RED ONION TALES

My family moved to Aspen in 1956, when I was nine, and the Red Onion soon became the hub of many of our family activities.  My mother, Rose Crumpacker, worked as the "one woman chamber of commerce"  in a tiny cinderblock building next door to the Isis Theater, and every Friday night we had a week's end ritual of dining at the Onion.  I can well remember the delicious salads, dressed with Werner Kuster's oil and vinegar dressing, that accompanied our steak and baked potato dinners.  Werner would greet us and seat us in the dining room, far from the commotion of the bar. 

My older siblings, three of whom were in college, preferred "Beer Gulch", and usually went there directly apres ski.  Often, during summer or college breaks, they would never make it home for dinner, worrying my mother. 

Everyone loved the nightclub, which featured smoky-voiced singers and jazz combos, on weekends - even I was allowed to enter and sit at one of  the small tables, drinking cokes and feeling quite sophisticated.

My great grand uncle, Thomas Latta, had built the Onion in the 1880's, and a tile with his name still presumably graces the entry to the bar. The building also sports the Latta name on the very top.  My sister Marguerite Maddalone's middle name is Latta...the Latta family was from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and my grandmother, Rose Latta Turner, was born there and lived there until she moved to Indiana to marry my grandfather.  The Latta family was very, very proper - my mother remembered having to present her calling card to a butler with a silver tray, when she traveled to Pennsylvania, at age twelve, to visit her grandmother. Thomas Latta was the uncle, and the black sheep of the family.  He came out west, searching for his fortune, and ended up building and running the Red Onion as a dance hall, bar, and brothel.

When I was eleven or twelve, we had a little gang of kids who liked to get into a bit of trouble during our lunch hour from school.  Several of our parents had charge accounts at the Delice Bakery, so after grabbing a sandwich or pastry, we would adjourn to eat our lunches on either the fire escape of the Wheeler Opera House, or the fire escape of the rooming house for the Red Onion employees, across the alley from the Onion, in the building that became the Paragon.  It was on the latter fire escape that we all witnessed sex for the first time....as we furtively peered in a curtained window of one of the rooms...I think it was the hostess of the Onion, as we all recognized her.

Several years later, there was a terrible knife fight between two Swiss or Austrian Red Onion chefs, beginning in the kitchen and ending in the alley, at night, when we were having a Friday night dinner.  The police were called, and both chefs were taken to the hospital.  Not too long after that, Werner Kuster sold the Onion.  His wife, Rosemarie, moved to Santa Fe and owned the Palace Restauraunt there for many years.

The Red Onion always stayed a little tied to it's wild west roots.  My brother Tom, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan law school, brother-in-law Danny Maddalone, an Aspen ski patrol, and cousin Bob Brown, captain of the U. of Michigan football team,  were involved, one spring break, in an awful brawl that began in the nightclub.  The brawl moved out onto Cooper Street, and they were all dragged by a car down to Pinnochio's.

"Beer Gulch", with its horseshoe-shaped table and bench at the front window, was home to the Aspen ski patrol and packing crew for many years.  The wonderful blue caricatures of celebrities and famous visitors graced the booths and hallways.  Many, many tales and stories were told in beer gulch, usually skiing stories, and I was an enthusiastic participant while in my twenties, after work at Gretl's or the Sundeck.  Peter Luhn was a habitue, as were Shady Lane, Scott MacDougal, Richard Tapley, Hanuman,  Steve Wishart,  David Wright, and Defoe Dushane. 

In the mid-seventies, when new owners bought the Onion and turned the bar into a more upscale "fern bar", replacing the gulch and booths and caricatures, there was a big revolution.  The habitues all couldn't take it, and staged a protest by throwing all the new potted ferns out onto Cooper Street, and hundreds of dollars of ferns were ruined  There may or may have not been arrests, but a statement of priorities was certainly made.


--Posey Melson

I grew up in Grand Junction and often skied at Aspen.  In the 1940s we stayed at the Jerome Hotel for fifty cents a night and had meals there of similar price.  Bathrooms were down the hall. We skied out the front door  to the rope tow on AJax.  Those were the days !!!

 

Bob Oden 1922–May 18, 2008

Dr. Bob Oden (that is pronounced O–Dane for non-Scandinavians) is one of the kindest, most beloved physicians in Aspen — a description he shares gladly with his close friend, Harold Whitcomb, aka Dr. Whit. The stories of his generosity and caring would fill many books as he has extended the principles of the Hippocratic oath to every facet of his life.

Dr. Bob served for many years as a U.S. Ski Team doctor and has been inducted into the national, Colorado, and Aspen ski halls of fame. He holds other honors — too many to list. However, his personal sense of accomplishment comes not with recognition but with the pleasure of watching his handiwork give success to people’s lives.

– Georgia Hanson

 

Bridger Gile 1999–present

Hi, my name is Bridger Gile. After being featured in two Warren Miller Films, winning a NASTAR national title and skiing 80 days a year, I am finally attending kindergarten. At first I was worried that school was going to squeeze my ski time, but like any true Aspen local, I think I’ve figured out a way to get in plenty of vertical — half-time kindergarten and the new Deep Temerity lift at Highlands!

(written by Bridger – 2005 - with a little help!)

 

Amous Bourquin 1857–1943

(letter is edited – full letter on file at Aspen Historical Society.)

 

Bill Herron 1897–circa 1970s

"Old Bill has gone and died — left us for good."

– Jony Larrowe

 

Al S. Lamb 1855–1940 by Buzz Cooper and Larry Fredrick

–present

Bil Dunaway was a great newspaper publisher and has a huge heart, but what he was known best for around The Aspen Times was his fiscal conservatism. On any given day, he could be found up on the roof dabbing tar on a leak, shoveling the sidewalk, repairing a toilet with baling wire or whacking the furnace into compliance. Often when talking with me at my desk he would, unable to bear the waste, reach out and turn off my electric typewriter.

One morning, shortly after I had pointed out that his vinyl office chair was in tatters, we found what appeared to be a crop circle on the carpet of the ad office. Bil had cut out a circle of newsprint, laid it on the floor, placed his chair in the center and spray-painted it, leaving a ring of black sunburst.

God love him, he is the least pretentious person in Aspen.

Su Lum

 

Betty Jane Harbour

From Port Arthur, Texas, Betty Jane Harbour came to Aspen around 1950 with her husband Jack. She built the houses that bracket the east end of Castle Creek bridge.

Betty had a smile that could melt boilerplate and a foghorn of a voice. In the ’60s, during a whiteout on Aspen Mountain, Betty left the Sundeck with her ski class of 14. By the time they reached Little Nell, there were 44 terrified skiers following the sound of her voice.

After Jack’s death, Betty traveled the world, hunting big game in Alaska and living in the Maharani palace in Katmandu. She trekked to Everest base camp three times — after losing a kneecap when her Norwegian Dun slipped and fell on her. Though she’d never finished high school, she enrolled at CU in Astrogeophysics just as her daughter Cyndie was finishing her master’s.

Betty died while she was building her fifth house, in the mountains of northern New Mexico. She’d been living in the first and only completed part of the house — and the most important to her — the observatory tower.

– Doug Franklin