ACCESS DENIED, I have to say I'm embarrassed by what I wrote and Tawanda was absolutely right; I’d missed an opportunity to see more of Augusta and, what’s more, visit a neighborhood of great historical interest. I was foolish to be intimidated by what I’d heard. Happily, after a weekend visit to Augusta last week, I can now report that the area around James Brown’s childhood home is not a warzone. Further, to see the lot, and perhaps the actual house, where JB grew up was a real treat. So, without further ado, City of Dust returns to Augusta, Georgia:
James Brown, Jr. was born in a one-room shack in Barnwell, South Carolina in either 1928 or 1933, although May 3, 1933 seems to be the most accepted date. His parents separated when he was four (some sources say two) and he didn't see his mother again for over two decades. When he was around six, he and his father moved to Augusta and James went to live with his Aunt Honey, who ran a brothel. There, James was reportedly beaten by johns, as well as his father. To pay his way, young James shined shoes and was also sent out to procure customers for his aunt. It is actually unclear from the information I found whether James' father ever lived in the brothel or if he resided elsewhere. In any case, James would have been staying at the address 944 Twiggs St. by the early-to-mid 1930's.
If you do a Google image search for “James Brown’s childhood home” the first photo of a structure you get is one from City of Dust that I can definitely tell you is not the place. However, in 2002, the UK’s Guardian newspaper published a long feature on James Brown by Philip Gourevitch entitled THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME. In it, Mr. Gourevitch is taken on a tour of James Brown’s old stomping grounds by JB himself. They drive around in James’ limo while the Godfather of Soul points out spots of interest, including his boyhood home (that's the lot, at least, in the photo above). I could summarize some of the article, but I think it’ll be more interesting to just plagiarize a few paragraphs:
Here was 944 Twiggs Street, the former brothel where he (i.e., James Brown) lived with his Aunt Honey, the madam - now abandoned and bristling with weeds. Here, by these train tracks, he buck-danced for soldiers passing through town at the start of the second world war; they'd throw him coins, which he took home to Aunt Honey: "Men made 30 cents an hour, 20 cents a hour, 15 cents a hour. I brought her back five dollars to pay the rent for a month." Here was the narrow canal where he once took refuge from the law: "Police were running me, and I saw 'em coming, and I made a few turns, jumped in the water, and breathed through a cane. I saw it in a movie." He mimicked the police, "Where'd he go? Where he at? Where he at? I know I saw him. I swear I saw that boy, Gawd damn." Then he recalled telling himself: "'Now listen up, it's either jail, either reform school, or you stay in the water.' So I stayed in the water." And here was an oil company that he used to rob when he was nine: "That was wrong but was survival."
This is the best available information I’ve ever come across regarding the exact location of the brothel where James Brown grew up. Clearly, the place was not most recently a residence but a business of some kind (see above photo). Was the original home—perhaps a shotgun shack—converted for business use or was it torn down and replaced? Who knows? I do know that the building I photographed pre-dates the article, so, as James didn’t say otherwise, I might assume, with some reservation, that this is where JB grew up. (UPDATE: Twiggs St. was renumbered at some point, and Aunt Honey's brothel would've actually been next door, in a lot to the southwest that was a grassy patch with some trees last time I visited.) The remnants of the railroad tracks can still be seen nearby and, indeed, the canal runs right beside the house. It's fascinating to think that James hid from the police in that same canal all those years ago. Below is a photo of the Southern Milling Company complex, which recently caught fire. This is the view that young James would have seen from the front of his house, although not quite so singed.
Here’s some more from the article:
As we turned off Twiggs Street on to a narrow and particularly abject strip, called Hopkins Street, Mr. Brown's mood turned sombre. The facade of a brick house on the corner was spray-painted with the words "Fuck the world," and farther along the real estate grew more dismal: Tottering clapboard bungalows, half of them burned out, and the rest, he said, "probably crack houses now. You come from that, you use crack." In this setting, the limo looked like a spaceship, but none of the street's ragtag residents expressed any surprise. They waved from sidewalks and porches, and although they couldn't see through the rain-streaked one-way glass, they called out: "Hello, Mr. Brown" and "God bless, Mr. Brown."
The vehicle could belong to nobody else: Every Thanksgiving, he comes through passing out turkeys, and at Christmas he brings toys. Now, he said, "They want me to help build this place back - What can I do? Get on my knees and pray, and ask, 'Mr. President, come - Mr. Bush, come in here and clean it out and put decent homes in here'?"
He told his driver to stop outside a broken-down shack, where an emaciated woman and two young men sat on a porch surrounded by household debris. One of the young men stepped forward in the rain, and Mr. Brown lowered his window and held out a $50 bill. The man bowed and withdrew. "Wait a minute," Mr. Brown called after him. "Y'all split that. Give that lady some, too." When he rolled his window up, he told me: "I'm not doin' this because you here. I wasn't gonna do it today. I didn't want you to see me handin' no money out there. I wasn't gonna do it. That's the honest-to-God truth." He sounded embarrassed. "You look at this, it kinda take your breath," he said.
At the end of the block, we reached JAMES BROWN BOULEVARD, and he said, "Out here on these same streets, you may see my daughter, and she has no business out here. She don't have to be there. I give her a home, she got a new Mercedes, and her Mercedes just sitting there. I can't give it to her, 'cause I can't - 'cause she shrug off everything I do."
Now, the picture painted by the article also makes the neighborhood sound dire. And I certainly saw a number of abandoned homes and businesses, some burnt down. But I never saw a single person that appeared menacing. Granted, the rain was pouring down the afternoon I was there, too, but mostly I saw a place where people were doing their best to get by, some in the face of admittedly long odds. There has also been considerable development along James Brown Blvd since James Brown or I last saw Augusta. The effects of this development on the larger neighborhood remain to be seen, but that a face-lift is occurring is undeniable.
Again, I thank Tawanda for setting me straight and giving me the impetus to find James Brown’s childhood home. If anyone has more information on 944 Twiggs or James Brown’s early residences, please drop me a line. Tawanda, if you happen to read this, please get in touch. I wasn’t able to contact you on this trip, but I may be back in Augusta sometime down the road and would love to take you up on your kind offer of a full tour. Also, many thanks to Mr. Hughes for accompanying me on this outing and providing some historical insight of his own. His website archiving the available information on Henry Shultz and the lost city of HAMBURG SOUTH CAROLINA (site of the HAMBURG RIOT) is well worth spending some time with. The accompanying photo is of the James Brown monument on Broad Street in Augusta. The shot below is another look inside 944 Twiggs St.
I think next time we’ll visit the mountainside Wild West gold-mining town of Jerome, Arizona and have a look at its famous, if hidden, “sliding” jail. Jerome is also the home of Maynard Keenan, the singer of Tool. Huh.
