ROOM 222: LOUIS & KATHY L’AMOUR

LOUIS L’AMOUR: 1908-1988 KATHY L’AMOUR BORN TO THE NAME LOUIS DEARBORN LAMOORE BORN TO THE NAME KATHERINE ELIZABETH ADAMS PSEUDOONYMS: TEX BURNS, JIM MAYO OCCUPATIONS: ACTRESS, MOTHER, ENTREPRENEUR

THE LIFE OF LOUIS

If you are sitting comforta- author: and older brothers, Louis bly in room 222, you are in Jamestown, North Dakota made extra money from an the presence of a legacy. had provided Louis with an occasional prizefight and, in idyllic childhood but hard the year just after his family This is the room where times finally uprooted the left Jamestown, he often Louis L’Amour wrote many family and set them on a fought in the ring for the of his Sackett series novels, course that would forever money to buy gas so that typing at the very same alter Louis' life. After a they could move on. On drop-leaf table in 222. series of bank failures ru- more than one occasion a Louis enjoyed this room, as ined the economy of the run of luck allowed him to he could type while the upper Midwest, Dr. La- box full time. ragtime piano below played Moore, his wife Emily, and into the night, and as his their sons Louis and John Over the years he spent time children Beau and Angeli- took their fortunes on the in dim gymnasiums in cities que slept peacefully in the road. They traveled across famous figures in his travels. all across the west, first as a room next door. the country in an often- He also met hundreds of boxer, then as a trainer, desperate seven-year odys- men and women of lesser seeing the world of fighters, sey. During this time Louis fame whose lives helped managers, gangsters and skinned cattle in west establish an understanding gamblers first hand. Louis Texas, baled hay in the of the characters that lived ended his fighting career by Pecos valley of New Mex- in the nineteenth century. coaching several successful ico, worked in the mines of These people helped Louis Golden Gloves teams; the Arizona, California, and create the basis for many of first few in Oklahoma, the Nevada, and in the saw his fictional characters. last, an army team that went mills and lumber yards of to the Tournament of Cham- Oregon and Washington. It pions in Chicago. Louis was in these various places IN THE RING freely drew from this experi- and while working odd jobs ence for many of the boxing Young Louis at age three. that young Louis met the In the years after leaving stories in the collections wide variety of characters Jamestown, Louis had a "Hills of Homicide", "Beyond Let us take you back to the that would later become sporadic career as a profes- the Great Snow Mountains" and beginning of the life of this the inspiration for his writ- sional boxer. Having been "Off the Mangrove Coast". famous and well traveled ing. Young Louis met many well taught by his father

VISIT WWW.LOUISLAMOUR.COM FOR EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LOUIS L’AMOUR! ALSO, YOU CAN HEAR THE MAN HIMSELF IN AN 1984 INTERVIEW AT WIREDFORBOOKS.ORG/LOUISLAMOUR

