As a Depression-era kid growing up in Marble, George Baumli had a pretty-good gig. There were only two telephones in town; one at the Yule Colorado Marble Company and one at Milt Campbell’s drug store on Main Street.
Young George would hang around the drug store waiting for the phone to ring. The call was usually for a Marble resident. So, when the phone rang, Mr. Campbell would tell George something like, “Go get Mrs. McManus.”
George would run at full speed to and from Mrs. McManus’ house, and upon his return to the store was rewarded with a dime. He almost always gave his money back to the store in exchange for two candy bars — usually a Pecan Feast or Nutty Fagan, and sometimes one or two of his very favorites: a Baby Ruth, Mr. Goodbar or Butterfinger.
That’s one story from the book “George’s Story.” The 202-page work chronicles George’s life in his own words. It begins with his birth in Marble in 1929 — 17 years after the Colorado Yule Marble Company’s heyday. The book is one of at least two at the Carbondale Library that paints pictures of the small town made famous by the marble quarries outside of it.
The Baumli book devotes 30 pages to his Marble years and his Tom Sawyer-like experiences, such as:
- Galloping horses bareback through backyards.
- Riding an eight-person bobsled, starting on the Mansion Road and hitting Main Street at a high rate of speed. “Luckily, no one got hurt.”
- In the summer, after supper, many men would congregate on Main Street at Milt Campbell’s drug store, Brook’s grocery store or the Premore pool hall. The men would eventually retreat to the pool hall to play pool or poker. “My buddies and I were always on hand to look and learn,” George wrote.
- George’s dad worked at the quarry. On occasion, George and Johnny Petrocco would take their lunch and hike to the quarry, then carefully make their way down the 100-foot escape ladder to the quarry floor where men were working. “It was scary,” the author recalled. If they were lucky, they’d get to ride the trolly to the mill with the workers after their shift.
- The town had its share of characters. One woman, Abbey Levitt, wore dresses that came to the ground, and a bandana. “Her little house was creepy and so was she,” George detailed.
The book contains dozens of stories about Marble and the surrounding area, and quite a few from when the Baumli family moved to Glenwood Springs in the early 1940s, after marble operations were shut down.
Vignettes of Marble
The other library book, in the reference section, is “Historical Vignettes of Marble, Colorado: A Source Book of Marble History” by the late Oscar McCollum, Jr.
In his 162-page self-published book, McCollum, who helped start the Marble Historical Society and Marble Museum, mixes vignettes with hard history dating from the late 1880s to contemporary times. For example, he referenced the May 1980 issue of Marble Chips, which reported that “Much of the remains of the old Williams Brothers General Store building collapsed last winter.”
In 1910, the Colorado Yule Marble Company was near its peak production. The town’s population was 787, according to that year’s federal census, to which McCollum devotes 17 pages. Other information gleaned from the 1910 census included statistics such as:
- Persons born outside the U.S.: Italy (150), Austria (43), Russia (19), Sweden (14), Greece (14), Germany (13) and other countries (47).
- Persons who only spoke their native language: Italian (87), Polish (7), Greek (6) and German (3).
- Demographics of residents of the village at the marble quarry (Quarry Town): 44 men, nine women and 13 children.
- Residents at the Strauss Quarry on Yule Creek: 16 men and one woman.
McCollum reported that in 1911, Marble had at least 32 lodges , such as The Woodmen of the World, and clubs. The Marble Booster newspaper reported in its June 24, 1911 issue that “ … membership in the local lodge [Woodmen] is growing fast.”
Leap forward to 1980, the February issue of Marble Chips reported that “Kudos are due to John Darien for the excellent way he kept the roads open this winter … Many times he worked most of the night to have the road [Gunnison County Road 3] passable for the school bus early in the morning. Most residents suffered little inconvenience on the road.”
The May 1980 issue of Marble Chips also reported that a work party hauled two large loads of marble and placed them around the abutments of the Crystal River bridge so the expected high water would not damage it. Participants included: Pete and Marty (sic), Dan and Chad Bontrager, Clayton Kuhles, Oscar McCollum and Ed and Carol Schwab.
In the book’s bibliography, McCollumn cites 32 sources. The index covers 28 pages and ends with Henry and Mary Zwaanstra (page 68).