by Dick Kreck
and Welton Streets. When Henwood arrived to gather his theater companions at the foot of the grand staircase on the east side of the lobby, he saw, to his dismay, von Phul, trying to shanghai his guests by telling them, “You had better change your mind and come to the Broadway Theater with me.”
Anxious to avoid another confrontation, Henwood smiled and said to his guests, “Are you ready to go?” Von Phul simply glared. With that, the five theatergoers were off to the Orpheum to see a bill that included a dramatic offering by actor Burr McIntosh, starring in The Ranchman—“one of those cheap, gun-playing romances,’’ sniffed the critic in The Denver Post. Ironically, it was about two men and a woman sharing a night in a lonely Wyoming ranch house. Also on the bill were Mlle. Bianci Froehlich, offering “her repertory of classical and novelty dancing”; trapeze artist Aleide Capitaine; and The Fry Twins, a pair of wrestling brothers.
During the performance at the Orpheum, Henwood was surprised to look across the theater and see von Phul and another man, probably Cooke, seated in a box near the stage. He was even more surprised minutes later when von Phul’s hand suddenly thrust through the curtains in Henwood’s private box and clutched Isabel’s arm. Startled, she asked to be excused to get a drink of water. Henwood and her husband prevailed on her to stay. The rest of the night passed without incident.
Recognizing at last the forces she had set in motion, Isabel looked for ways to defuse things. Early in the morning of May 24, she took von Phul on a drive to the ranch with her mother, despite being assaulted by him just the day before. Later in the day, Henwood visited the Springers’ rooms, where Isabel poured out the tale of her violent encounters with von Phul—though she failed to mention the drive to Henwood or to her husband. Despite her plea that Henwood get back her letters, Isabel, fearing von Phul’s temper was out of control, now asked Henwood to withdraw from her affairs. “Please drop this now where you are, for my own sake, my husband’s and my future. You are not dealing with this in the right way.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he answered. “You don’t know how to manage such affairs. It takes a man to handle it, man to man. Promise me you won’t go near von Phul. You’re making a mistake not calling for a showdown.”
“I will not promise not to see him again.”
“Well, then, I wash my hands of the whole thing. I’ve spoken to Chief Armstrong.”
Isabel became angry. “You shouldn’t have done that! I don’t want my affairs taken to court. He knows John and will certainly tell him about this.”
“No, he won’t. I told him I was speaking to him man to man. He won’t go to John.”
They spoke for some time, but Isabel would not promise she would stay away from von Phul.
“Please, Frank, just drop it.”
But there was no turning back. Not for Henwood, not for von Phul.
Isabel wrote a letter that her maid delivered to Henwood’s office in the Continental Building at Sixteenth and Lawrence on the morning of May 24. Again, she warned him to stay away from her apartments at the hotel, that von Phul had threatened to kill him if he saw him with Isabel. The messenger maid told Henwood that Isabel and von Phul had argued “all afternoon” the previous day.
After he received Isabel’s note, Henwood, the man who believed anyone who carried a gun was a coward and who had never owned a weapon, took the precaution of stopping at a hardware store near the Daniels & Fisher department store, where he purchased an old five-shot, .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pearl-handled revolver and a box of cartridges. He was ready if von Phul decided to come after him.
About six that evening, Isabel hurried to Henwood’s room to repeat her warnings that von Phul had threatened to “fix him.” Again she urged him to let her take care of the situation.
Henwood immediately called Chief Armstrong at home. “Mrs. Springer has just left my room. Isn’t there something that can be done?”
“No. If Mrs. Springer is being molested and she is willing to appear in court against Mr. von Phul I will arrest him.”
“That can’t be done. If I call Mrs. Springer to the telephone, will you talk to her and advise her what to do?”
“I have no advice to give her. If she has got into a difficulty she got into it without any advice of mine and she will have to get out of it without any advice of mine. I will have nothing to do with this affair.”
