(upbeat music) - So before the Strater,
Durango has a lot of log cabins, even some adobe houses, it is essentially a mining camp. With the Strater, it becomes a serious
town and a community. - If a town wanted to be
permanent in the West, it had to have a fine hotel. - It was a pretty wild place. - There were shootings, the
sheriff shot the Marshall, that's the kind of town it was. So bringing in a
hotel with some class, certainly would have
changed the environment. - It needed a posh hotel
to prove to investors that this was a place
where your money was safe, where the community would grow, where there were other people
with similar interests. - Without the
Strater Hotel Durango would probably be a
very different place. - And it becomes a place
where movies are filmed, where movie stars come and stay, and then the Strater became
the best historic hotel in our community. - That's the spirit
of the Strater. And it started with
Henry a long time ago, just wanting a place
for his pharmacy. And it morphed into
a whole lot more than he might have imagined. - [Narrator 1] This
program was made possible by the History Colorado
State Historical Fund. - [Narrator 2] Supporting
projects throughout the state to preserve, protect,
and interpret
Colorado's architectural and archeological treasures. History Colorado
State Historical Fund. Create the future,
honor the past. - [Narrator 1 ] With the
additional funding provided in memory of Deanna E. La
Camera, and members like you. With special thanks to
the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, the
Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media, and
to these organizations. (upbeat music) - [Narrator 3] Durango Colorado
is famous in great part because of its Narrow
Gauge Railroad, that runs between the towns
of Silverton and Durango. Today the train
attracts tourists. But in 1881, it attracted money. Mining money. - Durango is here because
of the original Denver and Rio Grande railroad that
rushed out of Denver South, and then across through a number
of communities to get here, to get up to Silverton
for the gold and silver which had been discovered there. - The mining in Silverton, was really the Genesis
for this whole area. - So the actual mines are to
the North Silverton Telluride. But they were so high
in terms of altitude that you couldn't
smelt the minerals. So Durango became
a smelting town, and it was a smoky, dirty,
dusty, industrial place, where coal came
through and then gold and silver came down out of
the mountains to be smelted. One of the things the
railroad wanted to do, was make money on real estate. And so it chose
where to put towns. So the railroad chose
the town of Durango. - When the railroad laid
out the town of Durango, it had areas where it
hoped to have hotels. Prime real estate was
sold to those people who were most likely to
build the kind of thing. The railroad knew would
establish the community. - [Narrator 3] About 1700 miles from the rough shod
town of Durango, three brothers sons of a
plumber in Cleveland Ohio, somehow won the contract
to bring water up from the Animas
river, to Durango. The youngest of the
Strater brothers was Henry. But the 21 year old wasn't
really interested in plumbing. - Like a lot of young men, Henry Strater was interested
in making a fortune in the gold and silver camps. In his case, he wasn't
going to make money as a miner, or as a prospect,
but as a pharmacist. And he was interested
in town building, and he knew the value
of an opulent hotel. And so eventually he
decides he's gonna borrow as much money as he can, and build what he hopes will be in premier hotel in
Southwest Colorado. The Strater. And it has become the
real center of town in terms of evenings out,
and menus, where to eat, certainly where to drink, it
is the posh place to visit. And it's had that reputation. And I guess in some ways that
reputation begins in the 1890s with Gustaf Nordenskiöld. - Gustaf Nordenskiöld
came to Durango because he was ailing
from tuberculosis. And he was told in his
doctors encouraged him that dry climate like Durango
would be healthy for him. So he came out here. - [Narrator 3] Gustaf was the
of a famous Swedish Explorer. And Gustaf himself
had become obsessed with the newly discovered
Mesa Verde cliff dwellings near Durango. He saw a future fame and
fortune, in the ancient ruins. - So he begins to
excavate at Mesa Verde, and people eventually amass seven train car
loads of artifacts. Seven train car loads of
original ancestral Puebloans, and baskets, pottery,
he collects everything. And is going to take
it back to Sweden. - Well, the locals just
thought that was horrible. So the sheriff in Durango
arrested Gustaf Nordenskiöld and putting him in the house
arrest here at the Strater. - [Narrator 3] The 23 year old
