Thomas Whitmore carved his first foot into the limestone hillside on a Tuesday morning in June 1885, and by noon half the men in Creek were placing bets on how long it would take him to give up. “Two weeks,” said Henry Pearson the blacksmith, watching Thomas swing his pickaxe into the pale gray stone. “Maybe three if he’s particularly stubborn.

” “I give him four days,” counted Jack Morrison, who owned the general store. Once his hands blister through and he realizes how much stone he’s actually got to move, he’ll quit. They always do. Thomas heard every word. He was 42 years old, had been mining silver in Colorado for 16 years, and had learned long ago that most men talked more than they worked.

 He adjusted his grip on the pickaxe, felt the familiar weight of it, and swung again. A chunk of limestone the size of his fist broke free and clattered down the hillside. He had four mules, Samson, Delilah, Ruth, and Job. He’d named them after Bible characters because his mother had been religious, and he figured mules needed all the divine help they could get.

 They were good animals, strong, steady, smarter than most horses he’d worked with. They’d hauled ore from his silver claim for 6 years without major incident. But every winter the same problem. The cold came down from the Rockies like a hammer. Temperatures dropping to 20 below, sometimes 30 below on the worst nights. And every winter miners throughout Creek lost animals. Horses froze in their stalls.

Mules died standing up. Their bodies found stiff as statues in the morning. Even the ones kept in barns with fires going struggled. Last winter alone, Thomas had watched three neighbors lose a combined seven mules to the cold. The animals were expensive to replace, and without them a man couldn’t work his claim.

 Without work, a man starved or moved on. Simple as that. So Thomas had made a decision. He was going to carve a stable directly into the hillside behind his cabin. Not a barn, not a shed with stone walls, an actual underground stable carved from the living limestone that made up the mountain itself. The idea had come to him in March, during the last cold snap of winter.

 He’d been checking on his mules in their regular wooden stable, adding extra hay for insulation, when Samson had looked at him with those dark, patient eyes. The mule was shivering despite the thick winter coat, despite the hay, despite everything Thomas had done. And Thomas had thought about mines, about how 50 ft underground in a silver mine, the temperature stayed constant year round, about how miners worked in their shirt sleeves even when it was blowing snow outside.

 About how the earth itself was an insulator better than any amount of wood or hay. If it worked for miners, why not for mules? He’d spent April and May planning, studying the hillside, looking for the right spot. He needed limestone, not granite. Limestone was softer, easier to carve, but still strong enough to be stable. He needed a south-facing slope to catch maximum sun at the entrance.

 He needed to be above the creek’s high water mark, but below his cabin for easy access. He found his spot in late May, a section of hillside where the limestone outcropped naturally, already showing a shallow overhang. Perfect. He could expand that overhang inward, carving a chamber large enough for four mules, plus feed storage.

 Now, in midJune, he was actually doing it. The work was brutal. Limestone might be softer than granite, but it was still stone. Each swing of the pickaxe jarred his shoulders, sent vibrations up his arms. Each chunk of broken rock had to be hauled out and dumped. The entrance was only 4 ft wide so far, barely enough for him to work.

 By the end of that first day, Thomas had removed maybe 200 lb of stone and advanced the chamber about 8 in. At that rate, he calculated it would take him 3 months of full-time work to carve a space big enough for four mules. He didn’t have 3 months. His silver claim didn’t work itself. But he worked anyway, rising before dawn to chip away at the stone for 2 hours before heading to the mine, then back in the evening for another 2 hours by lantern light.

 The neighbors stopped betting after the first week when Thomas was still at it. They started making comments instead. “You know, you can just build a barn, right?” Henry Pearson said one afternoon, watching Thomas emerge from the growing cavity in the hillside covered in limestone dust. Wood, nails, couple days of work. Normal people do it all the time.

 Barnes burn, Thomas said, wiping sweat from his face. Stone doesn’t. Barnes also don’t take 3 months to build. Stone stable will last a 100red years. How long’s your barn going to stand? Henry had no answer for that. By July, Thomas had carved a chamber roughly 8 ft deep, 6 ft wide, and 7 ft high, barely big enough for one mule, let alone four.