That evening, Henwood and some acquaintances trooped across Broadway to see a performance of Flo Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1910 at the Broadway Theater in the Hotel Metropole. Follies, a musical sensation starring comedian Bert Williams, Lillian Lorraine, Fannie Brice, and “75 Anna Held show girls,” drew glowing reviews in the local newspapers. Among the novelties was the opening scene in which chorus girls marched through the audience from the back of the theater. Lorraine sang “Swing Me High, Swing Me Low” while she sailed back and forth over the stage on a swing. The Rocky Mountain News critic raved, “It would bankrupt the English language to tell adequately of the wonderful conglomeration of mirth, music, beauty, scenic effects and theatrical knickknacks that go to make up this charming ‘revue’ prepared by Ziegfeld, the wizard.”
The previous Sunday’s opening performance had been packed with members of Denver society. The Springers had
attended, accompanied by Henwood, his friend Frank Loveland, and Isabel’s actress friend Louise Cherry. Also in the audience were Mayor Robert W. Speer and his wife and many of the city’s leading businessmen. Isabel was described by an observer as “one of the most strikingly beautiful women in the house.” Springer, in particular, seemed charmed by the show’s bathing-beauty scene in which ten chorines peeled down to knee-length, one-piece bathing suits for a day at the beach. Springer became so enamored that he had to be restrained by friends from toppling out of his box as he leaned forward for a closer view.
Three nights later, as the curtain rose again on Follies, it also was about to rise on one of the most sensational murders in the city’s history. When the performance ended near 11:15 p.m., Henwood recrossed the wide Broadway thoroughfare and entered the east side of the hotel at almost the same moment as Tony von Phul, who also had been at Follies. Each man, perhaps knowing what he would find, headed toward his mutual fate.
Sylvester L. “Tony” von Phul. (The Denver Times, May 25, 1911. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
John W. Springer.
(Courtesy of
the Colorado
Historical Society)
Isabel Patterson Springer.
(Courtesy of the Colorado
Historical Society)
Frank Henwood.
(Denver Republican,
May 26, 1911. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
Built in 1892, the Brown Palace remains Denver’s most gracious hotel. (Dick Kreck collection)
Frank Henwood and Tony von Puhl kept a close eye on each other at dinner in the Brown Palace’s palm-bedecked dining room the night before the shooting. (Dick Kreck collection)
Isabel Springer’s hand-written version of
note to Tony von Phul. (The Denver Times,
June 27, 1911.
Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
Tony von Phul’s angry note
to Frank Henwood. Numbers are for trial exhibits. (The Denver Times, June 27, 1911. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
Chapter Two
The Shooting: “I Was Ready for Him”
It was coming up midnight and men, laughing and talking loudly, crowded into the bar a few steps off the lobby of
the Brown Palace. The intimate barroom next to the hotel’s Broadway entrance was almost full; it always was when
the Broadway Theater let out.
Less than ten minutes after Follies of 1910 ended, about 11:15 p.m. on May 24, 1911, Frank Henwood found his way into the Wine Room, also known as the Marble Bar for its exquisite front bar covered with pale golden onyx imported
from Mexico, the same material used in the lobby and on the massive fireplace mantel near the Seventeenth Street entrance.
Henwood was no stranger to the barroom, which he visited frequently after moving into the seventh floor of the Brown while pursuing well-to-do investors for his employer. As he entered, Henwood scanned the assemblage for a familiar face, then approached the center of the bar, near the beer taps, and joined three men—A. C. Rollestone, vice president of the Victor Bank in the Colorado mountain mining town of Victor; retired Judge James Owen of Colorado Springs; and Charles Schilling, a dealer in dry goods in Victor, all of whom had been at the Follies performance.