sent a six word telegram home for help. Much trouble, some
expense, no danger. - He's in trouble, trial
comes up, goes to court, his lawyer asked the judge, "your honor what crime
has my client committed?" "What law has been broken?" And there was none. So in many ways the start of
the antiquities act of 1906, the start of American
National Monuments, the start of an attempt to not only protect Indian
burials in Indian graves, but Indian artifacts
begins here at the Strater. With Gustaf Nordenskiöld who
is definitely done something that no one appreciated, but it inspires
federal legislation. - [Narrator 3] The Strater
hotel hosted its range of famous and infamous guests
over the years, but it did so largely
without its namesake founder. - Henry Strater
being a young man when he built a hotel
he and his family, had no intention of
running the hotel at all. So they contacted a
fellow named Harry Rice to run the hotel. So they leased out the property, Henry being young and
inexperienced forgot to exclude the place
for his pharmacy, so he went back to
Harry Rice and said, "gosh I want to put
my pharmacy here. I know we've talked about that, I don't see that I remembered to put that in the lease." He said, 'you're quite right. We didn't put it in the lease. And we're gonna put a
bar in there instead. And so sorry if you want it, it's going to be
quite expensive." - Henry had to put his pharmacy
down the street a block. Because he couldn't get
it in his own hotel. Henry built another hotel right alongside the Strater
called the Colombian Hotel. His intent was to put
Rice out of business, which he didn't do because unfortunately the
Silver Panic happened. Mr. Rice and Henry Strater
and the family lost both properties back to
the bank of Cleveland. - The Silver Panic of 1893, affected the entire
Colorado Western slope. It impacted all of
the mining communities in the Rocky mountains. We had a dual monetary standard. So in those days, your paper dollar was actually
backed by gold and silver. And the monetary panic occurs, when the U S Congress decides
not to back it with silver, but just to have
a gold standard. And so the silver
communities crumble. They fell because all of a
sudden there is no base market for their products. Because of Silverton,
silver by the ton, that's how the name came about. Is impacted, it has a
direct impact on Durango, there's less ore into the
smelter, jobs are diminished, people are laid off and money stops flowing
into the Western slope. - It was hard on
the whole family, and Henry just left
town and went to Cuba. - So he gets the hotel built, and sort of wander South
and disappears into history. - [Narrator 3] The bank of Cleveland repossessed
the Strater hotel, sold it, and then it was leased to a
man named Charles Stilwell. And his partner, a woman
named Hattie Mashburn. - Hattie Mashburn was one of Durango's most
successful business women. She came in as the
executive housekeeper at a time when the Stilwell
family came in too. So Hattie Mashburn and Charles
Stilwell became partners in operations of the Strater. - One of the
interesting questions is what exactly is he managing? Is he managing just the
hotel or busy managing some of the ladies who take up
residence on the fourth floor? What the locals nicknamed
the monkey floor, because in fact monkey
business is occurring up there. That's a little odd to
have ladies of the night or prostitutes on the top
floor of a posh hotel, instead of in the basement
or somewhere else. Hattie Mashburn
becomes the Madam and then has her quote
girls working for her. - She saved all of her money, and she was a very
extensive landowner. She owned homes and
buildings all over town. So she was probably
assured as anybody in this town was
and quite wealthy. Hattie Mashburn, was
probably the reason that during the tough times,
the hotel made it through. - [Narrator 3] Although laws in the state banned both
prostitution and then alcohol, the illegal was generally more
profitable than the legal. - Prohibition was a
real interesting time at the Strater hotel. - When prohibition comes along, you could certainly get
a drink at the Strater. - There was a bellhop
named Johnny McNamara. Johnny decided they
could make a lot of more money selling booze
and he could hauling baggage. So he hid the booze
that he would buy, down at the bottom
of the elevator. Nobody went under the
elevator you could be crushed. The general manager at the time
knew that this was going on, but he didn't know
who was doing it or where they kept the liquor. So he was on a rampage cause he didn't wanna sell
liquor in the Strater. But Johnny was pretty crafty. After prohibition was over, then my grandfather swore that he was gonna
buy enough whiskey, that we would
never have to worry about getting some
more ever again. So he bought a full
