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Bull Durham Casino (Fick's Carriage Shop)

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Fick's Carriage Shop
c. 1877. 110 Main (northeast corner of Gregory St.)

William Fick, a Prussian immigrant, built heavy-duty “Black Hawk Wagons” with large double wheels for mountain use. His thriving wagon-building, repair, and blacksmith shop occupied this two-story granite building with a fancy brick front. After the auto age eroded business, another owner made a few dollars by allowing the large Bull Durham sign to be painted across the facade. It is one of the few remaining signs of thousands painted nationwide by traveling crews of the American Tobacco Company. After a women's organization complained about the bull's conspicuous private parts, the company sent an employee around the country to paint a fence over the offending apparatus. The sign and the building were restored for a 1991 recycling as a casino.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Bull Durham Casino (Fick's Carriage Shop)", [Black Hawk, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-GL26.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 198-199.

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