by Carolyn Newman
WALSENBURG — Stand in the balcony of Walsenburg’s Fox Theatre and look toward the stage. Lift your head and look up – and see a small square door that looks just big enough for a man to wiggle through.
And that is exactly what a man (or two or three) did years ago, according to one oral history, when men hid out from the Mafia or the FBI. In fact, the story goes, a man lived in the 10′ by 12′ room behind the little door for days, maybe weeks or months His food was hoisted up in five-gallon buckets and his waste lowered in another bucket. To reach the door, you’d have to climb up a 20’ ladder leaning out from the balcony over empty space. The precarious angle meant no one exited often. A bench and a place for a sleeping bag were found inside.
The tale was told by an old Mafia member, Dan “Ernie” “Jap” Vigil, a Huerfano County native born in Sunnyside, a coal camp north of Walsenburg. Ernie told locals he became a hit man for the west coast Mafia, ranging north and south along the coast. Once, he carried out a hit, with a machine gun, nearer home, in Pueblo.
Eventually he returned to Walsenburg and ran Spanish Peaks Music. By this time he feared for his own life, and always had a weapon close to hand.
It is a fact that Ernie, a gambler, was associated with the Mafia in southern Colorado. In 1973 a raid at Ernie’s Cash and Carry by the State Organized Crime Strike Force found 11 Mafia members, including Scotty Spinuzzi and Eugene “Checkers” Smaldone, and charged them.
George Birrer, who has been a mainstay in restoring the Fox Theatre to usable condition, befriended Ernie in his later years. It was George who has relayed the Mafia stories as told by Ernie, who died in 1993 at age 71. This puts him at the right age to participate in Mafia actions following the repeal of prohibition, and when the Mafia began to make money in the gambling business.
Today the little hidey hole is full of air conditioning and heating ducts. George has heard stories that other Fox Theatres had a similar small room.
Walsenburg’s Fox was known originally as the Star (when built in 1917), then the Valencia (1929), and then became part of the Fox chain in 1941. It was during the time as the Valencia in 1935 that the night watchman was overpowered by two men and locked in the coal bin. The robbers did not get much, so went on to a grocery store and robbed it of $1.45.
Information is from George Birrer, Boies-Ortega Funeral Home, the Pueblo Chieftain of Dec. 16, 1995, a story by Pam Pemberton, a World-Independent story of Jan. 29, 1935, and from the book, Mountain Mafia. The History Detective is a service of the Huerfano County Historical Society, huerfanohistory.org carlynewmn@aol.com 719-738-2840.
