During the summer of 1975 my parents came to visit us in Markleeville. One day, strolling through town and hungry, we stopped at The Frosty. I went to order and was greeted by a man with a great big smile. I searched my memory: "Do I know this man?" I was thinking as I returned the smile and gave our order. This was my introduction to Gary Coyan. After lunch my dad, never one to bestow praise lightly, declared solemnly: "That was the best hamburger I've ever had." We felt proud to have such an establishment in our neighborhood.
However, Gary's wife, Wanda, does not have such a glowing report of her initial exposure to The Frosty. She stopped by for lunch and ordered a fish sandwich.
"We're out of fish sandwiches," she was told. "I'll take barbecued beef, then."
"We're out of barbecued beef"
"How about a tuna fish?"
"We're out of tuna."
"Well, what do you have?"
"A hamburger."
"OK, I'll have a hamburger,"
As she walked away, she thought: "I will never, ever eat here again," little knowing that three years later, married to the owner, she would be telling people "Sorry, no fish sandwiches."
Gary's grandfather, John Robert Ellis, was born in 1845 in Carnovan County, Wales. He came to this country in 1864, homesteading in Diamond Valley after working in the New York slate quarries, on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Virginia City (where he helped during the smallpox epidemic) and in the mines in Silver Mountain City. In 1892, while visiting his family in Wales, he met and married Margaret Ann Jones. John brought his wife, who spoke only Welsh, back to Alpine County. Like many of the Welsh, Margaret had second sight. One day she was ironing her husband's shirt. She said it was for John to wear at the funeral of a man, who, as far as anyone knew, was quite healthy. As she ironed she told her husband to hang up the shirt carefully after the funeral because he'd be needing to wear it for hers. The man did indeed die shortly afterwards and two days later Margaret died in childbirth.
After Margaret's death, John bought the Fisk Hotel (now the Alpine) where he moved with his three children. Some years later George Coyan, an employee of Pacific Gas & Electric assigned to Blue Lakes, would come to the hotel trading fish and quail for room and board.
George became acquainted with Elizabeth (one of John's children) who waited on tables in the hotel. They married in 1920 and operated the hotel from 1921 until 1940. Elizabeth was also county treasurer for 50 years.
They grew vegetables and raised meat for the hotel and for their family. People would travel from as far away as Reno for the special Sunday chicken lunches. John and Elizabeth had three children. The youngest of these was Gary, born in 1933.
Gary went to school in the building which is now the library. One day he was going downstairs to go to the bathroom when he noticed a lot of smoke coming from the furnace room. He peeked inside and saw the caretaker, Norman Green, collapsed on the floor, overcome by the smoke. Gary ran for help and Norman was saved.
Gary and his friends built a three-story tree-house with stolen materials. It had a window, spiral staircase and bunk beds. The boys kept their store of cigarettes and whiskey there. The tree-house survived until recently.
In 1947, one of the teams of workers bringing electricity to Markleeville told Gary there was a silver dollar on top of one of the poles. They all helped Gary strap on the climbing equipment then they carried him over to the pole. Here they jammed the spikes into the pole so he couldn't move.
There Gary stayed until they'd laughed their way through lunch and got around to releasing him.
When the owner of the silver dollar went home that evening, however, he forgot his silver dollar so Gary shimmied up the pole, without the aid of climbers, and retrieved it.
The next day Gary teased the man about being a tight wad and only leaving a dollar. The man took the bait and went up the pole this time leaving a five dollar bill.
To the man's amazement, Gary shot up the pole and brought down the bill. Now the joke was on the jokester.
The crew invited all newcomers to leave silver dollars, or more, at the top of the pole so Gary was kept in business. It was a lucrative summer but at the end of it Gary sported a great many festering wounds from wood splinters in his belly and legs.
Gary has played many roles during his working life a including sailor, volunteer deputy sheriff, probation officer, weights and measures officer, game warden, road department worker, restaurant and motel manager, and school bus driver (for 31 years).
He and his wife Wanda now raise goats and chickens. They have four grown-up sons.
One comes away from an interview with Gary Coyan with the impression that one has barely scratched the surface of a vast store of jokes and anecdotes.
Source: Historical information provided by Alpine County Museum and Gary Coyan.
