Craig, Colorado - 1972
I used to buy random boxes of vintage slides, and I never knew what I'd find inside. Among the usual photos of the Grand Canyon, or babies, or graduations, a photo of an unknown town would pop up, and it always piqued my interest! "Can I figure out where this place is?", and "What does it look like today?".
There were two slides from 1972 that turned out to be from the same town, and it didn't really take that long to solve the mystery of their location. The most visible clue is the Cosgriff Motor Hotel, which places us at "the intersection of of US 40 and State Highway 789 (aka East Victory Way) in downtown Craig, Colorado" (according to the text on the back of a postcard). Craig is in the upper west corner of Colorado, about 120 miles west of Boulder (as the crow flies).
Another landmark is the WEST Theater, which opened on April 8, 1939 with the film "Never Say Die" starring Bob Hope. It was originally a 500-seat theater, but has since been modified into a twin.
This Google Street View shows the approximate area as it looks today. As is often the case, the "today" view is lacking something, even though Craig looks like a pleasant place to live.
Here's that postcard showing the Cosgriff Motor Hotel; An attractive, well-managed 80 room air-cooled motor hotel with every convenience. Inside there was a painting of some note (apparently), “The Passing of the Old West” by Gerard Curtis Delano. I'd hoped to find an image of this painting on Google, but had no luck (I'm sure I could have dived deeper).
Continuing westward, we get a closer look at a few landmarks that you could see in the first photo, including the Conoco station (which is still there), and that building by the red Jeep with the angled roof, which is a furniture and mattress store today.
There's the furniture store to our left... the big tree just beyond it blocks the view of the Conoco station.
Vintage postcards! We love vintage postcards.
And another...
I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Craig, Colorado.
8 comments:
Recon! Vintage postcards are a great way to go back in time, especially now with googie maps. Thank you Major!
Major-
The Cosgriff Motor Hotel certainly seems like a 'hot-and-happening place', especially with their cocktail lounge encased in glass block-! I'm uncertain, however, just how cool their guests would feel while sleeping during the warm summer months with mere 'air cooling'... (I know, I know - with all that nice, "dry" mountain air-!)
Thanks, Major.
I gotta chuckle. I’ll be at “The Office.” Creative. It reminds me of another bar I saw, a couple months back—next to a river dam….called “The Dam Bar.”
A little taxidermy shop squeezed in between the barber shop and bar. Cute town, thanks, Major, for the road trip.
So, the "Cosgriff Motor Hotel" sign told you where this was? I woulda thought the "GAS" sign next to it would've clinched the location. :-D (Or the "CAFE" sign.)
I see from the postcard that a barbershop is part of the Motel complex. Or maybe it's a candy shop with a twirling candy cane out front. ;-)
In the 4th picture, it seems odd to have a taxidermy shop right in the midst of their main street. But I suppose there were a lot of hunters in this area, then and now. I can't tell from the sign if it's the Bates Taxidermy shop, or not.
As you noted in today's post, and many others, the old views (in postcards and old slides) always show the town a lot more lively and interesting than the present day images. It must be entropy that causes this. And the entropy is caused by a massive black hole near our solar system. And the black hole is governed by a giant cloud of black energy. Scientists will verify this in a few years. Until then, you just have to take my word for it.
Thanks for the trip, Major.
I bet that cafe has a great Saturday morning breakfast special - I’ll grab a couple seats for us. See you there!
JB, if you’re looking at the same image that I’m looking at (fourth one), that shop could possibly be a barber-taxidermy-combo shop, seeing the placement of that barbershop pole. “We’ll stuff your dead raccoon while you wait and get a haircut and shave.”
Sue, I was thinking that the barbershop (or candy shop) is probably 'stuffed' with taxidermied animals hanging on the walls.
And of course, in my first comment, I meant "a giant cloud of dark energy". One has to be accurate when making these predictions. (I'm sleepy.)
JB….well, it says “Studio,” too — which could mean lots of things, so you could be right.
Get some shut-eye and we’ll see, in the morning, what the other Jr. Gorillas think it might be…..night!
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