Some days, its streets can be bustling with tourists drawn to see an authentic Wild West town. Victor now caters to two types of visitors: hikers and those who appreciate the town’s history, said Jon Zalewski, Victor’s Main Street manager. “Yeah, I passed retirement age, but what are we going to do if I retire?” Once a booming mining town I like what I do,” Sam said while pushing a sewing needle through layers of broomcorn. The two have run the shop, without any employees, since 1990. Handmade crafts including candles, cookie cutters and other antique souvenirs pack the first level of a two-story Victorian building built in 1900 after a fire wiped out nearly the entire town. on their way to gambling in Cripple Creek, a few miles down the road. Their sweeping brooms were featured in a 2004 fall edition of Martha Stewart’s magazine, though Stewart has not made it into the store herself. Sam and Karen have made brooms for The Smithsonian, The Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Opera. “Hollywood comes knocking at our door,” she said. (You can barely make them out in the background of a scene in the “ The Lighthouse” set in the 1890s.) Movie crews ordered them for sets of “ The Missing,” Ron Howard’s 2003 Western thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett, and “ The Greatest Showman,” though you can’t see Karen’s tins in either. Four rows of stitching, which require forearm strength, keep the broom tight and flat, he said.ĭisney once bought 360 cans to put on display at an attraction in Hong Kong. Wearing leather sewing cuffs to protect his hands, Sam then pushes a double-pointed needle through the broomcorn. “This is my cordless drill,” Karen said, using a hand-cranked device to drill a hole in the end of the wooden dowel before passing it from her dye-stained hands to her husband. She tightly binds wire around the handle to attach the layers of broomcorn and with a few whacks of a broom pounder - not a hammer, she said - secures a tiny nail. She weighs the broomcorn, according to the size of the broom she is crafting, secures a wooden handle in the chuck of a winder and sets the 1900s-era machine in motion with a push of her foot. After Sam dyes and dries the broomcorn, Karen soaks it in hot water again, making the pieces pliable. This is the very best broomcorn you can buy,” Karen, 66, said.Ī lot of work still goes into their brooms. Once it is processed, broomcorn is referred to as “hurl” and ready to be crafted. Broomcorn, a member of the sorghum family, is different from actual corn and has been used to make brooms and brushes for centuries. Now, they buy 100-pound bales of de-seeded broomcorn from a supplier in Texas, the country’s last. Sam Morrison stitches together a broom using a double ended needle, which he pushes through the broom with his leather hand cuffs. When they started making brooms in 1988, they grew broomcorn on a farm in Wheat Ridge, Sam said, remembering the itchy feeling when the coarse seeds from the tall grass fell down his shirt, sticking to his sweaty back during the warm harvest months. The Morrisons always enjoyed working with their hands. Praise for the couple’s craft and excellent customer service flows on Google reviews, one calling their shop a “must-see” when visiting Victor and “one of the best vintage stores in the universe.” “Some people will stand here and watch the entire thing,” Karen said, “and other people are bored after 2½ minutes.”Ĭustomers tell them their handmade brooms last 10 to 15 years, or more, long past the lifespan of a plastic grocery store broom. Sam Morrison stitches together a broom by hand using original artisan techniques with the original manufacturing equipment. Their business, Victor Trading Co., has helped keep the town of 400 on the map, while attracting people from across the world to watch the couple crank antique machinery from the front of the shop while keeping 19th-century techniques alive. “I think there’d be a huge backlash if we just quit,” said Sam, 69. One broom was so treasured it was disputed in a divorce settlement. Their clients range from Hollywood set directors to curators at the Smithsonian. Yet 33 years later, they guess they’ve made 30,000 brooms with no plans on stopping. Meet Colorado’s Congressional delegation.A Colorado mining town gets swept up in couple’s historic broom-making business Close
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