In a 1912 interview with the Boulder County Miner newspaper, Mary Miller said that the circus from Cheyenne came through the pre-Lafayette area in 1869, when she and Lafayette Miller operated the Miller Tavern saloon and stage stop. This was located a mile south of today’s Lafayette where the current Rock Creek Open Space is located at U.S. 287 and Dillon Road. Mary said she and her brother, James B. Foote, “made hot biscuit, opened canned vegetables and gave them lots of milk and cream,” but did not mention pie-baking.
Mary’s grandson, Frank Miller, said in a 1968 presentation at a local school that “there were several experiences at the stage station and one in particular I should tell is when the circus came through from Cheyenne one time and camped there overnight. My grandmother had an orchard, and she baked 100 pies that day and got $1 a pie and sold them as soon as they were taken from the oven.”
Continue reading “Local Myths: Was town founder Mary Miller a legendary pie baker?”