Gary and Maureen Shoe
  • HOME
  • SONGS
    • ARROYO RECORDS >
      • The Enemy Must Die by Don Lewis
      • Bear Tracks >
        • Don't Look Down On Me
        • Satisfied
      • Johnny Macias >
        • Curious
        • He Loves Me Out Of It
        • Lifetime Plan
        • Shut Up And Show Me
    • All The Things You Gave
    • Alone On Halloween
    • Arapaho March
    • Arroyo
    • As Long As You Are Mine
    • Autumn Melody
    • Autumn Melody with Vocal
    • Barbeque In Guffey
    • Bells of San Miguel
    • Ben
    • Bossa with Band In A Box
    • the BRASS RING
    • Courtly Love
    • Currant Creek Suite
    • Day All Day
    • Diminishing Returns
    • Don't Cry
    • Easy Breezy
    • Easy Breezy II - the vocal version
    • End Of The Line
    • Feel Like Flying
    • Fort St Vrain Slide Show
    • Good Together
    • Hawaiian Bossa
    • Holiday Street
    • How Can I Get Back
    • Indigo Girl
    • In Her Garden
    • I Took My Love
    • La Mirada (Instrumental Version)
    • La Mirada with Vocals
    • Legacy
    • Little Jewels
    • Little Martin Medley - Dos Guitarras Saturday Jam Candles
    • Lookout Mountain
    • Lulu City
    • My Mother
    • Old Mose
    • OLD STUFF >
      • You Sent Her
      • Sunday Plans
      • Simple Days
      • Angels (God Should Send)
      • Dakota Girl
    • One Last Ride
    • On the Trail of Old Mose
    • Owen What's Growin'
    • Pioneers
    • Raising A Joyful Sound
    • Rusty
    • Sacajawea
    • She's the Tao
    • Santa Cecilia
    • Should Have Known Better
    • Ski Medley: 'A Little Bit Slower' and 'Father Dyer'
    • Some Lucky Someone
    • Starborn Album >
      • 1. We
      • 2. Come and Gone
      • 3. Christy
      • 4. Dance Around
      • 5. When We're Dreaming
      • 6. Why Don't You Believe?
      • 7. Glory Be
      • 8. Person to Person
      • 9. Starborn
      • 10. Dolphin Ride
      • 11. Silver fox
      • 12. Pale Blue (cover)
      • 13. Sundown In Soccoro
      • 14. Trails Grown Dim
      • 15. For Everyone
    • She's Gone With God
    • Sophia
    • The Flood
    • This Precious Love
    • Time Stands Still
    • Voices In The Waters
    • Water Street
    • When I Could Pick Like Chet
    • When You Were Born In May
    • Wiley's Song
  • Videos
    • ORTEGA & SHOE
    • Arroyo Tour
    • Canyon Melody
    • Owen Where You Going
  • History
    • Lookout Mountain Auto Race
    • Flood of 2013
    • Buckman Mine Slide Show
    • Goosetown Then and Now
    • House Where Mom Was Born Slide Show
    • Nevadaville Slide Show
  • Family
    • Owen's Message
  • Guitar Talk
    • Gary Atkins Transcription
  • CONTACT
  • Gary's Blog from 2013

Lulu City

For the inspiration of this song, I would like to remember, with fondness, Caroline Bancroft, whom I knew back in the late '60's and early '70's. She 'took a shining' to me as I researched Colorado history as a young teen, and my personally engraved copies of her famous booklets and definitive work "Gulch of Gold" are treasures to me. She was a bit stuck on herself, all for good reason, of course. And she gives particular attention to Jennie Rogers in her booklet "Six Racy Madams of Colorado"...all because an old timer chuckled when she interviewed him, saying that she looked, from his personal experience,  a lot like Jennie. Caroline, in her booklet, gives us a couple of tantalizing examples of her resemblance to Jennie, the Queen of the Holiday Street row with her house of Mirrors.

So I hope you'll enjoy this fanciful return to Lulu City, when she was a fresh sawed collection of hastily built cabins that had begun to deteriorate even as early as the mid 1880's, leading to the prospector's prophetic words which are not fanciful, but cited in Caroline's booklet "Unique Ghost Towns and Mountain spots"

Lulu City (a ghost town)

I went down years ago to Lulu town
Ran into a lady in a long red gown
“I ain’t seen a woman in months”, I said
“ If you’ve had good luck you can share my bed”
She said

Chorus: 

Well, way up on the  mountain top,  the pickin's slim
And how the future shines right now,   it’s pretty dim
And years from now a stranger passing by this place
Will only see a trail and just the faintest trace

Of this ole town 
  This ole town

What became of the painted lady I can’t say

The lady like the city now has seen her day
The city like the fever has come and gone
Subject to the whim that they built her on

(Chorus)


copyright 2014 by Gary W. Shoe
Gary Shoe (vocals, electric guitar, mandolin, and banjo)
Maureen Shoe (harmony vocals)

BIAB Musicians: 
           Acoustic Bass, Dow Tomlin
                                                       Rhythm Fiddle by Andy Leftwich    
                         

Picture
This is Jennie Rogers, a Denver Madame from the same era as Lulu City'...  Did our lady in a long red gown resemble her?
Picture








And here's Lulu Burnett, whose father named the town after her.
He must have had a lot of pull in the area as there was another town near the Wyoming border named after his other daughter, Pearl.




Picture
The two images above were taken by Muriel Wolle in the 1940's. The prophesy of the prospector was that things had deteriorated so quickly around town, that "someday you'll see nothing but a foot trail along this street. Raspberry bushes and spruce trees will be growing through the roof of the hotel yonder".


Muriel Wolle's "Stampede to Timberline" and "Timberline Tailings" were an inspiration for all of us history buffs. After she passed, many of her photographs were donated to the Denver Public Library. There are many treasures like the pictures here of Lulu City as well as dozens of more ghost towns that were often in prestine condition when she visited them between the '20's and the '40's.








Gary and Maureen post other songs on
http://soundcloud.com/gary-shoe/