Frankie the Leather Lady

And a trip to Crested Butte...

Frankie (I never knew her last name) had a little shop on First Street in Salida, Colorado where she sold garments she made from animal skins. A small sign in the window said “Frankie the Leather Lady.” The pieces, mostly for women, were beautifully made. Where she got her materials I do not know, although rumor had it that she was not above using road kill. (Interesting wild animals get killed on Upper Arkansas Valley highways.)

I had flunked out as a family man and closed my kayak and X-country ski business downtown on the river, then stumbled into a job as operations manager of the local AM/FM radio station. A couple of my river running buddies, Rig and Gerry Reese lived over the Continental Divide in the old mining town of Crested Butte which was in the process of becoming a ski town. This was in the early ‘70s when, Elk Avenue, the main drag, was still unpaved and bordered by wooden sidewalks and old frame buildings, some of which were businesses from the mining days plus an assortment of bars and cafes. More about this later.

Perhaps it was the afternoon I went into Frankie's shop and mentioned that I was going to see friends in Crested Butte that she told me she wanted to visit the Crested Butte dump because it was reputed to have good junk. I said OK and the next day went to pick her up at the old sheep shed in Smeltertown where she and her little daughter lived. We were traveling in my 1948 Dodge pickup which, rather miraculously, made it over Monarch Pass (ele:11,312 ft) and on up to Crested Butte from Gunnison.

I dropped Frankie off at the dump and she said she would catch a ride into town with someone and meet me at Sancho’s Cantina on Elk Avenue. I went there to wait and got into a poker game. Sancho’s had good Mexican food and looked like the set of a particularly realistic Western movie. I was playing poker with some friends of Rig Reese collectively called Da Boyz. I didn't know their real names. Their nicknames were Da Bump, Da Goof (brothers), Da Weas, Da Face and maybe one I forget.

Then I left to run some errands. When I returned and was about to step through the swinging doors, they burst open and out came Frankie who was being roughly ejected (86ed) by two guys. I helped her up off the wooden sidewalk and asked her “what the hell?”

“I was shooting pool with those guys,” she said. “I was winning and one of them insulted me, so I punched him in the nose.” After we beat a strategic retreat to the Dodge pickup and started back home, I asked if she had found anything at the dump? “No it was a bust, but I found a little tricycle for my daughter.”

I don’t believe I ever saw her again.