Earl Barker Jr., longtime owner of Durango’s historic Strater Hotel, died at his Durango home Sept. 7. He was 79 and had suffered from kidney problems.
A memorial is planned Sept. 21 at 2 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Durango.
A Colorado landmark, the Strater Hotel has had an estimated 2 million guests in its 121-year history, said Barker’s son, Rod.
The famous guests ranged from Will Rogers and Gerald Ford to the Grateful Dead.
“Dad was a natural (in the hotel business) because he was a person of hospitality,” said his son, who now runs the hotel. The landmark became famous for its Diamond Circle Theatre, where melodramas were performed for years.
Barker and his daughter, Jean Wheeldon, often did skits before the melodramas.
The Barkers “gave the hotel new life,” said Earl Barker’s wife, Jentra.
She and her son, and sometimes Barker, traveled the country searching for antiques to personalize each room.
The Barkers were specific in their search: only American Victorian walnut furniture for the 93 rooms, Rod Barker said.
Earl Barker loved horseback riding, civic affairs and practical jokes.
Bob Mason, a friend in Rio Verde, Ariz., where the Barkers also have a home, recalls the family’s derogatory remarks about pink flamingos in front yards.
So Mason and his wife, Dorothy, put a pair of 2-foot-high flamingos near the Barkers’ front door, but denied doing it when Earl Barker accused them of the deed.
Soon after, the Barkers put small statues of people in the Masons’ yard, but denied doing it.
“We all four denied doing anything anytime, and that’s the way it is today,” said Mason, laughing.
Earl Barker Jr. was born in Durango on Oct. 7, 1928. He graduated from Durango High School and attended the University of Colorado for two years.
He married Jentra Jarvis, whom he had met in high school.
While a student at Stanford University in California, she turned down two proposals from Barker.
Finally, he “pursued her to California and she accepted,” said their son. They married Sept. 21, 1952.
They worked for the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco and the Edgewater in Honolulu, returning to Durango in 1954 to go into the hotel business with his father.
The hotel opened in 1887 by Henry Strater.
Earl Barker’s father, Earl Sr., and the elder Barker’s brother and sister bought the hotel from Charles Stillwell in 1926. Earl Sr. later bought his siblings out.
Earl Jr. wanted to add a corner bar at the hotel, but his father said “No way,” according to Rod Barker.
Earl Jr. waited until the senior Barkers were on vacation in Hawaii and built the saloon.
When he returned, the elder Barker decided the bar, named the Diamond Belle, was a good idea after he saw that it was filled with most of his friends. It became the hotel’s “classy bar.” The original bar in the basement, called the Snakepit, is the casual one, where customers are treated to ragtime and honky-tonk music, Rod Barker said.
Earl Jr. and his siblings took over the hotel in 1962 after his father’s death.
He and investors created the Diamond Circle Theatre at the hotel, which had melodramas for years. It is now used intermittently for musical shows.
The Diamond Circle Theatre is now managed at the Durango Fine Arts Center by Barker’s daughter.
In addition to his wife and children, Barker is survived by two grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