railroad car full of early times whiskey. We are the largest
and longest stiller of early times Bourbon
whiskey in the world. Right here at the
Strater has been our bar of whiskey ever
since prohibition. - [Narrator 3] Today Rod
Barker is the third generation of his family to run the hotel. A legacy that began in
the roaring twenties, with Rod's grandfather
Earl Barker Senior. - My father came in
in 1922, then in 1926, a group of businessmen
got together and formed what they called
the New Strater Corporation. My father would see the
opportunity to buy that stock. And over the years kept
buying shares until 1954, he bought all of the stock out. My wife and I were in Hawaii, in the hotel business
at that time. And he gave us a call said, "please come back and
let's run this hotel." - In 1954, my dad came
back to run the hotel. The first thing they
noticed right off the bat, here's a hotel, and a town that
had nothing to do at night. - And I had a lot of
ideas at that time that weren't quite what my father thought should
be happen to the hotel. I wanted to move a
bar into the corner, my dad was very
upset about that. Daddy thought we'd just have
all the local drunks in there. But he went to
Hawaii for a trip, and while they were gone,
we built the Diamond Belle. (playing piano) - And they realized that they could get forgiveness
instead of permission. And they just went for it. When he came back and the bar
was full of his own friends, my grandfather thought it
was his idea all along. - So as America moves
into an automobile culture in the 1950s, new
motels are going up but there still there's Strater. So they manage to move it
from just another hotel, back into the posh role that
it had originally played. - And so they created
this bar called the Diamond Belle Saloon, and it was a turn of the
Century Victorian bar. It was immediate success. So the Diamond Belle, became
a big part of our operation, and in fact in town was one of the only places you could go and really have a social scene. - My name is Alex Camel, I actually grew up here
and walking by the windows. When I was little I saw
the girls all dressed up, then decided that was
something I wanted to do. I enjoyed my costume a lot, as a bar it makes me
feel really empowered. I feel like I'm walking history, and I feel like I can bring that experience to multiple
people in that way. - My name is Adam Swanson, and I am a resident ragtime
pianist at the Strater Hotel. I came to the Strater
when I was 12 years old to see a man named Johnny
Maddix play the piano. He was taking a
break from playing and sat down to autograph
someone's old vinyl record. And I got up and started
playing Nathan Lee frag. His head turned around so fast, I thought it was
going to come off. - I was there that night
and I said, "you know what? You just keep coming
back every year. We're going to let you
play on this piano. And someday you should
aspire to play in this bar. I would like to see
you play in this bar." And I think Adam just
took that to heart. - [Narrator 3] Adam
Swanson's boyhood dream of becoming a
professional musician, has more than come true. He is the only four
time world champion, old time piano player. And has performed
at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and
the Diamond Belle Saloon. A place that stirs drinks
as well as imagination. - One of our very
most notable guests at the Strater
was Louis L'Amour. Not only because he's
famous, because he was fun. - So Louis L'Amour was sort of
a pulp fiction cowboy writer, who then gets better and better. And winds up with TV
scripts and movie scripts. And the story is that
to get inspired for some of his short stories and
then his later novels, he rents a room directly above
the Diamond Belle Saloon. So the dust, and noise,
and the piano come up through the floorboards, and that inspires him
to write the many, many Western novels that he did. - So every year he would come
back and stay in room 222. He would say at the same desk, he had an Underwood typewriter that he'd use with two fingers, he was blinding fast
with two fingers. I guess maybe kind of like
we are with our thumbs today, but he was even faster. - So the West is really
popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The West is on television,
it's in the movies, it's certainly in
songs, it's in music. And there are scholars
who would say, we're turning to the West, as a place for American
myth and American history, because of communism. Because of fears of Russia, fears of what's happening
around the world. So we turn back
to our own roots, and those roots happen
to be the American West. And the Strater embraces that. And the Strater adds more red
silk, and red plush velour, and it all blends
together nicely. - [Narrator 3] The Western
allure of the Strater, is actually owed to
England's Queen Victoria. Her reign lasted for
