I owe an apology to Tom Weaver and Glen Humiston for saying the town paid for their water back in 2002 when we were experiencing an extra dry year. They gave the water to the town for six weeks and let their own crops go dry. They never collected a dime from the town.
Meanwhile, doctors continued coming to Mancos in the 1890s. One was a dentist by the name of George Davis. In 1893 he purchased an old building just to the north of Lou Soens blacksmith shop and set up shop there. He soon had a thriving business including monthly trips to Cortez. In 1894, however, his building burned to the ground. The only thing that survived was his bag of dentist tools he had packed for his monthly trip to Cortez.
He was awakened sometime after midnight and found flames coming into his bedroom from his office. He managed to get out safely but his hair and eyebrows were singed. He was able to snatch his pistol as he made his way out of his bedroom and shot off several shots. Sadly those who heard the shots thought it was just some young men shooting for the fun of it.
In January 1895, Doctor Davis moved into a new building on North Main. There is no mention of him or ads of his after 1900.
In 1894, Dr. D. B. Shaut set up an office in a building north of the school ground. He was also the coroner and took issue with the death of a miner in September 1894. He believed it looked more like murder than self defense. He tried to make an issue of it but was quieted. He moved to Durango rather quickly and never said anything more about the death of the miner. Strangely, fate would play a hand and some years later the man who had shot the miner twice with a double barreled shotgun died when the same shotgun slipped and went off while the man was riding on the tracks of a horse-pulled snow sled.
Dr. A. W. Seabury came to Mancos in 1893 solely to take care of his mother after his fathers death. George Bauer was instrumental in convincing Dr. Seabury to take up his medical practice in Mancos since he would be living in Mancos anyway. I noticed ads taken out by Dr. Seabury for a few years but whether his mother passed away or he decided Mancos was not where he was supposed to be, he sold everything he had and moved to Buena Vista in 1896.
Dr. E. N. Lowe, the doctor who cared for Dr. Field for the five days before he died from being thrown off his horse, came to Mancos in 1893. His claim to fame is that he never gave up on Mancos even though he was offered a larger practice elsewhere. He was remembered for many years as the doctor who stepped up to the bar and cared for citizens throughout the valley during the typhoid epidemic of 1900.
