Iconic gift shop and café at Buffalo Bill gravesite in Golden closing at end of the year

Beverly Meek opened her left fist to reveal a sparkly necklace with the tag still on — a bargain at $5.95.

“It’s a gold-stone replica,” the 78-year-old said. “They’ve got so many great things here. I may cry.”

Meek, an Annie Oakley replica herself in a suede pioneer blazer and embroidered skirt, has dementia, according to her husband David. The pastor and his wife drove to Lookout Mountain from Greeley for "free day" at The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave because it makes them happy.

Beverly bought her jewelry at the legendary Pahaska Tepee Gift Shop and Café next door, but she's sad because the concessions are closing at the end of the year — by order of the City and County of Denver.

Last October, the post office delivered a letter from the city to notify H.R. Stewart Inc. that its contract to sell souvenirs and hot snacks was expiring for good, with no chance for extension or negotiation. The family business has run the store on and off for 48 years. 

In an email to The Denver Gazette, a Denver spokesperson explained that Denver Parks and Recreation is shutting down the 102-year-old facility temporarily because “the building’s current mechanical systems, especially the septic system, are aging and are struggling to keep up with high demand.”

In short, the aging bathrooms, built in 1921, are a problem. In the words of a Denver Parks and  Recreation spokesperson, it would be mostly closed to the public to prevent this historic building from being “loved to death.”

Loving The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave to "death" tallies to more than 500,000 visitors every year.

Travelers visit the Pahaska Tepee Café next door to rest their feet, have a buffalo chili hot dog and take in the rolling mountain view.

For Lana Ramos, the gift shop, with its corny “Shoplifters win a free trip to jail" sign and ever-changing trinkets, is a nostalgic experience.

“I have been coming up for root beer floats since I was 11-years-old,” she said. 

A couple of tables away, on a clear April afternoon, a young Amazon driver spooned up a bowl of home-made vegetable soup — Bill Carle's mom's recipe. Carle added a free square of milk chocolate with walnuts to the man’s plate.

“Don’t go off without a piece of fudge,” he said. 

H.R. Stewart was Carle's grandmother and he is the fourth generation of a family known for running a century of concessions at Colorado tourist destinations with an old-fashioned flair. 

Carle not only takes out the trash, he runs the cash register and pushes thousands of wares in the prime spot near Lookout Mountain overlook. He even lives in an apartment above the store and never feels weird about skeletons, plastic or otherwise. He can't explain the dream catcher kits and American Indian dolls that suddenly leap off of the walls, and female staff swears that, from time to time, something touches their hair.

"There was also a mist I used to think I’d see that went from one side of the fireplace to the other," he said.

A day doesn't go by that people don't ask why he has to give up the store.

"I've made my run at the city, but I haven't given up hope," he said. 

Ghosts of Past and Present

Carle's family has operated government concessions since 1893, when his great-grandparents printed souvenir newspapers for Cog Railway riders at the top of Pikes Peak.

For 131 years, they ran gift shops and restaurants at the state’s highest and most popular tourist destinations — Breckenridge, Mount Evans, Garden of the Gods, Red Rocks, Manitou Incline, Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand Lake.

They’ve all closed except this one, housed in a huge tepee at The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave.

Yolanda Quesada, director of marketing and communications for Denver Parks and Recreation, told The Denver Gazette that once the gift shop and café closes, the city will preserve the Pahaska Tepee building, which houses it, and depending on its condition, the city hopes to temporarily use it for educational purposes as it assesses the historic building's future. 

Its past is rich. 

Johnny Baker, Buffalo Bill Cody's foster son, first opened the museum at 987 1/2 Lookout Mountain Road in partnership with the City and County of Denver. Cody, the legendary founder of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, died in 1917 and his family buried him on Lookout Mountain because he loved it there.

Denver owned the property, but Baker and his wife Olive owned the artifacts and ran the museum, along with a café and shop. The Bakers called the building “Pahaska Tepee” after Buffalo Bill Cody’s hunting lodge outside of Yellowstone Park. 