 His hands were masses of calluses and half-healed blisters. Blood blisters that burst and reformed, then calloused over in layers. His shoulders achd constantly, a deep bone ache that woke him at night. He’d broken two pickaxe handles and worn through one entire iron head. The metal worn down to nothing from constant contact with stone. But he kept going.

The physical toll was worse than any mining work he’d done. In a silver mine you worked in shifts, had breaks, shared the load with other men. This was different. This was him alone, swinging a pickaxe thousands of times a day, hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of broken stone, breathing limestone dust that coated his lungs and made him cough.

 His wife Martha had died 3 years earlier from fever, so there was no one to tell him to stop, to point out the madness of what he was attempting. Maybe that was for the best. He wasn’t sure he’d listen anyway. The mules watched him work sometimes. Samson in particular seemed curious, standing at the fence of their regular paddock, those dark, intelligent eyes following Thomas as he emerged from the growing cavity in the hillside, white with dust, moving like an old man despite being only 42.

“You better appreciate this,” Thomas muttered to the mule one evening. “This is all for you and your three lazy friends.” Samson just blinked slowly, unimpressed. The entrance was the hardest part and the most dangerous. He had to widen it carefully, making sure to leave enough stone above to support the weight of the hillside.

 The limestone here was layered, sedimentary rock laid down millions of years ago, when this had been an ancient seabed. Some layers were solid, others were softer, almost crumbly. He’d seen mine collapses before, had seen what happened when you removed too much support material, and the mountain decided it wanted to close the gap you’d created.

 Three men killed in a collapse back in 79. Their bodies never recovered, still in tmbed somewhere in the mountain. So he worked with caution, taking his time, checking the ceiling constantly for cracks or signs of stress. He learned to tap the stone with his pickaxe and listen. Solid stone rang clear. Stone about to fail sounded different, more of a dull thud.

He became an expert in the sound of limestone. Could tell you from the ring of his pickaxe whether the next swing would bring down a chip or a slab. The learning curve was steep and unforgiving. In mid July, he miscalculated a support pillar and brought down about 200 lb of ceiling rock in a sudden collapse that nearly killed him.

 He dove backward purely on instinct, the rock slamming down exactly where he’d been standing a half second earlier. He sat in the sunlight outside the entrance for a full hour afterward, shaking before he could go back in and clear the debris. By August, the chamber was 15 ft deep. He’d figured out a rhythm.

 Start at the back wall, work forward, haul the broken stone out in a wheelbarrow he’d modified to fit through the narrow entrance. The rock pile outside was growing into a small mountain of its own. “You’re out of your mind,” Jack Morrison told him one evening in late August. “Completely insane.

 You’ve spent the entire summer digging a hole in a hill when you should have been working your claim. You’ve got maybe $50 worth of silver to show for three months of work. Meanwhile, Bill Henderson pulled out $300 worth in the same time. Thomas leaned on his pickaxe, breathing hard. Bill Henderson’s mules froze last winter.

 All three of them cost him $400 to replace them, plus the two months he couldn’t work while he saved up the money. You do that math however you want. You don’t even know if this is going to work. I know wood stables don’t work. Seen the proof every winter. Figure it’s worth trying something different. By September the main chamber was 20 ft deep, 10 ft wide, and 8 ft high at the tallest point.

Thomas had carved four aloves off the main space, one for each mule. Each al cove was 4 ft wide and 8 ft deep, just enough room for an animal to turn around. He’d left thick pillars of stone between the aloves to support the ceiling. The work had taken 4 months of brutal labor. His claim had suffered. He’d made barely enough money that summer to buy basic supplies, but the stable was almost done.

 The final step was the most critical, drainage and ventilation. He carved shallow channels in the floor, sloping gently toward the entrance, so urine and water would drain out naturally. He chiseled ventilation shafts, narrow channels that ran from the back of the chamber up through 15 ft of stone to open air above.

 The shafts weren’t big, maybe 6 in across, but they’d allow fresh air in and ammonia out. On the first day of October, Thomas led Samson into the completed stable for the very first time. The big mule hesitated significantly at the entrance, nostrils flaring wide, ears swiveling forward and back, uncertain about walking voluntarily into what every prey animal instinct told him was a predator’s den or a trap.

