State circulation manager Rick “Worm” Charbonneau has told us plenty of fish tales, but even we’re not gullible enough to believe you might hook a whale anywhere near this high-country bait shop. Tell us what you know about the place in a note to coloradosunday@denverpost.com, and include a digital photo of yourself. We’ll pick at least one story to share next week. The best wins a $50 gas card.
How’d you know?
Last week: Battle Mountain Trading Post, Minturn
THE WINNER: Todd McCrory, Lakewood
A mini-tower of horns adorns this Coleman truck, an icon of the early truck world and a predecessor of the FWD and the Oshkosh. It sits out front of the Battle Mountain Trading Post in Minturn, along Colorado 24, which leads past trestle-work and mining camps over Battle Mountain, across a towering arched bridge near Red Cliff, on to the 10th Mountain Division’s Camp Hale and further past Leadville to the south.
This truck could traverse any (graded) road where sharp curves were wide and scarce. The saying goes, “You could turn it around if you had a baseball field.” The thought of crossing nearby Battle Mountain on a wintry night with its hairpin turns along a roadway with nearly thousand foot drop-offs is heart-stopping, especially considering that, to negotiate turns, a driver would often need to wedge a pick-ax into the steering wheel to handle the unwieldy mechanism.
Presumably, the county loaded up racks from a record number of road kill the last year the truck was in service.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE LEFTOVERS: Roxanne and Scott Lennick, Littleton
There’s lots of unique stuff inside the store, and it’s worth a look. So if you are driving down Interstate 70 and have some extra antlers, take the Minturn exit and throw ’em in the back of the truck.
Y’ALL COME BACK: Sharon Lugert, Minnetonka, Minn.
My husband and I were in Colorado in January visiting my husband’s sister who moved out to Eagle last April with her husband. Joe and I decided to take a day and go explore: We were off to Minturn! This shop was one of the places we visited. I took the photo of my husband, Joe, next to the “load” just to get the full perspective.
