Recently, I came across a mention of Crested Butte’s first bar, and perhaps its first record of communal revelry. In 1879, just as the lush and marshy upper valley was being settled by young men in search of their fortunes, mining operations were erected near the confluence of Coal Creek and the Slate River. The equipment and heavy machinery were hauled on harrowing horse-and-wagon treks from Cañon City.
As detailed by historian Duane Vandenbusche in The Gunnison Country, after one such trek, the exhausted miners arrived in the emerging town and wasted no time establishing Crested Butte’s first “bar” right where the freight wagons were unloaded. Frank England, a 20-year-old worker for the Iowa Mining and Smelting Company, recalled that the men felled three pines and split one to serve as a makeshift counter. They hauled a barrel of whiskey off a wagon and, lacking anything else, “all hunted cans to drink out of.” The tins of whiskey were sold for 25 cents each.
One hundred and forty-seven years later, that clink of tin seems to have been a prophetic first toast in a persisting local ethos. Crested Butte has always been a town that knows how and when to celebrate.
Reaching further back in time, perhaps this valley is supernaturally charged for celebration. The Ute tribes of the valley historically gathered in the high alpine basins for celebrations that mirrored the seasons. In the spring, the Bear Dance, the oldest and biggest social gathering, served as a New Year celebration when the first thunder of spring could be heard, and different bands gathered after a long winter to socialize, plan marriages, and strengthen tribal ties. The event also served as an opportunity to shed the year’s weight. As Ute traditions suggest, tribes wore feathers in their hair, representing the tensions of the long winter, and on the final day, they left the feathers — and pent-up tensions — behind on trees at the eastern edge of the grounds.
Decades later, European miners brought their fiddles and an epigenetic need to carouse, forging bonds that galvanized the community to endure the shared hardships of their rugged new home. Saloons were erected up and down Elk Avenue, and at the turn of the century, as more immigrants arrived from all over Europe, fraternal houses were established by immigrant labor groups such as the Slavic Society of St. Joseph and the Croatian Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Perpetual Aid. The lodges served as vital community hubs for miners and their families; dues were collected not just for celebration, but to cover the costs of illness, injury, and burials.
One of the most prominent remaining structures, the Croatian Hall (now the Scarp Ridge Lodge), regularly hosted celebrations that could last days, keeping “Old Country” traditions alive. Other groups, such as the Slovenians, gathered in the Forest Queen Hotel for meetings and raucous monthly polka dances. In a landscape that demanded grit, the town maintained a hearty ability to party — in part for kinship and entertainment, but also as a vital form of survival.
Sometimes, even now, we need to party. Amid the responsibilities of modern adulthood, my capacity to let loose has waned over the years. But recently, after weeks of dragging along a persistent head cold and a dizzying amount of existential dread (politics, environment), my husband and I sprang for a babysitter and met friends for a luxuriously long dinner before catching Deadhead Ed’s end-of-season party for an extra-strength dose of community revelry. We talked, chortled, drank too much, and I wiggled my middle-aged body to the twirling psychedelics of Allman Brothers and Dead covers. The next morning, bam: my head cold had lifted, my outlook was sunnier, and though I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, I felt renewed and energized.
It turns out that our escapades were a legitimate prescription for renewal. Revelry, particularly when it involves laughter, music, and collective movement, can trigger a neurochemical “bubble bath” in the brain, releasing a symphony of dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins that can reduce stress by 40% and, according to some studies, extend your lifespan by up to nine years while adding neural safeguards against dementia. This is incredible news and confirms that the valley’s revelrous traditions are rooted in something deeper than mere pleasure. It also explains why Buttians seem to age with such distinct passion and vigor.
I’ve been using the word “partying,” but really, any intentional act of shedding constraints can lead to a flow state and collective effervescence. Whether through spirituality, athletics, or dance, these acts seek to break cycles of rumination and foster deep connection. A town that parties together, stays together.
Of course, the key to this medicine is the same as any potent remedy: dosage. We know that social drinking and drug use can trigger bonding, yet the benefits stem from the quality of the connection, not the depth of the indulgence. Early miners may have swigged whiskey with abandon, but modern Crested Butte seems to have refined its approach in skirting the knife’s edge between connection and vice.
Crested Butte’s calendar is maxed out with opportunities to reap the health rewards of letting it all hang out. Endemic, local traditions like the Memorial Day polka, Flauschink, Vinotok, Disco Inferno, Move the Butte, and others serve as a shared seasonal catharsis, while the scads of athletic events like the Al Johnson, Chainless, Grand Traverse, Grin and Bear It, Alley Loop, and others culminate in communal finish-line delirium and resonance.
I think the key is that for a moment — or a 15-minute extended jam of “China Cat/I Know You Rider” in a crowd of wiggling bodies — we merge into a shared frequency. Perhaps, like dropped feathers, we emerge having shaken off our individual struggles, leaving them behind on the dance floor or the trail so we can begin again. This issue is filled with stories that touch on the enduring spirit of celebration, tracing a vibrant line back to the valley’s earliest moments.
— Brooke MacMillan, editor