That Owen and Henwood were still speaking was something of a surprise. The two met earlier in the evening when they were seated next to each other in Rollestone’s box at the theater. Shortly after they were introduced, Henwood, a man
for whom formalities were time wasted, smacked the judge on the shoulder, pointed to the stage, where the girls of Follies bounded about, and said, “Take your choice, old boy, and I’ll get her for you after the show is over.” Owen was not amused and told Henwood so. But after the two men met in the barroom, Henwood apologized. “I didn’t mean anything, old chap. You just don’t understand our free and easy Western ways.”
“Not your kind of Western ways, I’ll admit,” said Owen. But he added, “Forget it,” and they shook hands.
As they chatted, Henwood ordered a bottle of champagne for the foursome. The other three declined, so he chose a small bottle for himself.
Minutes later, Tony von Phul arrived, accompanied by Ed “Pop” Rosenbaum, manager of the touring Follies company. Von Phul had become familiar with the Follies cast and management the previous summer during its run in New York City, where he was often seen backstage and where he showered his attentions on numerous members of the chorus line. He stepped to the bar and ordered a glass of whiskey and a beer. Noting von Phul’s arrival, Henwood excused himself and walked back to the Broadway Theater to find Frank Darling, the musical director of the stage company, who had planned to join Henwood at the bar. Unsuccessful in locating Darling, Henwood rejoined his companions in less than five minutes.
Like pieces in a deadly game of chess, the players rearranged themselves along the bar. At first, Rosenbaum stood with von Phul to his left and Henwood on his right. Von Phul, still steaming from two days of nasty encounters with Henwood, commented to Rosenbaum, loud enough for others to hear, “There’s that son of a bitch I licked, and I ought to lick him again.” He leaned close to Rosenbaum and asked him to switch places, putting von Phul within five feet of his rival. Von Phul offered to send a bottle of wine up to Rosenbaum’s wife. The theater manager left to see if she were still awake, promising to return.
Henwood spoke first. “Tony...I mean, Mr. von Phul,” he said, correcting himself because he knew how much the St. Louisan hated the familiarity. “Won’t you reconsider what happened yesterday afternoon?”
Von Phul looked at him, then told Henwood, “I’m going upstairs and I am going to grab that gray-headed son of a bitch by the hair and pull him out of there and show him who is master here.” Both men knew he was talking about Springer, the husband of their mutual interest.
Henwood bristled. “You can’t get that over on me.”
Those standing closest to the two men tensed. James W. Atkinson, a portly, white-haired, fifty-five-year-old Colorado Springs contractor who had stopped for a quick drink before catching the midnight train home, commented to those with him, “Let’s get out of here, there is going to be a fight.”
Von Phul, his eyes fixed on Henwood, snarled, “I will get you first.” He lashed out, landing a sharp backhand right to the point of Henwood’s jaw. Surprised by the suddenness of the blow, Henwood staggered backward and landed hard on the seat of his pants, striking his head on the marble floor.
Stunned, and convinced that von Phul, who had struck him and stuck a weapon in his midsection the previous day, meant to pull a gun on him, the terrified Henwood rose to one knee and struggled to jerk his newly purchased revolver from his hip pocket. The gun hung up momentarily. “He’s going to shoot!” someone shouted as Henwood, now on his feet, opened fire. There were two quick shots, then a pause, followed by three more shots in rapid succession. For a man with no experience handling a gun, Henwood’s aim was
tragically accurate. That his target was less than ten feet away enhanced his aim.
What happened in the seconds between the time von Phul knocked Henwood to the floor and the entrepreneur came up firing is clouded in controversy. Henwood would stand trial in 1911 and 1913 for the shooting, but witnesses, of which there were plenty, could not agree on a key issue. Some swore von Phul was facing Henwood when the first shot was fired; others were just as certain von Phul had turned to the bar and had taken the first bullet in the back.
Henwood maintained that after he was knocked down, von Phul fixed him with what he called “a look of hate and threat.” Some bystanders said that von Phul appeared to reach for his right hip pocket and many of them, especially Henwood, assumed, a pistol, perhaps the one with which he had threatened Henwood.
