We've been able to learn some more about the Ku Klux Klan in Salida, thanks to some scholarship by a high-school student -- about 30 years ago.
The student was Rick Mansheim, and he wrote a paper on the Klan in Salida for his senior English class. It so impressed his teacher, Ada Jane Melien, that she kept a copy, and called us about it.
He interviewed some long-time residents who are no longer with us, like Joe Stewart (who ran the Stewart Mortuary and served as county coroner when we moved here 25 years ago), Ethel Purdom (local columnist for the Mountain Mail for many years), and Steve Frazee (Ethel's brother, and the author of some wonderful novels, who died in 1992).
Here's some of what Mansheim wrote:
"The Grand Dragon in Salida was the head surgeon at the Salida hospital. They didn't hold or control many offices in the city. The Salida Klan was made up of a few doctors, a few carpenters, farmers, policemen, including the chief, the pastor of the First Christian Church. They held their meetings in the basement of the First Christian Church."
Ethel Purdom told him that she recalled "standing on the corner across the street from the First Christian Church watching them go into the basement for their meetings. By doing this she found out many of their identities."
Her employer, Mountain Mail Publisher John O'Connell, was a devout Catholic and very anti-Klan, so he did not want to give it any publicity; she said that was why so little about the Klan appeared in the Mail in the 1920s.
Salida Klan parades usually involved horses, and Mansheim quoted Dr. Wendell Hutchinson's statement that "We used to look at the brands on their horses and could tell who they were."
Mansheim "also talked to long-time Salida resident, Vince DeVoe," who told him "that there were about 200 members in the Salida, Buena Vista area. He could remember the parades and burning the cross on Tenderfoot. 'They tried to get me to join, but I wouldn't do it.'"
Joe Stewart "was the only one to mention the Klan burning crosses on the lawns of Catholics, 'but the homeowner usually drove them off with a shotgun.'"
Frank Braswell told Mansheim that the Klan sometimes met at a ranch, which sat "in between Buena Vista and Salida, and was a convenient place for the members from both towns to meet."
Mansheim concluded that "I found the Klan was more afraid of the Catholics than the Catholics were afraid of them," and quoted Mary Gentile: "They were scary but we just ignored them."