The Gem Theater standing beside the historic Wells Fargo stone stable
(marked "Garage"), c.1914
Note buildings atop Castle Rock and original Golden Library building at
farthest left
Photo courtesy Charles S. Ryland Collection, Gardner Family Collection
Wells Fargo continued a prosperous business in Golden. It was an anchor for Golden's economy; it provided the best commercial transportation to and from our community. Wells Fargo proved it could be trusted with valuables and treasure, and it acted as Golden's bank long before Golden established its first bank in 1868. However, its time in Golden was short. In October 1869, Wells Fargo left Golden when it sold its stagecoaching lines to John Hughes, its entire Colorado operation for $200,000.
While the new company was fine and trusted, stagecoaching itself for Golden also was entering its twilight when the Colorado Central Railroad began steaming into town during the 1870s. Over the rest of time, what was once Wells Fargo's great operation of the Golden area fell to the ages. The Overland Hotel continued to be run by many proprietors, most famously Edward L. Berthoud, until it was destroyed in 1910 for a Woodmen lodge hall which never came. In its place was built in 1922, ironically, the Overland Garage, named for the brand of automobiles it sold; the building later became the Golden Plunge, the department store of August Gaines Eaker, the Buffalo Rose dance hall, and still stands today. Wells Fargo's place at 13th and Washington became a livery operation, and at some point the wood stable building was converted into a storefront. That building, long a rambling derelict, was destroyed in 1911 to make way for the Gem Theater that had purchased that corner. Today the renovated historic Williams Garage building (built in 1915) bears a resemblance to the historic stable building that once stood in that exact same spot. The historic stone stable, that stood behind the theater between it and the alley, continued to serve as a garage until 1948, when it was finally destroyed to make way to expand the theater into the building everyone knows today.
In the meantime, through the rest of the 19th Century Steve Eldred continued to run the Green Mountain Ranch from the log and brick Green Mountain House that stood at what is now the northwest corner of Wide Acres and Hawthorne roads. His stagecoaching days long gone, Eldred faded peacefully, and the Green Mountain House was destroyed early in the 20th Century. Today its location and the last of the lands of the Green Mountain Ranch are transformed into the Colorado Mills mall. However, the pioneers are a part of memory, and Wells Fargo became a memory to Golden, along with stagecoaches. As George West notes in the rest of his lament of Lemuel Flower:
One by one our friends depart. The departure of each leaves a void which cannot be filed. The old, happy days of stage coaching are "gone from the earth forever" - no funeral train behind except the shrill shriek of the iron horse. But how many recollections of the past do the old familiar names of Good Intent, Stockton and Stokes, Neal, Moore and Co., suggest! They are among the things of the past.
Peace to thy remains, Lem. While in the Earth sphere, you did your duty nobly, and whether called upon to rein the fiery chariots of the sun or not, we hope to meet you. Good, kind friend, farewell!
No more the dreary stager dreads
The toil of the coming morn;
No more the bustling landlord rims
At the sound of the echoing horn-
For the dust lies still upon the road,
And bright-eyed children play
Where once the clattering hoof and wheel
Rattled along the way.