Stuck in sleepy Canton, Ohio, selling hats, caps, and other small items to the locals, an ambitious 26-year-old immigrant named Philip Louis Dattelbaum avidly read about gold strikes near Cripple Creek, Colorado. The prospect of riches and adventure beckoned him there. He found both, including more of the latter than he likely had bargained for.
Philip was born in February 1864 in Nagy Vitez, Saros County, Hungary, a picturesque mountain village, then part of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire, the eldest son of Meyer Wolf (Maier Zev) Dattelbaum. In quick succession he would have seven brothers and sisters. When Philip was only 15 his father died, apparently leaving him the breadwinner in the family. Then the record gets confused with varying dates given for his arrival in the United States. Dattelbaum himself put it at 1880 when he would have been 16.
How he ended up in Canton, Ohio, about 60 miles east of Cleveland, presents another mystery. My experience suggests that he had relatives in that city who may have helped set him up in business. The 1881 Canton city directory records a Philip L. Dattelbaum who was selling “hats and caps” and “tobacco and cigars” from the same store at the northwest corner of West and Freedom Streets.
Although Canton was the home of President William McKinley and a growing industrial American city, to the restless young Dattelbaum the town may have seemed to have few prospects. In 1890 word came east of a rich gold strike at Cripple Creek, a valley at an elevation of 9,494 feet in the Colorado Rockies. Previously avoided by prospectors and considered no more than a summer pasture for cattle, Cripple Creek quickly became a magnet for gold seekers from all over the world. Within three years the population increased from 500 to 10,000.
Dattelbaum was quick to see the opportunities presented. Not only was the terrain similar to his Hungarian home town, but he had divined that rather than “moiling for gold” an easier way to riches was pouring whiskey to thirsty miners.Selling his business in Canton, he took the cash and hurried west to Cripple Creek. In 1900 Dattelbaum is recorded owning and operating a saloon at 2nd and Masonic Streets.
This must have been the highly productive enterprise that Dattlebaum had imagined in Canton. By 1902 he owned and operated two saloons: the original site and a second Cripple Creek “watering hole” at 226-228 East Bennett Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare. He was also dealing in wholesale liquor, servicing the estimated 150 saloons that arose during the gold boom. Shown here are Dattelbaum jugs of various sizes that he provided to his customer saloons, restaurants and hotels. Those likely contained a blend of liquors mixed from barrels transported to him via the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad from Denver area distilleries.
His growing wealth allowed him to bring to Cripple Creek his fiance’, Ida Roth. Nine years younger than Philip she had been born in Hungary and immigrated to America as a girl. Shown here in a later passport photo, Ida made the arduous trip from the East to Colorado. There the couple was married. Three of their children could be born in the boom town. The family is recorded living at 137 Bison Street.
As Dattelbaum’s wealth was growing, so was jealousy among a lawless segment of Cripple Creek’s population. Philip’s Jewish background may also have played a role in the enmity toward him. Three local men — Sam Haas, Jack Frame, and Clayte Watts — conspired to assault and rob him. My efforts to identify them through a city directory suggest that Sam Haas may have been stage manager at a local theater with a background as an electrician. He lived on Masonic Street not far from Dattelbaum’s saloon. Jack Frame is listed as a miner, also living on Masonic Street. They apparently were customers at the saloon and well acquainted with the proprietor.
In December 1905 on a ruse they lured Dattelbaum to a deserted spot near the Addie Mine outside Cripple Creek. According to newspaper accounts, earlier the trio had erected there a gallows-like structure complete with rope and noose. When the conspirators arrived with the unsuspecting saloonkeeper at the location, they seized and trust him into the gallows, threatening to kick away the box on which he was standing and hang him unless he revealed where his money was stashed.
Dattelbaum’s desperate struggles were able to bring the jerry-built gallows crashing down, landing the intended victim on the ground, virtually unhurt. Able to get away from his tormenters, the saloonkeeper went directly to the authorities to report the attempted hanging. The event made newspaper headlines across Colorado. The Denver Post headlined: “Philip Dattelbaum Attacked.” The Colorado Springs Gazette splashed: “Philip Dattelbaum Hung from Gallows in Attack.”
The district attorney wasted no time in charging Haas, Frame and Watts on a charges of assault with intent to murder Dattelbaum and take his possessions. The arrested trio were housed in the Cripple Creek jail, shown below as recreated in the town museum. Their trial occurred in March of 1906. It ended with all three men being convicted as charged and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison without parole.
Dattelbaum and his wife both were badly shaken by these events. Not long after the conviction of his assailants, Dattelbaum sold his saloons and liquor business and moved to Chicago, never again to see Cripple Creek. Five years in that gold rush town apparently had provided him with enough adventure for a lifetime. With his liquor profits, Dattelbaum purchased two Chicago specialty groceries.
Shown here is Dattelbaum’s ad in a Chicago newspaper. In it he described “delicacies of all kinds….meats, cheeses, caviar and preserves of all kinds,” and “a complete line of candies.” Open Sundays and evenings Dattelbaum’s had two locations, 1101 E. 63rd Street and 5240 Lake Park Avenue, and an associated bakery and delicatessen at 63rd and Greenwood. Their couple’s fourth child would be born in Chicago.
Despite the locations, hours, and products offered, the enterprise apparently was not as successful as Dattelbaum’s saloons. Eventually the owner was forced to declare bankruptcy. He and Ida moved to Los Angeles with their 24-year-old son, Myron. The 1930 census found the family living there. Dattelbaum, now 66, was working as a salesman of food specialties. He died in Los Angeles in 1939 at the age of 75. His gravesite is unidentified.
Dattelbaum’s story suggests to me a riff on the Robert Service poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”:
Cripple Creek mines have seen strange sights,
But the strangest they ever did see,
Was that day in ’05 when Dattelbaum survived,
Being hanged by a bloodthirsty three.
Note: Demonstrating once again that behind every pre-Prohibition liquor container lies a story, it was a Dattelbaum whiskey jug that caused me to look more deeply into the history of the Hungarian immigrant who issued it. Unfortunately I could find no photo of this plucky but luckless man, but hope a descendant will see this post and provide one.
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