Earl B. Wellman, who died at age 63 on April 6 in Colorado Springs, spent nearly 30 years cultivating the Korner Flower Market and its many frowzy but enthusiastic vendors who sold bouquets at busy city intersections.
At its peak, the Korner Flower Market, sometimes called Kurbstone, operated outposts in cities from Fort Collins to Albuquerque, and from Denver to Grand Junction.
Born Jan. 12, 1943, to James and May Lavender Wellman in Florence, Ariz., Wellman began his urban flower vending business in 1976. He bought flowers in bulk from greenhouses in Brighton and other north Denver suburbs, repackaged them and hired vendors to stand near busy intersections to sell the bouquets.
Most of his employees drifted between day jobs and homeless shelters. With their disparate wardrobes, carefree shoulder-length hair and weathered faces, they emblematized the public stereotype of “flower children.”
In the swing of things
Rumors circulated that the Kurbstone vendors were Moonies – disciples of Unification Church leader Sun-Myung Moon. This offended the vendors, who considered themselves above Moonies, and Wellman, who preferred to be known as The Flower King.
As the vendors worked their corners, they took pains to ham it up. Many employed the technique of swinging one bouquet – always sturdy carnations, never the easily decapitated roses – in wide circles. They looked like barmy one-armed windmills.
“You need to swing or do something to get the drivers’ attention, help them realize that they need some flowers,” said Dennis Moore, who began working for Wellman on Mother’s Day weekend in 1986.
Motorists had mixed feelings about the street-corner vendors. Many who found them colorful and urban sent fan letters to Wellman.
A vendor at Colorado Boulevard and East Colfax Avenue “is perhaps the most gregarious worker I have ever encountered,” customer Mary Marish wrote in 1983. “No matter how long he has been there, he always acts as if he had just arrived. He always puts a smile on my face and has, on more than one occasion, prompted me to buy flowers.”
Others saw the vendors as pests. In a 1984 letter, businessman Lee Dareau complained about “one of your purveyors – a real showman – on the corner of Alameda and Santa Fe – he was wearing green pants and pink shirt and doing a real show. Ponder this: I get irritated when I watch your people on a corner – waving their flowers at MOVING traffic.”
The vendors’ antics achieved such a reputation that Wellman received a letter that began, generically, “Dear Sir,” purportedly from an Iowa rescue mission preacher seeking a replacement for his assistant, Clyde. The job description required a man to sit onstage during lectures, “wheezing and staring at the audience through bleary, bloodshot eyes, sweating profusely, picking his nose, passing gas and making obscene gestures (as) an example of what overindulgence can do to a person.
“This spring, unfortunately, Clyde died. A mutual friend has given me your name, and I wonder if you would be available to take Clyde’s place for my 1981-82 tour?”
Articles, photos a kick
Wellman, whose circle of friends included many potential candidates for Clyde’s job, prized the bogus letter. He posted it in the scrapbook he kept of the newspaper articles, photographs, letters and other ephemera about the Korner Flower Market.
He read it when he needed a lift, especially in 1981, when the Denver City Council passed two ordinances targeting sidewalk flower vendors.
In a 1981 Denver Post article, Wellman called the legislation “a Mickey Mouse ordinance,” noting that none of his vendors had ever received a work-related ticket or citation. But he secured the necessary licenses and permits.
Business flourished, despite occasional setbacks including the 1983 Christmas blizzard, when Wellman and many of his employees found themselves snowed in as they arranged bouquets at their north Denver warehouse. During his company’s peak in the 1980s, Wellman sold 600,000 to 700,000 roses a weekend.
By 1990, business lagged as big-box stores and supermarkets installed floral departments with inexpensive bouquets. Wellman began selling flowers only on holidays, still earning enough to pay for a Porsche and the latest Rhodesian Ridgeback, a dog breed he favored throughout his life.
During his last year, struggling in the late stages of emphysema, Wellman wanted to survive until after Korner Flower Market’s swan song next month on the Mother’s Day weekend. His wife of 26 years, one-time flower vendor Carol Wellman, plans to close Korner Flower Market after May 21.
Besides his wife, survivors include sons Tracey Mapp of Dallas, Bryan Wellman of Anchorage, Alaska, and Daniel Wellman of Colorado Springs; sisters Dorothy Pritikin of Notus, Idaho, and Ida Baugh of Texhoma, Okla.; brothers Clyde Marquis of Texhoma; and James Wellman of Hemet, Calif.; and two grandchildren.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
