The Castle in Manitou Springs

Manitou Springs was founded by the railway magnate, William Jackson Palmer, and his partner, William Abraham Bell.  They brought the railroad to Colorado Springs.  In post Civil War America of the 1870's and 1880's, a health craze was sweeping the country.  Palmer and Bell thought Manitou Springs, a site nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain front range, and an area known for hundreds of years for the naturally carbonated springs which flow up through the granite, was a natural site for a town based on attracting people for 'water cures'.  To ensure the town's success, they even built a railroad spur directly into Manitou Springs.  Thus, Manitou Springs, just a scant 10 miles from the heart of Colorado Springs downtown, has always been a tourist town.

With today's medical knowledge, the idea you could recover from tuberculosis or other ailments by drinking carbonated water seems silly.  However, during a time in which medical care was mostly about trying to do no harm to the patient, the fresh mountain air and a water cure certainly couldn't hurt them.  People came by the droves from the time of the town's founding in 1872 until the 1920's.  Some came to find cures for ailments while others came to vacation in a charming town which developed more and more tourist attractions many based on the spectacular scenery of the location.  Middle class people in post civil war America had disposable income to indulge in the vacationing - a new possibility in the 1880's.

One of the people who came to recover his health was a Catholic priest by the name of Jean Baptiste Francolon, a French aristocrat

who followed another aristocratic French Catholic Bishop to New Mexico in 1878.  By the early 1890's Francolon was suffering from a digestive malady which would not go away.  There are unsubstantiated rumors he was being slowly poisoned by his New Mexican parishioners.  In any case, he was transferred by the New Mexican Bishop to Manitou Springs to recover his health.

With the backing of his mother's wealth, he immediately began designing a magnificent home in Manitou Springs.   This became known as Miramont Castle.  It originally contained 14 rooms, numerous open air porches and a conservatory.  
Upon its completion Father Franolon immediately sent for his mother.  She arrived with a gigantic four poster bed which was too large for the bedroom Francolon had designed for her use.  A quick remodel ensued, and his French speaking mother was accommodated.  The castle was completed in 1892 mostly of 'greenstone', a type of granite which today has been quarried out of existence.

The interior woodwork, except for Madame Francolon's bedroom, was of lowly pine, but the carpenters and woodworkers led by the pictured Gillis brothers knew their business.

Grand Staircase of Miramont Castle

Madame Francolon's re-designed bedroom was huge, and her woodwork was fashioned out of oak.

One-half of Madame Francolon's bedroom

Her son's bedroom was much more modest in keeping with his clerical vows. However, he didn't seem to have much of a problem reconciling his clerical vows of poverty by living in a mansion which was certainly extravagant for the small town of Manitou Springs.  As a French aristocrat, he must have viewed his housing in Manitou Springs as barely adequate.  

1890's period Catholic vestaments

During the Francolons' occupancy, there were several open air porches which were used during the summertime.  Interestingly, one of the main porches didn't have a 'rail', but rather the outer perimeter of the porch was set with granite slabs of stone about 4" high, just enough to stub your toe and warn you of the edge of the second story porch.  

Miramont is two connected French words which basically mean 'look at the mountain'.  The eight sided conservatory with the 18' ceiling, which was also glass in Francolon's design, would have been an interior green house to take in the mountain view during the winter months.  

The Miramont Castle View

Father Francolon and his mother only lived in his castle for 8 years.  Her health failed, and he returned with her to France where she died.  He was then sent to New York for his final posting.  Father Francolon left Manitou Springs and his castle behind, but the grounds and building were purchased for $1300 by the Sisters of Mercy, a convent of nursing nuns, who transformed Miramont into a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients.  They enclosed porches, and partioned the large rooms into smaller patient bedrooms.  

To get the patients out into the 'beneficial air' during the summer, they also built 'tuberculosis huts' where patients slept in the summertime.  This is the only one left on the property.  The Sisters ran the sanatorium into the 1920s.  

However, from the 1930's until the restoration of the building began in the 1980's, Miramont dwindled into a shabbier and shabbier structure.  By 1947 it had devolved into small apartments for returning GI's.  There's only one piece of original furniture in the house, and it's a built in bench at the top of the grand staircase on the landing.  

The Manitou Springs Historical Society over the years has diligently returned Miramont Castle to it's 1890's beauty with money and labor provided by the service clubs and citizens of Manitou Springs.  This restoration has taken them decades.  Their accomplishment is impressive when considering the town only has a permanent population of 5,000 people.  Today Miramont is a National Historical Site, a tourist attraction, and a local tea room.  

