Dicky Brown: “I am one of the red ladies from Crested Butte. What that means, there’s a mountain in Crested Butte called the Red Lady Mountain. There are people who want to mine it for molybdenum, which is used to strengthen steel.
The movie Avatar to my understanding was somewhat based on our fight to save the Red Lady because it’s the longest running fight to save a mountain in US history.
High Country Citizens Alliance is a grass roots environmental organization that’s been fighting to save the mountain for 35 years. Every year they pick one person to be the red lady for the year, to be the mascot, to lead the fight to save the mountain. I was the red lady in 2010. Once you’re a red lady, you’re always a red lady. It will always be my responsibility to save the mountain. That’s why I’m representing today.
The reason it’s called the red lady, back when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to party at the Cheever’s Bar, and the Kacheever family still owns Butch Cassidy’s gun. The story is they had to leave in a hurry one day and Butch left his gun behind. Back then, the Forest Queen right next store, was a brothel. One of the ladies who worked at the brothel, because of a broken heart, jumped out a second story into the creek, committing suicide. Her spirit still lingers at the Forest Queen.
Every year teachers take the third grade class to room 4, the haunted room. The students all have a different haunted experience.
Back then, when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to party at McCheavers, one morning, the miners came out of the bar at 6:00 in the morning. You can imagine their condition, surely on their way to work. They looked up at the mountain, and in the morning, it’s summertime and it has a red hue to it. It looked like the red lady lying down, referring to the red lady who jumped out the window. So in honor of her and her profession, when people want to express their support to save the mountain, they dress in the sassiest, flashiest red they can find.
