In 1987, Andrew Tamburelli of Aguilar, Colorado donated a cast iron stove to History Colorado. According to the donation paperwork the stove was used for rendering lard. Stored in the Tamburelli barn for 25 years, the previous owner of the stove was a man named Charlie Beuchat. Used in the outbuilding (also known as the slaughterhouse) of the Vallorso Mercantile Store in Bear Canon, Colorado, the stove served miners and families of the Bear Canon Coal Company.
Unique in appearance, the stove slowly cooked the fat from bones and excess meat trimmings to yield lard—used for cooking, baking and as a spread. Located in Las Animas County, Colorado, the Vallorso in Vallorso Mercantile was not a family name, but rather the name given by Italians to the location of the camp that housed employees of the Bear Canon Coal Company mine. According to a 1943 article in Colorado Magazine, the Colorado & Southern Railroad station called Bear Canon was renamed Vallorso (Italian for “valley of the bear”) by postal officials who refused to open an office under the name Bear Canon because it was too similar to other post office names in the state. The same article noted that the population of Vallorso in 1943 was 50.
Curious about the donor, some research revealed that in 1924 miners E. A. Tamburello and Joseph P. Tamburello were living in Vallorso. According to the 1924 Las Animas County Directory, Vallorso (Valloroso) was a coal camp about three miles from the Ludlow station on the Colorado & Southern Railway, and 16 miles northwest of Trinidad. With a population of 800, the community supported one general store and one school. Interestingly, the 1924 directory also listed Peter Barbata as manager of the Vallorso Mercantile Co. (and postmaster) and Charles Beuchat as manager of the Bear Canon Coal Company. This discovery explains the connection between the donor (Tamburelli family member) and Charles “Charlie” Beuchat.
In addition to providing the name of the Vallorso store the stove was used in, the 1924 Las Animas County Directory also provided the name of the store manager, Peter Barbata. In turn Barbata’s story was one of personal and family immigration, life in small Southern Colorado towns (Sopris, Ludlow, Hastings, Vallorso, Trinidad, Ramey, Tollerburg, Tabasco and Berwind), coal mining, unions, farming, ethnic relations, assimilation and more.
The Barbata family’s story in Colorado begins with Giovanni “John” Barbata. Born in Sicily, Italy in 1873, John came to America around 1890, settling in Hastings, Colorado around 1898, where he found work as a miner. That same year, Joe sent for his widowed mother Pietronilla “Nellie” and siblings Carolina, Giuseppe “Joe” and Pietro “Pete”. A year later, Nellie Barbata married Giuseppe “Joe” Cortese and Carolina Barbata married Carmelo Glaviano, a fellow Sicilian and friend of the family, also living in Hastings, Colorado.
Interestingly, by 1904 Carmelo Glaviano had earned enough capitol as a miner to open a saloon in the Ludlow coal mining camp. On November 29, 1904, Carmelo witnessed a fight in his saloon between Italian union men on strike and Slavish non-union men. The quarrel began inside the saloon, eventually moving outside where a reported 100 shorts were exchanged, killing one man and wounding others. Six years later, Glaviano was operating a grocery store in Ramey, Colorado; with his brother-in-laws Pete and Joe employed as clerks in the store.
For the next several years John, Joe and Pete Barbata, along with brother-in-law Carmelo Glaviano, worked various jobs—laborers, miners, farmers and aspiring businessmen— to make it in America. Following work, the families moved to various small settlements in southern Colorado. The Barbata and Glaviano families remained close, helping each other and combining resources. In 1916, Pete and John Barbata and Carmelo Glaviano purchased the Old Model Rooming House in Trinidad. While Pete and Joe continued to operate the grocery stores and find other jobs in southern Colorado coal mining camps, John Barbata ran the restaurant and hotel in Trinidad and Carmelo a grocery store in Trinidad.
Pietronilla “Nellie” Barbata Cortese died in Colorado in 1917, followed by her children: Caroline (1947), Pete (1948), John (1956), Joe (1966). Caroline’s husband Carmelo Glaviano died in 1935. By: Alisa DiGiacomo
