Real Fireworks
Art: Jesse Leekowitz
You wouldn’t have believed it, but it happened.”
So wrote Park Record Publisher “Mac” McConaughy after the 1971 Fourth of July riot, which future historians may mark as the beginning of the end of Park City’s mining heritage and the shotgun start in the town’s race to become a world-class ski resort. Celebrated that year on Monday the fifth (the fourth fell on Sunday), the “riot” was a brawling, come-to-Jesus meeting in the middle of Main Street between 500 longtime local, beer-swilling miners and the recently arrived, long-haired, pot-smoking hippies.
To fully understand the proximate causes of this melée, rewind four decades of history to a time when the “flower children” of “The Greatest Generation,” under the banner of peace, love and dope, were in full revolt against the Vietnam War and their elders’ values. In April 1971, 200,000 antiwar protesters descended on Washington, DC, while 700 Vietnam vets threw their purple hearts and silver stars at Richard Nixon’s White House. Just days before the riot, Daniel Ellsberg carpet-bombed the political establishment by leaking the Pentagon Papers.
Against this backdrop, the Honorable William P. Sullivan, Park City’s mayor, felt compelled to issue an Independence Day Proclamation urging all “responsible citizens” (read: longtime residents) to unite in respect for the nation at a time when it was being challenged by “restless youth” (read: long-haired hippies) who were “sapping the country’s moral strength” (read: your guess is as good as mine). The day of the parade dawned cloudless and hot, as floats were prepared and costumes donned. It started off innocently enough at 10 a.m. with the half-hour parade, in which the more patriotic locals noted the hippies’ parade entry—which won second place—featuring a peace symbol superimposed over the American flag.
The stage was set. While the high school band played on the steps of the War Memorial building, local children played games and their elders packed the bars and spilled out onto the sidewalks. Then the match was lit.
According to “Alamo” Dave Mueller, a scuffle started when a water balloon launched from the Crazy Horse Saloon (where Java Cow is now) slammed into the crowd in front of the Alamo (now the No Name Saloon). The victim of said missile was not amused, and a fight broke out. Soon a small crowd of locals and longhairs were mixing it up.
It might have ended there, except for what happened next. Park City policeman Johnny Bircumshaw slowly drove his police cruiser into the crowd, attempting to break it up. Unfortunately, according to Larry Mckown (owner of the Crazy Horse), that gave a 13-year-old girl in front of his establishment the opportunity to heft a water balloon through the open window of the cop’s car. In law enforcemeou wouldn’t have
believed it, but it happened.”
So wrote Park Record Publisher “Mac” McConaughy after the 1971 Fourth of July riot, which future historians may mark as the beginning of the end of Park City’s mining heritage and the shotgun start in the town’s race to become a world-class ski resort. Celebrated that year on Monday the fifth (the fourth fell on Sunday), the “riot” was a brawling, come-to-Jesus meeting in the middle of Main Street between 500 longtime local, beer-swilling miners and the recently arrived, long-haired, pot-smoking hippies.
To fully understand the proximate causes of this melée, rewind four decades of history to a time when the “flower children” of “The Greatest Generation,” under the banner of peace, love and dope, were in full revolt against the Vietnam War and their elders’ values. In April 1971, 200,000 antiwar protesters descended on Washington, DC, while 700 Vietnam vets threw their purple hearts and silver stars at Richard Nixon’s White House. Just days before the riot, Daniel Ellsberg carpet-bombed the political establishment by leaking the Pentagon Papers.
Against this backdrop, the Honorable William P. Sullivan, Park City’s mayor, felt compelled to issue an Independence Day Proclamation urging all “responsible citizens” (read: longtime residents) to unite in respect for the nation at a time when it was being challenged by “restless youth” (read: long-haired hippies) who were “sapping the country’s moral strength” (read: your guess is as good as mine). The day of the parade dawned cloudless and hot, as floats were prepared and costumes donned. It started off innocently enough at 10 a.m. with the half-hour parade, in which the more patriotic locals noted the hippies’ parade entry—which won second place—featuring a peace symbol superimposed over the American flag.
The stage was set. While the high school band played on the steps of the War Memorial building, local children played games and their elders packed the bars and spilled out onto the sidewalks. Then the match was lit.
According to “Alamo” Dave Mueller, a scuffle started when a water balloon launched from the Crazy Horse Saloon (where Java Cow is now) slammed into the crowd in front of the Alamo (now the No Name Saloon). The victim of said missile was not amused, and a fight broke out. Soon a small crowd of locals and longhairs were mixing it up.
