Re: Fritz!

Stott lives in Montrose--saw him briefly yesterday at the noon brass band conert here in Silverton. I don't think he owns anything here. His one rail effort, other than to want to build a street car line in Silverton, was the installation of a Great Northern (?) std gauge wooden observation car on his hotel grounds here in town a number of years ago. He ran afoul of town government, traded it for a Mercedes, and the car ended up as a fixture, nicely restored by someone else, on Telluride's Colorado Avenue, the main street. This summer, the car was trucked to Oregon where it is being overhauled for service. The narrow gauge connection? Well, none, but that is what made the thing a white elephant, even though it's a wonderful car, in 2 very narrow gauge towns. Stott owns the Townsend House in Montrose--the really nice Victorian next to the high school.
Stott was a good friend of Andy Payne when Andy worked the Silverton branch and Stott owned the Grand Imperial Hotel for a long time. Stott bought the hotel from the Broadmore folks in Colorado Springs, and they owned it because one of the Tutts was on the D&RGW board of directors when the RR decided to buy up lower Main Ave in Durango to create Rio Grande Land and he saw an opportunity in Silverton. This dates way back to when the ICC slapped the Grande's wrists on the 1959 abandonment attempt of the Silverton branch and the D&RGW then decided to revitalize the Silverton train. Ask me a simple question and get a chapter in response!