I recently saw a photograph that brought back memories of the days when I was a kid, here in Saguache. This excellent photograph was taken by a person standing in the front doorway of the Saguache Hotel. It was taken with about a foot of snow on the ground and shows two cars parked in front of the hotel. (I am guessing these autos to be of the late 1920s era).

Looking across Main Street can be seen the old frame building which was Lottie McEntyre’s “The Saguache Theatre”. Many is the time my brother and I chopped wood for the neighbors to earn a dime so we could go see a western movie on Saturday night. Before the days of “talkies” you could hear the older kids reading the captions to the little kids. When the good guys were really racing their horses after the bad guys — the lady playing the piano (Minnie Creger) increased the tempo of the music!

From these movies we learned from our heroes such as Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard that the good guys always wear white hats!

I well remember the night my Dad pulled cactus out of my butt after I came home from the show. 

Before show time, Bob Fennell had been on Flagpole Hill which has lots of cactus.  After Bob left the show I scooted over to where he had been sitting – our favorite seat was the old soft pine bench in the back of the theatre.  It was quite some time before I was brave enough to sit on that bench again!

The Saguache Hotel today, looks much as it did back in those days except for the big sign in front.  When the movie “Land of the Little Rain” was filmed here in 1987, the hotel sign was changed as a movie prop. Since that time, instead of being the “Saguache Hotel and Cafe” the sign shows it to be “Independence Hotel and Saloon”.

Somehow I kinda liked it better when it wasn’t pretending to be something it never was!