PAGE 2 ROOM 222: LOUIS & KATHY L’AMOUR

THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES On his own, Louis hoboed John had left Oregon a year N THE RMY OW across the country, hopping before and had not been I A N freight trains with men who heard from since and so it was had been riding the rails for just the three of them who half a century. He wrapped traveled across Idaho, Wyo- newspaper under his clothes ming, Nebraska and Kansas to to keep warm while sleeping settle on the acreage outside in hobo jungles, grain bins Choctaw. They had a house, and the gaps in piles of lum- animals, occasional crops, and ber. He spent three months their lives returned to nor- "on the beach," in San Pedro, mal. They lived in a commu- California and circled the nity in which they were not globe as a merchant seaman, viewed as vagabonds . . . Louis at the Yoba Copper Com- visiting England, Japan, slowly the LaMoore family pany, where he was a caretaker China, Borneo, the Dutch began to put down roots. for three months. East Indies, Arabia, Egypt, Louis always wanted to be a Louis was inducted into the and Panama with the rough writer but in his early days he US army late in the summer and ready crews of various thought that his writing of 1942. (Photo above, Ger- steamships on which he would take the form of po- many, 1945.) After boot “MY BOOKS ARE served. In later years he etry. For years he struggled camp he went to Officer's FOR THE PEOPLE wrote stories about these to learn this craft without Candidate School and then WHO DO THE times, his own experiences much guidance except his Tank Destroyer School. By WORK OF THE and those of people he had own intellect. Eventually, he the time he was eligible to WORLD, WHO known. broke out into a number of join a TD outfit he was or- STRUGGLE TO Though he left school in the little magazines and began dered to change assignments MAKE ENDS MEET, 10th grade Louis had a thirst placing poems regularly. The because with his 35th birth- WHO BUILD, THE for knowledge. Throughout name Louis L'Amour was day just over six months away PEOPLE WHO DO!” his life Louis haunted libraries seen in public for the first he would be too old to join a -LOUIS L’AMOUR and bookstores across the time. Poetry, however, didn't combat unit. He joined the country and all over the pay very well . . . in fact it Transportation Corps and was world. Often he went with- didn't pay at all. He tried sent to England and then on out meals in order to afford writing short stories that to Europe with a trucking to buy books. He sometimes drew on his life experience, company. As a second Lt. he worked long and hard so that sending them to college jour- commanded a platoon of gas he could quit working tempo- nals or literary magazines. tankers that supplied planes rarily and afford to study full This was not the answer to and tanks all through the time. Louis liked to brag that earning a living as a writer fighting in France and Ger- from 1928 until 1942 he read either. Finally, he sold a short many. Before he returned more than 150 non-fiction story called "Anything for a home he was promoted to 1st books a year and that in order Pal" to a pulp magazine called Lt. and was briefly a company to do it he worked miserable True Gang Life. commander. While in Europe Louis at 18 years old with his jobs and lived in skid row He made less than eight dol- he gathered the background father, Dr. LaMoore.Louis had hotels and campgrounds. lars but he took it as a sign that he later used in his stories just returned from a trip around After several years in the Pa- and committed his attention about that area. the world on a freighter. Pic- cific Northwest, Louis' par- to writing for the pulps. The tured here as a steelworker. ents moved to a little farm hoped-for breakthrough took that their eldest son, Parker, almost two years to come. had purchased in Oklahoma. LOUIS L’AMOUR: 1908-1988 PAGE 3

LOVE FOLLOWED TOUGH TIMES

tween Fawcett/Gold Medal, After his discharge from the Ace and Bantam, Louis was Army, Louis returned to the looking to find a publisher U.S. only to find that the who would bring out more market for his Adventure than two of his books per stories had nearly disap- year. His editor at Gold peared. Now editors were Medal lobbied to let him asking for Mysteries and write more but management refused even though he was Westerns. Because of Louis' Louis in Central Park, 1954 background, an old friend in placing books with competing the publishing business publishers. L’Amour had pushed him in the direction of Louis and Kathy L'Amour, near sold 14 novels, 9 motion pic- Westerns. Following his the location where Heller with a tures, and several million friend's advice, Louis Gun was being filmed as Heller in paperback copies before Ban- L'Amour moved to Los Ange- Pink Tights. (c. 1959– 60) tam Editor in Chief Saul les, a city he knew well from David was finally able to con- his sea-faring and boxing In 1956 Louis L'Amour mar- vince his company to offer IN THE YEARS days, settled into a small ried Katherine Elizabeth Ad- Louis an exclusive contract SINCE HIS DEATH room in the back of another ams, an aspiring actress. The that would expand to three IN 1988 OVER family's large apartment and daughter of a resort developer books a year. It was only ONE HUNDRED and silent movie star, Kathy after 1960, however, that began to write. For the first AND TWENTY had grown up in the deserts Louis’s sales at Bantam began couple of years he sat on the MILLION COPIES and mountains of Southern to surpass his sales at Gold bed and worked with his OF HIS BOOKS California where her father Medal. typewriter sitting on a folding HAVE BEEN SOLD. chair. Compared to his Okla- had once owned vast tracts of Louis loved to collect books homa days his output was land. Together they traveled and finally he had both the enormous. In one year he all over the west searching space and the money to do so. sold almost a story a week out locations and doing re- His private library grew from and wrote even more than search for Louis' books. In some 3,000 to nearly 10,000 that. The pulps had never 1961 their son Beau was born books and half again as many paid very well and that situa- and in 1964 they had a daugh- journals and periodicals.True tion had not changed much. ter, Angelique. to his athletic past he would Louis' average take on a short The1960s were a productive spend an hour or two every story was less than $100. time for Louis. He developed day lifting weights, skipping By the early 1950s, many his famous Sackett family se- rope and punching a heavy writers, Louis included, ries, traveled extensively to bag, first in a paved area of his found it harder and harder to promote books and movies, small back yard in Holly- sell their stories. Like others and, for the first time in his wood, later, in the garage Louis tried many different life, bought a house. He was that he had converted into a markets, but it was the suc- often invited to speak at pub- gymnasium. cess of Hondo that gave Louis' lic forums and held book sign- career a much-needed boost. ings for large crowds all across the country. And he finally settled down to work with a single publisher, Ban- At the typewriter, 1953 tam Books. After six years (1953 -1959) of going back and forth be-