Helen Stewart, whose family was running concessions at several Colorado tourist attractions, took it over from Olive in 1956. 

Denver is the landlord for Bill Carle’s family business, which operates under the name H.W. Stewart Inc. Denver collects $150,000 per year in rent.

Carle, 69, said that considering the deficit Denver is experiencing regarding the estimated $90 million price tag of housing, feeding and transporting immigrants, the city might benefit from the extra cash.

“It would pay for two employees’ salaries!” he said.

But he suspects this is not about the money, nor is it because of rickety commode pipes, which he says is a common maintenance issue.

“There’s nothing broken here.”

Chief Lollipop

Leaned against shelves of merchandise in a dark back-room of the building is a four-foot-tall replica of an Indian chief with candy in its headdress.

A child customer nicknamed the statue Chief Lollipop and it stuck.

“The city let me know he was too controversial and had no place in the building,” Carle said, adding that the decision was made by deputies working for the Michael Hancock administration. 

While Quesada admits that statues like Chief Lollipop do not "align with our city values," the decision to not issue a new Request for Proposal for services at Pahaska Tepee is based on "a variety of factors and includes the historic preservation efforts and aging mechanical systems."

He hopes Mayor Michael Johnston will reconsider what he thinks is a knee-jerk reaction.

“These are low-level bureaucrats with too much decision-making power,” he said from behind the cash register. He rang up a plastic silver sheriff's badge for one woman who said her husband needed it because he thinks he runs the household.

There's a story for every pair of turquoise earrings, buffalo statue and hand-made hide-skin lamp.

The store glitters with kitschy keychains, liquor shot glasses, backscratchers and hummingbird feeders.

It took Sean Barron a while to find the perfect American flag pocketknife, which was a sharp steal for $18.95.

“We are not an airport gift shop, where they want you in and out with quick decisions,” Carle said.

Without the tepee gifts and food, the museum will remain open after Dec. 31, 2024 — even expanding its hours to seven days a week starting May 1, wrote Quesada.

But Carle said that without the store’s souvenirs and famous home-made fudge, “it will be like a missing tooth.”

End of an era

Carle's family lost the Pikes Peak Summit House contract in 1992 after a century of doing business at 14,000 feet. It first operated the building for the Broadmoor Hotel and eventually the city of Colorado Springs took over as landlord.

The recipe for the mouth-watering doughnuts, which Carle’s mother perfected, is still honored at the Pikes Peak Summit House, but Carle said those doughnuts are not as good because “my dad wanted every doughnut to go out hot.”

He would know.

He spent many mornings before sunup as a teenager making those donuts. He was the family’s jack-of-all-trades, hip-hopping from Pikes Peak to the Red Rocks Trading Post where he sold merchandise.

Ten years after they lost Pikes Peak, the family was “encouraged” Carle points out, to sell the Red Rocks concessions to Aramark.

Similarly, 20 years after leaving Red Rocks, the family lost the two-year lease option for Echo Lake Lodge.

In an earlier interview with The Denver Gazette, Denver Mountain Parks said it had hopes to reopen the building for its 100-year anniversary in 2026, but whether that will happen is unclear and the lodge is still closed. 

Quesada said that, even though the city spent $500,000 for a new septic system at Echo Lake Lodge 10 years ago, the pipes failed because they couldn't handle the major influx, combined with in-flushes, of enthusiastic tourists.

For the next eight months, Bill Carle will spread the love at Pahaska Tepee Gift Shop and Café. 

He loves to watch what wide-eyed kids do with the buck spending money their parents give them, and usually, they buy the 4-for-$1 polished rocks.

In it's annual "Best of" issue, the weekly publication Westword honored Pahaska Gift Shop and Café as "Best Endangered Old-Timey Souvenir Shop.' 

After so many setbacks, Carle is not going the way of the dinosaur. 

He recently bought a gift shop at a Missouri amphitheater. 

"I've tried to be a great partner to Denver. It's a bummer. But our family works until we die."