High West Distillery

This week's flash fiction was inspired by the corner building of the High West Distillery. The Distillery (& Saloon) is actually made up of two buildings\. I'm focusing on the old stable and not the house, as I may still use that structure for another piece of fiction. Both have long an storied histories.

High West is an interesting distillery for a lot of reasons, and if you happen to be in Park City, Utah at any point, you should most definitely check them out. I suggest the peach vodka and Rendezvous Rye. But let's focus on the building: The inspiration for this week's post was actually a livery stable when it was first built, and was later converted into the National Garage (a gas station and mechanic's shop).

Park City began its life as a silver camp. That's not to say people were not in the area before the miners came, but Park City itself basically started when silver was discovered in the 1860s. This building was not built until 1907 by Ellsworth J. Beggs, and was at least the second livery in town. Beggs' & Buckley's serviced the horses used to pull ore carts under ground.

After that it was transitioned into a garage and changed hands several times. Each time a new owner bought the garage, new lettering was painted over the old. In 1981, the offices of the Silver King Mines Coalition across the street burned down, melting the paint off the facade above the garage door. When High West bought the building around 2007, they decided to maintain the historically unique look of its upper planks. High West is the first distillery to operate legally in the state of Utah since 1870.

Old Paint

The old paints carried a history of a building changing hands on their backs when they were led in twos and threes from the smoke-filled building. Each one was saved and led off down the street in spite of their squealing kicks, but the card game and prize money had to be abandoned.

“Which would you rather?” Leroy riddled to the younger laborers, “A night’s winnings or a life’s earnings?”

Fire raged in high heat across the street, but all hands had their sweating backs turned. Every eye from the stable were on the dripping reds and yellows and blues of their father’s and their grandfather’s lifetimes sliding off the front of the building. It was awesome to behold. The men told the story for years, though the youngest of them remembered scrubbing the signage from the 150 ponies the next day much better.

McPolin Farm Shelter

Evidence of Fire was inspired by a trip to a mysterious structure along the highway. I believe it's an animal shelter associated with McPolin Farm nearby. While the farm's barn and nearby buildings have been well restored, rebuilt, and even moved, this building has been badly neglected. It is on the wrong side of the highway.

View of McPolin Farm proper across the highway from its forgotten structure.

Construction on the McPolin farmstead began in 1886, under the McLane family. The McPolins bought the property around 1900. The buildings on the land were not constructed from new materials: the couple built the famous barn from salvaged timber. Amazingly, the support for the barn was built without nails. It was a dairy farm until 1948.

I truly don't have much to say about the McPolin farmstead. I am much more interested in this forgotten building that is in plain view of the highway into Park City, Utah. But really, it's much better if you explore the structure yourself. It is very small, with a swamp-like puddle forming semi permanently inside and bird's nests in the rafters. The impression is of a dark little eco system.

Evidence of Fire

In the morning, there are tracks and evidence of fire, though I slept the whole night through. The cold of the evening before has dissipated with the dark, yet the pump will not bring up water. I repeat the motion again and again. None comes.

I wander back to my blanket, but feel no warmth in its embrace. There are no ashes left sleeping in the fire. I swirl the dead things awhile, uncovering something below. It is charred and decorated with crude tool marks. I lift it slowly, uncovering more in the action: bones picked clean.