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THE REST OF THE STORY

the Library of Congress' Since his death in June of third generation Strater Starting in 1966 Louis would Center for the Book. 1988, Bantam Books, a divi- owner Rod Barker, was a take his family to spend the The summer of 1987, Louis sion of Random House Pub- bellman at the Strater. He summer in Durango, CO, a began his long postponed lishing, has continued to re- distinctly remembers the place he had visited briefly memoir, Education of a Wan- lease the work of Louis annual arrival of the with a mining buddy in the dering Man. He had been di- L'Amour. Smoke from this L’Amour family. “It was a late 1920s. For over ten agnosed with cancer. As the Altar, his 1939 book of po- fun time for all of us,” recalls years they spent the month disease progressed Louis etry, and a revised version of Barker. “Louis was very easy of August here at the Strater moved his work from his Yondering, were released in to know and to like. He Hotel, Louis dividing his office to a desk in an upstairs the same year. Since then seemed to honestly enjoy the time between writing and bedroom and ultimately into there have been re-releases hotel staff and was friendly to hiking in the La Plata or San the master bedroom. He was of the four Hopalong Cassidy all of us. We looked forward Juan Mountains. editing the book the after- novels, and many books of to seeing the family each day noon that he died. A few his short stories, some con- for breakfast in the dining In later years Louis partici- days before he passed away taining material never before room. I also distinctly re- pated in the Presidential Louis was notified that sales published. member moving the trunk Committee on Space, a Ute/ of his books had topped two full of books and references Comanche peace treaty, and hundred million. During the summers of the that Louis brought with him was on the National Board of late 1960’s and early 1970’s, in the family station wagon.

H UNGRY FOR H ISTORY? G ET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE S TRATER H OTEL S TORY B OOK AT THE FRONT DESK AND READ MORE ABOUT THE FAMOUS GUESTS OF THIS HISTORIC HOTEL. It was a very large trunk that recipient.” about room 222 and Louis ple. This room is really the took three of us to get up the L’Amour were a part of the genesis for our naming project stairs.” Bellmen normal routine wel- and room 222 has been the come to the hotel guests. These Louis L’Amour room long be- Barker and his wife Laurie re- stories helped foster recollec- fore I connected the dots to do main friends with Louis’ wife tions and research about the this for the rest of the rooms. Kathy who spends part of her history of the Strater. “When We are very grateful to the en- time at her beautiful ranch near you spend 40 or so years talking tire L’Amour family for their Durango. Barker points out about the Louis L’Amour room, contribution to our history and that behind every great man is a you naturally start to think for their friendship.” great woman and Kathy never about the other 92 rooms. comes up short in that depart- In this case, at the end of this ment. He notes, “She has al- Barker is quick to note, “Think story is another great story. ways had a lot to do with the of all the great people that have We hope that you will acquaint success of the L’Amour enter- Kathy is the President of stayed at the Strater Hotel as yourself with the many wonder- prises, from her marketing Louis L’Amour Enterprises, well as all of the great people ful books written by Louis creativity to her straight for- Inc. Because of her commit- that helped to establish this L’Amour. To find out more, ward manner and acute business ment to his work, over one unique western town of Du- go to www.louislamour.com or acumen that has helped to keep hundred and twenty million rango. Many of these people to your local bookshop. You’ll Louis’ great work in the public copies of his books have been are the people that Louis would be glad that you did. And if you eye long after his passing. She is sold since 1988. None of Louis say are “the people that do”. are interested in a few more of a wonderful and caring person L 'Amour’s Bantam titles have How many of those people and the interesting stories at the who has a rare knack of extract- ever been out of print. families could vanish into obscu- Strater Hotel, just go to ing the best a person has to of- rity without a project by which www.strater.com and learn Over the years the annual fer. It is a skill that few people to remember them? The dura- about more of our Durango L’Amour family visits have been are fortunate enough to possess bility of this legendary hotel can pioneering families and found- instrumental in helping the staff and usually she works her magic lend to the durability of the ing institutions. remember stories. The stories without the knowledge of the legacy of these wonderful peo-

Beau L’Amour Angelique L’Amour

BY WAY OF THE NAMING OF THIS ROOM, THE STRATER HOTEL SALUTES THE ENTIRE L’AMOUR FAMILY FOR ALL THE WORK THEY HAVE PUT TO- WARD PRESERVING THE FLAVOUR OF THE WEST, AND THE HISTORY OF THE STRATER HOTEL.