The Deer on the Bar Story

by George Greenbank and Beth Roberts

In 1973, George Greenbank, Kent Ryan, Buddy Crane and Wayne Watkins were working in construction in West Telluride, (today’s Hillside). One particular day on the job, above all others, lives on in infamy.

It started with an old stag that came down off the hillside looking for grass under the new snow. A new-comer, probably an east-coaster who only knew deer that looked like Bambi, stopped while driving out of town to observe the hearty Mule Deer.

The gawker’s dog was interested too. It jumped out of the back of the truck bed and started after the deer scaring the deer over the fence and onto the plowed highway.

George and the others observed the scene from their position atop the roof they were working on. Wayne, a transplant from California, was particularly sensitive to the buck’s plight. He went down to the road and cut the top wire of the fence, with hopes of giving the deer access back to the meadow.

Not much time passed before the Town Marshal, Everett Morrow, a tough, hippie-hater, drove up in his Ford Falcon police vehicle. Morrow appraised the deer and the broken fence. In an instant his mind was made. He walked toward the now worn-out buck and drew his revolver.

Wayne went nuts: screaming, running and waving a hammer as he ran from the construction site down to the highway.

But it was too late. Morrow had shot the deer. Now his smoking gun was turned onto the hysteric and hammer wielding Wayne.

Morrow didn’t pull the trigger again, despite Wayne’s onslaught of insults, objections and threats. Instead Morrow returned his gun to holster and himself to his Falcon. Without a word, he drove back into town.

The crew quit work at 5p.m. Before leaving to meet their ski patrol buddies, as was their custom, at the Sheridan Bar, the men helped Wayne load the dead deer into his jeep. Something had to be done. Within minutes they found themselves lopping a dead deer onto the Sheridan Bar. No one objected.

They told anyone that would listen that night about the day’s injustice. They drank, waited, drank, and waited some more, all the while expecting Morrow to show up to face the deer on the bar of the Sheridan.

Morrow never showed.

The mayor, Francis Warner did. He told everyone to go home. The old dead deer on the bar was removed by a miner who, over the course of the night’s debauchery, bore witness to the crew’s indignation and ultimate unraveling over a deer’s death.

By spring the hippies were organized. At the next election, five new-comers, including George Greenbank and a hippie backed mayor, were elected. Change had come.
Only too late for the old buck.

Immediately following the swearing in of the new council, an emergency meeting was held. Marshal Everett Morrow was fired on the spot. Council promptly requested his badge and gun.

Morrow, indignant, whipped the badge across the chamber floor toward the council. His hand went to his gun.

What Morrow said next would be the closing line in the two Western movies that were being played out in Telluride, the one in which Morrow was the villain and the one, in his own mind, in which he was the hero.

“The badge is yours. But the gun is mine.”