 Thomas understood the hesitation perfectly. You don’t survive as a prey species for millions of years by walking into dark holes in the ground. Come on, boy, Thomas said quietly, holding out a handful of oats in his weathered palm. Trust me on this one. I spent four months of my life making this for you. Least you can do is try it.

Samson stepped inside carefully, hooves clicking and echoing strangely on the stone floor. The sound was unfamiliar, not the familiar thud of dirt or the hollow clop of wood. The mule’s muscles were tense, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. Thomas led him slowly to the first al cove he’d carved, tied him loosely to an iron ring he’d anchored deep into the stone wall with molten lead, and gave him the oats, plus a generous flake of sweet smelling Timothy hay.

The mule ate calmly after a few uncertain moments, apparently deciding that if there was quality food involved and no immediate threat, it couldn’t be that bad of a situation. By the end of that day, all four mules were inside their respective aloves. Thomas stood at the entrance as the sun set, watching them.

 Delila was already lying down, something mules only did when they felt completely safe. Ruth was methodically working through her hay. Job was dozing, standing up. Samson was watching Thomas with those dark, patient eyes that seemed to understand more than a mule should. The temperature in the chamber, even on this mild October day, was noticeably cooler than the outside air. That was good.

 Come winter, Thomas knew it would be the opposite. noticeably warmer when the world outside was trying to kill everything living. “They’re going to hate it,” Henry Pearson said, having walked up the hill to witness this moment. “An animals don’t like being underground. They’ll panic, hurt themselves.” “They’re mules, not idiots,” Thomas said.

 “They’ll figure out where it’s warm and where it’s not.” That night, Thomas left all four mules in the stone stable. He checked on them three times before he went to bed, expecting to find them agitated or distressed. Instead, he found them calmly eating hay, completely unbothered by their unusual accommodations. The real test came in December, and Thomas was more nervous about it than he cared to admit.

 The first serious cold snap of winter hit hard on December 8th. The temperature dropped to 15 below zero overnight, the kind of cold that announced itself with authority. The wind howled down from the peaks like something alive and angry, driving snow in horizontal sheets that stung exposed skin like thrown sand.

 By morning, every water trough in Creek was frozen solid, thick enough that men had to use axes to break through for their animals to drink. and the town was dealing with its first animal casualties of the season. Bill Henderson lost another mule, his second in as many winters. This one had been in a wooden stable with double walls and extra hay packed between them for insulation.

 The animal had been shivering so violently by midnight that Henderson heard it from his cabin and went to check. He found the mule barely able to stand, its whole body convulsing with cold, despite everything he’d done. It died just before noon despite Henderson wrapping it in blankets and trying to force warm mash down its throat.

 Thomas checked his stone stable that morning with his heart in his throat, genuinely uncertain what he’d find. Had he missed something? Had the ventilation shafts somehow worked against him, drawing all the warmth out? Had the drainage channels somehow allowed cold air to flow in? He stepped through the entrance and immediately felt the difference. warmer.

 Not hot, not even what you’d call comfortable by human standards, but definitively warmer than the killing cold outside. All four mules were standing calmly in their aloves, not shivering at all, not even a little, their coats were smooth, their breathing steady and deep, their expressions as placid as if it were a mild spring day.

The temperature inside the chamber, measured with the mercury thermometer he’d hung from an iron hook in the ceiling, read exactly 48°. Outside was 15 below. Inside was 48 above, a 63° difference achieved with nothing but stone and physics. The mules were warm, not just alive, but genuinely comfortable. Thomas stood there for a long moment looking at Samson, who looked back at him with those dark, calm eyes.

 “Huh,” Thomas said. “It actually worked.” The second major test came in January when temperatures dropped to 30 below zero for three consecutive nights. The kind of cold that made your lungs hurt to breathe, that froze spit before it hit the ground, that turned the moisture in your nose to ice crystals.