Henwood’s first shot struck von Phul in the right shoulder, causing him to lurch forward, exposing to Henwood’s
blazing .38 another patron standing at the bar, George E. Copeland, forty-three-year-old proprietor of an ore-
sampling works in Victor. Von Phul tried to escape the barrage
by crouching down and scuttling along the bar, seeking refuge in the adjacent smoking lounge. The next two bullets hit Copeland, who had just asked the bartender for a gin rickey, in the right hip and the left thigh, cutting the
femoral artery.
In a frenzy, Henwood kept squeezing the trigger as twenty or so patrons scrambled for cover. His fourth shot passed through von Phul’s upraised right wrist and hit Atkinson in the left thigh, shattering his femur. “My God! I’m shot!” Atkinson exclaimed as he hopped two or three steps, then sank to the floor near the door to the lobby.
It was Henwood’s fifth shot that proved fatal for the burly St. Louis aeronaut. As von Phul tried to reach the bar’s entrance and safety, a bullet pierced his left side between the eleventh and twelfth ribs, coursed upward through his body, grazed his stomach, and lodged under the skin on his abdomen.
Henwood jerked the trigger again and again, but his efforts produced only hollow clicks. Finally, Frank Canfield, who worked in the hotel as an elevator operator, ripped the gun from his hand and placed it on the bar. Bartender Frank Miller picked it up and put it in a drawer.
Smoke and silence filled the small barroom. In the pandemonium that followed, Copeland lay on the floor near the end of the bar, and Atkinson, a cigar clinched in his teeth, was lying partly across the barroom entrance. Dazed but strangely calm, Henwood casually picked up his straw hat and walked toward the lobby. As he passed the prostrate Atkinson, he paused and said, “I’m sorry I shot you. Can I help you?” Atkinson snapped, “You’ve done enough already. Get out and leave me alone.” He added an epithet or two for emphasis.
The mortally wounded von Phul fell into a plush leather chair in a small room next to the bar. Blood poured freely from his right wrist. He used his left hand to hold his right arm in the air. Those who reached him first heard him say, “Get a doctor quickly. I am very badly hurt.”
A crowd gathered around him. Some, including Henwood’s attorney, would claim that it was at this moment that von Phul’s weapon disappeared from his possession. Among those ministering to von Phul was a young musician from the Follies orchestra, Denver native Paul Whiteman, later to become a noted leader of his own jazz orchestra. Whiteman saw that von Phul was in danger of bleeding to death. Quickly, he searched von Phul’s pockets for a handkerchief with which to stop the flow. He found one in the right coat pocket and tied it around the wounded man’s wrist. Then he took his own handkerchief and applied it to the wound in von Phul’s shoulder. What he did not find, or feel, was a gun.
Unaware of the animosity between Henwood and von Phul, the half dozen men surrounding him were puzzled by the suddenness of the violence. Von Phul had an explanation. “We had a little argument and Henwood insulted me. I knocked him down and he came up shooting. The attack was cowardly in the extreme. I was not armed and Henwood must have known I was not. He is in luck. If I had had a gun, he would have got as good as he sent.”
Von Phul chatted with Dr. Mann as the latter tended to him. Then, as if dimly aware of the seriousness of his worsening condition, he reeled off a series of names of those who should be notified if he died.
Dr. Mann told von Phul he needed to go to a hospital.
“Get me a taxicab, if you’re bound to take me to the hospital. I don’t think it’s worthwhile going to the hospital. Why can’t I go to my room, doctor?”
“A hotel room is no place for a wounded man.”
“It’s good enough for me. What’s the matter with all of you? Let me alone.”
Rosenbaum, the Follies manager with whom he had been sharing a drink at the bar minutes earlier, pleaded, “Be reasonable, Tony.”
“I am reasonable.”
Suddenly, he looked around. “Who’s got my watch?” A friend held it out and he caught it. “I want that watch, and I want everything else that belongs to me.”