Old West Costume Party
May 2nd, 2010 by John Wolfe
In the process of scanning in some great old photos of Kelly for my ghost town video, I found this very cool Victorian era costume party photo. The shot was taken by Joseph E. Smith (the same man who took all the old Kelly pics) in 1887 at the Garcia Opera House in Socorro, New Mexico, which is about thirty miles from Kelly. I found this one in David R. Phillips book, “The West,” unfortunately, the caption didn’t say if the costume party was held in celebration of Halloween or not.
I had to cut the image down in this entry, but if you click on it, you’ll get the entire photo. While I’ve gotten to see a lot of old photos of costumes from back East, I think this is the first one I’ve ever seen from the Old West.
May 2nd, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Wow–you’re a regular detective! The full version of it is amazing! It looks to me like a masquerade dance for the kids cause the parents on the sidelines aren’t in costume. How very eerie!!! Great find, again!
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:10 am
That is very cool.
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
You’re mentioned on my blog today http://autumnforestghosthunter.blogspot.com
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:43 pm
autumnforest,
You’re absolutely right–I hadn’t even noticed what appears to be all the adults without costumes sitting around watching. Thank you so much for the mention on your site. I totally appreciate it!
Ethan,
Thanks, man.
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:44 pm
What a cool picture. I like that you were able to find this…..nice!
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Thanks, Julie.
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm
What a wonderful picture John! I’m most thankful to you that you put the full version up so we can see everything in greater detail. Once the pic got big, I was instantly sent back in time during that time era. Oddly enough I’ve been digging around this weekend in the Victorian era so once more you were reading my mind. Now those were costumes! Not at all what we see today unless someone has taken the time to create their own costumes. Granted there are some good ones out there but Halloween seems to have turned more to the dark side of blood and gore for the shock value instead of good old fashioned costumes. I sure do want to get my hands on that book of yours
Stop teasing me….
May 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Great pic you found. Very eerie!
May 4th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Goldie,
I felt the exact same way when I saw the image in “The West.” It seemed like I could step right into the photo! The West is out of print, but I did some digging on Amazon and there are a few sellers on there who carry used versions (it came out in the ’70s). The book is actually my mom’s, but I’ve been borrowing it as I worked on my Kelly video. It’s really a wonderful book, as it has hundreds of pages of images from the old boom towns and life in general during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
ssflipo13,
Thanks!