A brass saloon token found at the site of the Lost Elk Lodge. Good for 5 cents at the bar. Probably from Henry Kiel's saloon in Del Norte.
A brass trade token, found on the ground in Jasper at the site of the Lost Elk Lodge. One side reads H. KIEL between two sprays of leaves. The other reads GOOD FOR 5 CENTS AT THE BAR around a large 5, with stars between the words.
The surface is worn and patinated, with green corrosion in the lettering and a small nick at the rim below THE BAR.
A token like this was bought or given at a saloon and spent there later on a drink or a cigar. The GOOD FOR side was a stock design that token makers sold to any saloon, and the owner's name was struck on the other side. That makes H. Kiel the proprietor, not the maker.
The token is listed in the TokenCatalog.com Colorado catalogue as TC-60345: H. KIEL on one side, GOOD FOR 5 CENTS AT THE BAR on the other, brass, round, 26 mm. The catalogue files it under Del Norte, Rio Grande County, and gives a possible attribution to the saloon of Henry Kiel, recorded in the 1880 census and the 1881 Colorado State Business Directory. It also lists St. Louis, Missouri as another place the token has been attributed to. Because the reverse is a stock design, the name alone cannot settle that. Finding it at Jasper, up the Alamosa River from Del Norte, points toward Del Norte.
Henry Kiel was born in Hamburg, Germany, on 18 August 1844 and came to America in 1862, settling first in Davenport, Iowa. He mined in northern Colorado from about 1868. In 1878 he moved to Del Norte, then the principal town of southwest Colorado, and went into business there. He married Katherine Kuhn in 1875, and they had six children. In 1881 he built the Kiel Building at 630 Grande Avenue in Del Norte, which is still standing.
He died in Del Norte on a Friday morning in May 1907, most likely the 24th, and is buried in the Del Norte Cemetery. His obituary ran in the San Juan Prospector on 25 May 1907.
The San Juan Prospector, published in Del Norte, carried short notices for the saloon through the early 1880s:
Thirty years later the building still carried his name. On 24 April 1915 the same paper reported that repair work was started the first of this week on the old Kiel saloon building on Grande avenue, with Contractor Slater in charge, placing cement supports under the floor.
The paper spells it Grande avenue. Some modern listings give Grand Avenue.
The Rio Grande County Museum’s walking tour of Del Norte gives the building’s history. In 1881 Henry Kiel bought the lot at 630 Grande Avenue and put up the present building of locally quarried volcanic stone. It served as a saloon, tenpin bowling alley, and a mineral bathhouse until 1925, when the Rio Grande State Bank moved in. Later tenants included the Del Norte Exchange, two grocers, a carpet store, a law office, a veterinarian and a real estate office.
That matches the newspaper. In July 1881 Kiel sold his old saloon outfit and moved into his new building, and by 1885 the paper was advertising ten-pins and billiards at Kiel’s. The building stands between the old Telegraph Office at 620 and the Schiffer Brothers building at 634, and it is the one storey stone front with arched openings.
The newspaper notices confirm that Henry Kiel kept a saloon in Del Norte, on Grande Avenue, with a bar, billiards and a bowling alley. None of them names the token. The catalogue attribution rests on the name, and the notices make it more likely.
What is not known. The newspaper notices found so far run from 1880 to 1885. The walking tour puts a saloon in the building until 1925, which would take in the Jasper gold boom of the 1890s. That date cannot be exact for the saloon itself, because the 1915 notice already calls it the old Kiel saloon building and Colorado went dry on 1 January 1916. A dated record of the saloon open in the 1890s has not been found yet. An advertisement in the San Juan Prospector of 21 June 1879 also turned up in the search and has not yet been read.
Sources: TokenCatalog.com, Colorado Trade Tokens, August 2025, TC-60345. Find a Grave memorial 80629406, quoting the San Juan Prospector, 25 May 1907. The San Juan Prospector, 27 March 1880, 16 July 1881, 22 April 1882, 27 January 1883, 3 February 1883, 7 March 1885 and 24 April 1915, via the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Rio Grande County Museum, Del Norte walking tour, no. 20, Kiel Building, 2023.
Was Henry Kiel's saloon on Grande Avenue in Del Norte still open during the Jasper gold boom of the 1890s? If you know, or have seen this token before, the curator would like to hear. If you know, or you know someone who might, the curator would like to hear from you. Quote JM-2026-0207 and it will be clear which item you mean.
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