The furnishings were all mostly forgettable as are so many in restored houses.  In lieu of pieces of furniture and other decorative items original to the house, these types of places are furnished with 'period pieces' which are historically accurate but lack any cohesive decorative scheme.  Miramont definitely falls into this catagory, and to make up for the lack of original furnishings, several rooms are set up as mini-museums.  One such room is the re-created study of the head Judge of the World War II Nuremberg Trials who was from Colorado Springs. Another current exhibit is about firefighters of Manitou Springs.  None of these added much interest to the house itself.  

In this house's defense, in all my tours, I've only seen ONE house which is completely furnished with all original pieces. Most restorations, like Miramont Castle, have to peel away decades of alternative use.  When that happens, all original decorative pieces are long gone, and members of the restoration committee pour over every available period photograph or painting to try and determine what each room originally looked like.   

As always, to see more pictures of the house, click on the link:

https://goo.gl/photos/45f8atpZSJpLrcBC6        

Are you Labor or Management?

The Labor Day holiday got me to thinking...  Labor Day was born in the 1890's to acknowledge the contribution of labor (workers) to the industrial revolution which transformed the American economy in the 1800's.  By the end of the 19th century, wealth distribution could be described as between the 'robber barrons' and the hordes who labored in their factories.

In 1880 the workday in those factories was 10 hours a day, six days a week. There was no safety net for workers.  If you got hurt in those factories, and they were ALL incredibly dangerous and hazardous, then you were just fired.  Your pay was whatever the factory owner decided, and, for instance, if all the steel mill owners got together to decide what they would pay in their factories as well as blackball any 'agitators' or 'troublemakers' trying to organize their laborers, well that was just good business.

If the working conditions weren't bad enough, up to 40% of the industrial workers made less than a minimum wage necessary to feed and clothe their families.  These desperate conditions gave rise to the labor movement which was about safety first, second a reduction of working hours to the eight hour day, and finally, to be able to bargain as a group to set their wages.  This was a fight to gain acknowledgement of the workers' contribution to the industrial production as well as gain a portion of the incredible wealth the production generated.  And, trust me, it was a fight.  There were laws outlawing unions, striking for better working conditions, as well as gaining that slice of the wealth.  Police as well as the rest of the judicial system was in the pockets of the owners.

Old news, right?  What does all this history have to do with you today?  Well, look around.  We are in the midst of another revolution.  Our entire society and economy is being remade by the Electronic Revolution just as surely as life in the USA was remade by the Industrial Revolution.  Today, we have the increasing gulf between the few and the many.  What is the 99% movement if not a nascent labor movement?

The means of production these days in America is shifting away from the strong back, and the manufacturing base of the traditional labor union.  Instead, as the Electronic Revolution continues to roar forward, isn't it increasingly obvious the means of production are brains not backs?

The wealthy have learned a few things since 1880.  Their factories are clean, upbeat environments with breakfast bars, free food for lunch, well lighted, air conditioned and heated with company gyms, and lots and lots of other perks for their workers.

However, all those trivial trappings aside, if you work in one of these places, believe me when I tell you that you are labor.  You can be fired without cause at the whim of the Board of Directors whenever there's a company downturn, however slight or temporary.  Your job can be at risk every three months.

You are being trained to work seven days a week, twelve or fifteen hours a day. Your company is keeping you working those hours through that marvel of the electronic age:  the smart phone.  Balk at those hours?  No problem.  You'll just be 'laid off', that new euphenism for being fired.  Object to your pay?  Beware, your name just moved to the top of the list to be 'laid off' in the next round of cut-backs.

 Get to be 50+ and have worked hard and faithfully to get to the top of the wage list?  Congratulations.  Your name also just moved to to the top of the cut back list.  Why pay you for your expertise and knowledge, when a new hire thirty years younger can be had for half of your wage.  Are you working the equivalent of two jobs because your company has laid off so many people?

Wages throughout the economy are stagnant; there are few pay wage increases because company's don't recognize the contributions of labor to their profitability.  However, the gap between what the upper echolons of companies are being paid (or paying themelves) is huge compared to their employees' wages and steadily growing.  And the stock markets, the measure of American business profitability just keeps going up.  Yes, sir, the wealthy robber barrons have learned a few things since 1880.

I think it's time for a new labor movement.  Just because you don't get dirty, or sit at a keyboard, or walk around with a hand held computer when you work doesn't make you management.  It's time to take some lessons from those organizers of the late 19th and early 20th century.  There, of course, would be crucial differences this time in how to obtain a slice of the economic wealth of this country, but collective bargaining would certainly be a step forward in wealth redistribution just as it was 100 years ago.