"A Look Back"

The Stories presented here are about people and events during the early days when this corner of Colorado was first settled.

Doc Montgomery Early Craig Cobbler
By Bridget Manley, Craig Daily Press

For Craig residents around 1900, pages of a local newspaper were a main source of news and entertainment. One of Craig’s first businessmen helped liven up those pages.

William Montgomery, commonly known as “Doc” Montgomery, came to the Craig area from Golden, Colo. in 1886. He came as boot and shoemaker and settled first in Yampa, a small settlement one mile east of Craig’s current site. He brought his business to Craig two years later and became a well-liked businessman over the next 25 years, Empire-Courier reported Dec. 9, 1911.

Still, he wasn’t above bantering with his peers in the gossip columns of Craig Courier, which occasionally printed locals’ quips. Quips like Montgomery made to squelch rumors made about him after he purchased a set of false teeth.

“Doc Montgomery flatly denies that he has any designs upon the fair sex and states that he bought the (false) teeth, not to enhance his personal appearance so much as to better masticate his food,” the Courier reported Feb. 13, 1903.

In return, the newspaper staff took made a play on words Montgomery’s chosen profession. “Doc Montgomery says he would like to go raspberrying, but, account of so many people who are about to lose their soles, he has decided to ignore the temptation, and while other people hit the trails for the berry patch, “Doc” will stand by his post of duty and toil to save the lost soles,” the Courier reported Aug. 7, 1901.

In 1903, Montgomery’s feud with Craig resident John Ledford appeared in the Courier. The newspaper printed the retorts Montgomery wrote to Ledford. The new staff didn’t clarify whether the two were fighting or teasing. “In justice to his reputation, Doc Montgomery desires to say that … he ever cheated at solitaire, by John Ledford or any other flea-bitten moonshiner of his caliber, is wholly without foundation and any further allusion of the kind will be represented by the Doctor in a manner that will inconvenience the alludor for a period of six months or more,” according to the Courier on June 5, 1903.

“The doctor suggests that it would be well for a number of these gabby boys to take out a Sanitarium ticket if they intend to continue making slighting remarks concerning him or his card-playing proclivities,” according to the Courier.

The conflict intensified several weeks later. “Doc Montgomery and John Ledford keep on opposite sides of the street now,” the Courier reported June 19. “(Ledford) is armed with a fine-tooth comb and Doc carries a can opener. This feud will yet terminate in bloodshed.” Subsequent articles don’t indicate whether the two carried out their animosities in any means other than print.

He remained in Craig for the rest of his life, venturing out once in 1909 to travel abroad. The trip was Montgomery’s first excursion outside of Moffat County since he arrived in Craig twenty years previously, according to Jan. 7 Routt County Courier.

Montgomery died Dec. 6, 1911 at his home in Craig at the age of 70.

His brief feud with Ledford notwithstanding, his obituary indicates Montgomery was well liked at the time of his death.

“During his sojourn in Craig, ‘Doc’ has always been a favorite with old and young alike,” Empire-Courier reported the day after his death. “His kind disposition and easy-going ways have made him hosts of friends who will regret to hear of his demise.”