August 14, 2008 12:50 PM
RIP: Jack A. Weil
When I interviewed Jack A. Weil in 2001 he was a few months shy of his 100th birthday.
He was equal portions gentleman and character and worked at Rockmount Ranch Wear, the company he founded, until a few weeks before he died Wednesday at age 107.
Weil died at home surrounded by members of his family, said his oldest grandson, Steve Weil. A service is scheduled for Sunday at Temple Emanuel, but a time has not been set.Since founding the Rockmount Ranch Wear Manufacturing Co. in 1946, "Papa Jack" Weil and his company have been a fixture in lower downtown. He saw value in the former warehouse district long before it became fashionable as LoDo.
With his cowboy hat, folksy manner and his favorite greeting - "Where you from?" - he welcomed everyone from truck drivers to celebrities like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Robert Redford and Eric Clapton.
They all got the same friendly treatment, said Steve Weil, who went to work for his grandfather full time in the 1980s.
Status never mattered. "He didn't care about what you were, he cared about who you were," his grandson said.
He told me about driving across the country from Indiana to Denver with his late wife Bea, in a Chrysler Roadster (serial number 33) out old U.S. 40, in 1928. Automobiles weren't always a favored mode of transportation:
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`My father was in the cattle business and we had a horse and buggy,'' he said. ``We'd ride beside the river to cool off, and here would come one of those horseless carriages with a spare tire. My father would say, `I never needed a spare leg for my horses.' ''
He told me how he grew the business beyond the working cowboys who loved his snap-button shirts.:
"The cowboy business wasn't an industry,'' he said. ``There wasn't enough of them, and they didn't make enough money. They'd come to town, get drunk and the next month do it again. I felt there was a market from Middle Westerners and Easterners and we could take advantage of the popularity of Western movies. In the East you had to make it casual wear. I saw an opportunity to make a difference.''
And he did.
August 14, 2008
1:17 PM
gr8fuldude writes:
Heck, I hope I am going like that at 80, never mind 107. The man must have had some great stories to tell. I think he would have been an interesting guy to sit a chew the fat with.
August 15, 2008
10:56 AM
EquiPundit writes:
He was