The Legend of Catamount Charlie

By Dave Martinek (May 2013)

Around 1880 the population of El Paso County, which included parts of a future Teller County, was about 8,000 people. The 1880 census registered a human count of 7,949 souls – 7,771 whites, 159 African Americans, 16 Chinese and three Indians. There were four men for every three women. However, by the early 1890s those numbers had increased exponentially to 21,000, the result of the emerging gold discoveries in Cripple Creek and Victor and the advent of the railroads. Most of the stateside influx came from the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri), while most of the foreign immigrants (about 10%) came from England, Wales, Ireland, and Germany. The Welch Cornish men were well adapted to work in the mines and in building tunnels for the railroad.

As a result of this growth, the history of the area from Colorado Springs west up Ute Pass and beyond Pikes Peak is replete with a variety of stories about colorful characters and events, all of which combined to dramatically change the nature of the region when gold was discovered and the Colorado Midland began chugging up the Pass, bringing a more modern world to the frontier’s doorstep.

In the 1870’s and 80’s, one such character was very familiar to the residents of Colorado Springs and up Ute Pass. He was a hunter and adventurer in the mountainous foothills around Pikes Peak, particularly in an area called the Catamounts, southeast of Divide. His name was “Catamount Charley.”

Charley’s nationality is unknown, but newspaper accounts describe him as being tall, long-legged, with a loosely knit frame, a dark face, black eyes and a “flowing black beard” that cascaded down his chest. He may have been African American, Mexican or Indian, or a mix of all three. Often, he was seen wearing a yellow buckskin shirt and buckskin trousers, both trimmed in strips of fringe, a broad white sombrero on his head (which may point to a Mexican heritage) and moccasins on his feet (indicating some Indian influence). Draped across his shoulder was a cartridge belt of loaded shells for his heavy repeating rifle, which he always carried. He would appear in town riding his mustang, Captain Kid.

The exploits of Catamount Charley were well known at the time, enhanced no doubt by his own telling. One such story involved the killing by Charley of a buffalo and three mountain lions with only two shots from his repeating rifle. The anecdote was recorded in no less prestigious newspaper than the New York Times, as well as the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph. The story begins with Charley riding into Colorado Spring with a bale of skins to sell at a trading post called Aiken & Hunt’s Museum.

As Charley walked into the store to see Mr. Hunt about selling his hides, what follows is the dialogue exactly as it was written and published on December 17, 1880:

“I say boss,” remarked Charley, “I’ve got some skins yere I’d like to sell yer.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Hunt, with his usual politeness. “I shall be glad to look at them.”

“Yere,” said Charley, “is a mountain bison’s hide; yere is a mountain lion’s hide; and yere are two more lion’s hides. That fust lion’s skin is the biggest I ever seed. It’s 9 feet from tip to tip; the critter must weigh 500 pounds. You see it was this way. I was looking round for game back of the Peak, when all at once I heard a growlin’ and a howlin’, which reminded me that the mountain lions was not all dead yet. So, I crawled around a point of rock, and I’m blamed if I didn’t see three mountain lions havin’ a fight with a monstrous bison. I tell you it was a big fight. The lions would make a leap, and the bison would back up against a root and take them on his horns. I don’t know how the fight would have come out, but it was just too good a picnic for me to let it pass, so I drawed a bead on the fust lion as it came in range and pulled my old rifle off. The surprisin’ part of the affair was that just as I pulled one of the lions, it jumped in between me and the one I shot at and caught the ball just behind his ribs. It passed clean through him, and bein’ turned a bit, it cut the second lion in the throat and went on to break the neck of the bison. They all dropped in a heap, and I was so tickled that I incautiously jumped out from behind the rock, when the third lion saw me.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Hunt.

“Yes,” said Charley. “The third lion he saw me and made a jump in my direction. As I saw him comin’ I didn’t have time to take aim, but I brought my repeatin’ rifle up under my arm and took a fly shot at him. Lucky for me, I took him in the breast, and he tumbled over dead.”

“Indeed!” said an excited Mr. Hunt again. “

Yes,” said Charley, “he tumbled over dead. Now what will you give me for these skins, three mountain lions and one bison?”

There is no record of what Catamount Charley was paid for his skins, his eventual fate, what his real name was or whether he stayed in the region or moved on when civilization encroached upon his territory. But his story illustrates the character and hardiness of the kind of men and women who came to settle the front range of Colorado.

Note: Sources were the 1880 and 1890 Census records for El Paso County, and "Catamount Charley, How the Hunter of Pikes Peak Bagged and Brought in his Game," published in the December 17, 1880 issue of the New York Times..