McGill Club Patrons of Old

This photo was probably taken in the 1950s.

The cowboy is none other than Billy Franks. He lived in Cherry Creek for many years and later moved to McGill and worked at the McGill Dairy. When the Dairy closed, Billy stayed on and worked for James Bell, who leased the Dairy from KCC.

I worked there one summer, along with my brother Paul and young Jimmy Bell. We worked the hayfields. A small part of the hayfields was used as pasture for the McGill Riding and Roping Club horses. In the afternoon, around 3 p.m., I would saddle up a horse and ride down into the pasture and herd the horses up to the rodeo grounds for the Club members to catch their horses. One day I was saddling up a horse named Pat, by the large blacksmith shop building. Close by I saw Billy shoeing a large horse, when he picked up a back leg and put it between his legs and started to file the hoof, the horse leaned into Billy, putting a lot of weight on him. Billy dropped the leg and swatted the horse with his file and let loose with some colorful language. The third time this happened, Billy gave the horse a swift Ninja style kick to the ribs, with his small pointed cowboy boots. The horse jumped to one side and had a funny look on its face. It knew that Billy was the boss and never leaned on him again.

Billy would never wear a pair of Levi’s that had been washed. He always put on a brand new pair. He rolled the cuffs up high and used them as an ashtray. You could see the burn holes at times. He always had a cowboy hat on and sleeve garters on each arm. He was quiet and never talked much. Typical old time cowboy.

The first guy sitting on a stool was Andy. I could never pronounce his name let alone spell it. The next gent always wore his hat cocked to one side. I think he was a Giles or an Allred.

The next gent holding a drink in his left hand was Murray Justesen. He was one of the two best converter crane men that ever worked at NCC and KCC. The other one was George Morley. I chased crane for both of them. Chasing crane means hooking up the stuff on the ground for them.

Murray would spend most evenings at the McGill Club. He liked to play the slots and have a good time. He was always laughing and having fun. I introduced my fiancée, Linda, to him . She was from Illinois and didn’t know any girls in McGill, so the two of them decided that Murray could be Linda’s man (maid) of honor for the wedding. He did and it worked out great.

A short 2 years later Murray had a fatal heart attack while at work. He was not in the crane when it happened.

The guy at the far right, wearing a suit coat, was Andrew Polous. He worked in the smelter with Murray. They were usually on the same shift. Andrew was the ‘receiver operator’. The receiver was a small converter-like unit that the molten finished copper was dumped into. Andrew would then pour the copper into molds. The molds formed the large 400 lb. copper bars that were shipped by train to a plant back East.

The bartenders, l-r, are: unknown, Baird Spell and Norm Linnell. I vaguely remember Baird. I knew Norm for many years. He worked at the McGill Club for about 66 years. He knew stories about everyone in McGill. He was what I would call a “fixture” in McGill. He knew thousands of people. One of his friends was Evil Knievel, the motorcycle stunt man. Evil would always stop and see Norm when traveling through this area. He liked to bet on the ball game pools.

These guys were typical of the folks in McGill. Hard working, honest and friendly to one and all.