b'Jews continued from page 19May, always a visionary, couldHE HELPED BRING see the writing on the wall asPEACE BETWEEN Leadville declined by the 1880s,INDIAN AND WHITE long before the silver fortunesAND BUILT THE of the Tabors and others cameRAILROADS AND crashing down in the burst ofROADSOTTO 1892-1893, and knowing of theMEARS:extensive growth of Denver,He was small in stature he bought a bankruptedand somewhat frail, building near the center of thebut whatever physical city, renamed it the May Shoechallenges he had he more and Clothing Company, andthan made up for them entrepreneur that he was, madein his unquestionable sure his grand opening wasgrit, courage, and keen westernmininghistory.coma memorable one. Accordingself-educated intellect. to the Rochlins, "Hiring aHe was Otto Mears, and brass band to signal the store\'sit can be arguably said opening, he sold out his firstthat if it hadn\'t been for stock in a few days. Beforehim and his railroad rival, long, his brothers-in-lawGeneral William Palmer, Joseph and Louis joined himChief Ouray & Otto Mears Southwestern Colorado in the business. With threemight never have been ambitious merchants drumming up business by daydeveloped, Colorado itself might never have been and dreaming up promotional plots at night, salesa state, and even Los Angeles might have remained surged. By June 1882 the company, occupying a blocka sleepy port on the California coast had those on (Denver\'s) Sixteen Street between Lawrence andrailroads developed by Mears and by General Palmer Latimer, ran a double-page ad in the Rocky Mountainhad never been built as they were the direct rail access News proclaiming its owners the "CLOTHINGfrom the Rockies to the City of the Angels.MERCHANTS OF THE WEST."The same year the partners acquired the Famous Department Store ofThe "Pathfinder of the San Juan" (Howe, Irving, St. Louis for $300,000, several years later, they addedand Libo, Kenneth, We Lived There Too, St. Martin\'s the William Barr Dry Goods ofCleveland to formPress, New York, 1984, p.198) was born to an English Famous Barr Department Store in St. Louis" (Ibid.,father and a Russian mother, both Jews, in Kurland, pp. 124-125). Russia (part of the Russian-occupied Baltic States) in 1840. He was a preadolescent, just four by the time As in the case of the Goldwaters in Arizona, Davidboth his parents died, an orphan. He was brought May and his brother-in-laws had climbed to theto England by a British uncle, and stayed there a pinnacle of retail success in the then-Coloradonumber of years until he was sent off to another territory, but that didn\'t put a curb on their ambitionsrelative in New York City for a short while, until this or their plans for retail expansion. When Davidhand-to-mouth existence saw him in San Francisco May finally chose retirement just shy of his eightiethwhere he was to meet yet another uncle, but this birthday in 1917 (he lived another 10 years, almostuncle too disappeared. To quote Western historian making it to 90 years of age) his son Morton J.David Lavender in his groundbreaking history of the expanded the May Company Department StoresRocky Mountain territories, The Big Divide: "Forlorn nationwide. By the time David May\'s grandsonand penniless, Otto Mears, just turned eleven, stood Morton D. May had died in 1983, May Companyliterally at the ends of the earth. A woman he had Department Stores "owned 142 department stores, 47met on the boat took him to the rooms she occupied discount stores, 1,205 shoe stores, and 26 shoppingwith her husband. Finally the boardinghouse thought centers" (Ibid., pp. 125-126) and with rival Macy\'sthe best thing for me was to sell newspapers. Gold- dominated the moderately upscale department storecrazy California in the (18) fifties. No one has told industry in the United States. Donald May\'s modestus what it looked like to a homeless child. In the little Leadville enterprise, the "Great Western Auctionlaconic autobiography, he dictated nearly seventy-and Clothing Store" not only blossomed into anfive years later to Arthur Ridgway, chief engineer of American retail empire (that also dabbled in realthe Denver and Rio Grande (railroad), he covers the estate ventures) and an immigrant\'s real success story,period in fifteen sentences. He sold papers, learned but one that lasted for almost 140 years with Maystinsmithing, and worked as a storekeeper. I had to get familial involvement though no longer leadershipup early in the morning and take a team and go ten before its ultimate demise in 2006 when rivalmiles and load a car with merchandise, but first I had Macy\'s conglomerate, Federated Department Stores,to milk the cows. In lifting the bundles up so early bought out the May Company and converted mostin the morning, I hurt my back. He never entered a of its remaining May Company stores into Macy\'sclassroom after he was ten, and very seldom before Department Stores. that" (Lavender, The Big Divide, pp. 93-94).And then there was the fantastic Otto Mears, a RussianLeft to fend for himself, Mears, who had learned to Jewish orphan who befriended the various Coloradobe resourceful the hard way at a very young age, took Indian Tribes, became a close friend of the prominentadvantage of many of the opportunities available to Ute Chief Ouray, and through that friendship helpeda young man at the height of the California Gold to stop an Indian War caused by an Indian Agent\'sRush. He had to, to survive. By age 20, as the Civil foolishness and bumbling from spreading, and whoWar broke out, he became a soldier, enlisting in would be instrumental in carving out through theCompany H of the Union Army\'s first regiment of the Rocky Mountains,toll roads, and railroads that wouldCalifornia volunteers, first fighting Confederates in secure Colorado\'s future from a prosperous territorythe wilds of New Mexico, and then joining Kit Carson to a prosperous state of the Union. in his destructive war against the Navajo.continued on page 23ArizonaRealCountry.com October 2023 21'