Baldpate really has a trifecta of collections:
Keys, Photos, and our yet to be charted, Guest Registers from as early as
1918. A long-term goal to help round out
our history is to tie together the keys, the photos, and the guest registers. So there is still lots more to do!
As our
American History Savers volunteers worked to preserve and catalogue the boxes
of “stuff” in the Baldpate's archives, they suggested we reach out to local
historians for help as well.
John
Meissner was one of those generous people willing to research. At one of our first meetings with John, he
shared a huge inconsistency that he had discovered in our Baldpate story. In 1938 Ethel had written in her book that
Baldpate’s first year was 1917, so we had just assumed that as fact. What John
had uncovered was clear documentation that the Main Lodge of our Inn was really
not opened until 1918. It was one of those light bulb moments for me, since we
did have all the original guest registers and the first was 1918! Why that never clicked for me before, I don’t
know!
As we
continued to dig, you can imagine our delight when we came across the very
tattered Kansas City Star newspaper article that
names our Homestead “Baldpate” and gives some understanding of Ethel’s 1917
claims. Although the main lodge did not open until 1918, the Mace’s were
housing guests in “tourist cabins” in 1917.
Guess I
really should have been more discerning. I clearly remember the first winter
after we had purchased the Inn, taking these treasured guest books home to look
for names of royalty that might have visited Baldpate.
I did have
to laugh at myself when reading the lists of names as I perked up when I found a Count – alas
it was only “Count de Silverware,” but what was even more fun for me was to
find the name of the “rich” people from the tiny farm town in southwestern Ohio
where I grew up.
Doodling is clearly not a new art form, as our guest books are packed with
sketches and drawings, some by noted artists as well as some that were likely doodles
of bored employees??? The margin of the
Baldpate Inn register from August 1920 includes an impromptu Gaar Williams cartoon by the prominent
American cartoonist. Local artist Dave Stirling who works at the lodge, was a prolific
contributor of sketching entries as well.
In recent
years, our guest registers were real “keys” when trying to unravel the history and construction
dates of our buildings. As room numbers were added, the registers told the history.
It will definitely
take more detective work, as really just the tip of the iceberg has been
uncovered with the vast amount of information these books likely contain.
One can only
imagine the truths that will be unveiled as we move forward to document these
Baldpate guest registers in years to come.
Written by Lois Smith
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