most of the 19th century, including when the
Strater was built. So when Earl and
Jentra Barker took over remodeling the hotel, they hearkened back to
Henry Strater's day. By using the American
Walnut version, of the British Queen style. - The Strater has influenced the Victorian aspect of Dorango. Lots of places now
are using that theme. I think we started it,
Henry Strater certainly did. Our biggest influence
was my mother. And she had Victorian furniture, in a Victorian home in Durango. She said that she thought
this would be perfect here, which it was. - Where we are right now, the hotel that has the most Walnut
American Victorian antiques under one roof in the country. - The reason the
Victorian era took off was because Queen Victoria
expected the people that she would stay at, she would expect them to redecorate their
house to her style. That's pretty audacious,
but that's Queen Victoria. Redoing this hotel
became really fun for me because of a fellow that
worked closely with me and for me, Charlie Schumacher. Charlie Schumacher was a
fellow that came on board to the hotel with
my mom and dad back in the late sixties,
early seventies. He was a contractor. - And so we got
Charlie Schumacher and his father
who was a painter. Who came in and made
a Walnut bar for us. That's when we
first met Charlie. (upbeat music) - So Charlie was a real genius. He was a silversmith,
he was a paper hanger, he was top of the
line wood crafter, everything that we needed to do, we didn't have to go out and find qualified
people in contractors, which was an enormous advantage. Charlie and I we really
were like brothers. - He can do anything, if you tell him, (indistinct) Charlie you
probably can't do that, that's the wrong thing
to say to Charlie, because he'll do it. - I came back in 1983, and worked with Charlie
as the property manager. So Charlie and I
started getting the idea that we could do some
really fun stuff. We could start making
Victorian wallpaper and different things like that. Charlie was 87 when
he passed away. It obviously touched me greatly,
because of our closeness. When you spend that kind of
time making something special, it touches you in a special way. And I think in many ways
Charlie touched us all that way. - [Narrator 3] It was Charlie
Schumacher's gifted hands, and rod Barker's singular vision that have made the
Strater, the Strater. - When guests came in, I would imagine that most of them would feel
a little nostalgic about the good old days. And a feeling of
warmth and welcome. - Well We hope that
they feel the feeling of going back in time. And we have a little
diary put in the rooms, that the guest can look at and see what other
guests thought. And when we first
read those books that our son put in the rooms, we all had tears in
their eyes reading them. They were so
emotionally written. They were just great. They pour out their souls of
what they think of the hotel, and we think we've
accomplished what we set out. - [Narrator 3] Durango was born of Henry Strater's
determination to build a hotel that would build a community. That the historic Strater, is place that the
Barker family has so meticulously treasured,
is on the market. - It's been a hard thing
to come to grips with. Deciding to sell the hotel? The hotel is of
the demanding thing because I make sure that
every little detail, is just the way it should be. I think it's time for
us all as the family, the Barker family to move on. It's been 94 years, which is got to be
some sort of a record. The Strater is a relic of art
that needs to be preserved. And people do appreciate it. Hopefully there will be a buyer that will appreciate
it in the same passion. That will be their job,
to remind themselves that they have a
irreplaceable piece of art. Take care of it. That's what I would say, the legacy is in your future. - What do I hope for the
Strater in the future? I want it to stay the same. I particularly liked the
ambiance of the Diamond Belle, the piano playing, it is a
bit of history and it's great. And in a world that
changes all the time, I enjoy places
that don't change. And the Strater is one of those. It really is a work of art, and it's a work of art
that is historical. So you have a posh
downtown hotel, in a relatively small town. Durango is 18,000 people. It's not Chicago,
it's not Denver, it's not Boulder, it's Durango. Durango without the Strater
wouldn't be the town that it is. It wouldn't have
attracted the investors, It wouldn't have the
residential community, it wouldn't have
the festivities, the Strater really
signifies downtown Durango. What's fascinating
is that transition from an industrial
community, coal mines, gold and silver mines,
into a tourist community. And that transition was
aided by the Strater. And it still plays that role. (upbeat music)