 The kind of cold that killed. Creek lost 14 animals in those three nights alone. Horses, mules, even a few cattle that had been thought safe in barns. Owners woke to find their animals dead or dying, frozen despite every precaution they’d taken. Henry Pearson’s mare, a beautiful chestnut he’d owned for 8 years, was found dead in her stall despite two blankets and a fire that had burned all night in Abraasia.

 The cold had simply been too much. Jack Morrison’s new mule, purchased just 6 weeks earlier for the outrageous sum of $75, died on the second night. Morrison had stayed up with the animal, trying everything. hot mash to keep its core temperature up, extra blankets. He’d even brought the mule into his own cabin at midnight in a desperate attempt to save it.

 But by 4 in the morning, the animal was shivering so violently it couldn’t stand, and by sunrise it was gone. The funeral mood that settled over  Creek after those three nights was heavy and bitter. Animals meant livelihood. Without them, men couldn’t work their claims. Without work, there was no money. Without money, there was no food.

 The mathematics of frontier survival were brutally simple, and everyone in town understood them perfectly. Thomas’s stone stable maintained an internal temperature of 46° through all three killing nights. Not warm by any reasonable standard, but warm enough. The mules ate their hay with calm appetites, drank their water without urgency, and showed absolutely no signs of distress or cold stress.

Their coats weren’t even puffed up the way animals fur gets when they’re trying to [clears throat] conserve heat. On the morning after the third night, Thomas stood in the chamber and did something he’d never done before. He thanked God, not because he was particularly religious.

 Martha had been the religious one, but because he genuinely couldn’t believe his desperate gamble had worked. Four months of brutal labor, an entire summer of lost income, all his neighbors thinking he’d lost his mind, and it had actually worked. By late January, the mockery had stopped entirely. Now men came to look at the stable.

 They’d stand at the entrance, peering into the carved stone chamber, shaking their heads in disbelief. How’d you know it would work? Henry Pearson asked, no trace of his earlier skepticism remaining. Didn’t know, Thomas admitted. Hoped? Figured it was worth the risk. You spent your whole summer on hope? I spent my whole summer on not wanting to watch my animals freeze to death again.

 Hope was just what kept me swinging the pickaxe. In February, Jack Morrison showed up at Thomas’s claim with a proposition. I’ll pay you to carve me one of those stone stables. Name your price. Thomas considered this. Can’t need to work my claim. Make up for the summer I lost. Uh, what if I paid you what you would have made mining plus extra for the work? How much extra? Enough to make it worth your time.

 Thomas thought about it. Tell you what, I’ll teach you how to do it. Show you what tools to use, where to carve, how to make it safe. You do the actual work yourself. I’ll check your progress every few days. Make sure you’re not about to collapse a hillside on yourself. Jack blinked. You just teach me for free. Not for free.

 You’ll owe me a favor. Don’t know what it is yet, but when I need something, you’ll help. They shook on it. By March, three different men in Creek were carving their own stone stables, following the basic design Thomas had worked out through trial, error, and one near-death experience. He checked on each project regularly, not just offering advice, but actively teaching them what he’d learned the hard way.

 See that layer right there? He’d say, pointing at a striation in the limestone. That’s soft rock. You carve through that too fast without proper support, and you’ll bring the whole ceiling down. Ask me how I know. He taught them about ventilation, about the importance of those narrow shafts running up through the stone to the surface.

 Without air flow, the ammonia from urine will build up. Your animals won’t freeze, but they’ll get sick from breathing poison all winter. Defeats the whole purpose. He taught them about drainage, about carving those shallow channels in the floor at just the right angle. too steep and water ran out too fast, taking valuable moisture with it.

Too shallow and it pulled, creating ice in the coldest weather. He taught them about testing the stone, about tapping and listening, about learning to hear the difference between solid rock and rock that was about to fail. “The mountain will tell you what it’s thinking,” he’d say. “You just have to learn its language.

” The men listened because Thomas had proof. four healthy mules when half the town’s animals were dead. That was argument enough for anyone. “You could have charged for this information,” Henry Pearson said, watching Thomas sketch out ventilation shaft angles on a piece of paper for one of the newer miners. “Could have made a good amount of money selling your knowledge.

