I am often amazed by the historical connections to Baca County which have bubbled to the surface because of our digital world.  When I discover a single name on a news clipping I have learned it isn’t always just a name.  A single name can lead us down a path to a better understanding of  the lives of those who came before us.  Earlier this year, because of a single name printed on a piece of paper in 1889 I stumbled upon another amazing treasure from the Boomtown Era of Southeast Colorado (1886-1889).  Today’s name is F. R. Gammon the president of the Vilas Town Company. 

I have been putting much of our recent research on early day Baca County in the Plainsman Herald these past few months and will still have exclusive content there.  However, we still want to get some early day content out on this blog. I want to thank our sponsors who have joined us in the effort to compile Baca County history.  Checkout the links to their sites to the right.  We appreciate their support  If your interested in a sponsorship, please let us know.  We are going to keep the advertising clean and non intrusive as possible (I hate pop ups) and hopefully keep really great content coming. Thanks for reading. 

This week I want to introduce you to F.R. Gammon aka Frank Gammon aka Frank Royal Gammon, president of the Vilas Colorado Town Company.  He is another of the interesting characters involved in the Boom Town era in Southeast Colorado.  Gammon was President of the Vilas Town Company (NOTE: I believe it was called the Vilas Town Company, but not for sure. See below.) 

The Bent County Register (Lamar, Colorado) February 5, 1887gives us one clue — “Al Merryman, a member of the Vilas town company, came up from Vilas Thursday and will remain in town several days.”

The local towns mentioned with Gammon’s travels to Colorado are Vilas and Lamar.  The Springfield mentioned in some of the following news clippings is Springfield, Kansas as Gammon had land interests there.  In fact he had land and town company (see town ads below) interests all over Kansas at least up until the first Oklahoma Land Run in 1889. 

Vilas wasn’t his only effort at town building. He appears to have spent most of his time in the west at Cullison, Kansas during the late 1880s and was the president of several town companies in Kansas as well as the Vilas Town Company.  Although mentioned several times in conjunctions with Vilas, I have no evidence that Gammon ever lived in Vilas.  His base of operation was Cullison, Kansas and he often traveled back east.  Many of the news articles of him in the 1880s mention trips back to Boston, MA.  Also notice in this clipping the reference to Springfield, KS.

 It also appears he was connected to some significant financial resources which we will see a bit later.   

He appears to have participated in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 and  most of the news about him in the 1890s is out of Guthrie Oklahoma and here is a clipping of him related to the Land Run time period.  

Below are several more town ads referencing Gammon’s Involvement in Town Building activities

Now the story really starts to get interesting.  I am skipping ahead a few years because in addition to being connected to places such as Vilas in the late 1880s, it also appears he was involved in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run and founded the first bank of Indian Territory.  On more than one occasion he was connected to the World’s Fair.  The mention below seems to be the first.   

With that bit of information we will backtrack and see that he was heavily involved in the establishment of Guthrie, IT.

Commissioner of the 1893 World’s Fair.

Gammon’s connection to Thomas Edison

Ki·ne·to·scope /kəˈnetəˌskōp,-ˈnē-/ noun  1. an early motion-picture device in which the images were viewed through a peephole.

cc

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video, by creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. A process using roll film was first described in a patent application submitted in France and the U.S. by French inventor Louis Le Prince. The concept was also used by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1889, and subsequently developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892.

FIGHT VIEWS NO GOOD. Kinetoscope Pictures of the Carson Fight Are a Failure. New York, April 5, According to the statement made by E. J. Rector, there is a dark future or rather, no future ahead for the kinetoscope views of the Fitzsimmons-Corbett fight. Rector says that the views taken at the ringside are dismal fail-urea The negatives were sent to the Edison laboratory in Orange, N. J., to be developed, and Frank Gammon, manager of the vitascope, under whose direction the negatives are developed, confirms Rector’s statement. There are those who believe that Mr. Rector’s talk about the failure of the kinetoscope pictures is only a bluff, designed to put an end to the unfavorable legislation that is threatened.

Guthrie Okla May 14 — The announcement from Boston of the death of Frank R Gammon founder of one of the first banks In Oklahoma was received with great Interest here and many expressions of regret have been beard over the end of a highly romantic and picturesque career Gammon came to Guthrie on the opening day and established the Bank of Indian Territory His bank was In a frame shack on the corner still occupied by the Oklahoma bank as a banking house He came to Guthrie from Wichita he also had conducted a big dry goods store at Topeka leaving that city finally on account of domestic troubles which culminated in a sensational divorce suit While living in Topeka he had served as director of the Santa Fe railroad 

Was Popular In Guthrie 

Gammon was very popular In Guthrie during the early days and was prominently Identified with every movement along the line of progress He was recognized as a man of special ability and in 1893 was selected as one of the national commissioners from Oklahoma to the world’s fair at Chicago. Although representing a territory which at that time played a very insignificant part In the affairs of the nation his administrative ability was immediately recognized by the other commissioners and be was made chief of awards for the entire exposition A little later be represented the United States at the International exposition at Antwerp 

He Never Returned 

He never came back to Oklahoma to live after the Chicago exposition and has figured prominently in national and Internal episodes since that time.

 During the Chicago fair he assisted in securing the award of a gold medal to Russian wines and in that way gained the friendship of the Russian representative He went to Russia himself a little later and was the first man to introduce American phonographs Into that country According to the story that Is told here he conceived the idea that If he could place a phonograph tn the royal palace It would be the biggest sort of a boost that one could possibly give to his work He accordingly sent one of the finest talking machines made to the czar of Russia leaving the Impression If not making the direct assertion that It was a present from the United States The Russian government sent a note of acknowledgement to the state department at Washington and when it was learned that It was not a present from the nation the czar’s wrath to find that he had been made the victim of an advertising dodge was boundless The gendarmes were at once sent out after Gammon but he was named by friends and barely managed to make his escape over the border Into Germany before the order for his arrest was carried out None of his friends here had heard of him since that time and did not know where he was living.