There were 26 signatures on the original 1883 Meeker Townsite incorporation papers. None of them were women. That didn’t stop Mrs. S.C. Wright from buying some shares. I am going to use her story to introduce two men in her life who were also shareholders. Charles Dunbar and William H. Burke were signers in the incorporation papers. Neither men made the kind of impact on Meeker’s future that Mrs. Wright did.
There has been much written about Mrs. S. C. Wright. She was born Sarah Caroline Ball in Pleasant Mound, South Carolina. She preferred the name Susan, and that was by that name Meeker knew her. She was formally referred to as Mrs. S. C. Wright. In 1883, she and Charles Dunbar arrived in the Camp on the White River just as the military was wrapping things up. With the lack of outright hostile action in the Northwest, the army was closing the Camp. The Army had already reassigned most of the remaining infantry. Many were sent to fight the Native Americans in the New Mexico Territory and Arizona Territory. The last unit to have garrison duty at the Camp on the White River was the U.S. 14th Infantry. They were transferred to Fort Sidney, Nebraska as part of the Department of the South Platte. The Army quarters, officers club and hospital were left empty. A few citizens stepped into that void and formed an instant town. The empty buildings became Army Surplus and were auctioned off. Charlie Dunbar set up a saloon in one adobe enlisted men’s barrack, and his partner, Mrs. S.C. Wright, a 36-year-old widow set up a hotel in another barrack.
Saloons and whiskey attract cowboys with monthly wages in their pockets. Thirsty patrons who like to gamble. The closest visual I can give you is Gunsmoke, and Miss Kitty without Matt Dillon to keep the peace. Just a few months had passed when Mrs. Wright lost her bartending business partner, shot with a .44.
Susan didn’t just give up and move on. The first winter was lean. The big herds of cattle wouldn’t arrive until 1884. Until then money and supplies were short. The tale goes that the new town of Meeker ran out of wheat flour to make bread. Mrs. Wright, a southerner, had experience making Johnnie Cakes, a sort of corn pancake, and proceeded to show others how to make them. Mrs. Wright had the reputation of being kind-hearted and generous. No one was turned away just because they couldn’t pay. Susan was also known to indulge in smoking a cigar. Which would have been shocking in high society then. But then, Meeker didn’t have any high society.
She could also be stern when the occasion called for it. Joe Rooney was attributed to saying, “She was a very good woman but she ran a saloon and a bar and she was a gambler. When a man got out of line, she kept a sawed off pool cue there and she would take it out and beat him over the head until he got to be good. She was probably the most colorful pioneer of all of them here.” The hotel and bar flourished. A wooden false front, just like you see on movie sets, was added to the front of the adobe building. Ed Wilbur, who had been bartending for Mrs. Wright played the role of matchmaker between Widow Wright and William H. Burke. They were married by another Meeker founding father, Judge George Hazen, on June 16, 1884. Ed Wilber stepped aside as bartender and Burke took over the saloon. Burke began drinking up a good portion of the profits and Mrs. S.C. Burke wrote to Ed Wilber and asked him to come back to Meeker and resume his old position as bartender. The partnership was dissolved in more ways than one. Mrs. S.C. Burke divorced her husband in May of 1886, reclaimed her name as Mrs. S. C. Wright. I have been unable to track W.H. Burke after that time.
My Thanks to the Rio Blanco Historical Society; and their This is what I Remember Series; Ellen Reichert; Ancestry.com; NARA