It might have ended there, except for what happened next. Park City policeman Johnny Bircumshaw slowly drove his police cruiser into the crowd, attempting to break it up. Unfortunately, according to Larry Mckown (owner of the Crazy Horse), that gave a 13-year-old girl in front of his establishment the opportunity to heft a water balloon through the open window of the cop’s car. In law enforcement circles, such an act is known as “contempt of cop”—a serious offense.
Bircumshaw leapt from the car, service revolver drawn, and ran head-on into a wall of verbal abuse from the hippies, who thought he was overreacting. When he attempted to arrest the loudest of the loudmouths, he ended up in a three-way fight, with the malefactor’s girlfriend jumping on his back. Eventually, the suspect was cuffed and thrown into the back of the police car, but not before Town Marshal John McAlevy held a shotgun from the squad car menacingly above his head in an apparent effort to scatter the crowd. The gesture had, of course, the opposite effect.
According to Mckown, the hippies went crazy, surrounding the patrol car, rocking it back and forth and shouting, “Let him go, let him go!” Bircumshaw, unnerved by what he surely perceived as a near-death experience, slowly drove out of the crowd and radioed a “mayday” to every law enforcement agency in five counties.
One of those responding was Park City Highway Patrolman Frank Marcellin. He described the scene when he arrived: “There were about 500 people on the street, many rowdy and intoxicated. The townspeople were on the west (Alamo) side of the street, newcomers on the east.” Marcellin, who had previously served five years as Park City’s town marshal, knew all the locals and immediately went to the west side of the street, where he heard “wild talk about burning down houses and running the longhairs out of town.” Although dressed in full riot gear, Marcellin never drew his baton. He just walked through the crowd and “tried to talk ’em down.”
Not long afterward, the cavalry arrived. Mueller reminisced: “As long as I live, I’ll never forget the sight of the cops with guns, dogs and riot gear, walking up the street.” Martial law was declared, roadblocks were thrown up and the crowd dispersed. But it wasn’t over yet.
Fortunately for Mckown, who had a softball game in Heber City, he was leaving town. Still, as he drove past the Last Chance Saloon at the bottom of Main Street, he observed with alarm old-timers “armed with baseball bats and chains, piling into the bar.”
Back at the Alamo, Mueller, sensing trouble, led a group of a dozen friends off of Main Street and into exile at City Grove, near the Glenwood Cemetery, where they lit a bonfire and hunkered down. Marcellin spent the rest of the night going from bar to bar trying to “talk some sense into people,” while roaming groups of locals menaced anyone not deemed to be on their side. “By the time it was over around midnight, my tongue was so inflamed I could hardly talk,” reported the trooper.
Future School Board President David Chaplin remembers walking down to Main Street that evening for a beer. “I went through the door of the Alamo, and I can still remember eight guys on bar stools glaring at me.” Owner Bob Dean met him at the door and advised him to go home. “People are still pretty angry in there,” he said, “but they’ll get over it.”
On Wednesday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, Dean, also president of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, called a meeting of the Main Street Committee and asked for “constructive proposals to remedy the ill feelings between longtime residents and newcomers.” The newspaper reported that many of those present charged local police with biased law enforcement and “not liking” young persons.
While the Salt Lake City media were having a field day, the Park Record was doing damage control. That week’s front page contained only parade photos and a glowing story about floats and the winners of the kids’ games. Inside, in his column “Ant’s Eye View,” McConaughy downplayed the incident as “only a couple of good old-fashioned Fourth of July fist fights.” He took a good-natured shot at the hippies, with a photo showing five longhairs fleeing the brawl down Swede Alley. “Believe it or not, only two of these citizens are girls,” he wrote, but concluded, “Some of the nicest kids I know have long hair.”
Some of his readers disagreed. The Park Record was inundated with letters to the editor about the “hippie situation,” with one citizen suggesting, “Maybe you should go to Aspen. I understand they accept hippies there with open arms.” Finally, the editor declared a moratorium on “hippie letters,” stating: “We don’t believe there is a hippie problem in Park City. We resent the suggestion that everyone with long hair is a hippie; and Park City is gaining an unfavorable reputation through this publicity.” An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune urged local residents to “loosen up” and longhairs to “tone it down.”
Unfortunately for Mckown, not everybody was ready to kiss and make up. Two days after the riot, the City Council revoked his business license. City Councilman Richard Martinez declared, “Because we were elected by the citizens of Park City and because we feel it is in their best interests, we have voted NOT to renew the license of the Crazy Horse Saloon.”
Blair Feulner is an award-winning journalist who, with the financial contributions of hundreds of residents, founded Park City’s radio station (KPCW) on July 2, 1980. This article is a version of the first chapter of a book he is writing about the Park City Renaissance (1970–2010).
Your comments may be edited for brevity and foul language.