” “Rather have neighbors with healthy animals,” Thomas said. A town full of dead livestock doesn’t help anybody, including me. The following winter, 1886, was even worse than the previous one. Temperatures hit 40 below on Christmas Eve. The cold lasted from November through March with barely a break. It was the kind of winter old-timers talked about, the kind that killed weak animals and tested even the strong ones.

 Creek lost 37 animals that winter, but none of them belonged to Men with Stone Stables. The four completed underground stables, including Thomas’s original, kept their internal temperatures between 45 and 50° throughout the worst of the cold. The animals inside stayed healthy, kept their weight, showed no signs of cold stress.

 By spring, 11 more men had started carving their own stone stables. The hillsides around Creek were dotted with fresh excavations, piles of limestone rubble, and narrow, dark entrances leading underground. The town had discovered what Thomas had known all along. Sometimes the old ways weren’t the best ways. Sometimes you had to think different, try something new, be willing to spend a summer swinging a pickaxe on what seemed like a crazy idea.

 And sometimes when you did that, you ended up saving not just your own animals, but your neighbors as well. Thomas Whitmore died in 1904 at the age of 61 from pneumonia that came on fast and killed him in 4 days, despite the doctor’s best efforts. No amount of warm stable could prevent illness when it decided to take you. By that time,  Creek had 43 stone stables carved into its surrounding hillsides, a testament to one man’s stubborn refusal to accept the status quo.

 The original stable Thomas had carved was still in use at the time of his death, sheltering mules and horses for a Chinese prospector named Samuel Chen, who’d bought Thomas’s claim in 1902 when Thomas got too old and tired to work it properly anymore. Chen kept the stable in good repair, understanding its value.

 He’d lost two mules to cold in California before coming to Colorado, and he wasn’t about to lose anymore if he could help it. The stable would remain in continuous use until 1947, when the last working mules finally left  Creek, and the mining era came to its definitive end. 62 years of service carved from living stone, exactly as Thomas had predicted when he told Henry Pearson it would last a 100red years.

 He’d been off by 38 years, but the principle held true. Stone outlasts wood by generations. During those six decades, the stone stables of  Creek saved an estimated 300 animals from freezing. That number comes from a ledger kept by the town’s doctor, who tracked such things out of personal interest. 300 animals that would have died in wooden stables survived in stone chambers carved into hillsides by men who’d learned from Thomas Whitmore that sometimes tradition wasn’t the answer.

The economic impact was significant. At an average replacement cost of $60 per mule, the stone stable saved Creek’s miners approximately $18,000 over those years. That’s not counting the lost work time, the delayed claims, the men who would have given up and left town if they’d lost their animals. In a very real sense, Thomas Whitmore’s summer of swinging a pickaxe had helped keep Creek alive through its boom years.

 Several of the stone stables are still there today, though they shelter nothing now but darkness and the occasional bird’s nest. You can visit them if you know where to look. The entrances are obvious once you see them. Dark rectangles carved into pale limestone hillsides about 5 ft wide and 7 ft high leading back into the mountain. If you step inside and stand quietly, you can still feel it.

 The temperature difference, the coolness in summer, the relative warmth in winter, the simple physics that Thomas Whitmore understood instinctively, that stone holds temperature, that earth insulates, that sometimes the solution to a problem is literally right in front of you, waiting to be carved out with patience and a pickaxe.

 The stable entrances have weathered over the decades. Lyken grows on the cut stone. Dirt has partially filled some of the drainage channels, but the chambers themselves remain, carved from solid limestone, exactly as stable and permanent as Thomas believed they would be. His gravestone in the  Creek Cemetery is simple granite with a simple inscription, Thomas Witmore, 1843 1904, silver miner.

 It doesn’t mention the stone stables. Doesn’t talk about the animals he saved or the summer he spent swinging a pickaxe while his neighbors placed bets. But 100 ft from his grave, there’s another stone smaller, rougher, placed there by someone decades ago, it’s just a chunk of limestone with words scratched into the surface.

 He carved shelter where others saw only rock. That’s probably the epitap Thomas would have preferred anyway.