C6
History
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Brewery owner had start at Prairie Diggings mine
Blue Mountain Eagle
The F.C. Sels Brewery
building stands as a reminder
of the early days in Canyon
City.
Francis Clemens “F.C.”
Sels, the owner of the estab-
lishment, had his career start
in mining.
He was born in 1837 in
Meschede, Westphalia, Ger-
many.
He left Germany at age 17,
arriving in California in 1854.
Sels made his way to
Canyon City in July 1, 1862,
joining the Prairie Diggings
camp.
The 18 members of that
party were from California
and mostly of German de-
scent.
They prospected in Can-
yon City in 1862 while en
route to Florence, Idaho.
However, they were informed
of discouraging reports in
Florence and returned to Can-
yon City.
They soon found fair pros-
pects, locating 18 claims, and
later had six adjoining claims.
The original owners of
the Prairie Diggings cleared
$10,000 each during the irst
year of their operations, and
many hundreds of thousands
more were garnered by com-
panies which followed.
It is assumed that Sels had
his career start from this min-
ing success.
Sels had several occu-
Contributed photo/Grant County Historical Museum
Men gather at the Canyon City saloon and brewery
owned by F.C. Sels in 1913.
Contributed photo/Grant County Historical Museum
Canyon City Commercial Co., Canyon City, circa 1910, once stood near where
the Whiskey Gulch Gang later built its rock wall around the beer garden of the
F.C. Sels Brewery.
Eagle file photo
Contributed photo/Grant County
Historical Museum
F.C. Sels owned a
brewery in Canyon City
in the early 1900s.
pations prior to owning the
brewery, including general
merchandise store owner, jus-
tice of the peace (1864-1866)
and postmaster for less than a
From June 6, 1985:
Members of the
Whiskey Gulch Gang
are perched atop their
“staff car” beside the
new rock wall they have
constructed along the
beer garden adjacent to
the F.C. Sels Brewery in
Canyon City.
year in 1866.
He ran for state senator in
1868 and won the election,
but lost the seat due to a tech-
nicality.
He was the Grant County
judge from 1870 to 1874.
Sels bought the brewery
on July 28, 1870, from John
H. Stahl. Though it is known
today as the F.C. Sels Brew-
ery, Sels called it the City
Brewery.
Two weeks later, the town
burned down in the irst of
three disastrous ires the town
suffered over the years. The
brewery was not spared.
Sels listed his loss at
$7,000 with no insurance.
It was said: “F.C. Sels, our
present county judge, came
near losing his life through
over exertion and copious in-
halation of heat and smoke.
He is still conined to his bed
and in a rather critical condi-
tion.”
In 1898, a second ire de-
stroyed the brewery, and Sels
listed the inancial loss at
$30,000.
Although his brewery was
small, Sels had a reputation
for his beer, which won a
medal at the St. Louis World’s
Fair.
Sels died at his Canyon
City home on Jan. 29, 1914,
at age 77.
At the time of his death,
he was president of the First
National Bank of Canyon
City.
He was preceded in death
by his wife, Vella, who died
in 1913 at the age of 43. Both
are buried in the Canyon City
Cemetery.
His children were Julia
Sels Kuhl (born 1859), Lizzie
(1861), Clara (1863), Frank
(1865), Eddy (1868) and Elta
(1870).
Information was provided
to the Grant County Histori-
cal Museum by Dennis Smith.
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The Eagle/Rylan Boggs
Joaquin Miller’s desk sits in his cabin preserved
by the Grant County Historical Museum. Taken
Wednesday, Sept. 21.
MILLER
Continued from Page C1
and high-heeled boots. This
garb made him popular with
the local women, and the
publishing of his book of po-
etry, “Paciic Poems,” added
greatly to his sense of self-im-
portance. Literary Traveler
reports the British seemed to
enjoy Miller’s character more
than his poetry, while Ameri-
can critics were not nearly so
kind and questioned his over-
all literacy, according to.
Miller returned to Califor-
nia and settled in Oakland. He
engaged in a number of affairs
with married and unmarried
women, worked a brief stint
as a newspaper correspondent
during the Klondike gold rush
and worked in conservation
towards the end of his life. He
bought up a large area of land
above Oakland and took to
calling it the Hights, insisting
on his own spelling. He lived
here until his death in 1913.
His funeral was oficiat-
ed by a unitarian priest who
called him “the last of Amer-
ica’s great poets.” Before its
completion, Literary Traveler
reports, the event devolved
into a riot, with attendees ran-
sacking his home and police
having to rescue his corpse.
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